D&D 5E Low CRs and "Boring" Monsters: Ogre

I blame cyclic initiative for a lot of things, but among them, I blame cyclic initiative for introducing the idea that combat is a special mode of gameplay
It really kinda is, and should be, IMHO, though not to the extent of....
where everything ceases to be organic and becomes rigidly regimented. If some players or DMs feel that everything in combat has to be based on combat turns and stat blocks, I feel that cyclic initiative is likely to be responsible for at least part of that.
I get the impression that you don't like cyclical initiative, and are trying very hard to justify that dislike, when dislike is all the justification we (as DMs, especially Empowered 5e DMs) ever need to toss a rule.
 

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I get the impression that you don't like cyclical initiative, and are trying very hard to justify that dislike, when dislike is all the justification we (as DMs, especially Empowered 5e DMs) ever need to toss a rule.

Nope. You could accuse me of trying to evangelize the benefits of tossing it; but it's not a post-hoc justification for some kind of crazy irrational bias against cyclic initiative. I'm not arguing in bad faith here, Tony.
 

I think it's because cyclic initiative and the format of the MM causes people to start thinking in board game terms. They're no longer thinking, "Oh, this is an ogre who was in his home with his ogre buddies eating a rotten cow five seconds ago and is now looking at a bunch of heavily-armed ugly humans who just kicked down his door." They're thinking, "It's my turn to Attack/Dash/Disengage/etc."

The kicker is that I think it's really quite difficult to think in combat turns and also think in roleplaying terms. It's natural to say, "Oh, this ogre grimaces at his ogre buddy and then they each pick up one end of the table and hurl it at the PCs," but because that quite-natural interaction is complicated when you translate it into discretized combat turns ("I grimace at the other ogre and Ready an action to hurl the table as soon as he does likewise"?), it is no longer a natural thing to do if combat turns are your basic unit of interaction. And I think that can easily bleed over even into actions which could be expressed as a discrete action, like "I grimace at my buddy and then throw a cow head at the humans" because combat turns bias you towards thinking of each character/monster in isolation, with everyone else being frozen in time until your "turn" is over. It takes a fair amount of mental sophistication for a player or DM to translate "take combat turns separately" back into "all of this stuff is actually happening at the same time, and the isolation is just a formality."

Coming from AD&D, cyclic initiative is the worst thing about 5E, and the thing I'm gladdest that I fixed.

Again, I suspect there is a lot of truth to your assumption. Man, it makes me miss the days when every improvised action was either a basic attack roll or an ability check :) You really didn't have to worry about trying to translate that into codified mechanics where everyone has an individual initiative segment.
 

Nope. You could accuse me of trying to evangelize the benefits of tossing it; but it's not a post-hoc justification for some kind of crazy irrational bias against cyclic initiative. I'm not arguing in bad faith here, Tony.
Didn't mean to imply bad faith. But this is the second time you've laid a problem at the feet of cyclical initiative that seems unrelated, to me. Any initiative system is going to draw a line between combat and non-combat ... well, unless it applies outside of combat, and any initiative system could do that, too, even simply turn-based play. :shrug:
 

Didn't mean to imply bad faith. But this is the second time you've laid a problem at the feet of cyclical initiative that seems unrelated, to me. Any initiative system is going to draw a line between combat and non-combat ... well, unless it applies outside of combat, and any initiative system could do that, too, even simply turn-based play. :shrug:

Then maybe I'm arguing poorly; or maybe I'm wrong. Last time you got hung up on the "cyclic" aspect and thought I was contrasting it with "roll initiative every round," but I'm actually pointing to the whole IGOUGO system codified in the PHB. You could re-roll the initiative order every round and it would be more complicated but still almost as bad.

My deeper objection is to the way cyclic initiative tries to simplify combats by unifying decision-making and action resolution into an instantaneous event, and then progresses time by simply ensuring that there's a full cycle in which everyone gets to do their instantaneous action. It's a highly artificial way of interacting with the game world, and if you ever try to do something which doesn't fit neatly into the predefined set of things that can be done in one instant by one person, you're back to dealing with the messiness of actions with durations anyway, which means that you now have to re-invent techniques on the fly for the dealing with the thing you invented cyclic initiative to get away from. So you'll naturally steer yourself away from certain kinds of actions that don't fit within the neatly predefined hierarchy of actions, even if they're perfectly plausible from a roleplaying perspective.

If I've got a new role-player, and he's playing a human fighter named Bob, and the party is fighting a T-Rex inside of a castle, and Bob sees a lever 100' away that he could pull to drop a portcullis between the T-Rex and the party, there is no physical reason why Bob shouldn't be able to shout, "Hang on guys! I'm going to drop the portcullis!" and then run 100' and pull that lever. And if combat and cyclic initiative weren't involved (e.g. the T-Rex is insulting the PCs instead of fighting with them), he could declare exactly that and the DM would be fine with it. He might say, "The T-Rex is going to get in a couple more insults before you pull the lever," but he's not going to say, "You can't declare that action." In the initiative system presented in the 5E PHB, however, the DM is likely to say, "No, you can't. Your move is only 30', and you can Dash for 30' more, but you can only run to here this turn. Next turn you can Dash again to the lever and pull it." And Bob will learn that there are only certain things you can do during combat, and Dash is one of them, and next time he'll declare his action in terms of Attack/Dash/Item Interaction, and the game will get a little less organic.

Contrast that with a WEGO system in which the DM is used to having multiple outstanding declarations at once which get resolved at a later point in time. In this case, Bob can say, "I'll yell, 'hang on guys!' and run over to pull the lever." And the DM will say, "Okay, that will take you two turns," and the other PCs might okay, "Okay, if he's going to drop the portcullis then I might as well just Dodge instead of trying to kill this thing with my tiny stick", and everything will play out more organically and interactively. There's no reason you couldn't get the exact same outcome even with PHB cyclic initiative--but I believe that you wouldn't. And if you did it would be much more hassle for the players:

"I Dodge."
"I Dash 60'."
"I Dodge."
"I Dodge."
"I Dodge."
"The T-Rex attacks."
"I Dodge."
"I Dash 40' and pull the lever."

If you make it hard for people to do stuff, they're less likely to do that kind of stuff.

Ceterum autem censeo cyclic initiative esse delendam.
 

Then maybe I'm arguing poorly; or maybe I'm wrong. Last time you got hung up on the "cyclic" aspect and thought I was contrasting it with "roll initiative every round,"
Nod. When I hear 'cyclic initiative...' ;)

but I'm actually pointing to the whole IGOUGO system codified in the PHB. You could re-roll the initiative order every round and it would be more complicated but still almost as bad.
Or you could go simple turn-based and it'd be much simpler and still have the same issues, if I'm following you?

My deeper objection is to the way cyclic initiative tries to simplify combats by unifying decision-making and action resolution into an instantaneous event, and then progresses time by simply ensuring that there's a full cycle in which everyone gets to do their instantaneous action.
I can see the simplification more clearly than the objection....

If I've got a new role-player, and he's playing a human fighter named Bob, and the party is fighting a T-Rex inside of a castle, and Bob sees a lever 100' away that he could pull to drop a portcullis between the T-Rex and the party, there is no physical reason why Bob shouldn't be able to shout, "Hang on guys! I'm going to drop the portcullis!" and then run 100' and pull that lever. And if combat and cyclic initiative weren't involved (e.g. the T-Rex is insulting the PCs instead of fighting with them), he could declare exactly that and the DM would be fine with it. He might say, "The T-Rex is going to get in a couple more insults before you pull the lever," but he's not going to say, "You can't declare that action." In the initiative system presented in the 5E PHB, however, the DM is likely to say, "No, you can't. Your move is only 30', and you can Dash for 30' more, but you can only run to here this turn. Next turn you can Dash again to the lever and pull it."
What's wrong with a player forming an intent that takes more than one round to complete?

Contrast that with a WEGO system in which the DM is used to having multiple outstanding declarations at once which get resolved at a later point in time. In this case, Bob can say, "I'll yell, 'hang on guys!' and run over to pull the lever." And the DM will say, "Okay, that will take you two turns,"
Seems like no important difference. In both cases the player wants to do something that's not going to complete right away. In the former, 60' of movement will be resolved one round, then 40' and an object interaction, the next. In the latter it'll, what, all be resolved on round 2?

Seems like the player can make the same decision and accomplish the same thing in both cases.

There's no reason you couldn't get the exact same outcome even with PHB cyclic initiative-
OK then.

-but I believe that you wouldn't. And if you did it would be much more hassle for the players:

"I Dodge."
"I Dash 60'."
"I Dodge."
"I Dodge."
"I Dodge."
"The T-Rex attacks."
"I Dodge."
"I Dash 40' and pull the lever."

If you make it hard for people to do stuff, they're less likely to do that kind of stuff.
I'd expect players to keep fighting rather than dodge - IMX, players like to attack, and just in case the portcullis doesn't work, y'know - but aside from that, either way, it takes time before the portcullis drops and what happens in-between is resolved, yes?
 

Tony, I'm not sure we're on the same page here with the Bob example. You seem to be arguing a different point than the one I'm addressing, since I'm talking about pedagogy whereas you skip over the crucial "would" to focus on the incidental "could", and I'm not sure why.

Could you please restate your argument and/or point of disagreement with what you perceive to be my argument?
 

Guess I'm just not seeing the value of the pedagogy?

And, yes, the 'would' rather than 'could' is crucial in your example. Why assume that a player wouldn't attempt 2+ round actions in one initiative system, but would in another?

Under either system, the player could have his character move 100' and drop a portcullis. Nothing prevents it, yet in one you assume the DM will phrase the need for two rounds to complete the task as "no you can't" while in the other as "Okay..." when, in fact, both systems allow the task to completed in the same two turns.
On that assumed phrasing rests your critical 'would.' I find that unpersuasive.
 

Guess I'm just not seeing the value of the pedagogy?

And, yes, the 'would' rather than 'could' is crucial in your example. Why assume that a player wouldn't attempt 2+ round actions in one initiative system, but would in another?

Under either system, the player could have his character move 100' and drop a portcullis. Nothing prevents it, yet in one you assume the DM will phrase the need for two rounds to complete the task as "no you can't" while in the other as "Okay..." when, in fact, both systems allow the task to completed in the same two turns.
On that assumed phrasing rests your critical 'would.' I find that unpersuasive.

This whole tangent started with Sacrosanct observing that Internet posters seem to make certain assumptions ("players don't X"); I have noticed that my experience is quite different ("player do X") and attribute that different at least in part to not using cyclic initiative ("players could X but probably wouldn't because Y").

Now, I could be wrong about that--maybe you're going to argue that "players can and do X", or that they don't but that some other Z instead of Y is partly or wholly responsible. But first I want to make sure we're talking about the same subject, which is about "would" and not "could".

You could run a game in which the DM keeps the character sheets and adventures completely in his head (e.g. because you're running it as you drive the kids on a long road trip) and dice-rolling consists of guessing one of the numbers the DM has in his head, and you could have exactly the same adventures in that game that you would when playing around a tabletop or online. But you wouldn't. I have to appeal to your intuition here because I can't prove that you wouldn't, but the fact is that you wouldn't. Both DM behavior and player behavior will change in response to what is easy and what is hard in that game environment; you'll probably see fewer combats and more social engagement, because combats just got harder to run. Could is not will.

So my question for you is, how often do you see players declare multi-round actions when you're playing with cyclic initiative? I don't use cyclic initiative, and I see multi-round declarations relatively frequently, maybe once every couple of sessions(?). I see improvised or non-PHB-standard action declarations more often than that, several times a session I guess. My hypothesis is that people using vanilla PHB rules will see both kinds of actions less frequently than that on average. If those rates that I'm seeing are in fact typical, my hypothesis is disproved. Are they in fact typical, @Tony?



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BTW, with the Bob example, I think you've already conceded that players using cyclic initiative wouldn't act cooperatively. The only remaining question is whether the ones in WEGO initiative would act the way I conjectured: that they would say, "Okay, Bob. DM, we're all Dodging for two rounds until Bob can shut that portcullis." That's our actual point of disagreement:

I think they would, because the system encourages cooperative planning and makes that plan of action easy for the players (not necessarily for the PCs).

You think they wouldn't do that and would prefer instead to make attack rolls.
 
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I just thought of another example:

You could run an expansive, three-dimensional combat with lots of vertical movement and swooping dragons over an area the width of the grand canyon (a mile or so), and you could do it even with battlegrids instead of ToTM. But you wouldn't. Battlegrids seem to make people want to run combats in areas less than a couple of hundred feet across, and very little verticality.
 

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