Initiative: Evolutions in design

[GMMichael]

Turn based = broken?

In designing my own system, I'm replacing initiative with a different system for action pacing. DMMike has his own initiative system innovations.

Little bit of a necro, but I'd like to see how your action-pacing initiative is coming along. Mine has survived a few versions with, as far as I can tell, very little modification. And then there are the usual complaints about turn-based initiative, as voiced by LindyBeige:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLzzh7AuEBkEnAr1Ic5LKbJbvBq2BzVTGr&v=_P7iSbnd4WU
Short version: turn-based initiative is broken.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

And then there are the usual complaints about turn-based initiative, as voiced by LindyBeige:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLzzh7AuEBkEnAr1Ic5LKbJbvBq2BzVTGr&v=_P7iSbnd4WU
Short version: turn-based initiative is broken.

But it isn't. My comment 5 months ago to that video hasn't really changed. The general idea of D&D initiative systems has always] been that during a round the resolution of one characters actions are assigned priority over another persons actions (or even one entire side is given priority over the other). Because D&D is not a combat simulation but a roleplaying game lots of other considerations basically tell realism to get stuffed. There are more important things to worry about in an RPG than "realism" even if versions of D&D don't always choose wisely which things to emphasize. You choose your character's actions for one round at a time while knowing that you can't do everything you want to do all the time without the enemy ever being able to effectively respond. When your PC has taken a turn everyone else, allies and opponents ALSO get turns. There is nothing broken about that basic concept, though often the execution may be lacking.

Players seek the advantage of their PC being first in the initiative order so that they can potentially prevent an opponent from acting effectively as HE wants to act, or even killing him before he can respond at all. But he otherwise GETS HIS TURN to act just as you do. Your character doesn't just stand there doing nothing... waiting - as LindyBeige tries to insist. Your character has simply reached the end of the limited sequence of actions he's allowed in a round. It's the players business to attempt to ensure that choice of actions would leave your character in an advantageous position, relatively safe from counterattack, or otherwise able to withstand a counterattack. He doesn't like that. His assumption - as given in that video - seems to be that no matter what you've chosen to do, your character must be free to react PRIOR to the enemy being able to harm you - simply because it's illogical that you'd ever LET the enemy do you harm (as if that's always up to you).

Initiative systems exist to ensure that you can't do that. Yes, it's unrealistic to "take turns" but it is a tested, effective way to run combat in A GAME - which is why so many games do use it and continue to use it. Failure to accept or appreciate how the mechanics of the game work, or WHY they work the way they do, doesn't mean that those mechanics are broken and worthless and deserving of only ridicule and scorn.

In particular, 1E AD&D initiative is a mess and deserving of heaps of ridicule and scorn, but his "criticism" of EVERY version of D&D revolves very much around the mere fact that D&D isn't Runequest, and because it isn't Runequest it is manifestly inferior in every way. It would be one thing to simply say he doesn't like how D&D handles the issue (different strokes and all that), and that's kinda where he starts out in that video, but he's definitely not trying to be objectively critical or even just express a preference. When it comes to his videos about D&D he's a fanboy with his own agenda.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, it's unrealistic to "take turns" but it is a tested, effective way to run combat in A GAME - which is why so many games do use it and continue to use it.

Yes, but there's some easy ways of mitigating that "unrealism" somewhat while still maintaining a playable game:
- the most basic is to re-roll or somehow shake up the initiative order every round to both reflect the chaotic nature of battle and avoid the all-too-abusable predictability of locked-in turn order
- use a smaller die (we use d6) and rule that "tied" actions resolve simultaneously as much as possible; for those times when you have to know what happens first, roll a sub-initiative
- use common sense where needed e.g. allow two characters to move together on the lower one's initiative
- as far as is practical, give every participant its own initiative - don't batch groups or sides together unless you just don't have enough dice


Lanefan

 

[GMMichael]

Lanefan

Awww! That's it!?

Players seek the advantage of their PC being first in the initiative order so that they can potentially prevent an opponent from acting effectively as HE wants to act,

Good points. Yes, it's a system that is fair and allows some characters to get the jump on others.

But LB's example, if not his whole argument, highlights the point best: if he casts a spell that is supposed to push enemies away from him, only to watch those enemies get up and beat the crap out of him, has Initiative done what it's supposed to do?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

- the most basic is to re-roll or somehow shake up the initiative order every round to both reflect the chaotic nature of battle and avoid the all-too-abusable predictability of locked-in turn order

I grew to really dislike cyclic initiative from 3E because of it's predictability in that regard - in fact it often just got tedious.

- use a smaller die (we use d6) and rule that "tied" actions resolve simultaneously as much as possible; for those times when you have to know what happens first, roll a sub-initiative

I went the other way and use a d12. Tied actions are tied but many issues with 1E initiative arose out of it's obsession with going to complicated lengths to resolve ties. Best approach then seemed to be to reduce the number of ties with a larger die.

- use common sense where needed e.g. allow two characters to move together on the lower one's initiative

This, I think, is a big one. Simply giving the DM leeway to have events proceed according to what makes sense or just makes for a better game is preferable to pages and pages of intricate and subtle rules for initiative. A bit ironic given how I see LindyBeige's perspective.

- as far as is practical, give every participant its own initiative - don't batch groups or sides together unless you just don't have enough dice

I've split the difference so far with PC's rolling individually but rolling for monsters as a group simply to save myself the hassle, but I reserved the right to change that whenever it suits me and roll individually for monsters. I've been running a game with a bunch of players who were completely inexperienced with 1E so up to now I've let a number of things go unenforced so as to let them get their feet under them, but this reminds me that I need to start being a bit more of a stickler about some things. "Burdening" myself with individual initiative for monsters might be worth the added effort for how combat plays out.

But LB's example, if not his whole argument, highlights the point best: if he casts a spell that is supposed to push enemies away from him, only to watch those enemies get up and beat the crap out of him, has Initiative done what it's supposed to do?

And the simple counterpoint that occurs to me is, yes, it has. He wanted the spell to end the combat: "I've thrown my enemies away from me! Victory is mine!" However, the power of the spell was not what he wanted it to be and he should have understood and expected that it was only going to be a temporary effect. They would get up, charge back at him, and the fight would continue.

Initiative gave him the advantage of acting in that round before his enemies which was all it was meant to do, designed to do, and what he should have then expected from it. That he failed to secure victory with one spell doesn't mean initiative didn't work. At best it means initiative doesn't do what he seems to think it's supposed to do in coordination with the spell - that ALSO didn't do what he seemed to think it was supposed to do. It sounds to me like it worked perfectly according to the game system he was using. It just was not the game system he wanted it to be. Rather than adjust his thinking and his tactics to suit the game he was playing (say, perhaps by attempting to coordinate actions with others to divide and conquer with his spell as the opening move, or simply realizing that his spell was at best a very temporary reprieve), he simply pronounced it a broken failure. Shouldn't he have read and understood the game rules and realized the spell did not incapacitate enemies - it simply inconvenienced them while inflicting some damage? And that doesn't really address how initiative was then a failure even if it was "unrealistic".

He wants D&D to be Runequest, and for initiative to be... free-flowing according to a negotiable narrative, and therefore doesn't want to accept or work within its constraints. That doesn't make it broken.

 

[Umbran]

But LB's example, if not his whole argument, highlights the point best: if he casts a spell that is supposed to push enemies away from him, only to watch those enemies get up and beat the crap out of him, has Initiative done what it's supposed to do?

COuld they have beaten him up *even more* if he hadn't pushed them away? If yes, then initiative did what it was supposed to do.

So, if they could have stood there and taken a Full Attack action, as opposed to a Move and a Attack Action, then having initiative was a benefit. Maybe not as much benefit as he really wanted - but how often do we get what we want in bloody fights to the death?

 

[Umbran]

I'm using a variant initiative for my Ashen Stars game.

Ashen Stars standard initiative goes this way - if you're talking about a conflict between two people, the one who states they are taking an action goes first, and you alternate.

When you have a more complicated combat, you rank those involved in order of the number of points they have in the skill pool they intend to be using (like Scuffling or Shooting). In case of a tie, the one with the actual highest score (from which the pool derives) goes first. If they are still tied, PCs go before NPCs, and those who joined the scene later go after those who were there earlier. Since people tend to spend points from their pools in a fight, placement in the initiative order can change as the fight goes on.

So, basically, in Ashen Stars, it isn't random, or weighted random, but "whoever has the most oomph goes first".


But, my group has voted to do something else. We will be using Turn Tracker Cards to support the following system:

Whoever states they're acting first in a conflict, acts first. At the end of your action, you get to choose who acts next, including all the PCs and the enemies who have not yet gone as possible choices. You must choose someone who has not gone yet this turn. Once everyone has gone, everyone refreshes, and the person who went last in the previous round chooses the first in the next round. They may choose themselves.

Note that this means that if the PCs choose themselves first, and then hand off to the antagonists, then the antagonists can choose to go twice in a row, without the PCs being allowed to mitigate the enemy's actions in between. That can be painful, especially if the antagonist is the sort to focus fire. So, there is some strategic decision making involved. This system encourages "Bump, set, spike" kind of action, as the PCs can choose to have some characters set up situations early in the round for a later teammate to take advantage of later in the round.

 

[TreChriron]

...We will be using http://www.drivethrucards.com/product/146133/Turn-Tracker-Cards]Turn Tracker Cards[/url] to support the following system:

...

First, this sounds like a cool idea.

Second, your URL is borked. Please choose a linker that hasn't linked yet to fix the link.

 

[Lord Twig]

So I must have missed it. What is a non-initiative system? One way or another everyone needs to take turns. Now those turns might resolve simultaneously, but there are still turns.

I am familiar with RuneQuest's Statement of Intent and Strike Ranks. Hero System's Segments and Phases. ShadowRun's dicepools where highest goes first, then subtract 10 and if it is still positive you can go again. D&D's initiative roll. And various systems where it is simply the highest Dex goes first. But all of those are essentially an "initiative system".

So is there something else I am missing?

 

[Umbran]

Second, your URL is borked. Please choose a linker that hasn't linked yet to fix the link.

Oops! Fixed it. The "linker" was just me fobbing the url tags.