I am thinking about bringing back an old school Initiative (from 1st edition) to my game and curious what you all think.
Basically players (and monsters) have to declare their actions (both move and standard) before rolling Initiative.
The reason behind this is twofold;
First it brings a little bit of unpredictability. Say, I am going to attack Orc #1, Orc #1 dies by fellow player character first. The attack is wasted.
Second it brings back the idea that everything is 6 seconds is happening simultaneously. Giving it a better feel for fluid combat.
A few exceptions to this rule is bonus actions can be declared during your turn (if you have any). Reactions act the same. Readied actions act the same.
I also think this might spread out combat more as you don't know if your fellow player is going to kill CreatureX this round. So maybe you attack CreatureY instead banking on that hit.
Monsters will do likewise of course.
I am going to play test it next time with my players, but curious what your thoughts or of some imbalance I might miss that might occur from using this method.
i have played with secret declarations before in some wargames and for them it was fun - ironclads i think was one - where you had to map your moves and such. You could run into your own allies.
That kind of thing works fun for some one-off wargames but IMO it does not foster a lot of things i enjoy seeing in RPGs - teamwork. it also really makes things get odd as far as any sort of planning and "sense" to the combat.
Mechanically the first question is how does this even work - hidden notes?
NOW that said, a few games i considered used different initittive frameworks altogether.
Lets Call DND a PBI system - player based initiative - where there is a sequence determined and that sequence lets a PLAYER direct his character thru his entire set of actions. 99% of the time the actions themselves **what you are doing** do not matter. While some may want to imagine this as simultaneous it is really everywhere it counts as sequential system.
But other games have used an ABI - Action based initiative - where 99% of the time **what you are doing** is the main determining factor in the resolution order. So as an example it would work like this...
1- Everybody rolls initiative.
2a - the **LOWEST** or **WORST** inti declares his action for the turn in front of everybody.
2b-y Every other character in ascending order declares their actions until everyone has declared.
2z - Editorial in this case init is "seeing what is happening and getting to make more informed decisions" and so making it perception based makes a lot of sense. Even a WIS(tactics) would make sense.
3-The resolution of actions takes place based on a strict "actions take time" stages layout. That layout can vary by setting - Dr Who put talking ahead of fixing broken stuff ahead of fleeing and only let any attack actions take place at the very end, a low magic may put any spell casting after move and melee while a high magic may put them first or at the same stage.
3a - All actions at the same stage happen - so if "strike with weapons in hand and ready" is at the same stage as "activate magic item" then even if the attack kills the magic item guy, they got the item activated before/as they were killed.
3b if stage 1 is "fire or attack once with weapons in hand and ready" and stage 2 is "activate magic items" then an attack resolved in stage one can kill someone before they activate an item.
The big key then becomes the STAGES and setting them up to work right to match the flavor of the setting.
A beauty of this system is it separates the randomness from the action itself as far as order - and lets the random elements play a role in the "decisions" and how much you have to base the info on. it provides for as much nuance and discrimination between "simultaneous" and "sequential" as you like.
So just drawing in from say a somewhat standard fantasy trope stages could include:
STAGE 1 - Ready - attacks/activations/casts (1 action or less)) with items already in hand with no move or interactions needed or taken. (Might limit this to one attack only if you want to make multi-attack a "longer thing" that you sometimes give up for speed.)
STAGE-2 Almost Quick - as in 1 but ONE little bit extra like pulling ammo or drawing material components. Might add in all multi-attacks which were ready. maybe also a ready bonus action like say thief dash or hide or use object or second weapon fighting.
STAGE-3 NORMAL - Pretty much the normal compelxity of actions including move with attack(s) (before or after), the usual interactions, bonus actions etc. Typical spells might be here.
STAGE-4 - COMPLEX - Actions you deem as suitable to be called complex. Any long term effort that wont be solved in one turn and maybe even casting spells that require concentration.
etc
etc
(before folks start yelling about this unbalancing blah this blah that... yes i know... this is just a suggested set of stages for illustrative purposes. One system i saw for urban arcane put spells as after all other physical actions AND allowed for any damage in the turn to work against succeeding at casting - because it wanted to represent spellcasters and witches as vulnerable and needing cover in actual combat. Then again their spell could just teleport the big bad into not quite orbit 100 miles away and let them plummet to earth - so there was a need for balance.)
The net underpinning of this is that IMO - if you want to produce a more "simultaneous" feeling then separating decision/declaration and resolution can work, having random apply to decision/declaration order can work - but IMO you open a huge can of very difficult to manage worms if you separate decision/declare and resolution with a random sequence between them. That randomize order after decision/declaration**does not** accomplish representing "simultaneous" any better than the current system does, it just applies a lack of logic at all to the order and create more oddities between decision/declare and resolutions.
FWIW, in my current 5e-based game, first turn i let the players choose first or last for their group. (if they do not decide quick, it becomes last by default and by quick i mean consensus in 15s or less.)
if FIRST, a PC goes then an NPC goes then a PC/ally then an NPC then... but one NPC will get to go last.
if LAST, an NPC goers first, a PC/ally goes next, then another NPC, then another PC/ally but a PC will always go last.
The order or their characters is up to them. The order of the NPCs is up to me. After turn 1 that order is set and will remain. new character entering the fray get added in just above the DESIGNATED last, folded into the bottom of the sequence.
this lets the actual sequence of moves be a matter of choice and decision, not random and i like that better.
But i have played with a lot of different systems.