D&D General D&D Combat is fictionless

[Lyxen]

1. Everyone declares actions
2. Determine order the actions resolved (this part usually requires complex mechanics)
3. Resolve those actions in the determined order (this part actually establishes the fiction as you go)
4. (OPTIONAL) give characters whose actions failed some possibility of doing something else

Just be aware that this will more than double the amount of time that a combat takes. Every time you switch to another player, it takes more time, and by doing the above, you will invalidate some declarations when the first actions are resolved.

For me, it's one of the major progress done in recent editions, get rid of the extremely artificial "declaration + resolution" system, which honestly does not make the fiction more believable, because you are still slicing time in chunks of 6 seconds. So depending when the chunks pops in, you might have a better result (for example the fighter/goblin situation), but you might have a worse one, and in any case, I don't think that you will reduce the metagaming.

In general, the more technical your solution, the further you get from the fiction, and increasing the technical complexity by cutting it in two phases will only get you further from the fiction.

At the extreme end of the range, I have ran and played long campaigns of Amber Diceless RPG, where there are only 4 attributes, one being Warfare. Resolution is extremely simple, whoever has the highest warfare wins, you only have to describe (collectively) how. Fiction is absolutely at the center as only the DM knows the attributes and just checks whether the fiction and the description can inverse the warfare values if they are close. So Corwin will slaughter hundreds of Amber troops going up the Kolvir without breaking a sweat, but when duelling Eric, who is more or less his equal, Corwin using a fancy new little trick that he learned on an obscure shadow named earth gives him a short-lived victory until Eric goes fully defensive and Corwin has to flee because the guards are coming.

It's a lot of fun, almost totally fiction and description, but almost totally non-technical. But D&D is a fairly technical game, if you want more fiction, don't increase the technicality of the resolution.

 

[FrogReaver]

Just be aware that this will more than double the amount of time that a combat takes. Every time you switch to another player, it takes more time, and by doing the above, you will invalidate some declarations when the first actions are resolved.

In my experience the biggest time chunk is players deciding what they want to do. Having this be done simultaneously should save some time there. Though that time may be lost in other spaces. It’s definitely more work for the dm. However, I’m not sure it will actually slow down the game much if any.

For me, it's one of the major progress done in recent editions, get rid of the extremely artificial "declaration + resolution" system, which honestly does not make the fiction more believable, because you are still slicing time in chunks of 6 seconds. So depending when the chunks pops in, you might have a better result (for example the fighter/goblin situation), but you might have a worse one, and in any case, I don't think that you will reduce the metagaming.

the goal isn’t to make the fiction more believable. It’s to create a system that’s less prone to having the optimal choice be about turn order and edges and more about the fiction

In general, the more technical your solution, the further you get from the fiction, and increasing the technical complexity by cutting it in two phases will only get you further from the fiction.

You say this like it’s a truism but I see no supporting evidence.

At the extreme end of the range, I have ran and played long campaigns of Amber Diceless RPG, where there are only 4 attributes, one being Warfare. Resolution is extremely simple, whoever has the highest warfare wins, you only have to describe (collectively) how. Fiction is absolutely at the center as only the DM knows the attributes and just checks whether the fiction and the description can inverse the warfare values if they are close. So Corwin will slaughter hundreds of Amber troops going up the Kolvir without breaking a sweat, but when duelling Eric, who is more or less his equal, Corwin using a fancy new little trick that he learned on an obscure shadow named earth gives him a short-lived victory until Eric goes fully defensive and Corwin has to flee because the guards are coming.

It's a lot of fun, almost totally fiction and description, but almost totally non-technical. But D&D is a fairly technical game, if you want more fiction, don't increase the technicality of the resolution.

While intriguing I don’t think such a game is really what I’m looking for. It solves 1 issue and removes everything else I like.

 

[Lyxen]

In my experience the biggest time chunk is players deciding what they want to do. Having this be done simultaneously should save some time there. Though that time may be lost in other spaces. It’s definitely more work for the dm. However, I’m not sure it will actually slow down the game much if any.

Again, this means polling everyone at least twice instead of once, and players will declare something but end up doing something else because the situation will have changed with the first actions being implemented, so with all the discussions, it will take at least twice as long to resolve.

5e is extremely streamlined, with almost no involvement of 3rd party during a player's turn.

the goal isn’t to make the fiction more believable. It’s to create a system that’s less prone to having the optimal choice be about turn order and edges and more about the fiction

And again, the more technical factors you integrate, the more discussion will revolve around these technical factors compared to the fiction.

You say this like it’s a truism but I see no supporting evidence.

It seems fairly obvious to me from a lifetime of playing various games, but I have given you many examples. 3e and 4e were almost all about the technicalities, 5e gives you a bit more balance, and I've given you the extreme (at least as far as I know, simpler than this and you have a totally freeform game without rules). So it seems fairly strong supporting evidence to me.

While intriguing I don’t think such a game is really what I’m looking for. It solves 1 issue and removes everything else I like.

And if you like the technicalities of D&D, I don't see how you will solve your conundrums, the more gaming technicalities you introduce in your game, the more your players will want to play with them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Just be aware that this will more than double the amount of time that a combat takes.

This has not been the case in my experience with such initiative systems. Since action declaration happens during shared time rather than on players’ individual turns, there’s more pressure to make a decision quickly. The key is just to not require too much specificity in the action declaration. “I’m going to attack with my sword” rather than “I’m going to move there and attack that monster”.

Every time you switch to another player, it takes more time, and by doing the above, you will invalidate some declarations when the first actions are resolved.

Indeed, which is why you should allow players whose declared actions are no longer possible to Dodge or something.

 

[Lyxen]

This has not been the case in my experience with such initiative systems. Since action declaration happens during shared time rather than on players’ individual turns, there’s more pressure to make a decision quickly. The key is just to not require too much specificity in the action declaration. “I’m going to attack with my sword” rather than “I’m going to move there and attack that monster”.

For me, both make it worse. First, the fact that it's shared time will make it even harder to manage, people will contradict and make comments on each other's actions, etc. It's one of the reasons 5e is so streamlined, as only one person speaks during their turn, no-on interrupts, suggests or corrects.

And second, with that level of detail during declaration, you will have a full process of thought in both phases, initially to decide what you might do in a fluid environment where nothing is certain, and when the time comes to implement it.

Not to mention the additional time spent deciding the resolution order each round.

Indeed, which is why you should allow players whose declared actions are no longer possible to Dodge or something.

Honestly, even if I was allowed to dodge, I would find it EXTREMELY frustrating not to be able to act on a given round because the situation has evolved before my turn due to a bad dice roll on initiative. It's already frustrating to act after others, but if that invalidates the action totally, it's unacceptable.

 

[Voadam]

There are some game systems where initiative works by rolling and it goes lowest init declares first, resolves last, if you can't do your action you are out of luck and then next lowest declares, then next, and so on, so the highest has the best ability to react to the situation as it is at the beginning of the round and least likely to waste their action.

My preference is for people to have a fully effective action choice for their turn without guessing and losing actions so I prefer a 3e to 5e style turn based initiative system. This loses a bit of the fog of war but as a play flow dynamic I find it preferable.

 

[Lyxen]

There are some game systems where initiative works by rolling and it goes lowest init declares first, resolves last, if you can't do your action you are out of luck and then next lowest declares, then next, and so on, so the highest has the best ability to react to the situation as it is at the beginning of the round and least likely to waste their action.

That is really horrible, and actually probably even more prone to metagaming because with a higher init, you can, in addition to what you would normally do, work on purpose to invalidate the actions of people with a lower init. I don't think that the fiction would gain much by this...

My preference is for people to have a fully effective action choice for their turn without guessing and losing actions so I prefer a 3e to 5e style turn based initiative system. This loses a bit of the fog of war but as a play flow dynamic I find it preferable.

My preference too.

 

[BookTenTiger]

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

If I am writing a novel, I cannot show two characters speaking at the same time. I would have to show it before or after the fact, like this:

Bob and Judy spoke at the same time. Bob said, "Look out!" At the same time, Judy said, "What's that?"

Bob is technically speaking before Judy, but after reading it our brains reorganize it to be at the same time.

In a movie, things can happen at the same time, but we are limited in our field of vision. There might be a huge battle raging, but either we are looking at the main characters fighting, or zooming out to see the entire battlefield. This is why movies use the "back home at the ranch" technique to tell two adjacent stories that are happening at the same time, because unless you literally split the screen, they can't be shown at the same time.

On the other hand, if I were writing a book I could say:

While the collecting forces of Lord Vargon fired their lasers at the scattering armies of the Golden Sun, Michael bent down to pick up a lucky penny.

D&D is a medium through which a game is played and stories are told. There are always going to be limitations because of its nature.

Ironically, outside of combat your example of the goblin and fighter charging each other could absolutely work.

DM: Fighter, you and the goblin charge each other, screaming, blades drawn. I'm going to have each of you make a weapon attack. If you succeed, it's an auto crit.

But when we enter combat, the medium changes. Combat in D&D is told in rounds, and built into a narrative after the fact. Just like dialogue in a novel. It's simply the medium through which D&D tells its combat story.

You could call that frictionless. But that would be like calling dialogue in a novel "timeless" because it doesn't all occur in real time.

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.

 

[Voadam]

My problem is that under 5e rules you've presented a situation that can't possibly happen the way you describe it.

If the Fighter and Archer start 30 ft away then the only way the Fighter can attack is if he moves up 30ft and attacks before the archer moves. In this scenario if the Archer moved there would be an OA.

If the Fighter and Archer start 30 ft away and the archer moves at all before or at the same time as the fighter moves then the fighter would not be able to attack the archer (but possibly could dash to close the distance). It's not clear if that dash would put make the archers attack be at disadvantage or not.

1. Neither of those outcomes feel particularly balanced for 5e.

2. It's really unclear how the system you are talking about would handle such nuances- not that they couldn't be handled, but you've given me nothing explaining how.

We are taking the 5e rules, removing turn based resolution and applying the rest of the 5e rules simultaneously in a round.

The archer backs up 30 feet and shoots at the fighter as the fighter charges at him from starting 30 feet away before the archer began his simultaneous move. Because the archer backed up to 60 feet from where the fighter started the fighter does not get to the archer in the six second round, but ends up next to him.

Under 5e the fighter can move 30 and attack someone who is there. In turn based it is clear if there is someone there or not.

In declaring then resolving simultaneously it is not clear when the fighter declares his action where the archer will be, only where he starts from.

The fiction translating this would go:

DM: "The two of you face off from a distance."
Fighter: "He's just close enough for me to close as long as he stays there to take his shot, I charge and attack the archer."
DM: "However he realizes that too and backs up enough as he takes a shot so that by the time you get to him the round is over before you can attack."

If the resolution was that declarations have to be more specific to translate into a dash it would be:

DM: "The two of you face off from a distance."
Fighter: "He's just close enough for me to close as long as he stays there to take his shot, I charge and attack the archer."
DM: "However he realizes that too and takes a shot as he runs away. You chase him, but with him running away and firing back at you, you'd really have to put on the speed to close with him."

In turn based it would either be the fighter goes first, closes and attacks and the archer has some tough choices about OAs and disadvantage or dropping his bow, or the archer goes first, pulls back, shoots the fighter, then the fighter can close with a dash.

The fiction would be:

DM: "The two of you face off from a distance."
Fighter: "He's just close enough, I charge and attack the archer."
DM: "He's in a bad spot now that you've closed with him and attacked."

DM: "The two of you face off from a distance. He backs up and takes a shot, if you push it you can just reach him."
Fighter: "I charge to close."

These all seem decently reasonable fictions for the fight with minor variations based on timing.

 

[Undrave]

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.

You can always do declared actions so the turn order is only useful for resolution and sometimes people just waste their actions. There's also dynamic initiative to help with that.

I don't really think that works because slowing down your advance doesn't actually buy time for a first strike. The goblin could simply adjust his timing to your new pace.

The Fighter can attack while both his feet as firmly on the ground, which is a huge advantage. If the Goblin has to run up to the Fighter to attack, the Fighter can time his strike while the Goblin is still mid-stride and thus off balance and can't block as effectively. And vice versa. It's easier to block of deflect if you're properly grounded.