Toying with initiative - phased and segments

[Mannahnin]

On of the things I try to avoid in thinking about RPG mechanics, especially combat ones, is stuff that seems cool, or is too specific, or too hyped. I think of this as the "Katana Issue" or more historically maybe "Gygax's Spear"*. The basic problem I see is the urge towards simulation (not Forge style situationism) that over complicates and privileges certain things at the expense of basic game logic and existing mechanics.

Agreed.

While 80's kids loving katanas (a sword that is cool and all but not really much different then most when it comes to cutting people up) is a funny sort of thing, the principal behind it isn't exactly. D&D rules and especially the oldest combat ones, exist within the context of the game, and for me that has to come first before any momentary sense of verisimilitude or popular conception of how fighting worked in ancient times. So while I suspect SCA archers popping up to shoot people in shield walls works in SCA fights ... it doesn't seem to have been super common in shield wall combat. I'm guessing that the sort of bow you can do that with won't do much to a good helmet or mail ... but I don't know.

I don't think we have much data on how common archers sniping people in shield wall combat was historically, so much as we have data that in mass battles archers and melee-focused troops tended to be segregated a bit in different units (at least until later, with stuff like pike & shot squares). In large scale battles archers tend to group up and volley fire. Although in skirmish engagements it was and is (in recreationist combat) much less divided. The first time I read a book on ancient warfare I was a bit taken aback by the emphasis on ranged firepower, how slings and bows and thrown spears and their ability to strike from outside melee range was always incredibly valuable, even millennia ago.

My own experiences LARPing in the 90s and early 2000s also gave me a personal sense of how well ranged combatants (especially when screened by and working with melee allies, particularly ones with shields) can contribute at fairly short ranges both in line battles and skirmish engagements. And of course my personal experiences inform what feels verisimilitudinous to me.

What I do know is that making special rules for it would mess up my game and how the mechanics generally work for melee combat. Suddenly having lots of archers firing into melee is optimal - which I guess makes hobgoblins even more dangerous?

This feels backwards to me, because making ranged attacks into melee not work is itself an additional special rule. I suspect this is exactly why B/X has no such rule. Because it's just got fewer rules in general than AD&D, and lacks the ones about firing into melee. Just as OD&D does. I totally respect that adding more missiles into the mix with your rules set would represent additional complications, though.

For my games I'm usually happy to let the shooters shoot, and include some penalties for obstructions and other combatants in the way, with chances of hitting a friendly cropping up enough for spice and danger. Other OSR DMs I've played with tend to either do the same (in keeping with B/X) or just ban shooting into melee. Nice and simple either way.

To me the important part of mechanics is that they push towards the kind of game I want. I'm not much concerned about spotlight in combat (thieves and MU's tend to either stay out of it or nuke things with spells or sometimes a well set up backstab) ... but I don't play a game where combat is a huge amount of the player choice and decision making.

Agreed on the philosophy, again. Though my players with thieves do tend to like to mix it up at least a bit. My groups tend to enjoy combat quite a bit and may spend more time and put more emphasis on it than yours.

*While Gygax loved polearms he hated spears as a primitive weapon. There's a editorial in Strat Review on it - basically spears are for primitives tribespeople who deserve to be colonized (at least this was the tone I got from it) and pole arms are for baddasses like Swiss mercenaries. This rather ignores the fact the the spear has been consistently the weapon of choice on pre-modern battlefields which generally suggests that it works pretty damn well. I suppose a good spear is a pole arm though as well?

I know that editorial. I think you may be mis-remembering/reading into it a bit more than I would. I think Gary's got his facts wrong/exaggerated about the spear being "ineffective" against armored troops (obviously Greek hoplites facing one another would beg to differ with Gary's assessment!) , and about it no longer being common after the 11th century, but I think accusations of him hating the spear are a little overblown.

I try to bear in mind that he was largely referencing history books from the library in some cases dating back to 1909, and that popular history well into the modern era included nonsense misconceptions like plate-armored fighters being barely able to walk around (the worst part of The Once and Future King, to my recollection). I think in the man to man chart from Chainmail, and in the damage and the weapon vs. armor charts from Greyhawk and the PH that swords get a bit of obvious preferential treatment, and

 

[Gus L]

I don't think we have much data on how common archers sniping people in shield wall combat was historically...

We do know that bows were frequently mentioned in "viking sagas" and found at many Northern European sites. They tend to be single stave bows that are fairly long and mentions of war bows (such as in Olafs Trygvasonar's sagas) tend to emphasize heavy draw weights and use at sea. A fair amount of bow use sure but besides heroic highly skilled and miraculously strong archer type heroes they don't get much mention in land war outside of siege. Other then that the use of the bow in medieval warfare seems pretty common, but only really effective with longbows in the hands of the rigorously trained English or Japanese and composite horse bows used by everyone East of Germany.

To me the lack of use (as opposed to bows being the royal weapon in the early bronze age suggest they weren't all that unless one had a lot of training and a bow with a very high draw. But I really don't want to make a historical argument here - I find shooting into melee allows for a few tricks and tactics that I don't like because when the enemy does it (E.g. those hobgoblins putting 10 shortbow shots down the hall at your AC 9 wizard ... or even your AC 2 fighter from behind two ranks of polearms) it makes for dull PC deaths. If only the party does it, it's a sort of cheat code.

This feels backwards to me, because making ranged attacks into melee not work is itself an additional special rule. I suspect this is exactly why B/X has no such rule. Because it's just got fewer rules in general than AD&D, and lacks the ones about firing into melee. Just as OD&D does. I totally respect that adding more missiles into the mix with your rules set would represent additional complications, though.

I use OD&D - I don't much like anything after it - and I recognize the numerous holes in the system. Not saying you shouldn't allow missile fire from rear ranks without penalty ... but to me it doesn't work well.

Agreed on the philosophy, again. Though my players with thieves do tend to like to mix it up at least a bit. My groups tend to enjoy combat quite a bit and may spend more time and put more emphasis on it than yours.

It's hard to have a party of 10 in a two combatant wide hallway and give everyone something to do in combat anyway

I know that editorial. I think you may be mis-remembering/reading into it a bit more than I would. I think Gary's got his facts wrong/exaggerated about the spear being "ineffective" against armored troops (obviously Greek hoplites facing one another would beg to differ with Gary's assessment!) , and about it no longer being common after the 11th century, but I think accusations of him hating the spear are a little overblown [...] I try to bear in mind that he was largely referencing history books from the library in some cases dating back to 1909, and that popular history well into the modern era included nonsense misconceptions like plate-armored fighters being barely able to walk around (the worst part of The Once and Future King, to my recollection).

Perhaps - it's a bad weapon in D&D generally. I don't really dislike it as a bad weapon in D&D - Gary certainly built a system where the heroic, nobility related sword was the best weapon and that is something that tracks with his fictional sources. It's fine, but to me it's an example of the "katana problem" where one tries to take common perceptions, history (which changes constantly) or these days You Tube hot takes and force them into a system. Like if Gygax had said "Heroes of myth and legend are defined by their swords, just as high level fighters in D&D are the only characters who can wield magic swords, and other weapons are relegated to lesser power and status in D&D because of this." That would be cool - it's world building, it's design and it's acknowledging one's game goals rather then making an appeal to some dubious outside authority. There are plenty of reasons to favor swords (or any one "fighter" weapon) mechanically due to balancing them against other classes abilities ... in post OD&D the sword effectively becomes the fighter advantage over cleric for example. Similarly, the spear as a 2nd rank weapon that can be used with a shield should arguably be lower damage then a front rank weapon.

To me it's not really about the specifics of katanas, spears or shooting into melee - it's about thinking through the mechanical consequences of these rules and owning them rather then appealing to a sort of messy "realism" ... and we haven't even gotten into arguments about how dragons breath fire or what players can do about it with AP bio knowledge.