Tick-based initiative systems -what are your experiences?

[glass]

What the title says!

I am fascinated by idea of tick based initiative systems, but I have never actually played with one so I have no idea how they work out in practice.

Exalted is obviously the most famous example, how does that work? I see lots of discussion about the problems with perfect defences, but very little about the initiative system!

I believe Feng Shui uses something similar, but I think it has rounds as well, somehow. What else is out there?


glass.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Scion, the demi-god game from White Wolf, also uses tick-based initiative.

It's a real change from cyclical initiatives, which may have colored my experiences.

It's certainly one way to do them. It requires players to pay a lot of attention when things slip into initiative, which can be a real problem for some tables. It requires either a single person to know the tick modifiers for all actions, or else it requires each person to know the tick modifiers for their own actions; this level of knowledge is not common in my experience. It allows many actions in a single tick-cycle, which can lead to an amazing narrative sequence, but can leave some players feeling left out or superfluous.

My general reaction is actually neutral. It does some things well, such as allowing a number of minor actions to be spaced over the same time as a couple of major actions; it does some things poorly, such as evenly dividing the action time among the participants. It works, which is the ultimate goal, so it's a valid way of running things. Honestly, you could port it over to any game system, once you decided a) how much action or time a 'tick' represents, b) the 'tick' value of the various actions in the system, and see for yourself in whatever games you regularly play in.

I hope that was helpful. Good luck.

 

[Iron Sky]

I found the tick system was one of the things that killed 2nd Edition Exalted for me. It felt so... gamey and mechanical after the free-form initiative of 1st Edition.

That might just be the contrast between two editions of that one system though. I've never seen it in another system, so no idea how it would feel then.

 

[Fede]

Free-form initiative of 1st edition? How did that work? (I'm familiar with other White wolf games, but not exalted)

 

[Armadillo]

I like the circular tick system used in Sion, but it is odd that there are no rounds. The interaction of the movement rules and ticks are a big plus.

The Feng Shui tick system worked well. However, it uses a base count of three for an action as compared to Sion's five per action. My experience is that three was too small a number because fast characters in Feng Shui could easily wind up acting 2-3 times before a character with an average speed. Which left the player of a character with an average speed twiddling his thumbs for much of a fight.

 

[EditorBFG]

In this thread, I posted a tick-based initiative system for 3.x, and there was some discussion of how to implement it. Not sure how it would work for 4E, it would probably be simpler.

I find that tick-based initiative feels faster-paced, whether it is or not. And since RPGs are experiential, isn't that kind of the point?

 

[Iron Sky]

Well, I say free-form in that you could do pretty much anything on your turn, as long as you were willing to take the penalties.

The way we did it (not sure if it's exactly how it's written) was to have everyone roll initiative, then each person would declare their actions "up" and act "down." So the slower people declared what they were doing, the faster players got to react to it and act first.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Spooooooon!!!!!

 

[jdrakeh]

The Arduin Adventure was one of the first games to use a "tick" system for initiative and, FWIW, it's still one of the best IMO. I've nabbed that particular system for use in C&C, AD&D, D&D 3x, and BFRPG. It does require that players keep their head in the game more but it seems to be a more realistic way to handle acting order in combat.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

1st edition Deadlands (and maybe later editions) used a sort of tic based initiative with the card system that was quite easy to keep track of. Actions were resolved high card (Ace) to low card (2). Each round, you rolled speed, and drew a number of cards, which you could spend on actions. Some actions might require multiple cards being expended (firing a pistol was resolved on a single card, reloading a muzzle loader might take 3+). You would begin on the highest card and end on the lowest. So someone might begin on a jack and finish on the 3 phase, representing their action took a decent amount of time. If you didnt get enough cards to finish in one round, it rolled over the next. You might have only gotten a single card one round ( a 2) and then drew a king the next, resolving it at the top of the round. I found it considerably easier to keep track of this than remembering something would occur in 7 segments, as the cards were an excellent visual reminder. No wetboard needed either was a big plus.