D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Nefermandias]

The problem is that you’ve already decided on the fiction before even taking the characters’ in-game actions into account. Obviously there’s no way to reconcile the in-game action of the fighter only advancing far enough that the goblin has to dash to reach him with the fiction that they both charge each other and meet in the middle, because that fiction doesn’t describe the actions the characters are actually taking in game. A more appropriate fiction would be that, judging by the goblin’s stature, the fighter estimated how quickly the goblin could run and made the tactical decision to make a slower advance, so the goblin would need to run further to reach him, potentially buying him an extra moment to get the first strike in.

If that bothers you, change the turn structure so that it encourages the kind of tactical decisions you want characters to make. For example, the Speed Factor Initiative from the DMG and the similar but more complex Grayhawk Initiative from Unearthed Arcana both have everyone declare their actions first and then roll initiative to determine the order in which they are executed. This removes the turn order from the decision-making process, while still maintaining the benefits of a turn-based system for the purposes of executing actions in an orderly manner.

One system I have brewed up but not implemented (because my regular players are slow decision-makers) is to have everyone declare actions in order of lowest passive perception to highest (representing the more perceptive characters being better able to read their opponents movements and react to them), then roll a flat 1d6 for initiative (representing the 6
seconds in a turn) and resolve those actions in the order of lowest roll to highest, with highest dexterity modifier breaking ties (representing characters with faster reflexes being able to act fractions of a second faster). Conceptually I like it a lot, and some day I’d love to try it with a more rules and tactics savvy group than my regulars.

AD&D initiative system is arguably the best attempt at capturing the fiction and emulating the simultaneity of action. The trade-off here is that it's too complex.

 

[Charlaquin]

AD&D initiative system is arguably the best attempt at capturing the fiction and emulating the simultaneity of action. The trade-off here is that it's too complex.

What’s AD&D’s initiative system?

 

[Nefermandias]

What’s AD&D’s initiative system?

Here.

 

[Rune]

Dungeon World is basically made to make combat line up with the fiction. It's much more explicitly cinematic. But the lack of tactics turns off some dnd players.

I agree with all of this generally, but will add that Dungeon World doesn’t have to lack tactics. It’s just that those tactics have to be established narratively.

With regard to the disconnect in D&D (especially WotC-era D&D), I think there are two main culprits:

1. An emphasis on grid-based play (present in the rules, even if used in theater-of-the-mind). Things like specific movement speeds and opportunity-attack-safe-zones overemphasize the importance of positioning in my experience. It certainly doesn’t preclude players from taking a more narrative approach to positioning, but it seems to me (consistently across multiple groups) to steer their thinking toward a desire for precise positioning, in order to get the most out of the movement and opportunity-attack rules.

My proposed solution: exact positioning and especially movement speed don’t matter until they matter. If the character can reach where they need to, they do. If they need to outrun someone, or catch them, movement speed will matter. If they want to hold a position, describe how much of it they can threaten. If they want to dance around several enemies, describe which ones get opportunity attacks. All of this can flow from the narrative, instead of a grid.

2. Cyclical turn-based initiative. Both elements contribute to the narrative/mechanical disconnect. The consistent cyclical structure seems to me to be the more egregious, but the two are both intricately intertwined. Once the cycle is set, predictable patterns emerge (at the expense of dynamic narrative).

One could say (as the rules do*) that the entire round is meant to represent simultaneous combat with ordered resolutions. But that isn’t really true. The mechanics make quite clear that all of a character’s turn happens before the next’s begins. How do we know? Because the rules allow for (expect) a character to move up to their entire speed, attack multiple times, and kill the other (as just one common example).

Does the second character get a chance to move out of the way? Run away? Land even a single blow? Nope. Dead, before even taking a step. That’s not simultaneous in any sense, and the narrative can't make it so.

My proposed solution: Initiative only matters when it matters. Most of the time, it won’t matter. When you really do need to find out whose movement or action happens before someone else’s, contest initiative like any other ability check. 5e is actually built pretty well for this and there’s plenty of leeway to find a comfort spot, here. Some people prefer to lean heavily into the narrative and away from action economy. Others prefer to keep the action economy unchanged (I tend toward this end). It works.

Importantly, it looks to the narrative to determine if the check is going to happen, and then to the check to determine the narrative outcome. Cyclical initiative can’t do that; it is entirely prescriptive.



* Or not. I can’t find any mention of it in either the PHB or the DMG. At least not in any appropriately related section. This assumption might just be a holdover from previous editions – in two of which it was also manifestly not true.

 

[Charlaquin]

Here.

Yep, definitely too complex

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

To the OP: It seems more likely that your D&D combat is frictionless. I don’t think that holds universally true.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't really think that what you've said indicates the combat rules are completely fiction-free.

What you've showed is that the rules, as they exist, cannot handle certain common/realistic events that occur in actual combat, such as two opponents rushing at each other simultaneously. I think that such things can be modeled in a system with the right components, 5e just doesn't offer them. For example, 4e's [in]famous "Come and Get It" power for Fighters is a reasonable gloss of the "two opponents rush at each other at the same time" concept, and I'm sure there are other powers that fit even better. I'm sure there are also other examples of fiction that is hard to represent in 5e's specific way of abstracting combat.

None of that leads to saying that 5e combat is totally absent of fiction. It just means that the space of fiction it easily maps is only part of the whole combat-fiction space, and in specific, that that easy mapping fails to cover parts you find important. Different folks will have different ideas of which elements of the combat-fiction space need easy mapping.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If you like simulationism

Then TTRPGS are always gonna disappoint a bit.

For instance, speed factors tend to treat a knife as faster than a longsword, which is simply not true.


We are all just hunting down the level and type of abstraction to works best for us.

 

[Nefermandias]

To the OP: It seems more likely that your D&D combat is frictionless. I don’t think that holds universally true.

The thread is really about fiction, not friction.

 

[Dausuul]

Looking in more depth at the specific case of fighter and goblin... I'm with @Charlaquin and @Umbran, I don't see the problem. The fighter is stopping and bracing to receive the goblin's charge, timing his strike to take advantage of the enemy's recklessness. That's a perfectly coherent narrative. Timing your attack based on the enemy's movement is a real thing that real combatants do.

Are you just objecting to the fighter's precise knowledge of exactly how far away he needs to stop for this to work?

If the goblin were to advance cautiously, stopping and readying, and the fighter responded by doing the same, then you'd have different mechanical events which would produce a different narrative: The two combatants inch up to each other, each waiting for the other to make the fatal rush that will expose them to a strike. A tumbleweed blows past.