Older editions have one major strength that often gets pitched as a weakness: there just aren't that many tactical decisions to make in combat. People who don't understand the game might get tangled up in the rules governing charges, weapons of unequal length, etc., but that stuff is all deterministic - once you know how it works it doesn't take any time. And other than goofy stuff you might make up now and then to spice things up, your movement amounts to: enter combat, stay in combat, hover around fringes of combat, or flee. And attacks are more or less dialed in. You either make one or you don't, and it is obvious how you execute it. Receiving attacks is just as simple: you don't have any decisions to make; you either lose hit points or you don't. Half the second-wave games were written to expand this and give everyone more decisions. And it resulted in some good combat engines...all of which way too deadly and/or slow to play D&D the way people are accustomed to playing it. If you want a game where a lot happens in an evening, the simplicity and minimal decision making in pre 3E D&D is terrific.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;999706How could a combat even last 5-10 minutes? Like, a combat beyond fighting two goblins or something. Even if everyone took their turns quickly, the amount of turns + the descriptions would make it take a while. Was it really that fast in older systems?

It still is that fast in many systems:).

Taking away the grid will speed things up, too. I've noticed games I run on roll20 are much slower than games I run IRL because there is a great deal more dithering about where exactly to place your token for Pareto optimal combat effectiveness.

I think the fastest quasi-realistic combat system I've played is Melee (or, equivalently, TFT). If there are only two players and both know what they are doing and both are controlling only 1 or 2 figures each, then you can resolve a surprisingly granular, nuanced fight in 10-15 minutes. That is what the game is designed for: quick, interesting table-top gladiatorial combats. And it works for that. But, as soon as you throw in 3-4 players or a combat between a party of 6-8 PC's and hirelings vs. 30 orcs, you are pretty screwed - that is going to take an hour or two even if you are working hard to be efficient. The abstract nature of 'classic' forms of D&D keeps the ball rolling pretty fast even in this latter situation. I can resolve my squad of 10 orc archers shooting into a party with literally one roll of a handful of dice, a spear charge by another squad is not much more difficult, and a group of experienced players can be cajoled into sorting out a round of action fairly quickly, just because they don't honestly have that much to figure out. The things that take longer are 'spotlight' moments, like a thief who is sneaking around the edges of a fight or a wizard who won't pull his thumb out of his ass and make up his fucking mind about what spell he wants to cast that round. These sorts of situations require a proactive, semi-bully DM to keep moving.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;999756That sounds just like 5e though. And are you saying you didn't use Initiative in older editions?

Each edition has a slight variation on initiative (and much, much text has gone into discussing the nuances of each). The differences have real consequences, but for our purposes here they just boils down to which use group or individual initiative and which roll for initiative every round and which just do so at the beginning of combat. 5e is a middle ground--there is individual initiative, but it is rolled once and then you proceed from there (and there's nothing like held actions or whatever to mess with this combat order). Ostensibly, 5e should be one of the quicker-combat editions. However, virtually every class has multiple possible options during combat, so there is more decision-making than in other editions. so...

Quote from: Larsdangly;999782Older editions have one major strength that often gets pitched as a weakness: there just aren't that many tactical decisions to make in combat. People who don't understand the game might get tangled up in the rules governing charges, weapons of unequal length, etc., but that stuff is all deterministic - once you know how it works it doesn't take any time. And other than goofy stuff you might make up now and then to spice things up, your movement amounts to: enter combat, stay in combat, hover around fringes of combat, or flee. And attacks are more or less dialed in. You either make one or you don't, and it is obvious how you execute it. Receiving attacks is just as simple: you don't have any decisions to make; you either lose hit points or you don't. Half the second-wave games were written to expand this and give everyone more decisions. And it resulted in some good combat engines...all of which way too deadly and/or slow to play D&D the way people are accustomed to playing it. If you want a game where a lot happens in an evening, the simplicity and minimal decision making in pre 3E D&D is terrific.

...pretty much this. Or, to expand, most of the tactical decisions that determine the outcome of combat (other than when the spellcasters decide to cast spells, which is a rare-but-gamechanging event) occur before combat starts. Sneaking and gathering information, negotiating with potential allies/potential enemies, preparing traps/bottle-necks/ambushes, these are the decision/agency-points of OSR D&D. During combat, it is mostly attack/rotate-to-the-back-line for fighters and hireling soldiers, fight most rounds and occasionally heal for clerics, fight or stay out of the way for thieves (most of their contribution was before combat or perhaps sneak attacking someone and then running for their friends), and deciding to use a precious spell, lobbing oil, or just staying out of harms way for the MUs. Not inherently better or worse, just a different spot to place the decision-making.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;999841Each edition has a slight variation on initiative (and much, much text has gone into discussing the nuances of each). The differences have real consequences, but for our purposes here they just boils down to which use group or individual initiative and which roll for initiative every round and which just do so at the beginning of combat. 5e is a middle ground--there is individual initiative, but it is rolled once and then you proceed from there (and there's nothing like held actions or whatever to mess with this combat order). Ostensibly, 5e should be one of the quicker-combat editions. However, virtually every class has multiple possible options during combat, so there is more decision-making than in other editions. so...

It's also when the person makes the decision versus when they need to commit to the decision.  If, for example, you have 4 players and a GM, and every player is actively engaged at all times, and nearly always has a good idea of what they will want to do as the situation is shaping up, working its way around to their chance to act again--then it doesn't much matter what initiative system you use.  The differences in time between them will be very slight,  You can pick an initiative system for other reasons, such as what it does to the decision making or the like.

As you may away from that set of parameters, then the usual suspects in group communication, process flow handling, and other such issues begin to manifest themselves. If, for example, the GM has a difficult time handling more than one player at a time, then something will need to be done to manage that issue, such as using cyclic initiative or a caller or something else.

Also, one of the major innovations of 4E that 5E decided to stick with is the concept that everyone has a way to contribute to combat every round. That sounds like a worthy goal (not one I agree with, but I understand why some people think this sounds good). And, the concept introduced in 3E and retained in 4E and 5E, that every class has a relatively broad suite of abilities not unlike the suite of spells magic users get to call on. This too can seem like a good idea, at least as a general goal. But when you combine them and flesh them out, you get massive character and NPC records (because of the long chains of abilities that you have to keep track of), and lots of people making lots of nuanced decisions every round. Then you are resolving 2 hour combats. And then you might as well be playing D&D Encounters or something, instead of a real adventure.

I'd say the change in 4E was that everyone has something to do, but the overall list of choices is relatively short.  However, the change was poorly implemented, in that it met the goal but broke other things.  In 5E, they kept the goal (for the most part), but pulled back on strictness of it to mitigate some of the 4E problems.  This puts 5E in some middle ground between something like Basic/Expert versus 3E.  You can make an argument for how close it skews to one or the other, but it is definitely a simpler set of things to manage than 3E.  Furthermore, many of the choices that are there are much easier for even a casual player to manage than the 3E suite.  Sure, technically a 5E fighter players, for example, needs to decide every round if they want to use Action Surge or Second Wind.  But those are only problem for raw novices that are still learning the game, and once used, go off the list of options for that fight.  Collectively, it can appear to be a lot, but the choices for any one player in any one round are there, but not onerous.  Having a much shorter list of spells prepared is wonderful, again, once the initial learning curve of the prepared list, manage the slots, is navigated.