D&D 5E Conversation with NPCs turns into combat

[Cap'n Kobold]

I don't think I do.

Well, then I don't think I misunderstood, and I don't think that's remotely logical.

It is logical enough: - Hemlock is just using different base assumptions in terms of action resolution than you are.
Hemlock seems to be taking the view that actions happen instantaneously within the turn of the person taking them. You seem to be taking the view that the actions take a discrete amount of time within the round even though they are resolved during the person's turn for simplicity's sake.

So in Hemlock's table, declaring casting the spell is instantaneous with the spell going off: a short, single word and small gesture perhaps. Thus there is nothing for the PCs to react to before the spell goes off.
Your table probably views casting a spell as a few seconds of chanting, waving and digging out components. Thus an alert person could react to the caster starting to cast before the spell actually goes off.

Both options are fine, and logical - given the base assumptions that they are operating under.

 

[Celebrim]

It is logical enough: - Hemlock is just using different base assumptions in terms of action resolution than you are.

Ok, let's see about that.

Hemlock seems to be taking the view that actions happen instantaneously within the turn of the person taking them.

Wait... you think that is logical?

You seem to be taking the view that the actions take a discrete amount of time...

Well, yes, because that point of view is completely logical. But ok, for the sake of argument, let's see if your description holds up as accurate.

So in Hemlock's table, declaring casting the spell is instantaneous with the spell going off: a short, single word and small gesture perhaps. Thus there is nothing for the PCs to react to before the spell goes off.

Nope, we've already ran into trouble. Far from being logically consistent, your description has already just within this short space of time become incoherent and self-contradictory. Either something literally is instantaneous or else it requires a measurable amount of time to occur, however short. It cannot be both. A short single word or a small gesture is not instantaneous by definition, but occurs in a short but still measurable amount of time. 'Short' and 'instantaneous' are not the same thing. My argument never depended on how long that amount of time was, but only that it existed as some amount of time larger than 0 (or larger than the minimum quantum of time). A short single word or small gesture can still be detected both by intent and actual action, and therefore responded to or interrupted. And notably, even Hemlock himself admits that this is true, both by the rules and by logic, since he would allow a person to prepare an action to respond to a person attempting to cast a spell.

Again, the familiar model of two gunfighters facing off is instructive. Drawing and firing a revolver is almost assuredly faster than getting off any non-quickened spell, and almost insuredly involves simpler and quicker gestures, and yet that action is logically and assuredly for the purposes of a game one which can be reacted to. Merely declaring your intention to draw and fire first does not insure that you in fact will, and to accept that illogical viewpoint will clearly have detrimental effects on the game resolution creating a metagame that bypasses the rules of the game.

Your table probably views casting a spell as a few seconds of chanting, waving and digging out components. Thus an alert person could react to the caster starting to cast before the spell actually goes off.

Importantly, not only does my table view that, but Hemlock's does as well, both as a matter of the flavor and mechanics of the rules (for example, Hemlock probably does not deny that spells can require components)!

Both options are fine, and logical - given the base assumptions that they are operating under.

Except that, they are not. Your own argument fails at practically every step to produce either a consistent view of the world or to describe Hemlocks actual view.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Ok, let's see about that.

Wait... you think that is logical?

No. As I pointed out in post 6 of this thread.

But I am able to understand that a group might have decided to use such a "mechanics first" method of resolution and rule for convenience's sake that actions are considered instantaneous. - Just because I don't agree with that view, it doesn't mean no one does.

And, as I stated in the post you're quoting, Hemlock's opinions of how that situation should be resolved do make sense if his table is making the above base assumption.

Well, yes, because that point of view is completely logical.

Thank you.

But ok, for the sake of argument, let's see if your description holds up as accurate.

We'll know when Hemlock posts to confirm or deny whether I've understood his viewpoint.

Nope, we've already ran into trouble. Far from being logically consistent, your description has already just within this short space of time become incoherent and self-contradictory. Either something literally is instantaneous or else it requires a measurable amount of time to occur, however short. It cannot be both. A short single word or a small gesture is not instantaneous by definition, but occurs in a short but still measurable amount of time. 'Short' and 'instantaneous' are not the same thing. My argument never depended on how long that amount of time was, but only that it existed as some amount of time larger than 0 (or larger than the minimum quantum of time). A short single word or small gesture can still be detected both by intent and actual action, and therefore responded to or interrupted. And notably, even Hemlock himself admits that this is true, both by the rules and by logic, since he would allow a person to prepare an action to respond to a person attempting to cast a spell.

My bad for not realising what a completely literal interpretation of that would mean. If it helps, replace "instantaneous" with "a discrete period of time, measurable, but that the table accepts is too short to realistically react to".
If my wording still seems a little fuzzy, take the example of the scene with Han Solo and Greedo in the cantina already mentioned to help visualise the phrase. You're correct that Han's shot couldn't be considered instantaneous: blasters aren't speed-of-light weapons. (And as you point out, even an action at light speed wouldn't technically be instantaneous.)
But between the noise of Han's blaster firing and Greedo getting hit, there wasn't really time to react.

Again, the familiar model of two gunfighters facing off is instructive. Drawing and firing a revolver is almost assuredly faster than getting off any non-quickened spell, and almost insuredly involves simpler and quicker gestures, and yet that action is logically and assuredly for the purposes of a game one which can be reacted to. Merely declaring your intention to draw and fire first does not insure that you in fact will, and to accept that illogical viewpoint will clearly have detrimental effects on the game resolution creating a metagame that bypasses the rules of the game.

In yours or my opinion, yes. If someone regards flicking a finger and saying "Zot!" as enough to cast a normal spell I daresay that is faster than drawing and firing a revolver. - as well as being harder to react to if it occurs mid-sentence in a conversation rather than when facing off against another gunfighter at high noon.

Importantly, not only does my table view that, but Hemlock's does as well, both as a matter of the flavor and mechanics of the rules (for example, Hemlock probably does not deny that spells can require components)!

The way he conceptualises spellcasting, and the way he resolves spellcasting as an action in the games mechanics may not be identical.

Except that, they are not. Your own argument fails at practically every step to produce either a consistent view of the world or to describe Hemlocks actual view.

My own view of the world in this situation was laid out on the first page, and I still think its pretty consistent.
I think that it is quite possible that I haven't fully understood Hemlock's actual view. I was just giving a best-guess and pointing out that people can have logically-consistent opinions that differ. - Generally due to different base assumptions.
Also trying to defuse a possible argument that had the potential to derail the rest of the thread.

 

[Celebrim]

My bad for not realising what a completely literal interpretation of that would mean. If it helps, replace "instantaneous" with "a discrete period of time, measurable, but that the table accepts is too short to realistically react to".
If my wording still seems a little fuzzy, take the example of the scene with Han Solo and Greedo in the cantina already mentioned to help visualise the phrase. You're correct that Han's shot couldn't be considered instantaneous: blasters aren't speed-of-light weapons. (And as you point out, even an action at light speed wouldn't technically be instantaneous.)

But between the noise of Han's blaster firing and Greedo getting hit, there wasn't really time to react.

Agreed. But that means mechanically that Han surprised Greedo. The question is, how was Greedo surprised despite being aware of Han and being wary, and having even got the drop on Han. That is to say, Greedo presumably has readied an action such as, "If Han makes any sort of sudden movement, I'll shoot."

My answer to that is the same as before. Han has achieved surprise by cozening Greedo into a state of unjustified relaxation. Greedo doesn't think he possibly can lose this engagement, and like an idiot he's lost track of Hans hands. Han doesn't beat Greedo to the punch merely because Han's player states he fires first, giving Greedo no time to react, or even because Han the PC intends to fire first in the fiction. The out of game order in which actions are declared has no bearing on the in game order that they are resolved. If Han's player declared any sort of normal attack action, or if Han in the fiction had tried a normal quickdraw, he would have fired second because of Greedo's presumed readied action (symbolized by the drawn and pointed gun, or vica versa the drawn and pointed gun can be presumed to be a readied action). Instead, Han passes a bluff check, one that is called out in film, to distract Greedo away from the fact that under the table Han has now drawn his weapon. And, with a drawn weapon that Greedo is not aware of, Han can now win a surprise check and attack without triggering Greedo's readied action.

Note that Han could not have succeeded in this plan if part of his body was not obscured from Greedo's view. Also note that the scene is a very common one in Western cinema. Compare with John Wayne's shower scene in "Big Jake".

By the RAW, I'm not sure the Greedo vs. Han cantina scene can even happen, so citing as an example a scene that isn't covered by the rules doesn't really serve to explain or justify the rules. At best, it provides an example of why in some edge cases, you'll need some sort of new ruling pertaining to surprise.

I think that it is quite possible that I haven't fully understood Hemlock's actual view.

I think it's readily apparent that though I have quibbles with how Hemlock justifies his viewpoint, I also consider how Hemlock justifies his viewpoint largely irrelevant. So even if I didn't fully understand his actual view, that's irrelevant, because the thing I object to the most is the outcome of his viewpoint, namely that you can, merely by performing a metagame action (that is, the player declaring an action), override the normal mechanics of the game. In my view, metagame actions NEVER exist in the fiction, and declarations always must reflect the current fictional positioning. In hopefully rare cases, fictional positioning in my viewpoint can override the rules to the extent that the rules do not actually address the situation in the fictional positioning (as in the case of Han and Greedo and partially obscured bodies and hidden actions), but metarules never can effect fictional positioning nor is the case Hemlock is describing actual rare, narrow, and not covered by the rules. The initiative declaration itself has no meaning in the fictional world, and a declaration to attack first can only achieve that success if it is based on fictional positioning that would in fact allow for the mechanical prospect of attacking first as provided by the rules, namely, achieving surprise.

There might be rare and narrow situations where I would rule that merely by declaring an action you could automatically achieve surprise, but they would not be the general case Hemlock raises. For example, I probably wouldn't object to achieving surprise with a Silent Still version of the spell or casting a spell which had no observable components, although probably for consistency with my own rulings I'd simply have this impose a massive penalty (-20?) on the observers opposed check to avoid surprise so that beings with godlike perceptiveness still might be able to react. If there was a hypothetical spell or ability which was an attack and which could be cast as immediate action, I likewise wouldn't object to using that attack to achieve surprise, because then it really would fall into the 'instantaneous' category you are talking about however it was imagined as color. Although as a practical matter, I wouldn't allow non-reactive attack actions as immediate actions in my game anyway.

Beyond that central point, you are also neglecting that I object not only to the fact that the color doesn't match the mechanics consistently, so that merely changing the color doesn't logically resolve the conflict I perceive. I also objected to the fact that Hemlocks own mechanics contradict themselves, such as the assumption that you can ready an action to resist an attack in once case that he treats as instantaneous in other cases.

Compare this position with my prior arguments over whether the metagame act of rolling for initiative is something that actually exists in the fiction. I have previously argued that the metagame act of rolling for initiative does not change the fiction, but merely acknowledges a state of the fiction that is presumed to exist. That is to say, in my view of the world, initiative is something that is inherent to the fiction, and we only start tracking it as a metagame convenience, but that it is there whether we declare it or not. This is in opposition to the view that if initiative is called for the fiction changes between two states of being, each of which has its own rules - much like an old Ultima style RPG where toggling between combat and non-combat determined whether you could move the party as a whole or its individual members separately (which was something that in some Ultima clones could be metagamed to change the rates of movement between PC's and NPCs). Likewise, my view suggests a PC can always that an initiative count and a round to round adjudication process begin, even if they don't plan to take immediate violent action, in contrast to viewpoints that suggest it's the DM prerogative to determine the game state.

In my opinion, the view opposed to mine is not logically consistent. Rather, I think it's actually justified by expediency rather than logical consistency. That is to say, Hemlock could validly argue that he does not care about logical consistency in his fiction, and that he uses this method because it works for him. But I don't think you can defend his position by claiming it's logically consistent when it clearly isn't.

You might argue that I place too much value on logical consistency - you early noticed that I took instantaneous very literally in a way that surprised you. And that's fine. We can argue or disagree over how much consistency we ought to achieve, since in a game I concede how much logical consistency you have is subjective. But that's a very different argument.

UPDATE: Since everyone keeps insisting I don't fully understand, I went back and reread his argument again, and I'm still convinced I understand it. Compared to some of the arguments I've seen related to this subject and justifying the point of view, it's not that illogical, but since it produces the same undesirable, problematic and illogical outcome I dislike it just as much.

Fundamentally, I think my problem with his justification comes down to the claim that unless otherwise stated, everyone is taking a Delay action implicitly, as if everyone was always just politely waiting their turn and waiting for the other party to take their turn, without the slightest concern in the world. This situation might pertain to a group of close friends having a conversation, but it's a wholly unreasonable framing of a tense negotiation between armed and potentially belligerent parties.

And while it's not a strict violation of the rules, it is applying a portion of the rules to a situation that they aren't meant to cover when much more applicable rules are at hand. Specifically, although you attempt to frame his argument as being based around the very brief nature of the character's action - flicking a finger and saying "zot!" - in fact quite the opposite is true of the assumption that standard combat rounds are implicitly occurring and that everyone is implicitly taking the Delay action only one character decides to be more proactive. If that is the rules description we apply to the situation, then not only does the player delay through a brief and surprising action, but stands stock-still and unreactive through entire lengthy actions as well. The attacking character could for example charge all the way across the room and strike someone and no one would even react.

Quite obviously, the portion of the rules that applies to a surprise attack are the rules on surprise, and whatever rules based description of the fiction that we apply should not be contradictory to the rules on surprise.

In general, what is actually occurring in a tense negotiation between armed, hostile, and potentially belligerent parties is not Delay, but Readied Actions. Implicitly, the parties are doing something round to round like, "If X makes any sudden movement..." or "If X approaches within 5' feet..." or "If X reaches for something..." or "If X tries to attack..." or whatever. Each party is alert and on a hair trigger.

To again turn to Westerns as providing examples, when a Parlay is going on in a Western, you'll note that they verbally negotiate and announce actions that they intend to take before they take them, such as, "I'm going to reach really slow into my pocket...." and so forth. This is because everyone knows everyone else is holding readied actions, and they want to avoid accidentally triggering an action as a result of a misunderstanding, and allow everyone else to change their readied action trigger to something that keeps ensuring security without causing violence to instantly erupt.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

And notably, even Hemlock himself admits that this is true, both by the rules and by logic, since he would allow a person to prepare an action to respond to a person attempting to cast a spell...
Except that, they are not. Your own argument fails at practically every step to produce either a consistent view of the world or to describe Hemlocks actual view.

I'm still waiting to hear your own view, Celebrim. Are you abusing 5E jargon ("surprise") or are we miscommunicating? You said several posts ago that:

The problem I have with your procedure is that smart players can and will use it against you... I've seen tables like that, and the PC's very quickly decide that not only should they never talk or negotiate, but its best to just kill everyone they meet before they have a chance to start talking.

I responded to your post at some length, including your gunslinger analogy. You kind of dropped the subject at that point, without explaining your comment much further except to say that "I don't think I misunderstood, and I don't think that's remotely logical." I can't see why you don't think it's logical to require cause to come before effect, since you didn't explain yourself, but if you decide you want to do so after all, I will listen.

You are predicting problems which don't actually happen, and I find it interesting that you're not more interested in determining why your predictions don't come true.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

We'll know when Hemlock posts to confirm or deny whether I've understood his viewpoint.

Oh, do I have to speak up? No, you've misunderstood me. Assuming instantaneous actions is the opposite of my view. The whole idea of concurrent initiative is to emphasize that characters are acting throughout the round: one guy is casting a spell while another guy is swinging his broadsword at the first guy, and while the actions get resolved sequentially for the convenience of the DMs and the players, they don't occur instantaneously at all, or the whole round would be over in a microsecond.

But as I said previously in this thread: the gunslinger situation is adequately handled by implicit Delay already, and is furthermore niche enough that it's not worth inventing mechanics specifically to cover it:

@Ovimancer's discussion is quite pertinent. Imagine for example you tried to run a Western RPG were the guy that declared he drew his weapon first always got the first attack. The way you want to play this sort of scene IMO is the bad guy reaches for his 'gun' first, and despite that, the PC beats him on the draw (or at least has a chance of doing so).

Meh. In a Western gunslinger I'd have more complicated rules for modeling actions with a duration. In 5E I don't find that it would add anything. The only thing it affects is a corner case which is already adequately handled by concurrent initiative's standard construct: implicit Delay.

@Celebrim has claimed that with the rules I'm using, player behavior will degenerate into a sort of shoot-first-talk-never pathological case. I think he is misunderstanding the rules I'm using, since in fact the opposite happens and players are MORE likely to talk (even during combat) since it doesn't put them at a permanent disadvantage (e.g. no "wasted" attacks). If he is not misunderstanding the rules I'm using, then there must be something else going on, and only Celebrim can enlighten us as to what. IIRC, @Celebrim doesn't even play 5E, so it's possible that he's speaking out of experience with a different game, like 3E.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Agreed. But that means mechanically that Han surprised Greedo.

Again, that's not how surprise works in 5E.

I think it's readily apparent that though I have quibbles with how Hemlock justifies his viewpoint, I also consider how Hemlock justifies his viewpoint largely irrelevant. So even if I didn't fully understand his actual view, that's irrelevant, because the thing I object to the most is the outcome of his viewpoint, namely that you can, merely by performing a metagame action (that is, the player declaring an action), override the normal mechanics of the game. In my view, metagame actions NEVER exist in the fiction, and declarations always must reflect the current fictional positioning.

Again, you clearly misunderstand the initiative variant I'm using, because "the normal mechanics of the game" are not being overridden. This is how Delay always works, in combat or out of combat. You always lose initiative automatically to anyone who is not delaying; and you always get to declare your own action after their actions are resolved. See discussion with Harzel.

The way this works is not rooted at all in the metagame; it's rooted in the fictional positioning and my experience in fencing. If you pause for a beat to see what your opponent is going to do, guess what? You're a beat behind, and if he wants to he can seize the initiative and try a maneuver to which you will have to respond. (Hopefully in a way that makes him regret trying it.) If however you pause for a beat and he doesn't do anything, you can act and now you have the initiative to try something. In short, making a decision to act occupies a measurable space of time (c.f. OODA loops), and if you make your decision first, you have the advantage when it comes to acting first.

Fundamentally, I think my problem with his justification comes down to the claim that unless otherwise stated, everyone is taking a Delay action implicitly, as if everyone was always just politely waiting their turn and waiting for the other party to take their turn, without the slightest concern in the world. This situation might pertain to a group of close friends having a conversation, but it's a wholly unreasonable framing of a tense negotiation between armed and potentially belligerent parties.

Um, no. Pausing to think/decide what to do, and therefore Delaying, is quite normal in combat, both D&D combat and in real-life combat. It's why fencing matches don't always go as fast as hyperkinetic GURPS combat (one blow per second per combatant), and it's why Civil War battles lasted for hours and not just for the amount of time it would take for every guy on one side to shoot one guy on the other side.

Continuous, hyperkinetic combat is not normal.

In general, what is actually occurring in a tense negotiation between armed, hostile, and potentially belligerent parties is not Delay, but Readied Actions. Implicitly, the parties are doing something round to round like, "If X makes any sudden movement..." or "If X approaches within 5' feet..." or "If X reaches for something..." or "If X tries to attack..." or whatever. Each party is alert and on a hair trigger.


To again turn to Westerns as providing examples, when a Parlay is going on in a Western, you'll note that they verbally negotiate and announce actions that they intend to take before they take them, such as, "I'm going to reach really slow into my pocket...." and so forth. This is because everyone knows everyone else is holding readied actions, and they want to avoid accidentally triggering an action as a result of a misunderstanding, and allow everyone else to change their readied action trigger to something that keeps ensuring security without causing violence to instantly erupt.

This sort of situation doesn't generally happen at my table, but if it did, I agree that Readied Actions would be resolved first before anything else, including Tidal Wave. That's not a rules disagreement though; that's just you saying you create certain kinds of content (tense, armed standoffs) more frequently than perhaps others do. My impression of the OP is that Shoalar Whatisface was not engaged in that kind of a hair-trigger standoff with the PCs.

I suspect that one reason you have hair-trigger standoffs so often could be because your rule system is apparently inadequate to having any OTHER kind of standoff. If you tried to have a more normal-but-wary negotiation with potentially-hostile business partners (like pretty much every business negotiation that takes place on Firefly), you can't get away with holding guns to each other's heads the whole time. You should be prepared for and capable of violence, but not on the verge of violence, or you'll kill the deal. This is the situation where Delay is more appropriate than Ready: Attack. It's a middle ground between coming unarmed and unarmored to a parlay vs. coming with readied actions to kill everything in sight.

 

[Celebrim]

Are you abusing 5E jargon ("surprise") or are we miscommunicating?

The problem could be that I'm alternating between using "surprise" in its natural language sense, and surprise as it is technically used. Yes, regardless of the edition, your procedure does not result in "surprise" in the technical sense. However, your procedure always does - regardless of the edition - recreate the most fundamental aspect of surprise, that the party with "surprise" is allowed to reliably act first. So while you have avoided using actual surprise procedures, and avoided creating the actual surprise state (and again, this is true of every edition), your procedure results in a state that is analogous to surprise. Is it worse than achieving surprise? In some ways, yes. But since it is reliable, this is it doesn't depend on random luck or an opposed check, it is also in some ways better than surprise. And in the case of sides with lethal attacks, which is one of the reasons I'm returning to the gunfighter analogy, it is strictly better than surprise. You can execute an attack with basically no risk of losing to a 'faster' opponent.

That is fundamentally what I object to. The rules of D&D in every edition make that a doubtful proposition, as it logically would be. You've just implemented a table contract and procedure of play that ensures that happens all the time as a riskless proposition.

Your response only affirmed everything that I had already gathered about your position. In fact, your three responses in a row still only affirm what I had already gathered about your position.

Before I get much further, I should tell you I fenced with the fencing club of two major universities, and been taught by instructors that either were or had trained Olympic fencers. I am not by any means a good fencer, but please don't assume that I have no personal fight experience - sport or otherwise.

You are predicting problems which don't actually happen, and I find it interesting that you're not more interested in determining why your predictions don't come true.

Your assuming that I haven't seen these exact problems before. As for predicting why you haven't seen them, each table is different and each will have a different tolerance for different problems. I presume your table contract is reasonably durable because its a reasonably close knit group with common aesthetics of play, and that the majority of the table includes dramatic play rather high up in its priorities and competitive play rather low on its priorities, and that you aren't annoying enough in your rulings that this one little quirk makes it worth complaining about how you are handling the scene. That you've not had a major table argument over this doesn't make it less illogical, or less narrow in its application. You've already basically admitted that it would be inadequate for the sort of scenes that I've been suggesting as examples, but that those scenes don't come up in your play.

The whole idea of concurrent initiative is to emphasize that characters are acting throughout the round: one guy is casting a spell while another guy is swinging his broadsword at the first guy, and while the actions get resolved sequentially for the convenience of the DMs and the players, they don't occur instantaneously at all...

Since you've been jumping all over me for not using terms strictly in a technical sense, let me say that regardless of what you want to call it, you don't seem to be using concurrent initiative. Prior versions of D&D did allow for concurrent actions that are resolved simultaneously, but if they are actually resolved sequentially then by definition they aren't actual concurrent initiative. Concurrent resolution means that, for example, if we both attack, we don't apply damage until after we resolve both attacks, and then we apply damage simultaneously. This allows for example for two characters to kill each other in the same round because the actions actually happened concurrently rather than sequentially. If in fact you do apply damage until the end of both actions then you really are using a concurrent system of resolution, and then I guess I did misunderstand you with regard to that, and then it doesn't really matter who goes first, because you can't be dropped before you get a chance to respond anyway. But if you are just coloring sequential resolution with the flavor of concurrent action, then you are just playing normal D&D because almost no one actually assumes that the fictional world is literally turn based.

Um, no. Pausing to think/decide what to do, and therefore Delaying, is quite normal in combat, both D&D combat and in real-life combat.

Oh bollocks. Sure, pausing to think is quite normal in combat, but coloring a pause in combat to assess, measure, or plan as a D&D Delay action is just freaking nuts. I'm glad it is working for you, and go ahead, but do not try to convince me that pausing for a 'beat' in fencing is the same as taking a freaking delay action. Beats in a fencing match can be freaking fractions of a second - nearly as fast as the eye can follow. D&D combat has nothing that can deal with fight elements that are that granular and concrete and never has. D&D combat abstracts whole combinations and passes and exchanges into a few dice rolls and the outcome of that exchange - someone got hit or not, maybe they both did. Delay is not a granular action! It involves giving up the initiative not for a beat, but completely, allowing the opponent to complete a full round of action without interruption - as if you did nothing through an entire exchange. Those pauses in the initiative and other granular aspects of a fencing exchange are subsumed in the action of the scene, not born out mechanically in the rules. D&D narrates fairly large blocks of time called 'rounds', not individual blows and parries and steps or any other fencing move. That's why it is so ridiculous for you to be claiming that you are doing this, not out of "the convenience of the DMs and the players" as you just admitted (which is I think probably the true and defensible reason), but rather as if Delay were the logical way to color the scene in D&D as a general go to sort of case.

There is nothing quite like improperly applying "realism" based on personal experience to create rules nonsense that ends up not matching reality in the slightest. If you want a realistic fencing simulation, you are much further from the rules set you need than you would be if you wanted a gun-fighting simulation.

Meanwhile...

I think he is misunderstanding the rules I'm using, since in fact the opposite happens and players are MORE likely to talk (even during combat) since it doesn't put them at a permanent disadvantage (e.g. no "wasted" attacks).

Wait... you think that it is normal to make a character give up his action in order to talk? Really? No wonder you think you are being really reasonable and fair. You think the alternative is to be even more unreasonable. Talking is free. If you want to banter with your foe like Errol Flynn Robin Hood or the Masked Man in 'The Princess Bride', go right ahead. I can't imagine any DM actually punishing that. Likewise, your idea that this makes players more likely to talk, again strikes me as, "Compared to what?" Compared to my resolution system, it would sure make me as a player less willing to parlay. Compared to some of the things you've experienced apparently it does. However, even then, if I had to guess, you don't run a particularly deadly campaign because otherwise why the heck would you risk automatically giving the other party the first attack?

Regardless of how you spin it, your system means that your PC's are subjected at all times to the threat of instantaneous attack to which they cannot respond (at least, not until after the attack and its potentially deadly consequences have resolved).

However, you apparently don't understand my position at all. Otherwise you wouldn't say things like this:

I suspect that one reason you have hair-trigger standoffs so often could be because your rule system is apparently inadequate to having any OTHER kind of standoff.

No, because if you just followed the normal procedures instead of assuming implicit delay, you wouldn't have this problem in the first place. In a less than hair trigger standoff, between two parties that don't trust each other fully, but who aren't quite to the point of hair trigger violence, but who are aware of each other, we just roll for initiative regardless of declared intent. One side 'goes for their gun' and then all hell breaks lose, but neither side is guaranteed the first complete action. Precisely because we do have the color of concurrency and actions take a finite amount of time, the side that initiates the action can still lose the initiative to a quicker opponent.

The normal rules do not provide for a process of play that resembles implicit DELAY, but rather the normal process of play assumes a meeting engagement is treated as implicit READY actions that ultimately cancel each other out, resulting in the person with the higher initiative result winning. Neither side is ever actually delaying, but talking while holding in readiness violence should a threat present itself. Not only is this convenient, but it is fair. Only in the event of surprise should this normal process of play be dispensed, or if a player really does declare that they propose to do nothing proactive - even if they are actually attacked and stuck. But in 30 years of DMing I've really never seen that proposed by a player, and I've never seen DELAY used for what you are routinely forcing players to use it for. The problem with implicit actions is that they are DMing assumptions, and you are foisting them on your players. Personally, as a PC I'd never put up with it, and so - because I always strive to be the sort of DM I'd want as a player - I don't impose it on my players either.

Briefly let's turn back to that iconic Greedo versus Han scene, and imagine that it is playing out according to your rules - and Greedo is the PC. You play out the scene, and let's note a few things that are true by your rules:

1) Han doesn't even have to be particularly cunning. With Greedo holding the gun in his face, he can just stand up, whip out his blaster, and shoot him dead while Greedo stares at him. Because Greedo is implicitly delaying.
2) Greedo is an even dumber sap in your universe than he is in Star Wars. Every being of your world, must reasonably know that in a parlay, the other side will be able to react before they can do anything. Greedo would have to know from the moment he sits down with Han, that if Han wanted to shoot him, Greedo would be completely unable to stop him, because Greedo would have to know that he was living in a world were talking implied implicitly delaying. Why in such a world would Greedo stupidly gloat, knowing that all gloaters were giving up their action via an implicit Delay and waiting to be shot?
3) If Greedo really were a PC, he would not have parlayed, because the player would have known the rules, and known the outcome of not firing immediately was to be presumed to delay. He would have just fired, and taken the body back to Jabba for the reward.

I suppose your response would be, "But in that circumstance, I wouldn't use implicit delay." Fine, but then why the heck would you use it in any circumstance? The only reason to use it that I can see is that it ensures antagonists - who overwhelmingly versus a heroic party would be the ones to initiate violence - gets to act first! Speaking of convenient to the DM.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

@Celebrim,

We're clearly talking past each other at this point, since I feel that you haven't responded adequately to my post, and I don't follow your reasoning in several parts of your post. E.g. your conjecture that my players are unavoidably subjected to deadly attacks is just wrong and confirms my suspicions that you don't understand the rules I'm using at all. (And since you're playing a game which isn't even 5E, nor IIRC AD&D, I'm quite sure that I don't understand what rules you're using.)

Instead of asking questions about the rules like Harzel did and clarifying your understanding before criticizing the parts you don't like, you jump straight to attack mode time and again without bothering to even check if you're understanding correctly, and now you're picking on terminology ("concurrent") and trying to start a fight over semantics. I don't feel this discussion is going anywhere useful unless you moderate your tone and stop jumping to conclusions.

 

[Celebrim]

We're clearly talking past each other at this point, since I feel that you haven't responded adequately to my post...

What? I'm too terse for you? What exactly haven't I responded to? Do I need to go back and do a sentence by sentence fisking?

Fundamentally your position is not very complicated. You outlined it repeatedly in the thread, and made yourself very clear doing it. For example:

"the PCs haven't declared another action, such as Readying a spell of their own, then their action is implicitly Delay, which means they automatically lose initiative but get to declare an action after Tidal Wave is resolved"

And:

"This particular example is extremely simple, since there's only one NPC and he's the first one acting: he casts his spell while all the PCs are on implicit Delay (negotiating), and then all the PCs take their turns."

My response to both statements is, "Bollocks. It's utterly unreasonably and unfair to the players to ever assume that they've implicitly taken a Delay action." I'm not unclear about the really simple assumption or procedures. In fact, I have gone back read you several times trying to find the thing that I was supposedly missing, only to discover that there really was nothing there to miss.

How is my conjecture that PC's are unavoidably subjected to deadly attacks wrong? Is this not the description of the 5e spell Tidal Wave?

"You conjure up a wave of water that crashes down on an area within range. The area can be up to 30 feet long, up to 10 feet wide, and up to 10 feet tall. Each creature in that area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failure, a creature takes 4d8 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone. On a success, a creature takes half as much damage and isn't knocked prone. The water then spreads out across the ground in all directions, extinguishing unprotected flames in its area and within 30 feet of it."

Is 4d8 bludgeoning damage not potentially lethal damage? Did you not just say, "their action is implicitly Delay, which means they automatically lose initiative"? Let me repeat your word again, "automatically". That's your description; not mine. And do you not by your own admission apply actions sequentially, so that the Tidal Wave is fully resolved before the next action in initiative order is declared? So please explain to me how it is just 'conjectural' that implicit delay unavoidably subjects the players to lethal attacks?

and I don't follow your reasoning in several parts of your post. E.g. your conjecture that my players are unavoidably subjected to deadly attacks is just wrong and confirms my suspicions that you don't understand the rules I'm using at all. (And since you're playing a game which isn't even 5E, I'm quite sure that I don't understand what rules you're using, unless it's AD&D, which I don't think it is.)

I consider it a great breakthrough that we've gone from you declaring I don't understand the rules you are using or your position, to you admitting that you don't understand mine. However, for these purposes the exact rules I'm using are irrelevant. The 5e procedures haven't changed so much from past editions of D&D that those procedures are irrelevant, and more to the point, your procedures and the use of "implicit delay" cannot strictly be justified from the 5e RAW anyway. It's one thing to make an assumption that rounds implicitly occurred before the start of combat, and quite another to implicitly assume a convenient but illogical action ('Delay') was taken.

You're screwing your players out of their fair chance of winning the initiative.

I objected because its terrible advice to give to a new player. My language was initially quite moderate. If we can drop this whole pretense that I'm too dull to understand the plain sense of the words you have stated, then any slight bitterness in my words will probably go away as well.

and now you're picking on terminology ("concurrent") and trying to start a fight over semantics.

Seriously, you aren't doing anything concurrently. I'm not trying to fight about it: that would imply that there was something to actually argue about. Part of the reason I'm picking on that term is your use of it was confusing and you kept saying you were using "variant" rules, and combined with all these claims I didn't understand you, I had to read through all your posts a few times to insure myself that no, you really weren't actually doing anything concurrently. Thankfully, your wealth of detail in describing the results of the Delay action meant that I could be really confident in asserting that it wasn't concurrent at all, it's all right there in your description of how delaying had the merit of allowing to you react.