D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Garthanos]

This whole thread really feels like a blast from the past like when d20 came out

 

[Garthanos]

It doesn't have to be, it can be its own thing.

But, I don't know the number of times I have scene, in movies, A acts, B acts, A acts, B acts. etc. It can certainly feel turn based.

Sword fights do have some of that dynamic it is why fencing has contre temp

 

[pemerton]

The fiction of D&D combat is limited because of its medium, just like any fiction!

<snip>

I'd argue that the fiction of D&D combat is created before a character's action, during a character's action, and after a character's action. It can change and be rewritten and reinterpreted, but it's never going to happen simultaneously because of the medium of D&D combat.

I think the issue is that, in a RPG as opposed to when reading a novel or watching a film, the participants are expected to establish new fiction by playing the existing fiction. So if the medium constrains this by "artificially" constraining the way the fiction is presented or established, that's an issue.

You know, as I've been thinking about it, it seems like 90% of the pain points of sequential initiative arise from movement.

The other 10% is mostly simultaneous attacks.

But in other (non-WotC D&D) systems the pain can also come from the hard break between rounds - as I posted upthread, this would sometimes be an issue in Rolemaster.

Even in 4e D&D, the pain of round breaks would come to the fore when there were these sorts of discussions about changing around the 4e initiative system, because it relied so heavily on "until [specified relationship] to next turn", which is vulnerable to breakage if we muck about with the turn structure. (Eg if I go last and get a defensive benefit that lasts until the start of my next turn, and then - say because we're rolling initiative every turn - I'm the next to go, I get no practical benefit from my defence.)

 

[Undrave]

It start when both decide to use a grid,

AUGH! Can we stop with the thinly veiled elitism about people who use grids over the "Theatre of the Mind" (GAWD that term is so bloody pretentious! I swear! I only use it because people know about it). Some of us are just not as good as visual stuff as others okay! I like to know what the heck I'm supposed to be looking at, and I'm not my character!

Heck, some people are outright incapable of visualizing things even!

 

[clearstream]

You've got me thinking that maybe I should separate my thoughts out into 2 distinct but related issues.
1. Basing decisions on something other than established fiction
2. Diverging outcomes based solely on turn order mechanics (presumption always being that combat is occurring simultaneously)

I don't think it really has much to do with simulation. I'm pretty anti-simulationist at heart.

This might be a matter of what we mean by simulation. I think a simulation is intended to model 'something else' and one can level criticisms about how well it does that. Suppose we level a complaint at Chess saying that the sides ought to move simultaneously. What would be our motive in making that complaint? With Chess I don't believe we'd be concerned with how well it modelled something else: Chess is Chess.

Your complaint seems to be about how well D&D combat represents a fiction that you have in mind. In that fiction, creatures move simultaneously (perhaps in some other fiction, they don't!) Here, "simulation" is not a synonym of "realism." It is about critiquing D&D combat based on how successfully it models a fiction - that 'something else' - that you have in mind. It doesn't address your complaint to say that D&D combat plays well, or is interesting, or is streamlined or whatever, because the litmus test is how well it simulates features of your fiction that you care about, and how that interacts with your suspension of disbelief.

Espen Aarseth offered the thought that a game can be understood as a mechanism, and if you look up the philosophical background on mechanisms you will see definitions such as "A mechanism is a structure performing a function in virtue of its component parts, component operations, and their organization. The orchestrated functioning of the mechanism is responsible for one or more phenomena." I understood your OP to assert that the crucial function of the D&D combat mechanism that you care about is "produce my fiction". If the crucial function of D&D combat for me is "produce a streamlined, interesting and fair boardgame for D&D characters and monsters" then I might not share your complaint.

There is a bit of sophistry in what I say because unstated, but present in my requirement, is that I want it to "feel like medieval combat as I picture it, but with spells and dragons". Our choices are not crisply defined! It is more that we lean into one or other concern. Your requirement for simultaneous action seems to me to be leaning into the simulation concern, but no more than expecting a longsword to weigh about the right amount, or wearing armor to have some kind of protective benefit. It's simply harder to address, and likely to require different compromises.

 

[jasper]

D&D Combat is fictionless. But Frogreaver, "What does that even mean?" It means that D&D combat is incapable of representing combat fiction the way we want to imagine it.

Horton the rogue dashed up into the look out tower where the Orc which Hidey Jasper sniped off just moments ago. He step in something squishy.
Jasper, "Get your foot off my brreasstiees."
No D&D Combat can not be IMAGINE by YOU.
The first two sentences are what happen in my game just last night. Horton did not see the Jasper's mini in the outpost.

 

[clearstream]

One option @FrogReaver would be to split the round into three phases…

1. Movement: where everybody who wants to move before their action takes some or all of their movement.

2. Action: Where all combatants resolve their actions

3. Follow up: Where remaining movement after the action and additional actions (like follow up attacks) take place.

Each of these phases would be done in initiative order. It sounds complicated but the limited choices in each phase would make them faster. It breaks the cycle of one person getting to do everything. It also gives you chance to shoot at that person we moving out of cover without readying an attack.

Bonus actions can be made at any time as appropriate.

The idea came from the 40k war game, which was always far more interesting tactically than the fantasy version which used alternate turns.

I like the direction of your thinking, and have been wondering how to streamline it? Three decision steps feels like a lot, so maybe that could be brought down to two? Suppose

1. Combatants have a new special action that they can take outside their turn, called reposition.
2. You can reposition whenever another creature starts a move in their turn. Reposition interrupts that move.
3. You can reposition up to half your speed, but only if you have sufficient unspent movement.
4. After you reposition, your speed is halved and you can't reposition again until the start of your next turn.
5. Repositioning is covered by the same rules as movement, e.g. it provokes opportunity attacks as usual.
6. If multiple combatants attempt to reposition in response to a creature starting their move, they reposition in initiative order.

With reposition available, a fighter starting 30' from an archer won't be able to close unless they have higher speed, for example by dashing.

 

[Krachek]

AUGH! Can we stop with the thinly veiled elitism about people who use grids over the "Theatre of the Mind" (GAWD that term is so bloody pretentious! I swear! I only use it because people know about it). Some of us are just not as good as visual stuff as others okay! I like to know what the heck I'm supposed to be looking at, and I'm not my character!

Heck, some people are outright incapable of visualizing things even!

Then you keep using a grid and move characters by square. But there are some fiction scenario that will be more harder or impossible to play on a grid.

 

[Maxperson]

D&D Combat is fictionless. But Frogreaver, "What does that even mean?" It means that D&D combat is incapable of representing combat fiction the way we want to imagine it. The turn structure gets in the way. Instead of having the goblin and fighter charge each other and meet in the middle. Instead we have the fighter carefully plotting out his turn and being careful to only use enough movement so that the goblin in question will need to use it's action to dash to get to him. A wise tactical decision! But that tactical decision has no basis in the actual fiction. The fiction is just that the fighter and goblin charge each other and engage each other in melee combat - I mean no one imagines the fighter advances and then stops, and then the goblin advances and then stops... right? So this wise tactical decision is solely a reflection of 'metagaming the combat turns'. That bugs me. And it's probably going to continue to bug me as I don't really see a possible solution. But it would be really nice if for my combat decisions to be wise and tactical they could be based on the fiction instead of the turn structure.

Yeah. It's a necessary evil to enable combats not to be an unplayable mess of chaos, though.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

No. He's absolutely correct. There's no way to reconcile the following with any sort of fiction.

Two sides stand ready. Neither is surprised. A lone fighter stands 30 feet from the lone exit from the room. 60 feet further into the room are 30 orcs. He has decided to run and didn't spend any time waffling on that decision. Unfortunately for the fighter, he lost initiative to the orcs by 1. All 30 not only move 30 feet before the ready fighter can move, but they dash for a total of 60 feet of movement, cutting him off from the exit before he can take 1 step. In a realistic fictional combat, that's just not possible.