15 August 2013
The Irrelevance of Initiative
Since combat is an ongoing cycle with everyone acting, the idea that people are acting in order in combat rounds is kind of arbitrary. After a full cycle, the beginning and end of the cycle cannot be determined, and therefore being "higher" or "lower" in initiative order is meaningless.
An example. Consider this initiative order:
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Now, look at how the initiative for a 5-round combat looks:
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
For the bulk of the combat, there's literally no way to know if Bill is going first, or Ogre #1, or Wilma, or Phil. Each person just goes after the previous one. If you allow actions to change your initiative order (i.e. "held" actions), then the whole concept becomes even more meaningless.
On top of that, going first is not necessarily an advantage, due to the artifacts of a turn-based system.
Consider Wilma and Bill, both Level 1 Fighters with 3HP and d6 damage weapons. Their movement is 30' (for the purposes of the example).
If they start 35' apart, the person who goes "first" is actually at a serious disadvantage - if they move up at all, the other will be able to then move up on their turn and strike them. If the blow connects, the odds are even that it will kill them, and the fight will be over.
This is why I prefer to do things this way:
I describe the beginning of the action of each opponent (i.e. Orc #1 is moving towards Bill, Orc #2 is moving towards Jane, and the Ogre is preparing to throw a rock).
Then the players say what they intend to do:
Bill: I'm going to draw my sword and fight Orc #1.
Wilma: I'm going to help Bill.
Steve: I'll cast Figface on the Ogre.
Jane: I'm going to flip the table to block Orc #2's advance, and look for my Horn of Fury in my pack.
Phil: I'll defend Jane while she looks for the Horn.
Then we just go around in whatever order is convenient (typically clockwise) and adjudicate the results, with the idea in mind that this is all happening simultaneously.
I don't find that it's any harder to do things that way than it is with an initiative system, it's a lot more satisfying, as the players get to make informed choices based on a hint of what the enemies are going to do, and it avoids all the weird artifacts of a turn-based system.
This system is similar to some strategy games on the market, such as TacOps 4 - there are "order phases" where the game is paused and players issue orders, and then "battle phases" where the game runs in real-time for, say, 1 minute of game time (during which time orders can't be changed or given).
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I completely agree that turn based combat has a massive amount of problems. I am curious if this is a departure from your previous concept of simultaneous movement followed by an action order that you had talked about in an earlier post? You had previously discussed in the Wilma vs. Bill scenario that if they both moved to engage, the combat order would be determined by initiative allowing the 'faster draw' as it were to land that potentially lethal first blow.
ReplyDeleteMore specifically to the post above, I am assuming that the collision of Orc 1 and Bill is happening simultaneously. This does add in the interest of the 'double kill' scenario, which is interesting. But you had talked previously about adding specific functional choices to the leveling process and I was wondering if then initiative is out? And if so, why? I know that I personally struggle to keep combat as generally brief as possible, but I run a larger game (7 people) and I find that turn holding and rules lawyering to eek out a slight bonus tends to grind the game to a crawl in larger combats, so I can understand wanting to trim fat from where you can. However, I personally like the idea of the quick blade/samurai/gunslinger model, especially for villains. I am just wondering what brought about the subtle change in tone.
"I am curious if this is a departure from your previous concept of simultaneous movement followed by an action order that you had talked about in an earlier post?"
DeleteNot really - using this system in practice, what it turns out being is what I describe here. We don't say, "I close" and then once all the movement is resolved, do the combat. We just kinda declare it all at once and sort it out.
Fundamentally, though, the movement is resolved and then the combat, because doing it the other way around doesn't work.
" But you had talked previously about adding specific functional choices to the leveling process and I was wondering if then initiative is out? And if so, why?"
I'm not 100% what you're referring to here. Throw me a bone?
I think I originally said I wanted "balanced feats" as part of the leveling system. I have abandoned the idea of having feats. The short answer why is that they're supposed to add options, but really they constrict options.
Is that maybe what you were referring to?
" However, I personally like the idea of the quick blade/samurai/gunslinger model, especially for villains. I am just wondering what brought about the subtle change in tone."
I don't think what I described here is fundamentally different from what I described before, it's just a little less formal.
The difference arose through using the system in play - this is how it ends up working, so this is the way it is.
It's still, at its core, side-based action declaration, movement resolution, then combat resolution.
Sounds reasonable, but how would you then asjudicate a character that has faster reflexes or reaction time? Would they be first to respond or not suffer a return attack if they hit first hard enough?
ReplyDeleteYes, but that would only come up in the relatively rare occurrence that they hit hard enough to insta-kill their opponent (i.e. sever the spine, destroy the brain stem, or cause massive trauma to the heart).
DeleteAs per my recent post on how resilient humans are, I've come to the conclusion that anything less than that would allow the victim - at the very least - to finish their current action.
Stay tuned for more on a damage system that hopefully is pretty simple and user friendly, and actually gives a lot of role-play-able information about what the damage was like.
I read that and agree to a point. Humans can be shockingly resilient and surprisingly fragile at the same time. You don't have to instantly kill; sending your opponent into shock is close enough.
DeleteBut, I look forward to your rules.
I think the point of what I was reading in Spada on the subject was that it's much harder to put someone into that state of shock than we think - cases of people fending off a knife with their bare hands, being stabbed right through the gut, having limbs chopped off, massive head/brain trauma, even major trauma to the heart - all are often or even typically insufficient to take someone out of a fight.
DeleteDo you think there is a difference in the resilience of a person fighting versus caught unaware?
DeleteGood question. I would say no.
DeleteOne particular case I read comes to mind - an older man was using a mechanical wood splitter. He accidentally got his arm in the machine, and had it nearly fully amputated (it was held on by only a little bit of flesh - the bone and most of the muscle was severed).
He calmly held his arm in place, went inside, and fetched his wife, who dressed the wound, and applied a tourniquet. She then drove him to the hospital (they did not see the need for 911, despite his arm being basically off), and they even stopped for coffee on the way.
The article I took that case history from stressed that this was in no way an atypical case - people frequently suffer massive unexpected trauma, and remain totally coherent and functional.
Frist point; spot on.
ReplyDeleteSecond point; You are correct. I was referencing in your initial post ‘What’s Wrong with D&D Combat’ you put a feats section stating; “I see feats as a great way to differentiate characters as they level up, but the key is simple, meaningful, balanced choices that work within existing mechanics.” While I understand the scuttling of a feat system, as it has been my practical experience that they traditionally cause more headaches than they are worth and are usually the primary source of game mechanic arguing amongst my gaming group, I cannot deny that I intellectually like the idea of feats. I would be interested to hear your progression through feat ideas simply because I find value in trying to learn form 'this did not want and here is why' literature.
Third point; I am not suggesting that it is a fundamental shift. And my eyes see a shift where they may not be one from your perspective. This is likely due to the bulk of my gaming group having come from a long history of super hero gaming where shtick is sacred. Thus if you are speedster/fast guy, you look for mechanics to support that affirmation of your character's uniqueness/relevancy. That is certainly not to say that every game must cater to this mindset, it is just one that I contend with, and my eyes focused on the move between 'we all move then Dave resolves first' to 'we all move then we resolve less formally'. At the end of the day, if it works great with your players, then it works great.
" I would be interested to hear your progression through feat ideas simply because I find value in trying to learn form 'this did not want and here is why' literature."
ReplyDeleteGood point - I'll draw something up about that.
"Thus if you are speedster/fast guy, you look for mechanics to support that affirmation of your character's uniqueness/relevancy. "
For sure. And if I had the Flash in my game, he would get to move and act several times over before anyone else got to do anything, every round.
In my game I'm using the action points system from Tao of D&D, and instead of DEX giving an initiative bonus, it grants extra actions. I'm still working out the kinks - I think it also can be linked to encumbrance and STR scores, but I haven't got that straight just yet.
DeleteThat system still uses standard initiative, right? It's been a while since I've read the posts outlining that.
DeleteYou've described the initiative system I use. I do sometimes use die rolls to resolve the orders of actions but only if it matters. For example, if an orc is charging an archer, the archer and the orc would roll off to see if the archer could aim and fire before being set upon. The same is true if you are charging a magic-user trying to cast a spell.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's a good way to do things. It puts the individual player more in the mind of stretching their reflexes as far as they can go, rather than "oh we get to wail on the other guys first."
DeleteAfter a full cycle, the beginning and end of the cycle cannot be determined, and therefore being "higher" or "lower" in initiative order is meaningless.
ReplyDeleteThis is only true if the initiative cycle repeats, rather than being redetermined every round.
Numenera has a really interesting system where every player makes a speed check to see if they act before or after the opposition. It adds some interesting variation without much rules overhead.
In my OD&D game, which has come to use d6 individual initiative every round, initiative can be quite important both for attaining an initial advantage (a big deal when most combats don't last very many rounds) and to make sure spells can go off without being disrupted.
"This is only true if the initiative cycle repeats, rather than being redetermined every round."
DeleteIt would seem to me that the initiative cycle would be even less relevant, then. Looking at a long list of the whole combat, the intiative would appear random, as opposed to cyclical.
The key concept here is that, in most systems (D&D included), the idea of the beginning and end of a round is fairly meaningless.
"Numenera has a really interesting system where every player makes a speed check to see if they act before or after the opposition. It adds some interesting variation without much rules overhead."
I would use something like this, but only in the rare case where it actually matters who goes first - i.e. if one character insta-kills another, or is trying to stop them from doing something (knock the bow aside before they can fire).
I see this as an edge-case, though, not something that needs to be done on an ongoing basis.
"In my OD&D game, which has come to use d6 individual initiative every round, initiative can be quite important both for attaining an initial advantage (a big deal when most combats don't last very many rounds) and to make sure spells can go off without being disrupted."
I view these as artifacts of the turn-based system, and something to cut out, rather than features - I'm really trying to get away from the you-go I-go notion into a more freeform combat.
I actually have a post that makes a very similar argument to yours, though I believe the criticism is limited to the 3E system:
Deletehttp://untimately.blogspot.com/2012/06/dexterity-influenced-initiative.html
Without turns, how would you handle spell interruption? The way I am doing it right now, spells must be declared before initiative is rolled, and the spell goes off on the initiative count. Thus, a poor initiative roll puts a magic-user in much more danger (armor beyond standard class capabilities also penalizes the initiative roll, giving magic-users a nice trade-off for wearing armor without making it an absolute restriction).
I have actually been working on adding more benefits to acting first in a round (such as options to retreat from melee without triggering attacks of opportunity).
"Without turns, how would you handle spell interruption? The way I am doing it right now, spells must be declared before initiative is rolled, and the spell goes off on the initiative count. Thus, a poor initiative roll puts a magic-user in much more danger (armor beyond standard class capabilities also penalizes the initiative roll, giving magic-users a nice trade-off for wearing armor without making it an absolute restriction)."
DeleteIn my system, there are few (if any) spells that are directly relevant in combat, so it's not much of an issue.
When running B/X, where there are a few combat spells, I'd say that spells just always go off after everyone else does there stuff. Again, I feel that order of operations will *generally* not be relevant, but if it was, I'd just go in Dex order.
In your example, you gave initiative to the PCs by allowing them to respond to the bad guys actions. Strike order is something different.
ReplyDeleteI see the distinction you're making, but typically in D&D they are one and the same thing.
DeleteI'm also fine with always giving the players that sort of "head start" by describing the *apparent* (note: apparent) intentions of the enemies, because it's the players playing the game.
Giving them information to make an informed choice makes the game more interesting and more fun.