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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4970372" data-attributes="member: 4937">The problem with all of that is that sometimes, you have no real way of knowing whether either side is 'planning' hostile action.  Worse yet, the whole 'roll initiative' then becomes a metagame signal of each sides intentions.Why not?  It's very easy to come up game scenarios where initiative seems to be called for, but neither side has yet taken an attack action.  For example, suppose the PC is suppose to meet a elf in an alley who is a contact for a local group of freedom fighters.  The PC goes into the darkened misty ally, and they see an elf ahead.  Then the PC remembers that he also heard a rumor that an infamous elvish asssassin has been hired to kill the PC party.  Why not run this scene as a combat scene where both sides need not necessarily take an attack action?  Why does combat only begin with an attack action, rather than every other possible action you can take in combat?  If the player signals that they want to take a full defence action, does that begin combat or not?  If the player signals that they want to take a ready action, does that begin combat or not?  Are ready actions only allowed on the second round of combat for some reason?My point is simple.  'Combat' is an abstraction.  The game inhabitants don't go in and out of combat subsystems.   We start tracking 'combat' for metagame reasons, not because of anything in the game world, and _any_ action after a party is aware stops them being flatfooted.  It's that simple.</blockquote>

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