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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6888109" data-attributes="member: 42582">If D&D combat was nothing more than this, then it would be non-issue. But you wouldn't really need initiative either, would you? You could roll your attacks simultaneously.But D&D combat is not just two people tocking one another with swords. I gave an example upthread: A goes, moves 30', the last 5' takes her out of zone X (so presumably she leaves zone X in the last second or two of the round); then B goes later in the initiative order, casts a fireball that fills zone X, then moves a full 30' (so presumably the fireball was cast in the first second or two of the round). How come A is not affected by the fireball?I don't see any answer to that question which is consistent with treating the die rolls and action resolution as modelling any ingame causal processes.You don't need anything more complicated. Classic D&D side initiative isn't particularly complicated, but is less likely to produce these results (in part because there is very little tracking of movement in melee).I thought one of your principles is that everything is modelled exactly one way. Now you have initiative and Reflex saves modelling the same thing! - namely, whether or not a character can jump out of the fireball.But on the issue of the model: at the table, we don't just stipulate "A is somewhere in this zone somewhere in this time interval". That's how 13th Age does it, but it's not how D&D does it. In 3E, 4e and default 5e we also stipulate that A moves through each particular square at a certain time. We adjudicate pit traps, oppy attacks, etc, all on the presmise that A is at a particular place at a particular time in his/her movement - all while treating everyone else as stationary at that time.It's not an abstraction or an approximation. It's very granular (as far as positioning is concerned) yet wildly inaccurate as far as time is concerned.I don't run or play AD&D. I run 4e - which has 6-second turn-by-turn rounds, but uses a bunch of mechanics to try and reduce the freeze-frame feel and doesn't really pretend to be a simulation. And I run Burning Wheel, which uses continuous resolution based on a fairly complex system of blind declaration with limited take-backs - and so doesn't rely on an initiative system at all.</blockquote>

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