[Osprey Games] Romance of the Perilous Land

[Bluenose]

And simultinaity is a non-fighter's delusion. Years of armed martial arts, including fencing melée, nothing is truly simultaneous.

That's not really true in a one-to-one fight, as even while one of the participants is initiating an attack the other is reacting to it and doing something - not politely waiting till it's their turn to act. For a larger combat (I've been a Dark age re-enactor and taken part in plenty of large melees) I absolutely guarantee there'll be many people "active" at any given time, and one of them is probably going to hit you from behind while you think you're on the offensive against someone else.
It's actually interesting that some RPGs includes options for combat where both sides effectively pool all their dice together to get a result. Tunnels and Trolls pith pools of dice and adds on each side, Heroquest with abilities and augments, and others. It's probably a closer match for reality than much of what we see in D&D.

 

[aramis erak]

Bluenose, I think you're missing my point - in a one on one, someone ALWAYS goes before the other, and usually the reaction is fast enough to matter (but not always to block).
You're also ignoring the action time, which also tends to get ignored n most games.

My attack isn't simultaneous with your reaction. Your reaction is later than my attack, but both take time to do... and parries are shorter than attacks. But you're almost never both going to attack at the same instant. And that matters. I've often aborted an attack just before starting it to parry. In game terms, that's them going first, and me sacrificing my next to parry.

Sequence in rapier melee...
I look for any opening. If I see one, I start my attack; if someone sees that, that's an opening and they start theirs; if I see it, I either judge it a non-threat and continue my attack, judge it a threat and use an offhand to impede it, judge it a threat and abort my attack; If i don't...
Odds are my attack hits before it anyway. My opponent has to decide soon enough to parry or to counter, NEITHER CAN BE simultaneous. The chain of 100mSec reactions is just too fine to generate any practical simultanaities.

Side-vs-Side initiative completely ignores and abstracts away all potential reaction chains, and doesn't give me the kinds of outcomes that I've seen and done all too often.

It's actually interesting that some RPGs includes options for combat where both sides effectively pool all their dice together to get a result. Tunnels and Trolls pith pools of dice and adds on each side, Heroquest with abilities and augments, and others. It's probably a closer match for reality than much of what we see in D&D.

Pretty much anything other than D&D emulation is closer to reality than D&D.

Hit points as implemented in D&D are total BS.

T&T combat is simple, and elegant, and for the D&D level abstraction, does do a lot...

But I've discovered a few things...

1. it works best when a fight breaks into several mini-fights, rather than a "whole room brawl" - and the use of SR's to make that happen.
2. it is overly abstracted for many players
3. It's freaking awesome and deadly when playing solos.

My personal preference for playability is the system in FFGs star wars. Fixed slots, owned by side, but intermeshed due to the initial rolls, with players picking as the slot hits which PC who hasn't acted yet goes.

The most realistic for initiative in my view is WEG D6 Star Wars 1E. The rare simultaneous hits are workable... but a squad of ST's vs 5 players is $&#**^% SLOW... because nothing gets resolved until everyone's rolled, totaled... I resolved 18 ST vs 7 PCs in half the time in FFG SW than it took me in WEG 1E. (both in 2018, so we're not talking memory effects.)
The best cinematic is, IMO, Prime Directive 1E... but it's not terribly quick to generate initiatives... but it does enforce the occasional panic-lockup, an that's a good side effect.

I've run minicampaigns (over 4 sessions and at least 2 adventures, usually 6 hour sessions) of over 100 different game rulesets (albeit several are various editions), and one-shots of another hundred plus...
None of them come close to getting all aspects right.
The ones with the right 1-2 actions per second seldom get the pauses and circling right.
The ones that get the longer timescale effects right seldom have a realistic action economy.
Damage rules are usually 2 of playable, realistic, or fun...

 

[atanakar]

Bluenose, I think you're missing my point - in a one on one, someone ALWAYS goes before the other, and usually the reaction is fast enough to matter (but not always to block).
You're also ignoring the action time, which also tends to get ignored n most games.

Sequence in rapier melee...
I look for any opening. If I see one, I start my attack; if someone sees that, that's an opening and they start theirs; if I see it, I either judge it a non-threat and continue my attack, judge it a threat and use an offhand to impede it, judge it a threat and abort my attack; If i don't...
Odds are my attack hits before it anyway. My opponent has to decide soon enough to parry or to counter, NEITHER CAN BE simultaneous. The chain of 100mSec reactions is just too fine to generate any practical simultanaities.

Side-vs-Side initiative completely ignores and abstracts away all potential reaction chains, and doesn't give me the kinds of outcomes that I've seen and done all too often.

Pretty much anything other than D&D emulation is closer to reality than D&D.

Hit points as implemented in D&D are total BS.

T&T combat is simple, and elegant, and for the D&D level abstraction, does do a lot...

But I've discovered a few things...

1. it works best when a fight breaks into several mini-fights, rather than a "whole room brawl" - and the use of SR's to make that happen.
2. it is overly abstracted for many players
3. It's freaking awesome and deadly when playing solos.

My personal preference for playability is the system in FFGs star wars. Fixed slots, owned by side, but intermeshed due to the initial rolls, with players picking as the slot hits which PC who hasn't acted yet goes.

The most realistic for initiative in my view is WEG D6 Star Wars 1E. The rare simultaneous hits are workable... but a squad of ST's vs 5 players is $&#**^% SLOW... because nothing gets resolved until everyone's rolled, totaled... I resolved 18 ST vs 7 PCs in half the time in FFG SW than it took me in WEG 1E. (both in 2018, so we're not talking memory effects.)
The best cinematic is, IMO, Prime Directive 1E... but it's not terribly quick to generate initiatives... but it does enforce the occasional panic-lockup, an that's a good side effect.

I've run minicampaigns (over 4 sessions and at least 2 adventures, usually 6 hour sessions) of over 100 different game rulesets (albeit several are various editions), and one-shots of another hundred plus...
None of them come close to getting all aspects right.
The ones with the right 1-2 actions per second seldom get the pauses and circling right.
The ones that get the longer timescale effects right seldom have a realistic action economy.
Damage rules are usually 2 of playable, realistic, or fun...

Hey, guys I know I don't own this thread but I would appreciate it if you started a thread about simultaneous initiative and what it entails. It is a very interesting topic and I think others would have good input.

 

[Aldarc]

Hey, guys I know I don't own this thread but I would appreciate it if you started a thread about simultaneous initiative and what it entails. It is a very interesting topic and I think others would have good input.

I'm still waiting to hear the playtest report of your test dummy characters.

 

[atanakar]

Received the hard copy today. It's digest size. Strong binding. The font size is a bit small but since the spacing between the line is wide it remains easy to read. A lovely book. Happy with my purchase. I rolled my first four characters. Will start the adventure blog any day now.