Hi all
Yesterday during play, it occurred to me that there are two (possibly quite obvious) ways of doing combat, that I imagine really differ in terms of game experience.
Method 1.
The way I do it now, is go down the initiative list, have the players state what they want to do and make the appropriate rolls. This makes for relatively fast play and is satisfying, because every player immediately gets feedback on their attempt.
The problem is that other players also know of this feedback, causing them to adapt to the outcome of other actions. Since all combat is supposed to be simultaneous and happening in the span of about 6 seconds, such adaptation should not be possible, I think. If you are trying to shoot a goblin you will aim for him and release your bow, regardless of whether an ally has critted said goblin.
Method 2.
A solution to this would be to have all characters state what they want to do, and only resolve the actions once they are stated. Perhaps this is the way combat is supposed to work (I may have been doing it wrong and I am away from books). It seems to be a bit more boring, though -- every player would have to wait on the turn resolution for quite a bit, I imagine.
Has anyone experimented with these two types of resolution? Which works best in your opinion?
tijmz wrote:
I keep playing with initiative.
I used to use method 1 a lot. Then I switched to 2. Then I tried popcorn initiative (where one person wins the roll and must say who goes next once their turn is over).
Ive tried it using cards, I've tried it with call & response.
In the end, you learn it all works fine. You need to balance competing priorities. One of my biggest concerns though, is time. Time is what you spend when playing a TTRPG, so for me, any bit of time must have a return on it.
Any time I spend must have as much fun as possible, or otherwise enable the next bit of time to have more fun. There are administrative aspects to the game that cost time, but also increase fun. Then there are time-sinks that just eat up play time.
To an extent, initiative is like that. It's an admin deal that takes time. All it gives you in return is a way to facilitate or manage your tablein a combat.
My advice then is this: If you can't run initiative in a really neat and fun way, run the fastest method you can.
bawylie wrote:
Part of my playing with it included that old style round-by-round initiative.
Pro: all the decision-making was lumped into one block of time instead of spread out over every player. Like each player taking 3 minutes to decide an action x 4 players = 12 min. By lumping it together, decision time = 5 min instead.
Con: roll and countdown every round. (Which the players don't particularly care for).
As a player, and using a different game system entirely, we used #2. I hated it. The key problem was you would set up your action and then either your target would move or someone else would kill it, and that would waste your action. Only those early in the initiative could do anything useful. Part of it was unfairness on the part of the DM: he would make you declare but he would let his mobs do whatver during their turn.
You'd also open yourself to long delays as players argue their tactics.
If you acted fairly, and your players were mature & cooperative, it might work out fine.
everyone rolls initiative & jots down a note thier inititive # & of what they intend. You don't need to write a novel, just something clear & concise so that it's known you haven't suddenly changed your action in response to something.
Then we count from 1 on up & you jump in at your #. If your tied with somebody/thing we roll randomly to see wich happens 1st. Repeat as oft as neccecary.
Yes, we've had plenty of actions get negated, screwed up, etc. But we count that as part of the fun.... Sadly not all of the games I play in use this method.
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the other common way it gets done is your #1.
I've been GMing and DMing for about three decades over many different systems. In my D&D 5e campaign I use a rolled init first round then a fixed init after that (10+DEX mod, modified by home rules for weapons and spells). Otherwise it is basically like the #1 set up. Yes, it allows the players to metagame a bit as soon as they figure out the init flow - but it also keeps things moving because they know when their turn is coming up watching the combat tracker (I run a Fantasy Playground campain via computer).
But I don't worry about it too much. First of all, my monsters can work with free telepathy and cordinated action if I choose to make them do so. Second, the overall combat rules do not reflect an actual melee with real weapons and armor so why worry about one more concession to game play and story telling?
I *really* want to try the HackMaster system.
I sounds really convoluted, but I have seen a couple of videos and it goes pretty smoothly.
everthing takes a certain amount of time, and you just go second by second.
Please note: I am just picking random times as an illustration, I don't know how long each action really takes.
So Bob is attacking with a greatsword (7 seconds)
Mary is attacking with a shortsword (3 seconds)
Kobold is attacking with a dagger (2 seconds)
Else is casting a 3rd level spell (7 seconds)
1 nothing happens
2 Kobold hits Mary, declares he is attacking with dagger again (2 seconds)
3 Mary hits kobold, declares she is going to drink a potion ( 5 seconds)
4 Kobold hits mary, declares dagger attack (2 seconds) Bob declares he is now going to cast a level 1 heal spell (3 seconds)
5 nothing
6 kobold hits
7 spell goes off, Bob Heals Mary
8 Mary drinks potion kobold hits
etc
Like I said, it seems really cumbersome at first.... but it actually flows very smoothly, and it allow folks to change their minds etc.
I go by #1 and think that's how the rules want you to play the game. #2 just doesn't work because it's important to know what has happened so you can react on it. Otherwise you'd just keep hitting air. #2 might work if the described actions are vague, though. That leaves it to the DM to narrate a cool scenario based on the input. You take away a lot from player decisions then, though.
I use Method #2 during the surprise round or just prior to rolling initiative. Method 1 is how I handle combat generally. I have used Method #2 when dealing with a string of combats that would be uninteresting by themselves because it was more fun to run the combats more like old school Dragon Lair.