D&D 5E Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?

[FormerlyHemlock]

You can justify however makes you feel good, but it's a fact that the two orcs who beat you on initiative could move a full 12" and block the exit that was 2" from your character before your character could do squat. That would be impossible if combat was simultaneous. In a simultaneous combat, everyone would be able to react to every inch of movement from everyone else as it happened and not have to wait until someone else was done moving.

It's a fact that you could declare "I want to shadow the orc, staying at least 10' away from him at all times", and that would be impossible in a turn-based IGOUGO game.

And what makes you think I never played with proportional movement anyway? You seem awfully confident in your observations about things you have no knowledge of.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Can't exactly offer the rousing success of Christian RPGs as a counterpoint.

How about the fact that Ao is never onscreen in the Forgotten Realms? Ao makes for bad gaming. Look at the climax of the Avatar trilogy for proof. "Oh, Cyril, you won the game, but I don't care. [shreds Tablets] You lose, because I say so." Try that more than once in a gaming environment and you will destroy all the tension in the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

How about the fact that Ao is never onscreen in the Forgotten Realms? Makes for bad gaming.

He should totally have a listing in the 5e Gods, Demigods & Heroes. ("What does it mean, 'Treasure types: Alpha, Omega' anyway?")

 

[pemerton]

Combat being run the way it is is a necessary evil. You can still run a sim game with turn based combat, since if you didn't, you'd be running no game at all, or at least a game with no combat in it ever.

Why is it necessary? There are plenty of systems with continuous initiative/simultaneous resolution. As [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and I have been discussing, this includes - to a reasonable extent - traditional AD&D "side" initiative.

 

[pemerton]

From examining your play report, I see now that don't seem to be talking about anything even vaguely similar to the actions of Providence in Lord of the Rings. Your play report seems pretty straightforward. I agree that you can have a fun game that works the way your play report seems to; but I was talking about something else involving an omnipotent, omniscient offscreen player in the game who causes your actions have different effects than you initially expect them to. E.g. Frodo "should" have died, by game logic, and Sauron should have won, because Sauron was playing the game better than Frodo... but not better than Iluvatar.

Discussing what would or wouldn't count as providential can get a little bit close to board rules.

But the sort of thing I have in mind is the sort of thing [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] is saying contradicts RPGing. Eg both the mechanical capabiliities of the paladin character reflecting not just the mechanical causal processes he participates in, but the actions and oversight of his mistress; and then the capacity (by non-pre-scripted narration) to build up a larger fate/destiny based story on top of that.

What the ultimate destiny is is somewhat obscure (because it's not a AP/railroad), but other events too, like the way that PCs encountered Ygorl, and then trapped him in the Crystal of the Ebon Flame - which both explains Ygorl's origin at the end of the universe and his travelling back in time (by giving him a "start date" emerging from the Crystal), and thereby releases Miska the Wolf Spider to enable him to be killed to enable the reconstruction of the Rod of 7 Parts which is the necessary (and perhaps sufficient condition) for the Dusk War - generates a sense of fate/destiny/actions having a larger significance than their perpetrators anticipated at the time.

I think this counts as RPGing. But you can't do it without (i) metagame mechanics, and (ii) the GM being something other than an impartial adjudicator (I also have to be an active scene-framer).

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Why is it necessary? There are plenty of systems with continuous initiative/simultaneous resolution. As [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and I have been discussing, this includes - to a reasonable extent - traditional AD&D "side" initiative.

Some of my favorite alternative initiative/turn order rules are the phase-based system from Player's Option: Combat & Tactics, and the HackMaster count-up system (though the later does make combats involving more than just a handful of participants a little tricky to manage efficiently at the table).

 

[Shasarak]

Initiative based combat may not be cinematic but I must admit that it is a lot more enjoyable then the old announce your action at the start of combat and watch as the guy you wanted to attack gets killed by someone else leaving you with nothing to do style of play.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Initiative based combat may not be cinematic but I must admit that it is a lot more enjoyable then the old announce your action at the start of combat and watch as the guy you wanted to attack gets killed by someone else leaving you with nothing to do style of play.

Why would you even roll initiative in that case? Just have both guys roll their attacks. Only if both hit and you want to know for some reason who got in the killing blow do you have to have an initiative contest.

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[Maxperson]

It's a fact that you could declare "I want to shadow the orc, staying at least 10' away from him at all times", and that would be impossible in a turn-based IGOUGO game.

It still doesn't make it even remotely simultaneous. To be simultaneous, you'd have to have each individual roll initiative every round, then with each square moved, every other creature on the field would be able to react, and then react to the reactions, and so on. You wouldn't be able to move and attack, since that would take too much time and people could react to your movement before you could attack. A 3 creature combat would take hours. A 20 creature combat would take days.

It's waaaaaaaay too slow to run a combat as simultaneous. Any system that claims to do so is lying, and what they are doing is giving you a non-simultaneous system that is closer than D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

Why is it necessary? There are plenty of systems with continuous initiative/simultaneous resolution. As [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and I have been discussing, this includes - to a reasonable extent - traditional AD&D "side" initiative.

A true simultaneous combat would take hours with just a few creatures involved. Days with more than a few. That's why it's necessary. Those other systems are not truly simultaneous. They just approximate it to a closer degree than D&D.