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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6973057" data-attributes="member: 42582">No.Gygax is quite express that the action economy for AD&D is not a physics computation. The game takes no view on how long it takes to manoeuvre a sword or dodge an arrow. As Gygax puts it (DMG, p 61);Combat is divided into 1 minute period melee rounds, or simply rounds, in order to have reasonably manageable combat. "Manageable" applies both to the actions of the combatants and to the actual refereeing of such melees. It would be no great task to devise an elaborate set of rules for highly complex individual combats with rounds of but a few seconds length. It is not in the best interests of an adventure game, however, to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte. The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy. . . . One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication. This allows the DM and the players the best of both worlds. The system assumes much activity during the course of each round. Envision, if you will, a fencing, boxing, or karate match. During the course of one minute of such competition there are numerous attacks which are unsuccessful, feints, maneuvering, and so forth. During a one minute melee round many attacks are made, but some are mere feints, while some are blocked or parried. One, or possibly several, have the chance to actually score damage. For such chances, the dice are rolled, and if the"to hit" number is equalled or exceeded, the attack was successful, but otherwise it too was avoided, blocked, parried, or whatever. . . . So while a round of combat is not a continuous series of attacks, it is neither just a single blow and counter-blow affair. The opponents spar and move, seeking the opportunity to engage when on opening, in the enemy's guard presents itself.The action economy in the modern game is also clearly not a physics computation. This is evident in several respects - first, that only one attack per 6 seconds is permitted (so whatever the attack roll represents, it doesn't represent a single movement of a metal object); second, that the turn is stop motion but we're not meant to envisage the gameworld as being a stop-motion one; third, and following on from the second, that A can only move 60' in 6 seconds, and yet A and B together, if they have the same movement rate, can cover 90' in 6 seconds (A moves up to B, uses his/her action to pass something to B, then B moves + dashes for 60').I agree that climbing a tree will normally be adjudicated by reference to real-world experience - this is why exactly the same action can be sensible (in AD&D) or foolish (in HARP, with 2 second rounds), even though the "physics" is no different in the different gameworlds.</blockquote>

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