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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8406776" data-attributes="member: 42582">Re the bit that I've bolded: absolutely. Ron Edwards has a nice discussion of it in his &quot;Right to Dream&quot; essay. His discussion of initiative systems resonated strongly with me when I first read it, as that was a time when the main game I played was Rolemaster, in which getting initiative &quot;right&quot; has always been a big deal (I posted about that upthread).On the first point, I agree. It does give rise to the question, what else are people doing? Are they just standing around? Taking in the action? (D&amp;D doesn't use &quot;orientation&quot; rolls to the same extent as eg RM does.) Or should we just not worry about it?On the second point I've got no real view. I would normally follow the logic of whatever system I'm playing.I'm not a 100% sure where you're going with this example. I think it shows that blind declaration in the context of grid movement can produce odd results - because in &quot;real life&quot; actor 1 can adjust their path based on what they perceive about actor 2's movement. Burning Wheel uses blind declaration, but no grid or minis - the actor 1/actor 2 scenario is resolved as an opposed Speed check.The only time I've used WotC-style turn-by-turn resolution for a sustained period was 4e D&amp;D. In general, it worked well. The issues that [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] has raised didn't bother us - in any event, because of the delay option in 4e most of our combats ended up as de facto &quot;side&quot; initiative, and so it becomes easier to imagine the cleric who acts after the fighter with a Healing Word as having deliberately waited to see if that was needed. The greater amount of off-turn action also reduced the freeze-frame vibe.But there was one occasion, during a chase, when the players were able to exploit stop-motion action economy to their advantage, by taking their movement and thereby closing on a foe, and then flying their giant bird its movement rate to close the rest of the distance before the enemy got its action.That produced a chuckle or two, I think, but no more than that - similarly to the &quot;square&quot; fireballs and the like. Most of the time it was easy to ignore it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8406776, member: 42582"] Re the bit that I've bolded: absolutely. Ron Edwards has a nice discussion of it in his "Right to Dream" essay. His discussion of initiative systems resonated strongly with me when I first read it, as that was a time when the main game I played was Rolemaster, in which getting initiative "right" has always been a big deal (I posted about that upthread). On the first point, I agree. It does give rise to the question, [I]what else are people doing? [/I]Are they just standing around? Taking in the action? (D&D doesn't use "orientation" rolls to the same extent as eg RM does.) Or should we just not worry about it? On the second point I've got no real view. I would normally follow the logic of whatever system I'm playing. I'm not a 100% sure where you're going with this example. I think it shows that blind declaration in the context of grid movement can produce odd results - because in "real life" actor 1 can adjust their path based on what they perceive about actor 2's movement. Burning Wheel uses blind declaration, but no grid or minis - the actor 1/actor 2 scenario is resolved as an opposed Speed check. The only time I've used WotC-style turn-by-turn resolution for a sustained period was 4e D&D. In general, it worked well. The issues that [USER=6795602]@FrogReaver[/USER] has raised didn't bother us - in any event, because of the [i]delay[/i] option in 4e most of our combats ended up as de facto "side" initiative, and so it becomes easier to imagine the cleric who acts after the fighter with a Healing Word as having deliberately waited to see if that was needed. The greater amount of off-turn action also reduced the freeze-frame vibe. But there was one occasion, during a chase, when the players were able to exploit stop-motion action economy to their advantage, by taking their movement and thereby closing on a foe, and then flying their giant bird its movement rate to close the rest of the distance before the enemy got its action. That produced a chuckle or two, I think, but no more than that - similarly to the "square" fireballs and the like. Most of the time it was easy to ignore it. [/QUOTE]

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