Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950Why do we even roll for attack in games?

Verisimilitude, as swinging a sword at somebody's body and inflicting injury is uncertain. The exact odds dependent on a variety of factors.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079950There's a certain neutrality to cold, hard dice-rolling that is desirable.

Rolling dice is an important factor in what make tabletop roleplaying something fun one can do within the time one has for a hobby. But it not required. As diceless RPGs show, there are other paths to represent the uncertainty of combat.

In addition the referee reputation could be such that the players trust that they considered all the factors including their input and made a fair ruling. The problem is that referees that disciplined, knowledgeable, and respected are few and far between. Nearly all of them got that way through experience making this approach problematic for a novice to tabletop roleplaying.

While I agree dice is an important factor it has to be tempered with the knowledge that what make RPGs works is not the game but the interaction between the human referee and the players. The rules are a tool to make this easier. And if it is not needed, it is not required.

Finally it K to continue to be using various rules and system even if one don't need them. This is a leisure activity and part of the enjoyment stems from using a specific set of rules.

Quote from: capvideo;1080264It does seem as though you're very invested in an extra roll to control player actions

Seriously, though, comic relief or not it shows a natural tendency on the part of players to interpret results in any way but failure. The responses would even come despite my own occasional descriptions of the rolls as a "miss". This natural tendency could easily be exploited, if your goal is to switch the interpretation of non-hits from misses to other actions.

If you look closely, it's not about controlling player actions. The player still announces the intention for his character to attack. I'm merely introducing an additional point of failure in the resolution of that - for the sake of inspiring cinematic mental imagery through additional dice-generated information. If you only have a single attack roll, you don't have the distinction between "The attack was launched but failed to do any damage for one reason or another" and "The character didn't even get into striking range for one reason or another." But for cinematic combat, I need the imagery of staggered attacks by the outnumbering force.

And it helps stabilize this game too: many times, in various game systems, I have epxerienced in published scenarios that the author has underestimated the weight of the numerical advantage against a single boss enemy, making those fights way too easy. This approach makes it a bit harder for them to gang-up on the boss. Conversely, it's much harder for Mooks, cannon-fodder, that come in numbers to seriously challenge our PCs. I like it that way.

But I don't want it all to be prone to GM fiat who can attack or not - as the GM traditionally also doesn't determine whether a regular attack succeeds or not. It's got to come down to game mechanics.

Quote from: estar;1080267As diceless RPGs show, there are other paths to represent the uncertainty of combat.

Yeah, I won't insist on dice - it's just that it's the most commonly used resolution tool. I played Marvel Universe RPG back then, which was alright. Not as good as Marvel Superheroes, imho, but still fun. So, diceless games can work indeed.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176I agree. But as a GM, I generally want to decide on NPC intent, not on NPC success. The intent is to go forward into striking range and attack the PC. If there's another NPC next to him wanting to do the same, how do I decide in which rounds they block each other? Do I keep reshuffling positions every round? This seems like a hassle. For me, the most important parts are: does the NPC get the opportunity to make an attack at all (whether it's hesitation, getting blocked by an ally or getting outmaneuvered by the enemy)? And if so, what is the result of that attack? What trad games normally do (only roll for attack) does not provide enough information for me; I would like more dice-generated information to steer the direction of my fight narration here.

I quite agree, even though I say I'm a simulationist doing it for reasons of making sense and verisimilitude.

I'm quite satisfied with running GURPS (hexmap & counters, 1-second turns) and adding a house rule where characters have a Combat Sense skill they roll against to determine what their options are.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176It varies! I do mind it in the 300 scene we analyzed previously, as it is too much fantasy superhero for me. But I have no problem with named characters being much better than mooks/extras in Game of Thrones or Conan the Barbarian.  And in Game of Thrones, there's shades. The hound had to struggle quite a bit to win the "chicken fight" while he curbstomped his opposition in others. That might be calculation by the author but in a way it also represents that even mooks pose varying levels of threat. Sometimes mooks go down 3 per round. Sometimes a protagonist struggles against 3 no names for a minute before he can win.

This kind of unpredictability is good and what I am aiming at.

I agree on this too.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080176This is very abstract. Which of the well-known nerdish pieces of fiction have lazy writing? Star Wars with their incompetent Stormtroopers? Star Trek Redshirts? Aragorn taking on 80 orcs all by himself in the the movies and surviving?
My point being that it's hard to understand what you consider a bad combat as opposed to a good combat and in a second consideration whether this is relevant to any significant portion of people out there.

It would take quite a while to list the examples of what I'd call lazy writing, and different people will have different opinions on each, but lately most of the modern cinema and TV stuff I've seen has suffered heavily from lazy writing in action and other situation resolution - the writers and/or producers and/or choreographersclearly either don't know/care or think their audience doesn't know/care about making sense or being at all realistic, and prefer cheaply-produced "cool-looking" nonsense or dramatic sacrifices of characters without any good reason, or their plot calls for a hero to be captured and they don't bother to show a circumstance that makes sense, or whatever other nonsense.

Star Wars incompetent Stormtroopers? In IV and V, they're deadly except when under Vader's orders to let the main characters escape to lead them to the Rebel Base, or to help Vader take prisoners. In VI, yes, the defeat by Ewoks is stupid as sin. I-III I find mostly gawd awful. VII and VIII I find even worse.

Everything directed by JJ Abrams (e.g. Star Wars VII) is pretty much guaranteed not to care about action situation details making any sense. The gaming equivalent would be a GM who decides every combat outcome by what he thinks is cool and dramatic at the moment.

Star Trek seem to be using a game system where redshirts and unnamed characters take damage first. And many situations are overcome by Kirk getting into a fist fight. Kirk has hundreds of hitpoints and damage is revealed by how torn his shirt gets, and little drips of blood. But if it's early enough in the episode, he can be knocked out or captured. Also, even though the Enterprise comes with nearly unlimited abilities, the GM regularly disables most or all of them at will. In contrast, I would run Star Fleet Battles.

In the LOTR films, I think there are some well-done scenes, and many that are silly up to the point of ridiculous and undermining the continuity of the whole series. Goblins which can pointlessly travel along walls, pillars and ceilings as quickly as they can run along the floor? That's lazy CGI and lazy direction to accept it, because it's B.S. Then there are the Legolas CGI stunts that are only possible because CGI ("let's make the Oiliphants 30 x the size of an elephant and then have Legolas video-game it..." sigh). The worst in my opinion is having us watch an hour of the siege of Gondor, and then showing the CGI ghost army move from the shore up through the whole city in a matter of seconds, completely reversing the battle and rendering all of the action to that point essentially a waste of attention.

I'm not interested in all the "people out there" nor even the majority of people here (since most people here are non-simulationists and D&D fans, and that's not the preferred flavor of me or the people I want to game with).

I struggle to find disagreement with what you wrote above. I would like to add this though: I care about proper, skillful dramatization and exaggeration.  I have seen HEMA duels, I don't want anything like that in my fantasy games. So realism is not one of my aims - it just needs to be plausible enough so as to not induce eye-rolling.

The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool. It's not that I think it's necessarily unrealistic. But when the enemies come in in waves and the PCs cut them down one after another, possibly with counterattacks, that's pretty good imagery. That's what I want in my games. Same with that single boss enemy that dances among their ranks and they struggle to mount a coordinated offense against him.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool.

I think your proposed mechanism of blocking players is counterproductive, then. Because it hasn't actually changed anything: you still have players directing their characters to attack, and then failing to attack. I think that you would be better able to induce true heroism and cool through rewards (you can do more) rather than punishment (you must do less). More experience points for one-on-one combat, or bonuses to actions for everyone proportional to those who choose to allow the fight to be one-on-one, or some other reward; and some mechanism for noncombatants to still act (whether it be through non-combat assistance or furthering the game somewhere other than the combat) during the one-on-one fight.

I think a mechanism whereby players roll to successfully attack before they roll to successfully attack has a sort of catch-22 built in. Those players who would already interpret the current roll as other than a whiff won't change; and those would only see failed rolls as whiffs will still see failed rolls as whiffs. Action forced by die roll isn't likely to be seen as a heroic or cool choice. It's still going to be a failure. A reward mechanism puts the heroic choice back on the players.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383I struggle to find disagreement with what you wrote above. I would like to add this though: I care about proper, skillful dramatization and exaggeration.  I have seen HEMA duels, I don't want anything like that in my fantasy games. So realism is not one of my aims - it just needs to be plausible enough so as to not induce eye-rolling.

You mean the aspect that most people are encased in metal armor and unable to cut the flesh and kill their opponents with weapon hits?

(I tend to find that heavy armor in GURPS tends to be unpopular with PCs, mainly because it means it's harder to move around, be quiet, run away when outnumbered etc.)

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080383The problem I have with standard role-playing games (where everyone gets to attack every round) in these One v Many situation is that it evokes in me imagery that is unheroic and uncool. It's not that I think it's necessarily unrealistic. But when the enemies come in in waves and the PCs cut them down one after another, possibly with counterattacks, that's pretty good imagery. That's what I want in my games. Same with that single boss enemy that dances among their ranks and they struggle to mount a coordinated offense against him.

I tend to think that's accomplished well in TFT and GURPS by the aspect of the game I like which is about having a hex map and rules where that tension (trying to avoid getting mobbed by tactical movement and action) is a central part of gameplay.

I mean, you're sort of talking about one of the main things I love about mapped tactical combat with a good rule set: the game is often about whether or not you can manage to maneuver effectively and (in an outnumbered situation) manage to survive, generally by managing to not get mobbed (e.g., you use terrain, fallen bodies, your own mobility, and comrades to move so that you don't get mobbed, and attack in ways so that you have local superiority and take down foes before they can do the same to you - that's usually the crux of effective gameplay and isn't just rolled for, but arises from your character's stats and equipment and resulting mobility and reach etc, and the rules which make the moves interesting in ways that make sense and represent the situation well).

Quote from: capvideo;1080397I think your proposed mechanism of blocking players is counterproductive, then. Because it hasn't actually changed anything: you still have players directing their characters to attack, and then failing to attack.

...or failing to even get to roll to attack. The roll for whether you can attack in the first place is similar to an attack roll but distinct. I rate the chance of "Sorry, you don't get to roll for attack this round" being interpreted as "You strike but miss/it gets parried" as low. Swords that give a bonus to attack won't give a bonus to closing-in either. It's a similar but separate test.

Quote from: capvideo;1080397I think that you would be better able to induce true heroism and cool through rewards (you can do more) rather than punishment (you must do less). More experience points for one-on-one combat, or bonuses to actions for everyone proportional to those who choose to allow the fight to be one-on-one, or some other reward; and some mechanism for noncombatants to still act (whether it be through non-combat assistance or furthering the game somewhere other than the combat) during the one-on-one fight.

I think a mechanism whereby players roll to successfully attack before they roll to successfully attack has a sort of catch-22 built in. Those players who would already interpret the current roll as other than a whiff won't change; and those would only see failed rolls as whiffs will still see failed rolls as whiffs. Action forced by die roll isn't likely to be seen as a heroic or cool choice. It's still going to be a failure. A reward mechanism puts the heroic choice back on the players.

Rewards, punishment... this sounds very gamist to my ear. From a standpoint of genre simulation, avoiding the "everyone gets to attack everyone round" is the reward. I'll happily sit out a round or two to avoid that. And it's not about giving incentive for more one-on-one fights (though that is a valid other concern), it's about how to structure the One-on-Many fights that do take place eventually. About how to structure them so that they resemble more closely the kind of fights we see on TV and in cinema.

As such, INaction forced by dice roll isn't necessarily meant to be heroic on its own - but rather to prevent the kind of UNheroic play we have in your average fantasy game. (Though if the enemies come in in waves rather than all at once, it does have some appeal to me, imagination-wise.)

Quote from: Skarg;1080439You mean the aspect that most people are encased in metal armor and unable to cut the flesh and kill their opponents with weapon hits?

Both fully armored Battle of Nations-style combat, just as unarmored sparring with training swords. I don't want combat in my fantasy games anything to look like that. In a medieval-authentic game, it'd be a different thing though.

Quote from: Skarg;1080439I tend to think that's accomplished well in TFT and GURPS by the aspect of the game I like which is about having a hex map and rules where that tension (trying to avoid getting mobbed by tactical movement and action) is a central part of gameplay.

I mean, you're sort of talking about one of the main things I love about mapped tactical combat with a good rule set: the game is often about whether or not you can manage to maneuver effectively and (in an outnumbered situation) manage to survive, generally by managing to not get mobbed (e.g., you use terrain, fallen bodies, your own mobility, and comrades to move so that you don't get mobbed, and attack in ways so that you have local superiority and take down foes before they can do the same to you - that's usually the crux of effective gameplay and isn't just rolled for, but arises from your character's stats and equipment and resulting mobility and reach etc, and the rules which make the moves interesting in ways that make sense and represent the situation well).

I don't have an issue with that, although I am a pure theatre-of-the-mind GM myself. But things work very differently with 1 second rounds anyway (and we run into gameplay issues with emulating extended attack sequences - but that's another thread). If we have roughly 5 second rounds and we seek to emulate cinematic combat, then, whether mooks or PCs or otherwise, some attackers frequently can't launch an attack within that time span.

How you want bring that about is an implementation issue.

And if you want to bring it about in the first place, whether you consider that as too punishing or not, is a question of what you want from your games.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080515Rewards, punishment... this sounds very gamist to my ear. From a standpoint of genre simulation, avoiding the "everyone gets to attack everyone round" is the reward. I'll happily sit out a round or two to avoid that. And it's not about giving incentive for more one-on-one fights (though that is a valid other concern), it's about how to structure the One-on-Many fights that do take place eventually. About how to structure them so that they resemble more closely the kind of fights we see on TV and in cinema.

Well, we've come full circle, then; I'd like to think there's some higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on us. Again, this sounds like some serious miscommunication; if avoiding the situation were the reward, you wouldn't need rules to block players from choosing it; you would need rules to keep players from choosing it. That--choice--is the point of whether something is heroic or unheroic, cool or not cool. These things can be heroic, or cool, in a movie because of the illusion that the protagonists have free will, imbued in them by the writer and director. In a role-playing game that can only come from the player. Whether because they choose to fight one-on-one, or because they must strive to surpass some obstacle in order to join the fight, the reason it's cool and/or heroic is because of actions being chosen.

Your method has none of that. It jettisons the role-playing; there is neither a choice, nor a striving. It's just randomness. By that definition of cool, the coolest and most heroic game would be one where all character actions are chosen by die roll.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. No one ever says Candyland or Chutes and Ladders is heroic.

Quote from: capvideo;1080565if avoiding the situation were the reward, you wouldn't need rules to block players from choosing it; you would need rules to keep players from choosing it.

Gentle reminder that the characters in the clips shown in this thread who do not attack don't do anything else. They basically waste the 5 seconds (the turn). They choose doing nothing, so-to-speak.

Quote from: capvideo;1080565Your method has none of that. It jettisons the role-playing; there is neither a choice, nor a striving. It's just randomness. By that definition of cool, the coolest and most heroic game would be one where all character actions are chosen by die roll.

But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean. No one ever says Candyland or Chutes and Ladders is heroic.

In the passage you snipped out I specifically said that it's not about making something heroic. It's about preventing something UNheroic. Or better: UNcinematic. The first task in creating a simulationist/immersive ruleset is to avoid situations that break immersion. In this case, the situation is seemingly everyone attacking every round from all sides - common to many other RPGs I have been in. It has to go.

Now, the reasons for not attacking in the clips discussed here are external and internal. External reasons is getting outmaneuvered by the lone enemy or being blocked by an advancing ally. Internal reasons could be fear or just waiting too long for the right moment - we can only speculate. While the former could be simulated with a map, as it relates to positioning/stance, the latter would ask for a psychology test - similar to a fear roll common to many RPGs. Either way, this does not lie within the realm of players determining PC intent. The intent is to attack when a good enough opportunity presents itself.

When we're making an attack roll, we don't take a plethora of smaller factors into account either. We abstract it into the attack roll to see how well the character can translate intent into action.

So it all follows established RPG traditions of rolling to see how intent translates into action (or inaction). It's just bound to meet resistance from gamist gamers who value being able to attack every round more than cinematic accuracy. But they're not the target audience to begin with. The target audience is gamers who want greater accuracy in emulating cinematic combat, if necessary at the price of missing a turn. However big that audience may or may not be.

Quote from: capvideo;1080565Well, we've come full circle, then; I'd like to think there's some higher meaning to all this. It would certainly reflect well on us.

So, to avoid arguing in circles, I feel a summary of the objections raised in this thread and my responses is necessary.

1. In cinematic combat, not every member of the outnumbering force attacks in every ~5 second round. The number seems to fluctuate turn-by-turn between 1 and all of them. This is most commonly the case with mooks, but named villains and heroes aren't above it either. See the clips above. So, the main point is avoiding that every outnumbering attacker can attack every round. The main reasons for not attacking are: hesitation of the attacker, outmanevuered by the defender, blocked by an ally.
2a. To gamist Roleplayers, this is bound to seem unfun because you get sidelined for a turn repeatedly and combats might take longer. For someone who wants cinematic combat, however, this is not a bug but a feature. If you don't want cinematic combat, you're not in the target audience.
2b. The purpose from a genre sim mindset is NOT to create heroic action by itself, but to prevent UNcinematic narration (every failed attack roll gets narrated as missing, leading to unheroic, uncinematic mental imagery of everyone striking from all sides at all times) that is bound to arise in most games using existing rulesets instead. And it's not about giving the lone fighter more attacks compared to the opponents or something like that. It's specifically about making some outnumbering fighters not being able to even roll for attack in some rounds.
3. Relying on GMs/players to deliberately give up on attacking in a given turn instead of mandating it through dice rolls is not a good option: players should be able to take the optimal decision regarding PC intent. Instead, we use the dice to see if positioning (blocked) or psychology (hesitation; compare with fear rules in other games, for example) keeps the PC from getting into striking range. For positioning, actual position on some kind of battle map may or may not be used instead (for now unsure if that would work well but it's a possible alternative).
4. There are various ways this could be implemented. The variant I have chosen (and there are other valid ones) is having each outnumbering attacker roll a test to see if he manages to get into position to strike this turn. If failed, he spends his turn looking for an opportunity that never comes or that the PC never takes. Thus pausing for a turn in random patterns, just like in the movies.
5. Dice-mandated inability to attack may or may not end up getting narrated as "Adam, you do nothing this turn. Bob you're next." That would be uncinematic. If this would be consistently so and across a high percentage of playing groups, the mechanic would have failed to have the desired effect. However, it seems significantly less likely so with GMs that have specifically opted for a ruleset aimed at cinematic combat.

So the main thing to take away from this is: in a ~5 second timespan of cinematic combat, you can't necessarily attack, whether you're Mook or hero, if you're fighting with allies against a single (human-sized) enemy. And this isn't a conscious choice by the player/GM, it comes due to specific cirumstances that are external or internal to their character and which keep him from even launching an effective attack.

I think modern combat rounds are too short. Should be more like 12 seconds. Enough time to move and attack.

Quote from: S'mon;1080644I think modern combat rounds are too short. Should be more like 12 seconds. Enough time to move and attack.

O.o, what kind of slow ass swing are you assuming?  The average archer could loose about 8-12 arrows in that amount of time.  Most swordsmen can hit a target 6.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1080694O.o, what kind of slow ass swing are you assuming?  The average archer could loose about 8-12 arrows in that amount of time.  Most swordsmen can hit a target 6.

An archer with a real bow certainly isn't loosing 8-12 arrows. You been watching dumbass Youtube videos.

My point is that a combat round should cover the OODA loop for the combatants - so everyone normally gets an attack in, rather than the situation AK describes where some combatants never act - they haven't completed their OODA loop within the 6 second time frame.

A discussion of the impact of different round length (say GURPS' 1 second or the suggested 10-15 seconds) is surely worth having. We got to be mindful though that the context is cinematic combat. If we aim at realism, we'd have to study entirely different sources for accuracy. And if we don't care about either, if we're approaching it from a gamist mindset, we don't have to bother about accuracy to begin with and might as well stick with 6 second rounds.

So what would change with 12 second rounds? Someone not attacking within a 12 second timespan would only happen if they were kicked off-screen (see the Hound chicken fight, I think). That would be rare. Stun would rarely cause anyone to skip a turn as well. Prone participants probably would be back on their feet at the end of the turn. Combats overall should last between 3 and 7 rounds. 10 round tops, unless it's the finale of the campaign perhaps.

The downside is that 3 to 6 seconds is approximately the length in which there's maybe an equal likelihood between "A change of state (stun, wound, change of initiative, etc) has happened" and "No change of state has happened." Maybe a bit slanted towards the former even. With 12 seconds, you're hiding some of the back-and-forth. Initiative might have changed several times within that time span. A combatant might have fallen down and is back up again. Stun might have faded. A combatant might have been wounded several times within that time span (see the death of Rexor). Position on the battlefield can have changed greatly. You need to impose stricter limits of how long an attack sequence can be. anything longer than 3 or 4 rounds would be extremely unusual as that translates into 30 to 50 seconds screentime of one party driving the other in a one-on-one.

So it has its advantages and disadvantages. One can say that, in general, if you favor a more abstract system which comes down to the GM filling in more details, then longer rounds are better. You're taking a step away from modern D&D and a step towards Dungeon World, purely in terms of abstraction level (but not necessarily playstyle).

PS English medieval requirements were, at least according to legend, about 10 arrow shots per minute. We're talking warbows here and not bows with 35 lbs draw weight. So about 1 arrow shot in a 5 second round and about 2 in a 12 second round.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1080698A discussion of the impact of different round length (say GURPS' 1 second or the suggested 10-15 seconds) is surely worth having. We got to be mindful though that the context is cinematic combat. If we aim at realism, we'd have to study entirely different sources for accuracy. And if we don't care about either, if we're approaching it from a gamist mindset, we don't have to bother about accuracy to begin with and might as well stick with 6 second rounds.

So what would change with 12 second rounds? Someone not attacking within a 12 second timespan would only happen if they were kicked off-screen (see the Hound chicken fight, I think). That would be rare. Stun would rarely cause anyone to skip a turn as well. Prone participants probably would be back on their feet at the end of the turn. Combats overall should last between 3 and 7 rounds. 10 round tops, unless it's the finale of the campaign perhaps.

The downside is that 3 to 6 seconds is approximately the length in which there's maybe an equal likelihood between "A change of state (stun, wound, change of initiative, etc) has happened" and "No change of state has happened." Maybe a bit slanted towards the former even. With 12 seconds, you're hiding some of the back-and-forth. Initiative might have changed several times within that time span. A combatant might have fallen down and is back up again. Stun might have faded. A combatant might have been wounded several times within that time span (see the death of Rexor). Position on the battlefield can have changed greatly. You need to impose stricter limits of how long an attack sequence can be. anything longer than 3 or 4 rounds would be extremely unusual as that translates into 30 to 50 seconds screentime of one party driving the other in a one-on-one.

So it has its advantages and disadvantages. One can say that, in general, if you favor a more abstract system which comes down to the GM filling in more details, then longer rounds are better. You're taking a step away from modern D&D and a step towards Dungeon World, purely in terms of abstraction level (but not necessarily playstyle).

PS English medieval requirements were, at least according to legend, about 10 arrow shots per minute. We're talking warbows here and not bows with 35 lbs draw weight. So about 1 arrow shot in a 5 second round and about 2 in a 12 second round.

Yeah, a 100lb draw weight long bow shooting rapidly at target would be ca 10/minute, given optimal conditions (such as on a training range). Trick shooting a dozen arrows with ca 25-35 lb trick bows is completely irrelevant to warfare.

If your analysis of cinematic combats is accurate, that further convinces me that 10-12 seconds is the right duration for a D&D combat round. When Conan hacks up Rexxor he's finishing off (CDGing, in D&D terms) a defeated enemy no longer able to defend himself.

An individual's OODA loop ("That guy is shooting at me - better shoot/run/hide") is apparently around 3-5 seconds; for a 1 on 1 duel system 3 second rounds make sense, perhaps even GURPS' 1 second round. For D&D or most RPGs, a round assumes situational awareness of a battlefield with typically 4-8 or so combatants per side; ie squad level combat. For squad-level awareness, IRL as I recall the OODA is around 10-12 seconds. People rarely spend the whole time shooting/hacking, a lot of time is spent in the Observe-Orient-Decide stages before they Act. Individual re-acts within that are best represented by the out-of-sequence Reaction such as an Opportunity Attack.