Quote from: Bren;923510I may be misremembering where the notion of "cautious movement" came from.

"Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations
where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed)."

Dungeons & Dragons, Vol. 3 "The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures," p. 8

In theory I've always liked the 1 minute turn concept. In practice I find it hard with lazy imaginations. That's not to say if you don't like it you're a bad role player, only that people forget the convention and the collective construct of the battle collapses. The one action, or a set number of actions equals a full turn is generally easier for players to keep in their head. With Fractured Kingdom I went with the 6 second round with each character able to take 2 actions. With Metahumans Rising, a super hero RPG, player characters still have the 2 actions but in comic book fashion the time has been changed to 1 round should feel like a page in a comic book, sometimes 2 if you get a splash panel in. Splash panels in this instance offering PCs a reward for well described and generally amazing actions. (Such as using a tank to batter a foe, as happened in out AP.)

Quote from: Certified;924159In theory I've always liked the 1 minute turn concept. In practice I find it hard with lazy imaginations. That's not to say if you don't like it you're a bad role player, only that people forget the convention and the collective construct of the battle collapses. The one action, or a set number of actions equals a full turn is generally easier for players to keep in their head. With Fractured Kingdom I went with the 6 second round with each character able to take 2 actions. With Metahumans Rising, a super hero RPG, player characters still have the 2 actions but in comic book fashion the time has been changed to 1 round should feel like a page in a comic book, sometimes 2 if you get a splash panel in. Splash panels in this instance offering PCs a reward for well described and generally amazing actions. (Such as using a tank to batter a foe, as happened in out AP.)

So now we're lazy too?  Why thank you, oh great overlord of gaming.  Thank you so much for proving to us what we've been doing wrong all these years.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: Christopher Brady;924220So now we're lazy too?  Why thank you, oh great overlord of gaming.  Thank you so much for proving to us what we've been doing wrong all these years.

:rolleyes:

Does the smiley mean you are joking, or that you missed what I was trying to say? To quote myself:

QuoteThat's not to say if you don't like it you're a bad role player, only that people forget the convention and the collective construct of the battle collapses.

This can happen to anyone whether you like the concept of the good hit amidst many or not. Additionally, I went on to talk about not using it in game design because it's a difficult concept to maintain at all times.

Quote from: Bloodwolf;924063So, hit points, healing, and armor class are good, but a 1 minute round isn't?

You really haven't seen people bitching about these other things?  People have been bitching about all of those things and more for as long as I can remember.

Quote from: yosemitemike;924313You really haven't seen people bitching about these other things?  People have been bitching about all of those things and more for as long as I can remember.

'Have been'? More like 'still are'.  I still am, for example.

Quote from: yosemitemike;924313You really haven't seen people bitching about these other things?  People have been bitching about all of those things and more for as long as I can remember.

And now there are games that don't have those things, too!  So people who don't like those things can, oh, I don't know... maybe play another game!

Quote from: spaceLem;919940When I'm running OD&D, rounds officially last 10 seconds. I think Delta did some research that suggested that 10 seconds is also the average length of time between damaging blows for professional boxers and archers, so I'm happy describing a single attack. In practice though, rounds last some vague unspecified length of time, which is enough to do something interesting, but not too long that it feels like no one else is doing anything.

I'll admit that a minute seems like a really long time to me, and I have difficulty picturing all the stuff that could happen during such a long interval.

Yeah, that's my reason to shorten the rounds, too, it's not even about realism anymore:).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;919976There is always a solution for That Player.

But if anyone uses said "solution", you'd need to come up with a solution to the problem of having That GM;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;924358And now there are games that don't have those things, too!  So people who don't like those things can, oh, I don't know... maybe play another game!

Totally true!

In my opinion, the fuzzy timing of the (specifically) COMBAT "turn/round" comes from this:

Chainmail page 8 says, "one turn of play is roughly equivalent to one minute of time in battle", where a "turn" encompasses troop movement, missile/magic attacks, and any "contained melees" where two troops touch bases and fight it out for a variable number of "rounds" (page 15: determine casualties, determine "morale scores", find difference and continue melee 'this turn' if the chart says to). Thus multiple "melee rounds" happen in a Chainmail "strategic turn".

Once the combat rules were brought to the tight confines of the dungeon and the troop-figurine scale changed to 1:1, melee is happening a lot more often  compared to the other phases (less maneuvering in formation and very few clear missile fire lines), so often the missile troops and artillery (mages) are sitting through a bunch of die-rolling for multiple melee rounds until some-one breaks/surrenders... -And then some-one asked "why can't we just do missile/magic fire along with melee?" and the modern "combat round" is born. Some groups reject this "let's do everything within the 'melee' phase" rule shift, and retain the other "phases" (movement/missile-artillery/melee/2nd missile), but shorten the turn down to a "6/10 second round" to avoid the previous problem of multiple melee-rounds-in-the-same-turn.


Anyway, that's how I see it. As a side note, this is why I decided to have "1 minute ship combat turns" for my re-design of the Earthdawn 4E ship-to-ship rules. The scale is much better for large blocks of people working together. Melee doesn't happen until a Boarding Action occurs, at which point we roll the Boarding Maneuver that turn to see how well then attacker can take ground on the target's deck, but then we flip back to individual (6 second) combat rounds as the Players are playing individual hero Adepts.

Trying to manage ship movement, ship weapon-reload times, and each individual's 1-action-per-round economy - while staying at the 6-second combat round scale (like they try to do in the various Pathfinder ship rules) is tedious, overly complex, and robs the people around the table of fun opportunities. In my design (1 minute ship combat turns), every ship gets 1 "Ship Maneuver" they take on their Initiative score, and a number of "Officer Maneuvers" they can spend like Instants (in various card games) to react to what the other ships are doing (and tap individuals for their expertise). As an example of that, an Officer Maneuver like "Return Fire!" may let you (the Chief Gunner, or one of his Mates) line up and fire one Ship Weapon Battery on the ship Ramming you during their Initiative count, but the "Assault!" Ship Maneuver lets you line up one Battery for every success scored on the Maneuver roll vs the other ship's Maneuverability (done on your Initiative count - and countered by the target's available Officer Maneuvers).

Quote from: Bren;923510I don't think movement was half one's movement rate. But off the top of my head, I assume two moves was to facilitate partial movement and attack as well as well as split move and fire for certain troop types e.g. horse archers such as the Parthians, Byzantines, and Mongols. In addition, Elven Archers on foot have the ability both in Chainmail and in the entry for elves in Volumen 2 for split move and fire.

We're not talking about combat rounds, though. We're talking about turns.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;924129"Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations
where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed)."

Dungeons & Dragons, Vol. 3 "The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures," p. 8

Bren's "cautious movement" is one move per turn, though, so it's not covered there.

Quote from: Certified;924159In theory I've always liked the 1 minute turn concept. In practice I find it hard with lazy imaginations. That's not to say if you don't like it you're a bad role player, only that people forget the convention and the collective construct of the battle collapses.

I may have already said this, but there's a conflation here between "one minute combat round" as a general concept (which can work just fine) and "one minute combat round" as it specifically exists in OD&D (where it actively contradicts other mechanics).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;924659We're not talking about combat rounds, though. We're talking about turns.

And in Chainmail missile fire is one phase during a turn.

QuoteBren's "cautious movement" is one move per turn, though, so it's not covered there.

I agree Gronan's quote doesn't cover what I said.