Mongoose Traveler's Amazing New Initiative System

[trancejeremy]

Seems very clever. But at the same time, I wonder just where you do start off in combat. If it's at 1, then does it take until the 4th round (or ticks) before anyone gets to shoot? And what happens after you shoot, does it go back down to 1?

And I have to say, it seems a little odd, that you can apparently duck or dodge any time you want, but have to wait to shoot, when if anything, in real life, it's much quicker to shoot than move.

 

[Bagpuss]

Not something I could see myself adapting to D&D but for a modern game I might consider it. Just what happens when you accidentally pick up your initiative dice and roll it.

 

[Balgus]

WAAAAYYY too complicated... thats just more charts and tables to memorize...

Ok - I want to tumble under the table and flip it up and duck behind it for cover, while holding the legs of the table for support.

OK - you have 5 points, so the roll took 2 points and 1 for flipping the table, two for holding the legs, and you are out of points.
Are you sure you want to tumble? walking over and falling behind the table just takes 1 pt. NO? Ok - so You are still standing up... if you want to duck behind the table, then you will have to forego flipping the table, or holding the legs.. in that case the table falls over cause you are not bracing it...

OK ... what is he doing again?
Drinking a potion...
How many points does he have left?
You cant tell...
I wait next turn to kick him in the kneecaps.

EDIT - looks like someone took a page out of Final Fantasy 12 combat system. At higher lvls, the rate of pt acumulation quickens... (and i can imagine feats doing the same) so you can get more hits/ actions per round/ticks.

And i would imagine that each action subtracts from teh total.. so you can wait 20 ticks/rounds and accumulate 40 points and do a super massive limit break and beat the crap out of the BBEG...

 

[Bagpuss]

Balgus did you read the examples or the earlier blog post because it doesn't work anything like how you described.

The Traveller resolution system is (currently): Roll 2D6 and add your skill and any other Dice Modifiers. If your total is 8 or more, you succeed; if you roll less than 8, you fail.

If you need more detail, then you can opt to use a more detailed resolution mechanic. See those two dice you just rolled? Pick one of those to be Effect (how well you did if you succeeded, or how badly you failed if you failed), and the other one to be Timing (how long you took).

Having two levels of detail in the skill system means the game can run quickly and easily ('roll Mechanic to fix the damage....got more than 8? Ok, your ship's fine again'), but can also 'zoom in' when more detail and control is important to the players ('Ok, roll Mechanic. You've got a 6 and 1, plus your skill gives you 8, so that's a success. Do you want to put the 6 into Effect and the 1 into Timing, meaning you fix the ship perfectly, but it takes six hours, or do you want to put the 1 into Effect and the 6 into Timing, meaning you fix it in only a hour, but there's a chance the engine will blow again if you overstress it...and remember, the longer you float here, the more likely it is you'll be detected and chased by the Zhodani warship...')

Personal combat

You've got an Initiative die in front of you (or next to your miniature, or do what I do and stick the dice right on the sketch map!). Every round, everyone increases the value on their die by +2. If the value on your die is a 6, then you get to shoot (or do another significant action, like apply first aid or remote-pilot your ship down onto the enemy or whatever). When you act, you split your dice into timing and effect as outlined in the previous blog post. In combat, your Effect gets added to your weapon's damage, and your Timing becomes your new Initiative.

Other actions, like moving, ducking into cover, dodging incoming attacks and so forth decrease your Initiative value. So, let's say I've got an Initiative of 4 showing, and some bad guy's about to shoot me. If I choose to dodge, then that'll bring my Initiative down to 3 (or 2, or 1, depending on how big a penalty I want to give his attack). He'll probably miss, but it'll be another round or two before I get my initiative up to six and get to fire back. It turns the game from a routine of 'I shoot/you shoot/I shoot' to 'right, I'm not firing for another round - you spend all your Initiative to sprint up to that rock and get into cover'. (Also, you pray that I don't take a snap shot at a big penalty and get lucky.)

It's more like you say...

"I want to tumble under the table and flip it up and duck behind it for cover, while holding the legs of the table for support"

Well that's either handled by movement and normal dodging, so all it does is reduce your initiative. The more you reduce it, the greater the modifier to the opponents attack.

Or perhaps (not having seen the system) it could be a Tumble check you roll 2D6, add your modifier and try and beat 8, you roll a 6 and a 2, plus your skill of say 3 and get 11 enough to succeed. You then decide do you want to make the 6 the effect, making it very unlikely anyone will hit you, and the 2 your timing, so two more ticks until you can act again or make the 2 your effect, and the 6 your timing and go strait away.

No looking at tables involved at all.

Saying that my only concern is it seems rolling a 6 is pretty powerful, you put it into timing and you can appear to act immediately (perhaps you need to wait for the next tick at least?) , if you roll a six on the next attack, you could end up shooting multiple times while your opponent can do nothing.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Saying that my only concern is it seems rolling a 6 is pretty powerful, you put it into timing and you can appear to act immediately (perhaps you need to wait for the next tick at least?) , if you roll a six on the next attack, you could end up shooting multiple times while your opponent can do nothing.

Well, I imagine that situation would be a lot like when a bad guy opens fires and the hero is forced to dive for cover, cover his head, and wait for the hail of bullets to stop or slow down before returning fire.

Kinda like in the movies, at least that's how I see it.

 

[GlassJaw]

Similar to Spycraft initiative in that certain actions change your count.

I hate it.

First question to ask yourself - does this make the game more fun? From experience, I can say emphatically "no". More "realism" does not equal more fun.

This is a classic case of over-design, and one of the main reasons I put Spycraft away.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Can't you just dodge when it's not your turn as an Immediate action, which eats your Swift action when your turn comes up?

I would be willing to bet that if you boiled down the system described to its most basic granularity, you'd find a simpler solution lurking there.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Can't you just dodge when it's not your turn as an Immediate action, which eats your Swift action when your turn comes up?

I would be willing to bet that if you boiled down the system described to its most basic granularity, you'd find a simpler solution lurking there.

Incidentally, that's what I hope for in 4E: You get one standard, one move, one swift action. You can have varying immediate actions and any kind of action as immediate action (but only one immediate action per turn), but:
1) If you do an immediate action, you lose your swift action next turn.
2) If you do a swift action, you lose your move action next turn.
3) If you do a move action, you lose your standard action next turn.
4) If you do a standard action, you lose your next turn, except for the swift action.

Then throw out AoO, and I'd be pretty happy. That's basically the freedom of tick-based combat, but codified into a round system, at least the parts of tick-based combat, I really need.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Jim Hague]

Fluid initiative's already been done; the bookkeeping is a pain. This, while simpler, is pretty much the same thing. Hardly innovative.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Similar to Spycraft initiative in that certain actions change your account.

I hate it.

First question to ask yourself - does this make the game more fun? From experience, I can say emphatically "no". More "realism" does not equal more fun.

This is a classic case of over-design, and one of the main reasons I put Spycraft away.

This is totally different from Spycraft's shifting initiative for a couple reasons:

1. Everything is visually tracked on the table using an easy to adjust mechanism (a dice). This may not seem like it makes a difference, but it DOES. Initiative should be EASIER in a system that tracks it this way, not harder.

2. Changing your initiative actually MEANS something and has tactical weight in this system, whereas in Spycraft, as in most d20 system games, it only matters very much if you're one attack away from going down. In what we've seen of the Mongoose Traveler system, initiative is an important enough part of tactics - possibly the MOST important part - to be tracked and manipulated to a greater degree of detail, just as position is worth tracking on a battlemap in d20.

Certainly you'll never see me equating so-called "realism" with fun; I despise almost all attempts to make games more realistic. THIS sounds fun because it makes timing an integral part of tactics (Feng Shui and Exalted do this to some extent, but not as elegantly) and because I suspect it will be much simpler in actual play than even STATIC d20 initiative.