General RPG Rules DiscussionDiscuss the rules of any game except D&D or Pathfinder, such as Arcana Evolved, Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars Saga, d20 Modern, and the like.
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One of my favorite RPGs, Victoriana, uses a tick-based system of sorts. Players roll initiative each round and take a single action on their turn. Players can take a number of actions equal to their Dexterity (1 is weak, 5 is quite good), but all actions take a -4 penalty per additional action being taken after the first. That means players have to announce all of the actions they plan on taking on their initiative. The first action occurs on their initiative count, and subsequent actions take place four ticks later. Ticks start high and count down, and no actions can be taken after tick 1. So players can take a lot of actions, but with the limiting factors of lower rolls, a cap at their Dexterity score, and no more than they can get off within their initiative roll.
Like most tick-based systems, it sounds more complicated in writing than it is in play. It's about the only complicated thing in the whole game, and my players had a lot of fun with it.
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I've used the ticks in 2e Exalted and it works wonderfully, if you use a battle wheel.
To do this, you put a wheel with a number of divisions on it, kind of like a clock. Everyone rolls initiative to determine their starting position. When you take an action, you move forward however many ticks your action takes. Then the GM just goes around the clock.
Example
Two Solar Exalted are facing off against an Abyssal. Everyone rolls initiative. Solar1 puts his counter at 3 o'clock, since he goes on 3. Solar 2 rolled poorly, and puts his on tick 6. The Abyssal puts his counter on tick 4.
Now combat goes around. The GM starts at 12 and goes around until he gets to someone's counter. Solar1 goes and does his Awesome Sword Attack. The attack is resolved, and it has a speed of 4 ticks, so he moves his counter up to 7 o'clock. Next is the Abyssal, who does his Strike of Doom. This is also 4 ticks, so he puts his counter at 8 o'clock.
Combat goes like this around the clock. It provides a nice easy way to see who is going to go next.
I have been out of gaming for a few years, but what is a Tick initiative system? Is that like Hero systems with action speeds or like Star Fleet battles and movement phases?
A system where your number of actions is determined by how long those actions take and not by an artificial round structure. At least, that is what I meant by it in the OP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crothian
In the White Wolf games everyone rolls the die poo,l for wits awareness and the number of success is when a person acts.
How does the system translate the high-good number of successes into a low-good tick of your first action?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay
It works well in Runequest (BRP) and Feng Shui. It was a flop in AD&D.
When was there a tick based system for AD&D?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay
It generally works better than you might think, but there are drawbacks.
As Crothian said, like what? Drawbacks I night not have seen was a large part of the motivation for starting this thread?
Ah, so obvious when you put it like that! Another potentially stupid question, if I may:
What a new character joins a combat that has already started?
You just don't do that
The character joining in the battle rolls just like everyone else did. Basically 8 ticks equals a round or something like that so that character gets placed in depending on their roll. It hasn't come up in our game yet so it is not a rule I'm 100% on.
On the AD&D thing... there was this thing called weapon speed. Mind you, characters were still limited to the usual number of actions, but different weapons were slower than others, different spells were faster or slower, and so forth.
Drawbacks: initiative becomes more involved to keep track of. "Wait, I was supposed to go," becomes a groaner. If the system restricts the round to a certain number of ticks or counts down, it may be possible to game the system to get more actions than your share. At that level of detail, suspension of disbelief problems can crop up (ok, the greatsword is arguably slower than the shortsword, but if the two opponents are fighting each other in melee, the greatsword fighter should go first).
What a new character joins a combat that has already started?
(regarding Scion/Exalted 2e)
That rule is a bit odd. At the beginning of combat, the guy who rolls the most successes wins, and goes on tick 0. Everybody else goes a number of ticks later, based on how many fewer successes they rolled than the winner. The most you can win by is 6, however, which is itself a somewhat wonky rule- if three combatants roll 20, 10, and 0 successes to join battle, the first guy will go on 0, the other two go on 6. I would have made the rule that they go on 0, 6, and 12, maybe.
You note down the number of successes the winner rolled, this is the "reaction count".
Later, if someone wants to jump in, they roll "Join Battle" (their initiative pool), and compare that to the reaction count.
Say the reaction count was 5. If, on tick 20, I decide to join battle, and roll 3 successes, I go on 20 + (5-3) = tick 22. So it's somewhat slower to join battle if the initial initiative winner was fast, even if he's no longer in the battle (got killed, left, whatever). I would probably have said that you're rolling against a 6 whenever you join battle late.
That's a minor quirk, really.
The major problem in the system is that it's possible, in the rules, to get your attacks down to speed 1 reliably. Due to the way actions and resource management happens in the games, being able to take 5 or 6 times as many actions as your opponent is not just a big advantage, it's an overwhelming advantage, AND you take up the bulk of the time at the table with your plethora of actions, leaving the other players twiddling their thumbs.
It's comparable to D&D 3.0 haste- effectiveness in the system is measured in actions taken, and it's such an advantage that it kind of wrecks the timing system as everyone races for speed. A common house rule as a result is that attacks can't drop below 2 ticks.
On the AD&D thing... there was this thing called weapon speed. Mind you, characters were still limited to the usual number of actions, but different weapons were slower than others, different spells were faster or slower, and so forth.
Not a tick-based system by the definition I was using, as the 'speed' doesn't make any difference to the number of actions you get.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay
Drawbacks: initiative becomes more involved to keep track of. "Wait, I was supposed to go," becomes a groaner. If the system restricts the round to a certain number of ticks or counts down, it may be possible to game the system to get more actions than your share.
A purely tick-based system has no need of rounds at all, AFAICT. I've heard Feng Shui is a tick-based system that also has rounds, but that could be using a different definition of "tick-based".
Anyone in the know care to clarify how initiative works in Feng Shui?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pawsplay
At that level of detail, suspension of disbelief problems can crop up (ok, the greatsword is arguably slower than the shortsword, but if the two opponents are fighting each other in melee, the greatsword fighter should go first).
As I understand it, you generally start counting down ticks after your first item, so a greatsword being slower is not a problem for the first attack.
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It's about the only complicated thing in the whole game, and my players had a lot of fun with it.
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