Sword fights do have some of that dynamic it is why fencing has contre tempIt 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.
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.The fiction of D&D combat is limited because of its medium, just like any fiction!
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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.
The other 10% is mostly simultaneous attacks.You know, as I've been thinking about it, it seems like 90% of the pain points of sequential initiative arise from movement.
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!It start when both decide to use a grid,
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.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.
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.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.
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? SupposeOne 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.
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.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!
Yeah. It's a necessary evil to enable combats not to be an unplayable mess of chaos, though.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.
No. He's absolutely correct. There's no way to reconcile the following with any sort of fiction.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.