Roll Initiative!

[Nyaricus]

I voted for what I think may be the worst monster design in the entire MM: the hydra.

As for Roll Initiative, while the idea is fun sometimes, it just wouldn't fit my game's mood at all. Also, since I give the Players so much freedom from game to game, it would feel like railroading to me. When I start a session, I ask them where they are and why. That works much better for me than Roll Initiative would.

I should run a one-shot for you, starting with "ROLL INITIATIVE" and "You see a mass of writhing, serpentine heads rising from the water" just too see how red your face could get

 

[Dragonhelm]

I have to say that I disagree with the hypothesis as well. A couple of points in the article I wanted to address:

A famous baseball radio announcer once claimed that anyone who tuned into his show hated him and every word he said until he gave them the score. I think it’s a little like that in a way for D&D players. Each game session, players can seemingly resent every plot and subplot, they hate every NPC, until finally the sweet release of combat comes heralded in by those two wonderful words: Roll Initiative.

D&D is a role-playing game, not a roll-playing game. Maybe combat should be thrown in on occasion to break up the monotony, but there should be a good focus on adventure, storytelling, and character.

If role-playing is something that you resent, then I recommend finding a game that's more to your liking, such as Risk or wargaming.

2. Love: most players have built their characters for this moment, the start of the fight. If your players know that you’re going to guarantee them combat every session, they’ll love you for it.

I must disagree here as well. Some people build their characters for fights, but not every one does. What about the cowardly rogue or the scholarly wizard?


I have to say that I hope we don't see this trend continue in the future. Perhaps the author misstated, but I'm left with the distinct impression that he favors rules over characters.

 

[MarkB]

I voted for the Hydra, because I ran one recently and it just bugged, me, and I'm still smarting from a recent long and inconclusive online argument about how to interpret its use of Combat Reflexes.

And yeah, I can't agree at all with the central thrust of the article. I've been in combat-heavy games where I've enjoyed every minute, and in roleplay-heavy games where I've enjoyed every minute. I've also been in games where I couldn't wait for combat to begin, and others where I couldn't wait for it to end.

I submit the following suggestion to the article's author: If your players are squirming for you to do something else, it may not be that you're doing the wrong thing - it may just be that you're doing it wrong. And if that's the case, then injecting some different scenes - whether it's combat or something else - is no more than a band-aid. You have a more fundamental problem in your campaign, and you need to fix it, not provide distractions from it.

 

[Cam Banks]

D&D is a role-playing game, not a roll-playing game. Maybe combat should be thrown in on occasion to break up the monotony, but there should be a good focus on adventure, storytelling, and character.

It's quite possible that for a greater percentage of the D&D gameplaying audience, the best and most successful vehicle for adventure, storytelling, and character development is combat. Conflict drives everything in D&D, from rules design to scenario construction, and combat gets more rules than almost anything else.

I'd like to state for the record that I don't believe "roleplaying" is the stuff that happens in between the fights. From my experience, the roleplaying happens constantly - whether you play your role in the middle of a pitched battle against hordes of ogres, or play your role in the middle of a tense diplomatic crisis with the Prince Regent of Bobdar, you're making use of the rules to frame everything.

Therefore, I'd like to toss out the "roll-playing" vs. "role-playing" cliche, and replace it with active vs. passive. If you make the game active, regardless of what's going on, you'll find that the experience improves. If the game remains passive, which can include combat, then it's no fun for anybody.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Flyspeck23]

I'd like to state for the record that I don't believe "roleplaying" is the stuff that happens in between the fights. From my experience, the roleplaying happens constantly - whether you play your role in the middle of a pitched battle against hordes of ogres, or play your role in the middle of a tense diplomatic crisis with the Prince Regent of Bobdar, you're making use of the rules to frame everything.

Therefore, I'd like to toss out the "roll-playing" vs. "role-playing" cliche, and replace it with active vs. passive. If you make the game active, regardless of what's going on, you'll find that the experience improves. If the game remains passive, which can include combat, then it's no fun for anybody.

QFT.

How the game stops to be about roleplaying once combat starts is beyond me.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Dragonhelm, be advised that bringing up BS like "roll vs. role" playing is NOT how to win friends and influence people on ENWorld.

Me, I read your post up until I saw that, then just stopped, and ignored the rest of what you had to say.

 

[Shemeska]

New Design and Development's up here. Don't think I agree with its central hypothesis. Although it does have the advantage of snapping the game into immediate focus, the idea of "the game always starts with a combat, whether or not it makes sense to" is kind of silly. If the last session ended with resting for the night, it might work. If it ended with a diplomatic discussion with the King of Do-goodia, not so much.

My players would hurt me. Seriously. That's so different from the tone of the game and style of play that it would verge on parody. Some games that stance might work with, but I can't see it working for the majority of them. Honestly the article seems to be stressing combat as the primary focus of the game, and endulging in some cynicism I think it does so perhaps because 3.5 combat stresses minis, and minis sell.

Although the klurichir could really use one, bodaks are a lot more useful.

The Klurichir needs to realize its place it the Abyss, that it's more or less a Molydeus with down syndrome.

 

[Dragonhelm]

I'd like to state for the record that I don't believe "roleplaying" is the stuff that happens in between the fights. From my experience, the roleplaying happens constantly - whether you play your role in the middle of a pitched battle against hordes of ogres, or play your role in the middle of a tense diplomatic crisis with the Prince Regent of Bobdar, you're making use of the rules to frame everything.

Therefore, I'd like to toss out the "roll-playing" vs. "role-playing" cliche, and replace it with active vs. passive. If you make the game active, regardless of what's going on, you'll find that the experience improves. If the game remains passive, which can include combat, then it's no fun for anybody.

I can agree with this train of thought. In my own games, I try to work on pacing. If the story is dragging, I add combat. If there's too much combat, I move towards more story elements. And I agree that you can role-play during combat. Pardon if my post didn't reflect that.

My concern, though, is that there is too much focus on rules and combat, so that role-playing, whether in combat or not, is lost. The article in question makes it sound that way. Again, perhaps it was a misstatement on the author's part and his meaning didn't make it through.

 

[Henry]

D&D is a role-playing game, not a roll-playing game. Maybe combat should be thrown in on occasion to break up the monotony, but there should be a good focus on adventure, storytelling, and character.

Is that a little "Badwrongfun" I see peeking through, Trampas?

More seriously, some people DO like the rules more than the roleplaying (I have a couple in my group) -- but it doesn't mean the playing stops when we roll inits. Sometimes critical plot points can happen IN THE MIDST of combat, as is about to happen to my players in the next game session (wink, nudge).

In the past, I've seen a fellow DM have the theft of a major artifact from our party happen in initiative time, as the entire group, NONE of whom were prepped with invisibility-defeating magics, tried to stop a person who stole an object and cast invisibility from leaving a room with said object, and breaking all Hell lose. It was the most DARNED ANNOYING time of my life, but MAN, was it fun!!!!

 

[Dragonhelm]

Dragonhelm, be advised that bringing up BS like "roll vs. role" playing is NOT how to win friends and influence people on ENWorld.

Me, I read your post up until I saw that, then just stopped, and ignored the rest of what you had to say.

It isn't my intention to antagonize, and I apologize if I inadvertantly did so. It isn't my intention to bring up old arguments.

And please understand that while you may consider this BS, it is a very real concern for me. I do worry that story and characters are being overlooked in favor of mechanics. Not that rules are bad, just that I feel there should be a balanced point of view between the two.

Is that a little "Badwrongfun" I see peeking through, Trampas?

More seriously, some people DO like the rules more than the roleplaying (I have a couple in my group) -- but it doesn't mean the playing stops when we roll inits. Sometimes critical plot points can happen IN THE MIDST of combat, as is about to happen to my players in the next game session (wink, nudge).

In the past, I've seen a fellow DM have the theft of a major artifact from our party happen in initiative time, as the entire group, NONE of whom were prepped with invisibility-defeating magics, tried to stop a person who stole an object and cast invisibility from leaving a room with said object, and breaking all Hell lose. It was the most DARNED ANNOYING time of my life, but MAN, was it fun!!!!

*sigh* Apparantly, I have blatantly misstated and, unintentionally, presented a polarized view. My apologies all around.