Quote from: Spinachcat;1091026Those damn non-D&D fantasy games are always trying for my dick!!

Can't trust those non-D&D fantasy games to keep their hands to themselves!

No, no you can't, the pervy bastards.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1091025I am always interested in new ideas to bring to D&D. I don't see them as "fixes" as much as optional rule ideas to consider.
....

And this kind of discussion is not just about D&D- most RPG systems use some form of roll initiative and go in order system for PC actions.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091059No problem:
Crossbow: 27:00 and 40:30. Note that the ruffian leader was shot twice with a crossbow(!) before he could even react - due to the way initiative in most RPGs works. The order in many games is strictly based on Init score and not on what you're about to do.
Wargs: 2:21:00. Note how the wolves turn their attention from the invisible Burglar to the halfling - oblivious that they are about to get run down by the knight on horseback. Again, it's due to initiative works in most games. It's not a D&D-specific thing.
Russet Lord: 3:50:00. Again, you resolved the scene according to the rules, the boss enemy was surprised by the attack so the PCs went first. Still, in my imagination of the scene, when he took seat, there must have been enough distance for the PCs to cover for him to get up as he was being assaulted.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1091086...
I will say from my own perspective, I think no one really picked up on this particular detail. If something leapt out at any of us as jarring, we would probably have mentioned it or asked for a clarification.

 I would say from my anecdotal observations that most players would never pick up on the points that Alexander highlights. Most players when they get used to a system, also get used to that systems particular arbitrary rulings as a completely normal part of play.

This kind of arbitrary rules acceptance is also re-enforced if the players also dabble in computer RPG's. Lots of restrictions, none of them very 'realistic', but many still manage to get an enjoyable play experience out of it.

And once players are trained to "not think" about how arbitrary some of the initiative rules are - they no longer seem jarring to them.

Quote from: Jaeger;1091095And once players are trained to "not think" about how arbitrary some of the initiative rules are - they no longer seem jarring to them.

Yes, this is exactly why I burn out on systems faster than my players do.  I see these things sooner and more clearly than they do.  You could say it is a curse.  As a GM, I can usually find a way to minimize or ignore it, since I know it isn't jarring the players.  Up to a point.  Eventually, I need an out.  It doesn't have to even be a better system--merely one with different jarring issues to ignore for a while.

Quote from: Jaeger;1091095And this kind of discussion is not just about D&D- most RPG systems use some form of roll initiative and go in order system for PC actions.

Suppose this is a good as point as any to explain this.

So the following are the initiative systems that I am very familiar with.

GURPS

• One second rounds
• character go in the order of their speed (Health + Dexterity) /4 with 10 the average attribute thus 5 is the average speed.
• In general Character can do one thing and one thing only during their turn. Either
• A step and do X (like attack, cast a spell, etc) A character can change their facing in any direction with a step.
• Or Move (generally equal to speed - encumberance in yards). So the average unencumbered character can move 5 yards. Face changes on a hex grid count as 1 yard of movement.

Hero System

• There are 12 second in a turn
• Character have a Speed that controls how many times they get turn in 12 seconds.
• Normal Characters have anywhere between a 2 to 4 speed.
• Turns are controlled by the Speed Chart
• You can take one maneuver during your turn. There is a variety of maneuver that have different combination of move, action. and attack options.

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Hackmaster 5th edition
note I don't remember the exact terms

• Everything is in seconds which is called the count
• Initiative determine how many seconds you start after combat begins
• Every move and action takes so many count to complete.
• You can take your next action only comes after your previous action is completed.

So If you start on Second 3 and attack with a longsword with a speed of 5, you can attack again on second 8.

Everything else including D&D
Every thing else I played uses a variant of You go, I go initiative.

The deal with D&D and my house rules
I used AD&D 1st edition to run my campaigns from 1980 to 1985. At one time i tried to figure out and use the initiative system RAW but never made the connection that the dice represents the segment that the opposition was supposed to start on. Good thing because I favored individual initiative and that would have tough to reconciled.

Because of AD&D poor explanation of initiative, everybody including myself used Basic D&D, High roll goes fist, you take your turn then. What you could do in a turn was a point of contention. Just about every referee I knew had their own variant of what you could. The only constant you only ever get your number of attack and get to cast one spell.

My solution to the problem is that I allowed character to take up to a half-move and attack/cast spell.
Either one can be substituted by something else like quaffing a potion from your backpack. But you only get your number of attacks once or get to cast a spell once.
As mention I used individual initiative rerolled every round.

I used this system from around 1983 until 1985 when I switched to Fantasy Hero. The next time I played D&D was with 3.0 just after it came out. There the rules are clearly written so I just used that system for the few sessions I ran. I used Fantasy Hero from 1985 to 1988, and then GURPS 2nd, 3rd, and 4th until around 2008 when I broaden into running OD&D and later 5th edition.

In the past 5 years I ran campaigns using GURPS, Fantasy AGE, OD&D, and D&D 5th edition. Thanks to ROll20 and VTTs it been a bit of golden age for me in terms of the number and variety of games I played.

The Majestic Fantasy RPG

So when I run OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry I immediately used a variant of what I did when I stopped play D&D. Through a three years of playing campaigns, and one-shot sessions. I honed it down to what in the document earlier.

When it comes to any variant of classic D&D, I go for good enough. If I want realistic combat action I have GURPS. I use classic D&D because it a common frame of reference among so many hobbyists. I used a refined version of half move and attack because over many groups and many campaign, players "get" it faster and move on to playing the game. You can attack and do something else is easy to understand.

To account for the vagaries of U Go I Go, I allow characters (and NPCS) to "hold" their action. They can opt to wait until something happen and then take their turn. To resolve two conflicting holds, high initiative goes first,  I will also arbitrary alter the imitative when it makes sense. Door fights are the most common circumstances when this occurs.

I will have a post of up on how this applies to the specific of the game I ran soon.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1091086My sense with this sort of thing, is had you been there as a player and pointed this out, Rob would have factored it in and made a ruling (may have gone your way, may not have, but I think he'd consider that sort of observation if someone is imagining something that is not in step with what he is saying is going on). I know I have made those kinds of rulings when players bring them up (i.e. wouldn't I have time to do X before the bad guy does Z). If it is reasonable, I usually allow it.

I will say from my own perspective, I think no one really picked up on this particular detail. If something leapt out at any of us as jarring, we would probably have mentioned it or asked for a clarification.

Again, it's not bad gamemastering or anything, nor necessarily a huge deal. My point was just in having examples for such moments in gameplay that tend to crop up (and I had them many times as a GM too) due to the way order of actions are resolved in most RPGs: strict initiative order. But initiative order under most systems behaves as in that AP: it's blind to how long until an action takes effect (and therefore how long it's being telegraphed).

So what I am proposing is a structuring of the events/actions of a round that takes that into account. It doesn't need to be very complicated and involve much bean counting, as most of it is intuitive. All you need is rough categories that tell you whether an action is definitely going to be faster than another or if it's roughly in the same ballpark - in which case Init applies.

In the case of the wargs, the GM would have first decided in secret that the wolves were going to charge you and declared that openly only after Adam declared that he was going to charge them (both representing movement actions that consume the entire round, AP 3). Which a) would have given your character the time to react to get getting charged and b) the wargs the opportunity to react to the knight coming after them (if the wargs had turned around and faced the knight, you might have not taken the potion).

Quote from: Jaeger;1091095And once players are trained to "not think" about how arbitrary some of the initiative rules are - they no longer seem jarring to them.

I agree. It's not that role-playing that uses the traditional intiative order/action economy is dysfunctional. You just can watch the Actual Play to see that it's not. I think, however, that the combat experience is more visceral when rough timing categories (and nothing else are the 3 action phases proposed above) are being taken into account: the guy with the gun is always faster than you, no matter how well you roll Initiative, and you will always be able to react to that goblin charging in (because his action has to be declared first).

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1091097Yes, this is exactly why I burn out on systems faster than my players do.  I see these things sooner and more clearly than they do.  You could say it is a curse.  As a GM, I can usually find a way to minimize or ignore it, since I know it isn't jarring the players.  Up to a point.  Eventually, I need an out.  It doesn't have to even be a better system--merely one with different jarring issues to ignore for a while.

I can relate to that sentiment. It's not that my proposal here is without issues - but it works fairly strong when you use it more as a mental framework rather than strict and formal rules.

Quote from: estar;1091102To account for the vagaries of U Go I Go, I allow characters (and NPCS) to "hold" their action. They can opt to wait until something happen and then take their turn.

Yeah, delayed actions are the gold standard tactic under traditional Initiative order - too bad that so few players understand that under these rules taking an action means committing to that course of action, regardless of whatever anyone else later in the Init order is about to do. Still there are issues: you hold on shooting your arrow until later one of three orcs declares to charge you. You shoot at him and take him down. But then the ogre's turn comes up and he suddenly declares to charge you, being aware that you can't attack him anymore.

These are some of the pitfalls of traditional Init. Again, under the framework I propose here, the GM would have had to declare for the orc and the ogre early on and the player of the PC archer would suddenly be in the shoes of his character more than under other systems. Two charges have been declared against you - you can see the orc and ogre closing in before your mind's eye, what do you do?

Things become more real.

The Bandit Fight
Characters

Sir Broderick
A landless kinight in the employ of the Bishop (3rd level, Knight)

Simon Pepwell
A younger son of a noble with a silver tongue. (4th level Burglar)

Shamus O'Riordan
a Halfling merchant with a nose for opportunity. (5th level Merchant Adventurer)

Notes

• A knight is a fighter with some mounted combat abilities like doubling the damage of the lance if used from horseback.
• A Burglar is my take on the thief. Fights as a Magic User
• A Merchant Adventurer is a rogue style class but with a different skill (ability) set than the Burglar. Also fights as a cleric.
• My ability system generally gives character a substantial chance of success during combat and situations where there are consequences for failure. It starts out at 30% (15+ on a d20) and around 3rd to 5th level character have a 60 to 70% chance of success with their primary abilities.
• I also operate on the theory that character are competent at what they do. That 1st level represent a character with enough experience to be useful. A private in the military or a scientist with a fresh bachelor's degree. This is expressed in the information and advice I give.

The Opposition


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The Situation
Sir Broderick and Simon Pepwell have been sent to the Shrine of Saint Caelam the Dragonrider to collect the overdue tithes for the bishop. While riding his cart and pony, chance has brought Shamus O'Riordan to the same road.

It is nighttime and both two groups have settled in when a scream pierces the air.

All three gear up and head towards the source of the noise which is several hundred years away. Sir Broderick and Simon Pepwell arrive first.
(video at 24:36, note there a fair amount of explanations as this the first combat encounter along with the logistic of setting up Elliot after the late arrival)

All three characters opted to stealth toward the disturbance. All three passed their stealth check. Around  50 to 60 feet the dim light radius of the campfire is such that another stealth check is warranted due the chance in conditions.

What they see are four bandit threatening a young noble woman, and a young peasant boy. All the bandits are dressed in leathers, two of the bandits are next to the young man and woman. One has a short bow aimed at them. The last is the leader type with a broad sword. It obvious that it not going to go well for the two young folks.

The characters opt to initiate combat.

Initial Situation map
Note: Normally I use minature, or tokens and maps. However because our inability to use Roll20 and livestream I had to use Theater of the Mind.
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Round 1
The party has surprise at this point. The bandits are focused on the young couple, their night vision is impaired by the campfire, and while armed these are peasants who opted for a criminal life. The only character with any combat experience is the Bandit Leader (a 3rd level Thug). A Thug is another rogue type that fight as a cleric with a set of abilities relating to intimidation and strength. The archer is a peasant who fallen on hard times and opted join the local bandit gang.


Sir Broderick
Goes first because of the superior mobility of the horse. Also because he is a 3rd level Knight, he has the fighter's ability to get 1 attack per level if his foes are 1 HD/Level or lower. However as you must charge in a straight line which limits to how many attack you can make on a charge. Normally with the battlemap, the player has the information to determine where to charge. However because I was using Theater of the mind, I rolled behind the screen, and determined that only two are in the right position for the charge. I rolled a d6, 1-5, 2, 6 3. The low odds of three being lined is based on my experience running encounters with miniatures and the number of combatants.

Sir Broderick charges and score two hits, and does enough damage to kill both of the thugs with clubs as they have only 4 hit points.
He rolled 13 on the first attack, and a 14 on the second. Roll 12 damage on both hits. The thugs go to -8 and under my rules -5 hit points is death point at first level. It increased by -3 per level until it reaches your constitution. From then on you die at negative constitution. So Simon Pepwell is 4th level and has a 11 constitution which mean he only dies if he reaches -11 hit points.

Simon Pepwell
Moves slightly and shoots the leader with his crossbow. He has advantage due to the darkness and surprise. He rolls a 15 and hits versus AC 11. Does 5 points of damage to the leader.

Shamus O'Riodan
Sneaking towards the bandits and the rest of the group. Will arrive next round. After the fact explanation as his player hasn't arrive yet in the session.

Bandits
Do not react as they are surprised. What this represents is the lack of situational awareness and the ensuing indecision that causes in combat. Something I experienced myself in live action roleplaying. While boffer LARPS do not have realistic melee combat due to the foam weapons. The situation awareness before, and during combat is instructive. Being caught by surprise is not a good thing. Inflicting surprise in most cases is the decisive factor

The situation after Round 1
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Round 2
Six seconds has passed and now the bandit's situational awareness is such that they can dice for initiative.

Notes:

• I use Individual Initiative
• It modified by dex bonus or 1/2 hit dice if it is a monster.
• Fighter classes get to add in their to-hit bonus
• Shamus O'Riordan gets worked in after the initiative roll . Due to the bandit low roll I opt to have him go to after the other players.

Brendan rolls a 6 for Simon and Adam rolls a 8 for Sir Broderick. The bandits roll a 1. In some cases I would have the Bandit Leader rolled initiative separately. But here it is a small group so one initiative rolls for the lot.

Sir Broderick
He circles around and charges the Archer. Letting lose an intimidating cry. Adam rolls a 19 to hit, and 11 damages. The bandit archer is dead.
Note:
A warhorse has a 180' move. You can use one action to move half in this case 90'. He started 20' feet away at the end of last round. He has more than enough space to wheel around and attack. One advantage of being mounted is that the horse can take both of its actions to move while the ridge can use his action to attack.

In addition Adam wants to use his Intimidation ability (i.e. skill). He can do this as a rider he can use his section action to use an ability. However whether it will be useful will depend on whether there is anybody left to intimidate. So I hold off him rolling until the end of the round.

Simon Pepwell
Uses one action to reload his crossbow and fires again at the leader. Brendan rolls an 18 and hits the bandit leader for 3 points of damage. A grazing shot. The bandit leader has suffered 8 points of damage so far and is down to 2 hit points.

Note:
Crossbows get a accuracy bonus under my rules. Due to their use of a stock they are inherently more accurate than other missile weapon. In addition even light crossbow has superior armor piercing. Since a to hit roll is not only about making physical contact but getting through the armor. I opted to give Light Crossbows a accuracy bonus of +2, and heavy crossbows +4. This has precedent in D&D in the form of the Weapon vs AC tables in OD&D and AD&D 1st edition.

Shamus O'Riodan
Enters the battlefield and see what going on. Decides to shoot the Bandit Leader with his shortbow. He has a rate of fire of two and gets a 14 and 17 both hitting the bandit leader. He rolls a 4 and 2 for damage and the bandit leader goes down. If there was more opposition I would have told Elliot that the first arrow brought down the bandit leader and he could shift his aim to another target.

Bandits
All dead

Situation during  Round 2

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Wrapping it up
The combat was initiated and was over in 12 seconds. Based on my experience with LARPs and renactments this is within the ballpark of plausibility. Likely in real life experienced combatant would been fighting by second 8 and with a likelihood of acting sooner. But I found the playability of doing it this way is high. Far superior to what most editions and other RPGs have for their combat system.

So if the bandit were more savvy and experienced what could have they done using my rules?  Well one of them should have been on alert and held their action, watching the area around. Round 1 of surprise would have still occurred. But after all the character took their turn that individual would be able to act. Either at the end of the first round, or prior to their turn on the second round.


What I would have said before combat if this was situation was

QuoteYou see two bandits with club threatening the young couple, a leader type with a sword watching this, an alert archer scanning the perimeter. You have surprise but the archer will be able to react after all of you have taken your turn or anytime during the second turn prior to when the NPCs rolls initiative.

The players can then decide how to handle this information accordingly. Likely by taking down the archer first.

Would a different initiative system or action economy alter things?

GURPS
In GURPS if total surprise is achieved, you roll 1d6 and that how many second (and combat round) before the surprised are able to act. However they are not out of the woods yet. Because after total surprise you have to make a IQ roll before you snap out and can take your turn normally. Otherwise they mentally stunned a condition.

Partial Surprise occurs when the defender are expecting trouble. In this case both sides make a initiative roll. If the attacker wins then the defender has to make a IQ before they can act. This procedure can be used when two parties surprise each other. In which case the losing side is partially surprised.

Those with Combat Reflexes are only ever partially surprised and a get a bonus to the initiative roll if they are the leader of the party.

Since one combat round = one second surprise is devastating but will only last a handful of seconds. Also characters are moving around 5 to 6 yards per second. If the combat start with the combatant far apart, melee contact may not occur until after surprise is done. In which case the best tactic is to close in as close as possible before initiating combat.

Hackmaster 5th edition has different mechanics but the result is similar to GURPS, X seconds where the surprised are unable to act.

Hero System 5th edition
Surprise lasts for a single attacl and makes the target easier to hit and suffers more stun damage.

Thanks for the great run-down, Rob. So let's consider this alternative:

Knights of the Black Lily RPG
We're still assuming that the ruffians are not super-alert because they're not pros and they think it's easily earned money.

Round 1
Declarations
Since the bandits are going to be surprised, the GM gets to set how many Action Phases they're going to miss. Losing 1 Action point means freezing for 1 to 1.5 seconds, losing 2 APs means freezing for ~3 seconds and losing 3 APs means being paralyzed for ~5 seconds, the entire turn. As a GM, I'd opt for them losing 2 APs from the moment the attack becomes apparent to them.

The players on the other hand must to declare what to do but get to coordinate (at least the Knight and the Burglar). So the Knight announces that he's going to charge down 2 of the bandits (caveat: there are no multiple attacks in the KotBL Quickstart rules but lets assume a character on hoseback can do that due to a special trait*). The attack action costs 2 APs but it's done in parallel to the move which costs 3 APs (full round). So we have 3 action phases, during all of which the knight moves. He "begins" his melee attack in the 2nd phase as heroes on in and then the attack gets resolved in action phase 3 of 3. The Burglar announces that he'll shoot at the enemy Leader (cost 1 Action Point) as soon as the ruffians realize what's up, then begins to reload, if possible.

Shoot Phase (so named because a readied ranged weapon can be fired in this phase)
The horse starts charging down the road. The bandits are sure to notice that. They will lose 2 APs. That means they can't do anything in this or the next Action Phase. The Burglar fires his crossbow at the leader, wounding him as before. The bandits are frozen.

Melee phase (so named because a readied melee weapon can be swung in this phase at an adjacent enemy)
The Knight still moves towards his enemies but begins his melee attack action, the Burglar begins to reload, the bandits are still frozen. But they have lost 2 APs and can know finally respond in the final phase.

Move phase
The bandits can act now and if any of them had a readied ranged weapon, they could fire it this Action Phase since the cost of it is AP 1. Why would they fire it only now? Well, they had to wait out the first 2 Action phases and 2 + 1 = 3. But they are woefully unprepared so the Knight makes his attacks against the two enemies and cuts them down as before (they don't get to have an active defense since parrying costs 2 AP as well and they did spent their first 2 phases being surprised).
And now the important difference: The Bandit Leader can act. He could begin to move so that he's got his captives between him and the direction from which he was shot. Depending on the distance he would have to cover, he could achieve that in this Action Phase (5 foot step) or the next one (1. Phase of Round 2). This is markedly different from the rules originally used where he was shot twice by the same crossbow before he could act at all.

Round 2
From this point things probably deviate from the original fight. If the ruffian leader can put a knife to the thorat of any of his captives, it becomes a different scene. The Knight is a few meters away and the leader will certainly reach the hostages before he can. The Burglar is reloading the crossbow. If that takes more than the 2 APs spent on it last round, the bandit will not be opposed by him either. Here's where the Halfling could come in, possibly.
However, if your rules stipulate that you can reload a crossbow in 2 APs (which I think is more bow reloading speed), then we would for the very first time in this combat roll fo Initiative: to see whhich happens first - the Burglar shooting at the enemy leader or the enemy leader moving next to one of the captives.

Summary
By using rules that take into account how long until an action takes effect, you're going to shape the planning of the players. You can't rely on your score alone any longer. You need to rely on your planning. The players need to think this through and guesstimate if they will be able to cut down the enemies before they can threaten the captives.




*In hindsight, the trait would probably allow an attack by the Knight on any enemy in his path for as long as he keeps having a melee result that maintains initiative.

Let me just add that in actual play it would run down less formalized than I described it here. For example, that the movement of the Knight on horseback (3 APs) and his melee attack (2 APs) work in parallel is a given. You don't really have to waste much time thinking about it in play; it's quite obvious, intuitively. That's why the bean-counting involved is quite low.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091148Summary
By using rules that take into account how long until an action takes effect, you're going to shape the planning of the players. You can't rely on your score alone any longer. You need to rely on your planning. The players need to think this through and guesstimate if they will be able to cut down the enemies before they can threaten the captives.

Given the details of your reply and how it was framed, an alternative how I adjudicated initiative, I am going to assume that we are still talking about a six second combat round.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1090744So 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).

What this does is chop the six seconds in two second chunks. Some actions take two second, some take four, other take the full six seconds. Hence 1 AP, 2 AP, and 3 AP. Character who start off with short actions get the complete them before character who take longer actions.

The consequence of this is that you have to maintain three separate lists. Categorizing each action by how long it takes. Also if the player attempts something that is not on the list then you have to adjudicate as to whether it takes 1 AP, 2 AP or 3 AP. None of this makes the idea unplayable. But if I am going to go that route, I prefer to use GURPS 1 second combat round where the general rules is that you can one thing and one thing only on your turn. Having played GURPS, Hero System with its multi second segments,and Hackmaster 5e with variable action speed, GURPS is far easier to explain, learn, and adjudicate in this regard than either Hero System, or Hackmaster 5e.

My experience suggest it would the case with the 1 AP, 2AP, 3 AP system as well.

In addition because actions with different AP costs can be chained together then the idea of the combat round become superfluous. If one opt to perform a 3AP action after doing a 1 AP action, then it common sense that that extra 1 AP would carry over to the next round. So a referee would need use a Hackmaster 5e style count up system. If the convention of the round is retain and a 3 Ap action can't be done after taking a 1 AP action. Then realism is sacrificed for playability.

Realism

To be clear realism is within the context of the setting. A Toon campaign can be just as realistic as a Recon campaign however what is "realistic" is very different because Toon is about emulating the world of Looney Toons cartons, while Recon is about roleplaying in the Vietnam War.

Many thread ago this conservation started about genre emulation of combat as seen in film. While film combat often is not very realistic one thing is shares in with real life that everything a character does in combat is a continuous flow of action. Actions, long or short are chained over time to produce what we see on the screen. So whether emulating a film or real life melee combat, initiative is at its most realistic in either sense if it allows duration and sequence of actions to depicted accurately.

Hence the using rounds with the AP system would be sacrificing realism for playability.

Now for what happen in my session
The main difference in the first combat is that surprise is short and thus

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091148And now the important difference: The Bandit Leader can act. He could begin to move so that he's got his captives between him and the direction from which he was shot. Depending on the distance he would have to cover, he could achieve that in this Action Phase (5 foot step) or the next one (1. Phase of Round 2). This is markedly different from the rules originally used where he was shot twice by the same crossbow before he could act at all.

This difference occurs not because of the AP system but rather how our respective consequences for surprise differ. In your scenario the Bandit Leader is is only surprised for four second. In mine he is surprised for much longer, around 10 seconds or so.

But wait! Only round 1 was the surprise round. However anybody surprised has to dice for initiative for the following round. So a bad roll will allow the attacking group two rounds of combat to execute their plan. This is intended and how I played for a long time, visualizing the defender only regaining partial situation awareness until their turn.

GURPS has a version of this by imposing a fixed time followed by a series of will rolls.

This can be mitigated in part within my rule sby declaring that a person is holding one's actions while keeping watch during an encounter. In the case of the bandits, the encounter started with them accosting the young couple not when the PCs arrived. The watcher can then act at the end of the surprise round.


Now a debate could be had as to whether this is realistic either in terms of real life or genre like with film combat. However doesn't change that for this situation the outcome of either can't be compared unless both share these same outcome in regards to surprise.

Wrapping it up
It not that the AP is bad, is just not as good as GURPS 1 second round for realistic and playable depiction of action during combat. In addition it is has own compromises with reality and playability while closer to GURPS doesn't make it compelling for me over how I handle initiative and action.

Rob, thanks for the elaborate reply.

Quote from: estar;1091402Given the details of your reply and how it was framed, an alternative how I adjudicated initiative, I am going to assume that we are still talking about a six second combat round.

In the case of the Knights of the Black Lily RPG, it's a 5 seconds round. The difference is negligible for this discussion, I think.

A couple of points about system analysis

• In all earnest, the proposed Initiative system is not very similar to a 2-second GURPS: you're declaring in advance for a 5 second period. Additionally, declared single actions routinely take longer then 1 Action Phase (every melee attack) whereas in GURPS a normal melee attack gets resolved within the 1 second round. Furthermore, I need to add that you can take only one attack action during that 5 second round - you're not micromanaging every swing of the sword but abstracting the overall swordplay during that period of time.
  
• As such, it's way more similar to your Majestic Wilderland Initiative (or many other traditional game systems) rules, except that "duration until action takes effect" takes precedence over purely relying on the Initiative roll, which is only a tie-breaker for actions that take effect at roughly the same time in KotBL rules. In fact, if you took away the ability to abort declared actions once per turn (at a cost), that would be the only difference.
• What the proposed Initiative system is supposed to deliver in comparison to traditional Initiative rules is reactivity and interruptability. Being aware in advance of actions that take a long time to take effect and being able to interrupt them reliably with actions that are much quicker to take effect. That's all. Otherwise, we're staying the in the familiar 5 to 6 second round paradigm.
  
• It's common for games to stipulate whether an action is Simple Action versus a Complex Action. Or a Move Action vs a Swift Action vs a Standard Action vs a Full Action, etc. You get the idea. In this game, we distinguish between Shoot, Melee and Move Action. It's fairly easy to adjudicate: If an action can be reliably interrupted by the swing of a sword, it's a Move(-equivalent) action. Otherwise, if it can be reliably interrupted by the shot of a readied gun/bow, it's Melee-equivalent action. Otherwise, if it can't be interrupted reliably by a loaded gun, it's a Shoot-equivalent Action. This is much more clearly delineated than action types in, say, Shadowrun or D&D 3E.
• Finally, under the KotBL rules actions do happen to carry on into the next round, if you can't complete a declared action within a given round. If you miss out the first Action Phase due to surprise and otherwise would take a full round, 3 APs, to pick the lock of a door, you can complete the unlocking of the door earliest in the first Action Phase of round #2. Your enemies might shoot you in that round #2 Action Phase before you can do so, if they roll a higher Initiative than you do, as shooting a readied gun takes only 1 AP. The round structure is still relevant as it represents the default OODA loop in which you plan for your character(s), thanks to declarations. So it's not a count-up system.
  

Regarding the concrete example of play
Irrespective of length of surprise, the problem I am having is still that standard Initiative systems are blind to how long most common actions take to complete. From my experience with such Initiative systems, a guy getting peppered with two crossbow bolts before he can even act needs some serious rationalization by the GM. (Especially if that guy was a PC!) This problem can even take on a worse form: suppose the burglar had spent his second action in round #1 on something other than reloading, he still could have reloaded and shot the crossbow in round #2 before the leader could have acted under most traditional Initiative systems. That is shooting, doing some other thing, then reloading a crossbow and then shooting again. For, once you have initiative under such fairly traditional initiative rules, you can do whatever the action economy allows you to do on your turn, regardless of how long that might take in fiction and regardless how quick the action your opponent is intending to take is going to be.

For me personnally that can stretch belief under certain scenarios.

Still, I'd like to reiterate that the system I am proposing isn't the ultimate in game design for all time - but it does allow for the above mentioned reactivity (thanks to declarations in reverse order of action duration) and interruptability (due to action ordering primarily based on action duration) without rules complexity that goes beyond what other highly successful games have brought to the table. So it's an alternative approach that I would like gamers to be at least aware of.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463you're not micromanaging[/B] every swing of the sword but abstracting the overall swordplay during that period of time.

To be clear the point I was emphasizing that in GURPS you can only do one thing per round. Under that setup, anything that takes longer than one round is inherently interruptible and can be reacted too. Like reloading in one round and then firing a missile weapon the next. Or movement in one round and then attack in the next.

Now you view as one second in GURPS as too short of time. Fine then adjust it. The key is not the specific time length but character can only take a single action. The result has a more straight forward presentation and more easily learned than any initiative/actions system using phases/action points like the one you described.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463

• What the proposed Initiative system is supposed to deliver in comparison to traditional Initiative rules is reactivity and interruptability. Being aware in advance of actions that take a long time to take effect and being able to interrupt them reliably with actions that are much quicker to take effect. That's all. Otherwise, we're staying the in the familiar 5 to 6 second round paradigm.

I found that ruling that character can hold an action and interrupt a later turn adequately covers nearly all the corner cases. Even in systems like Fantasy Age that don't have this mechanics explictly. The benefits are such that if I run a RPG with a I go, U go initiative I will house rule this in. I done this with recently with Fantasy AGE and Harnmaster.

A a side note, advantage/disadvantage is so easily understood that I am now house ruling it into anything with d20 despite the lose of granularity for modifiers.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463In this game, we distinguish between Shoot, Melee and Move Action. It's fairly easy to adjudicate:

We are just going to have to disagree over the ease of adjudication.

I played enough Hackmaster 5e see the disputes that arise over how many second X takes. It afflicts any system that tries build in duration of action in the mechanics opposed here is a turn of fixed length and here what you can do in the turn.

In addition my observation of other gaming that it is easier to figure out whether an action fits within a fixed time slot than to figure out it duration even in a simplified system of three set duration.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463The round structure is still relevant as it represents the default OODA loop in which you plan for your character(s), thanks to declarations. So it's not a count-up system.

Again we are going to disagree, by allowing actions to carry over then you effectively allowing the same that is done in count-up only when it is not. It the worse of both worlds making that aspect of your system overly fussy.  

As for the OODA loop, what works best for emulation this is battle maps and miniatures which portray in visual form the tactical situation. Not rules. Verbal only can work but one needs to practice giving clear and concise verbal description to make sure everybody mental image align.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463Regarding the concrete example of play
Irrespective of length of surprise, the problem I am having is still that standard Initiative systems are blind to how long most common actions take to complete. From my experience with such Initiative systems, a guy getting peppered with two crossbow bolts before he can even act needs some serious rationalization by the GM. (Especially if that guy was a PC!) T

There are anecdotes of veteran soldier freezing for the duration of a firefight. Likewise there are anecdotes of novices reacting swiftly with the correct action to save the day. And everything in between with those with experience and training toward the quicker end of the scale.

I don't view how I handle D&D combat as one that requires serious rationalization in regards to surprise.

What we are talking about under my rules is

Six second of being caught flat-footed not being able to act thus giving advantage to attackers in combat, something I remembered to do with Brendan, and not with Adam.  

Then if the defender lose initiative they are still observing and orientating themselves before they can decide and act.  However they are no longer surprised and thus can fully defend themselves. Which is represented by the attackers not having advantage.

If one of the defender has a held actions then they can act after all the attackers have gone. This is because by holding an action they prepped themselves up so they can observe and orient faster. And thus decide, and act faster.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1091463For me personnally that can stretch belief under certain scenarios.

Well that what it about isn't it? This stuff has to work with the way the referee and players think and believe. Which is why we have a diverse array of mechanics.

If the AP works with how you think about this stuff then great. And it is not a particularly complex system.

The time when these differences in how easily the system to learn, how well is plays, etc start to factor in when the system is being shared with the larger hobby.

The tension for me is that in my view GURPS is the "best" way to adjudicate. However GURPS is a narrow taste for a variety of reasons nor is it free and open to develop for. For better or worse, if you want to share material widely the best avenue is one of the editions of D&D preferably the latest.

I opted to start with OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry.

1) Because the Swords & Wizard, Core is the closest thing to a ur-D&D the hobby has. Has all the essential elements that make classic D&D what it is and nothing more.

2) The interplay of numbers within Swords & Wizardry, Core is such that even at high level characters are vulnerable in a way similar to GURP. In short a 10th level character can be taken down by a angry peasant mob.

However I wasn't going to take Swords & Wizardry combat 'as is' because there were thing I considered important that needed a clear way of adjudicating. So I started where I left off with AD&D 1st in 1980s, and started building from there. Playtesting that and playtesting this.

However the result had to remain recognizably and understandable as classic D&D otherwise there was no point to the exercise and I might as well go with an original RPG of my own design.

I did this process not with just my home group, but at convention, and thanks to VTT with many other groups over the internet. Like the session in the video.

The result of which as of a year ago is what you see in the video. And development continues.

If you think that shooting a bow and crossbow is that much faster, then my recommendation to remain consistent with D&D is to give a initiative bonus to missile weapons. Make it part of the weapon's description.

For example crossbow historically had superior armor piercing capabilities over bows. So in my rules, crossbow get a accuracy bonus.

Polearms historically are used in a way that allowed the wielder to attack anybody in melee before they can get close in with a sword. So as part of the weapon description the wielder gets one free attack the first time a target steps within reach. But only one free attack as polearm is committed to the first free attack.

And yes means if it works out that the wielder can step back forcing the attacker to step in reach again thus granting the wielder of the polearm another free attack. Which is in my opinion reflects the historical importance and use of polearm. In playtesting I found that this tactic only works well when the wielder is working as part of a formation. Otherwise it is highly situational.

As a consquence I find that PCs whether using GURPS, or my Majestic Fantasy rules do the same things for the same reason with roughly the same outcome. Even though each take a different path from the start of combat to the outcome of combat.

Quote from: estar;1091491Now you view as one second in GURPS as too short of time. Fine then adjust it. The key is not the specific time length but character can only take a single action. The result has a more straight forward presentation and more easily learned than any initiative/actions system using phases/action points like the one you described.

If you make player turns atomic, then you need the short time frame of GURPS or else you lose interruptability and reactivity. And, as mentioned, the complexity of what I propose is no higher than the action economy in D&D 3E or Shadowrun (2E onwards) or WFRP/40K Roleplay - with the aforementioned benefits in return for the complexity.

Quote from: estar;1091491I found that ruling that character can hold an action and interrupt a later turn adequately covers nearly all the corner cases.

It doesn't and I have given you a prime example before - if someone does something that might prompt you to trigger your delayed action, you don't know if something else happens later that round which you rather should be saving your action for. And there's another problem with it: players don't use delayed actions nearly as much as would be advisable, even players with decades of experience often go for the direct action because they lack the patience. That's why I prefer quick action declarations at the start of the round.

It also does one more thing important to me: it introduces the need for player skill in correctly predicting what's going to happen next in the upcoming round - if they need to change actions, they will operate at a penalty.  

Quote from: estar;1091491I played enough Hackmaster 5e see the disputes that arise over how many second X takes. It afflicts any system that tries build in duration of action in the mechanics opposed here is a turn of fixed length and here what you can do in the turn.

Disputes arise over the most trivial or apparent stuff, that's part of the role-playing experience. It's the GM's prerogative to make the decision if a previously unspecified action is of a certain action type. Same as in D&D or in Shadowrun or in 40K Roleplay with their action types. This is all standard fare in RPGs.

Quote from: estar;1091491In addition my observation of other gaming that it is easier to figure out whether an action fits within a fixed time slot than to figure out it duration even in a simplified system of three set duration.

You never ask the question of how long an action takes (at least if it fits within a round) under the proposed rules. Instead, you ask if it can be reliably interrupted by a shot or melee attack. An AP does not correspond to a given time frame either because a round is only roughly 5 seconds with some wiggle room and time consumed is not necessarily evenly distributed (aka 1 AP is NOT necessarily a third of the overall round).

Quote from: estar;1091491Again we are going to disagree, by allowing actions to carry over then you effectively allowing the same that is done in count-up only when it is not. It the worse of both worlds making that aspect of your system overly fussy.  

I'm sorry but it's obvious that you have never played this. Players declare actions in advance for the current round and the vast majority of their declarations are fully resolved by the end of the round (particularly attacks). It's exactly the same as in Shadowrun: I have 1 Complex Action or 2 Simple Actions this round - what am I gonna do with those? And, yes, you can have actions carry over to the next round in Shadowrun (accumulating aiming bonuses, for example). But it plays nothing like a count-up. It's round-based.

Quote from: estar;1091491Then if the defender lose initiative they are still observing and orientating themselves before they can decide and act.  

Yeah, it's winner-takes-all. If you have the Initiative under most traditional systems, you get to resolve your entire round before the enemy can do anything noteworthy. Heck, scratch the surprise round: if an enemy has a loaded bow but no delayed action and I have Initiative, I can, as I understand it, reload my crossbow and shoot it at him.

I don't like that. And, again, no criticism of your gamemastering - it's the way a lot of games resolve if played by RAW. My criticism is not with the way you run games or your particular ruleset. It's with how an entire class of (prominent) Initiative systems work.

Quote from: estar;1091491If you think that shooting a bow and crossbow is that much faster, then my recommendation to remain consistent with D&D is to give a initiative bonus to missile weapons. Make it part of the weapon's description.

It's not that simple. Some actions should be always quicker to resolve than others. A melee attack needs to be faster than someone else traveling a certain distance, let's say 20 meters. That's how I see it.