Steven,

I think it depends on what is accomplished within the round and how that translates into die rolls.

Some older D&D versions mentioned that in a fight you might strike several times in a round, but you are actually rolling just for that one good punch, slash, bowshot, whatever.  In this case, a round should be on the longer side.

If you literally want to roll for each strike, then the round is probably shorter, but I guess it depends how aggressive each fighter is in sizing up the other guy, playing it cautious, etc. Maybe they go at it, maybe they circle.  In a mass combat like a war where each side gets all tangled up with opponents all around, shorter might work better because fighters are maybe more opportunistic, looking for the opponents that's not paying attention - I don't know, I've never been in a real mass combat situation, I'm just thinking it through in my head.

Personally, I like a fluid combat round and not an exact time. You might say a combat round lasts 5-8 seconds.  If a fight lasted 6 rounds, it would be fine to say the total time was 30 seconds or 45 seconds - you leave the call up to the GM if it even ends up being necessary.

Quote from: Vic99 on August 16, 2021, 06:57:04 PM
Some older D&D versions mentioned that in a fight you might strike several times in a round, but you are actually rolling just for that one good punch, slash, bowshot, whatever.  In this case, a round should be on the longer side.

I think one thing that might not be stated enough about the length of AD&D rounds is, 1E still had a foot in the tabletop war game. And you can still play 1E as a tabletop war game. If you've got a couple of hundred figures on the battlefield, the LAST thing you want is to have to track hit points for each and every one of them. So 1E retains this calibration towards one-hit-kills being the norm. And that has to balance melee with missile with movement. And I think it's from that that emerges the turn length.

One thing I noted earlier that if you had 12 second rounds, the RoF rates in 1E would be exactly historically accurate. So it needs to be about 5 times as fast. I don't think it's a coincidence, though, that the cost and encumbrance of ammo are both about 5 times what is historically accurate. I think there was an intentional effort to get certain metrics right, but to speed up the game--well, apparently 5-fold--so that human participants can actually manage large scale battles.

I like how some people are thinking about things in terms of decision cycles. But if you're going to be doing big battles, I agree with 1E's calibration to one-hit-kills which sync best with one-minute-rounds. It's just that big battles aren't the ONLY thing I want to do. I still want to do them now and then, though.