Given the recent discussions about emulating fiction -and with Rob Conley's permission- I am posting a short rules analysis of one of his actual plays that got posted on Youtube. While he uses his own Sword & Wizardry-variant, I believe the discussion will be useful for people not familiar with the rules as well as people who have not watched the actual play. In any case, here's the vid:

[video=youtube;z4rj5YsBqc8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4rj5YsBqc8[/youtube]

Part 1: Actions, Action Economy and Initiative

Rob uses a traditional Initiative order and action economy, as I have done myself in countless games: everyone rolls for Initiative at the start of each round and then actions are resolved in Initiative order with everyone getting two actions on their turn. However, this common paradigm leads several times (and again: there is no fault in Rob's gamemastering here, it's how the rules work) to situations that are not entirely realistic/plausible during actual play:

• When the Burglar PC reloads his crossbow, the enemy ruffian leader should either scramble in the meantime towards him or towards cover
• When later Wargs charge the Burglar and he turns invisible, they end up being ineffective and confused. They then get immediately charged by the Knight PC on horseback in the same turn, when they should have been aware of the knight about to charge them to begin with and act accordingly.
• When later the boss enemy sits down on his throne, he gets charged and has to fight at a disadvantage. He should have had enough time to at least get up before the PCs make it into weapon range.

Not entirely plausible but all-in-all typical in role-playing, right?

So here I propose a different way of handling things: from a vantage point of plausibility, how long an action takes to take effect obviously matters - both for being aware of what's about to happen and reacting accordingly and for interruptability. Some enemy can see the knight charging or the burglar reloading well ahead after all. Also, certain actions should always be faster than others and interrupt them reliably (readied crossbow versus readied sword versus someone charging over 20 meters). Therefore I have 3 categories of actions, each possible action in a round is an equivalent of one of these:

• Shoot actions (costs 1 Action Point, AP)
• Melee actions (costs 2 Action points)
• Move actions (costs 3 Action points, think full round move).

In detail:

Spoiler

Each character has 3 Action Points each round. Similarly each round is separated into 3 phases. So if you have a readied arrow, you can shoot your bow in the first phase (1 AP) while melee combatants strike later in phase 2 (2 AP). But if you need to reload an arrow first and that takes 2 Action Points, you can only release that arrow in phase 3 (2 AP + 1 AP) instead. Rolling for Initiative still exists but you only need roll and compare Init scores when the order of two characters completing an action within the same phase matters.
Also, and this matters, you declare actions in reverse order - with the slowest actions getting declared first.

Which means if you had an arrow readied, you get to hear which of the enemies are about to charge you (or a fellow PC) in the upcoming round and act accordingly. (I should add here that you can abort/switch actions if things develop unexpectedly - but you will operate at a negative modifier for the rest of the round.) Which means in turn that the ruffian leader could have reacted to the Burglar's declaration that he's going to reload the crossbow - he would have had to decide whether he can make it to the Burglar and interrupt the reloading in time or whether he'd better scramble for cover. It means that the Wargs would have had the opportunity to stop and defend/counterattack against the charging Knight. It means that the Russet Lord would have had enough time to get up from his seat. You won't have to order initiative by proximity to the action either (as Rob did) - moving will cost action phases.

In summary:
By using this method combat develops a continuously plausible flow. No longer actions make only sense if evaluated purely on their own, at best. It's not a perfect action economy but it's certainly a quantum leap ahead in creating more plausible fights over traditional action economies. You can even afford to not roll Initiative until a given character competes with another about having an action resolved first. And no, none of this is entirely new but it's a reduction to the fundamental action categories that matter - you don't even need to precess it very formally step-by-step but can use the three categories to structure resolution order intuitively from your gut.

[EDIT DISCLAIMER: This isn't meant to express that the suggested abpproach above is teh best evah. As a firm believer in the three GNS modes, it's all a matter of taste for me after all. I am saying, however, that if one wanted to give their combats a continously plausible flow, this is a good way of going about it.]

I also have some asides, based on my analysis of movies and TV shows:

1. Shooting into melee, as happens several times in the Actual Play, is difficult in movies. Usually the one with the ranged weapon will keep aiming at the bad guy and tell his ally to hit the deck. Other than getting a clear shot, firing into melee should be rare and require extraordinary nerves of steel/extremely high confidence in one's accuracy (think Legolas).
2. I also previously did some analysis of how much information characters in movies can actually communicate (as in: shout) in a combat situation - it's about 5 words in a 5 second round. And this includes adressing the recipient ("John, get down!"). Reciting a limmerick is WAY out of bounds - but since that was fun, I'd have let that one slide as well. (Also, the above limitation is about shouting at someone else on the battlefield, not talking to someone right next to you in relative safety behind cover, for example.)

Why do you keep posting "fixes" to D&D-like games as if anyone gives a fuck?

Quote from: Brad;1090756Why do you keep posting "fixes" to D&D-like games as if anyone gives a fuck?

Every fantasy RPG played that is not the current edition of D&D is an implicit rebuttal of that edition of D&D.

Who are those? Love seeing real faces of our fellas here.

You guys look super cool and sympathic BTW, I would totally play with you.

A competent archer can fire 8 arrows in 12 seconds [video=youtube;1o9RGnujlkI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o9RGnujlkI[/youtube]

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090757Every fantasy RPG played that is not the current edition of D&D is an implicit rebuttal of that edition of D&D.

So...play one of those games?

Or even less [video=youtube;2zGnxeSbb3g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g[/youtube]

But that's beside the real point. That being a certain amount of "realism" is great but not necessary for immersion, what is needed is plausibility withing the game world. So we need rules that allow for that while not bogging down the game to a crawl by bean counting.

If you're looking for realism you need to throw away initiative altogether, all PCs attack at the same time just like all the monsters, huge melee and high chance of being killed by friendly fire. Unless of course you're playing a wargame, then you as the general command your archers row by row to fire before your cavalry attacks from two flanks and your lancers charge from the middle.

Quote from: Itachi;1090761Who are those? Love seeing real faces of our fellas here.

You guys look super cool and sympathic BTW, I would totally play with you.

Rob, the GM, is estar and the Burglar is BedrockBrendan, I believe. Pretty solid role-playing in this one, I have found it to be more entertaining than most APs out there.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1090762A competent archer can fire 8 arrows in 12 seconds

These are severely underpowered bows. For warbows, 10 per minute is a plausible rate of shooting.

Quote from: Brad;1090763So...play one of those games?

Or go on the internet and discuss the pros and cons of various rulesets.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1090767But that's beside the real point. That being a certain amount of "realism" is great but not necessary for immersion, what is needed is plausibility withing the game world. So we need rules that allow for that while not bogging down the game to a crawl by bean counting.

I think fictional plausibility was the goal here all along.  Sometimes, under traditional action economies, actions make only sense when viewed on their own - you just can't picture it plausibly as part of the overall flow of events. Things don't always quite fit together because in traditional action economies characters take turns sequentially - without the information what is about to happen next.

For me, it is important that an archer can reliably shoot a readied arrow before an enemy orc can charge him over, idk, 15 meters - irrespective of Initiative score. This isn't always the case in fantasy RPGs. Of equal importance: my archer should be able to see which of the 3 enemy orcs specifically intends to charge him and let loose on that orc.

I believe you can have that with an action economy not more complicated than the one of D&D 3.x. CoC isn't a very complicted game either and it has firearms always going before fist punches as well. I will grant you though that for some artefacts caused by traditional action economies are no big deal or perhaps even an important part to their game experience. As mentioned, it is a matter of preference.

Quote from: Brad;1090756Why do you keep posting "fixes" to D&D-like games as if anyone gives a fuck?

Quote from: Brad;1090763So...play one of those games?

Show us on the doll where the non-D&D fantasy game touched you.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090757Every fantasy RPG played that is not the current edition of D&D is an implicit rebuttal of that edition of D&D.

In my opinion rebuttal is too strong a word. Not all wargames are implicit rebuttals of Chess.

More like offers a different experience others may enjoy more than Game-X.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1090767But that's beside the real point. That being a certain amount of "realism" is great but not necessary for immersion, what is needed is plausibility within the game world. So we need rules that allow for that while not bogging down the game to a crawl by bean counting...

This.

D&D does D&D just fine.

But others like myself actually do like how different systems do different things, at the gaming table.

I think Alexanders system actually does a lot of things I like. And keeps the bean counting to a minimum.

I have moved to the initiative system used in Shadow of the demon lord for my star wars game. Because I like the way it does things over roll initiative act in order. But for my next medieval fantasy campaign I would like to try and give something like what was posted a shot.

It is a lot like the Mythras RPG action point economy - and it acknowledges that no one will really wants to create a character with less than 3 AP, so why not just make it standard from the get go.

Quote from: Jaeger;1090778Show us on the doll where the non-D&D fantasy game touched you.

Edgy!

First thanks for taking the time to do this Alexander. I am working on a fuller response and it will be a day or so as I am rewatching parts of the video to refresh my memory as to why I did what I did.

In the meantime below are the rules I use so you can understand the source of my rulings in that video. It a basic version of the draft I am working on.

http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Majestic%20Fantasy%20Basic%20RPG%20Rev%2008.pdf

This is the full combat rules I use
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx9oLF40m-b8NUdpMXd4WFpXdzA/view?usp=sharing



What Monsters look like, the only different from Swords & Wizardry as far as combat goes is a initiative bonus which is generally set at half hit dice rounded down.

http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/MW%20Monsters%20Sample.pdf

Quote from: Brad;1090889Edgy!

Snarky!

Quote from: Jaeger;1090976Snarky!

I love lamp.