A recent thread about declaration mechanics made me think about Statement of Intent. Statement of Intent is common in the BRP world but not so much in the D&D world. it's when everyone says what there PC will do prior to initiative or prior to anyone taking an action.
I was running 5E and had a player join the game and his other DM was using statement of intent. The logic is sound, you only have 6 seconds to decide so you can't just change targets on the fly, but I found it slowed things down so much I more or less ignored the thing except maybe the first round of combat.
I'm curious if anyone else uses Statement of Intent or if they've modified the idea in any way.
I last saw this used in a game of D6 Star Wars many, many years ago. Prior to that I saw it used in, IIRC, Twilight 2000. I don't think it was hardwired into those games, but was instead something the GM opted to implement. In both cases, it was dropped for the same reason you mention--it slows things down.
It can be used, but basically needs its own line of initiative to pull it off if everyone declares intent at the same time. Reverse order declare, normal order enact is what I've seen most commonly.
But you have to write a lot down to keep track, and it only really works in especially violent and swingy systems. Else the combat drags on forever.
I have something kind of like this though much less formal, and limited to a set of specific actions. for example I allow someone to "conceal their draw" such as them reaching into their pants or coat for a gun before any fighting starts. typically inferring something like a +1 to initiative or lowering the range on a surprise check.
Likewise letting them ready or overwatch an action given it has a pre-condition "I'll ready a shot at anything that comes through that door."
I use a "statement of intent" (what I have always known as the "declaration phase" of combat) -- and it works great -- but this is in a system without turn-based combat. We all roll simultaneously, so the declaration phase is necessary to know what everyone is rolling for.
I agree with you that in turn based systems, where every player rolls for their action outcome one-at-a-time anyway, it's just too much of a time-sink for too little payoff.
It sounds like a good idea on paper, for people who think they're adding realism.
In practice, everyone has to document their action somehow, in case situations come up that invalidate the declared action. If you don't write it down somehow, you're relying on people's fuzzy memories of what was declared.
Next, you'll find that actions will invariably be wasted for various reasons, causing your combat to take additional rounds.
It's not clear to me what actual problem is being solved here that makes it worth the additional overhead.
It works fairly well, if you do reverse initiative order declare and then initiative order execute, at making initiative actually matter. Mainly in the sense that those with better initiatives can react to more and take preemptive action to interrupt key maneuvers.
It also can encourage tactical play and planning, for the more gamist folks, in that it's an added level of tactics.
This makes it a potentially decent choice for systems with combat that is over quickly and where each action has lethal intention.
However, in any system with hp bloat or strong survivability, it's not usually a good idea.
I usually play this way:
Describe the surroundings or the situation.
"What do you want to do?"
It's just a 2-player campaign, so I'm asking the other person how the party is to react.
It's easy enough with a small group, but becomes hard to track with a bigger one. The big plus is realism. In real life everything happens at once. When you decide what to do you don't know what everyone else is going to do at the same time. Taking turns is useful for a game, but kind of silly if you're trying to make your game as realistic as possible.
Quote from: Zalman on March 18, 2025, 12:14:59 PMI use a "statement of intent" (what I have always known as the "declaration phase" of combat) -- and it works great -- but this is in a system without turn-based combat. We all roll simultaneously, so the declaration phase is necessary to know what everyone is rolling for.
I agree with you that in turn based systems, where every player rolls for their action outcome one-at-a-time anyway, it's just too much of a time-sink for too little payoff.
I'm curious which system, and could you tell me more about that process and how it plays out? I'm interested in giving it a try in my games.
Quote from: Ruprecht on March 18, 2025, 10:48:19 AMA recent thread about declaration mechanics made me think about Statement of Intent. Statement of Intent is common in the BRP world but not so much in the D&D world. it's when everyone says what there PC will do prior to initiative or prior to anyone taking an action.
I was running 5E and had a player join the game and his other DM was using statement of intent. The logic is sound, you only have 6 seconds to decide so you can't just change targets on the fly, but I found it slowed things down so much I more or less ignored the thing except maybe the first round of combat.
I'm curious if anyone else uses Statement of Intent or if they've modified the idea in any way.
Star Wars D6 1st edition is similar. You have to declare in order to figure out initative.
This is one of the first things I house rule to a regular initative system.
Declaring actions, IME, tends to be clunky and inflexible. It does add another step to combat, and I don't think it adds anything worth the extra effort.
Quote from: Nakana on March 18, 2025, 04:05:10 PMQuote from: Zalman on March 18, 2025, 12:14:59 PMI use a "statement of intent" (what I have always known as the "declaration phase" of combat) -- and it works great -- but this is in a system without turn-based combat. We all roll simultaneously, so the declaration phase is necessary to know what everyone is rolling for.
I agree with you that in turn based systems, where every player rolls for their action outcome one-at-a-time anyway, it's just too much of a time-sink for too little payoff.
I'm curious which system, and could you tell me more about that process and how it plays out? I'm interested in giving it a try in my games.
It's a homebrew system I call Simultaneous Mass Opposed Roll (SMOR). I'll post a separate thread detailing it. Happy to answer any questions!
Edit: Here - https://www.therpgsite.com/design-development-and-gameplay/the-smor-system/
Quote from: Ruprecht on March 18, 2025, 10:48:19 AMA recent thread about declaration mechanics made me think about Statement of Intent. Statement of Intent is common in the BRP world but not so much in the D&D world. it's when everyone says what there PC will do prior to initiative or prior to anyone taking an action.
I was running 5E and had a player join the game and his other DM was using statement of intent. The logic is sound, you only have 6 seconds to decide so you can't just change targets on the fly, but I found it slowed things down so much I more or less ignored the thing except maybe the first round of combat.
I'm curious if anyone else uses Statement of Intent or if they've modified the idea in any way.
I posted in the other thread about that but I'll repost here. Back in 3.5, I was running a larger sized group (6-8 players) so time was always an issue during combat. To reduce chatter and try to simulate a more interactive environment, I had players and NPCs reveal their actions in reverse initiative order so that higher initiatives could react to it accordingly and then have them actually occur in normal order... and it worked well. If what they declared was impossible or impractical by their turn then they could (iirc) sacrifice their move or standard action to change it. I could see folks here assuming that it would take alot more time but I was pretty ruthless (with fair warning to all players that I would be!) to have their actions decided at the top of the round as they'd only get a few seconds to declare.
I liked the idea of higher initiatives being able to somewhat react to what lower initiatives were more slowly doing and in play it felt that way luckily.
I've always used a statement of intent when DMing old-school D&D. But it's relatively vague, like the procedure outlined in Swords & Wizardry; it controls the order in which certain kinds of attacks occur (ranged versus melee), but it mostly matters for spellcasting on both sides because a spell is generally lost if a caster is struck before he gets the spell off.
Quote from: Corolinth on March 18, 2025, 12:35:04 PMIt sounds like a good idea on paper, for people who think they're adding realism.
In practice, everyone has to document their action somehow, in case situations come up that invalidate the declared action. If you don't write it down somehow, you're relying on people's fuzzy memories of what was declared.
Next, you'll find that actions will invariably be wasted for various reasons, causing your combat to take additional rounds.
It's not clear to me what actual problem is being solved here that makes it worth the additional overhead.
I've seen facedown cards used for this (and yes, each character had a custom deck). Actually the Street Fighter RPG did most actions this way.
Statement of Intent is essentially Declaring Actions in TSR D&D, and it works perfectly fine there. I have used Declaring Actions in 5e as well and it works fine there, too. And in my experience is often faster because players decide and then dice rolls from initiative and movement, etc., is just resolution. (Reactions and Ready Actions are pretty much the only floating points in resolution. It's not hard, IMHO.) The big issue of player dithering, or lost player attention between players' actions resolving, is cut right out.
THE big issue is the predominant shift from Group Initiative to Individual Initiative (from 2.5e and then formalized in WotC 3e). The former works great with Declared Actions as does the latter. But the latter has potential for moments in between where you can reassess the "board state" and react. And that temptation for meta-gaming (acting with outside or pre-knowledge into the game world moment) is huge for pro-active players. So often optimizer people grab for that Individual Initiative benefit without noticing the cost-benefit cost of analysis paralysis dithering and lost attention from other players.
Having been on both sides of the screen I have returned to appreciate the former combination of Group Initiative and Group Declared Actions at the Top of the Round. It has sped up games immensely with a miscellaneous grouping of gamers, many with previously not assessed strengths and weaknesses. I enjoy the extra play time and engagement from which my table benefitted.
Is there a trade off, of course! Individual Initiative and Individual Declared Actions Within the Round truly excels cinematically in low number combatant encounters, such as duels. But its overhead costs of lost game time & player attention restricts my greater implementation. I find using the right tool for the moment is not so hard if you understand why you are using the tool and its strengths and weaknesses.
edits: numerous corrections, but also a GM tip! To not rely on individual fuzzy player memories, Group Declarations at the Top of the Round relies on group memory -- and often there's at least one good memory in a group. Further pencils or dry erase or washable crayon jotting down round declarations on a palimpsest is great for holding large groups to account. I've found quick notes and group memory prevent so much confusion (players are free to create notes, too).
AD&D and think maybe 2e had declaration of actions. Probably in a few other TSR RPGs.
Dragon Storm had it as part of combat due to how combat and powers played out.
The main problem can be that it can end up gridlocking combat and turn already swingy combat into a slog.
But when its fully intigrated and the options are lower then it can work.
It was part of my own system and from experience it worked. But the DM needed a firm grasp of who was where doing what. In hindsight using minis, or tokens, would make it alot easier for everyone to see that.
I tend to use a limited form of declaration of actions, though it will vary by what game I'm playing and what I'm trying to emulate.
In a D&D/OSR game I usually play combats using side initiative, no opportunity attacks (characters are locked in melee), and allow spellcasting to be interrupted. To that end I require anybody who wants to cast a spell or flee/withdraw from melee to declare it before initiative, but otherwise there is no need to declare. This is easy to track, covers down on some instances where player knowledge can invalidate certain game mechanics, and allows for some meaningful choices.
It's worth noting that I may occasionally require declaration of certain other actions, but that tends to be very scene/situation specific, and I'll just offer the option at the appropriate time.
Yeah, as others have said, cyclic initiative is a bigger time sink than declaration of intent. Still, even with group/side initiative, the cost of the declaration is not zero. Side initiative scales better with many players and foes. Declaration of intent scales linearly at first, then degrades past some threshold. Cyclic initiative degrades very rapidly past a handful of participants.
I use a mixture that tries to get the best of each option. Your individual initiative roll puts you in a phase, First, Fast, Middle, Slow, or Last. Then within each phase, I handle movement more or less the way B/X phases handled missile/melee/magic things. You declare broadly your intent, then we resolve it, along with whatever specific action you want to take.
The difference with B/X is that since my 5 speed phases are used instead of missile/melee/magic, I don't need the intent until we hit the phase you are in. Plus, I don't need to know what anyone got, as I merely announce "Fast" or whatever phase we are on, then resolve that. This cuts down on the back and forth chatter just to resolve order. There's no problem remembering intent, because as soon as everyone in that phase has announced, you are going to do what you just said.
The players have limited tactical timing options in that within their phase they can react to what has happened in prior phases, knowing that others are left to act in later phases, but within their own phase, I don't allow it. There's no coordination beyond whatever tactics they've agreed to beforehand (and their willingness to stick to those plans) as every action within the phase is simultaneous. Thus a ton of the analysis paralysis also goes out the window.
All the "round" stuff happens at the end, after everyone has gone. Like rolling to see if a dying character died. So if you are "slow" and the last person to act on your side, then you know that if you don't treat them, they may die. Or if your treatment abilities suck, it may not matter. Up to you what you do with this information.
Even with 12-15 players and double that number monsters, this runs really fast (with some practice), because at any given moment, I'm only dealing with a third or less of that total. Anyone that wants to "ready" or "delay" is dropping into a later phase (with some modest corner case house rules to support logical actions, like using a spear to strike the first person that comes through the door).
I only use declaration for broad intent and movement because it address about 80% of the goofy things that happen with pure cyclic, tactical movement. As in, if you are charging the orc, and he is charging you, in the same phase, then you meet somewhere in the middle. I don't worry about spell interruption using the initiative system, because most spells take an action to prepare and another action to cast. Even someone that has a shortcut on that, is casting in a later phase than they prepare. So your action to "prepare" the spell is the declaration of an activity that can be interrupted by a later action.
It's all processing speed of the participants. One thing at a time, cyclic initiative "works" in the sense that it is easy to explain and easy to execute, the same way that shopping "works" if you go to 5 stores in the same town, but go home between each one. That is, it's a process that eventually accomplishes the outcome with some side effects that aren't worth it. Initiative processes work better when you can address some of the side effects in other parts of the mechanics, to limit what happens in the initiative system itself. Declaration of intent is no different than any other mechanic in that respect, in that it works better if used in a system designed for it.
How do you define your 5 speed phases?
Quote from: Melichor on March 19, 2025, 12:37:27 PMHow do you define your 5 speed phases?
It's a simple chart on a 1-page handout for the players with common combat operations. They are rolling d20+mod against it, with DC 5 as slow, 10 as middle, and 15 as Fast. Natural 1 and 20 are "last" and "first", respectively, though there are some special cases that can also put someone in those phases. The mods are fairly limited most of the time, with it nearly always being the same as the equivalent of a 3E Reflex save (before it gets out of hand in the higher levels of that game).
All of my modifiers are fairly tame, more like B/X or AD&D than WotC structures, despite using the d20+Mod vs target number throughout. We've got 1 mid-level character that just went up to +8, which is almost the maximum possible at that level. Most stay under +5 up into the middle-high range. Adapting this to 3E, as an example of higher mods, I'd set all of those TNs 5 higher, and change the way the natural 1/20 work.
I use the chart because each player only rolls once, no matter how many henchman/hirelings they have. The henchmen/hirelings act on a different phase (usually) based on another column in the chart. That also keeps a player from needing to do too much at once.
Thanks!
I never thought about chunking up initiative like that.