Electronic violence simulators have evolved to a point where they don't need to bother with such things. They can render virtual violence in real-time!
But we humans- imperfect calculators that we are- still need of initiative rules for our analog violence simulators. To alter a phrase from St. Augustine; we see through a video-monitor but darkly.
And after the Machine-War has been settled, we are seriously going to need good analog game systems. Incidentally, I am terrified by the prospect of running a game with Mentats or Bene Gesserits for players.
Let's start our review on familiar ground; D&D.
In standard practice, everyone around the table rolls the d20 and adds modifiers for dexterity or improved initiative. Highest number goes first, lowest last, and we repeat this round by round.
the World of Darkness uses an essentially similar system, substituting a d10 for the d20.
The result is that everyone acts at the same rate; once per round. The dex modifier to the initiative roll implies that we are accounting for a character's speed of action. But in practice, the winner of the initiative roll is acting at the same speed as the loser.
Also, because the same order is repeated every round, the order of action is cyclical. Now, where is the beginning of a circle? The notion of the "top" or "bottom" of the round becomes arbitrary.
In effect, we might as well just forget about rolling for it and go around the table to determine initiative.
In AD&D
The rules say to re-roll initiative every round, and also that players are to declare their actions beforehand.
Re-rolling every round makes initiative non-cyclical, while effectively making the initiative modifier more meaningful. But I have never met a group willing to take the time for this extra roll every round. Maybe we should try though.
AD&D shows the straight and narrow path once again.
I did once have players write orders for the round and submit them. The idea was to create a necessity for coordination of tactics in character. I thought this would enrich the game, but in practice, it just pissed people off to have to write, and I didn't notice much effective difference.
The writing made the whole game more silent, until it was the DMs turn to describe what all happened. This felt odd.
I can't remember if I was mapping combat at the time, or if it was played in imagination only. Probably the latter. If I had been mapping, it would have made it more clear when one person was casting AoE on top of an ally or getting in the way of the archer or whatever.
If we are taking combat as a serious aspect of our scenario, I suppose we have no choice but to map it.
DragonRaid
- Everyone acts at once.
I'm eager to actually get a game of DR going. It seems to have a very clear-minded approach to mechanics. In DR, everyone is assumed to act at once in a general manner throughout a combat round:
To engage someone in melee combat is to run the risk of being injured in turn. This is extremely realistic. In a melee between two people, to attack is essentially to incur an "attack of opportunity" on one's self. And since both combatants are understood to attack at once, there is no chance of killing the other guy before he gets his action.
This approach steps out of the nitty-gritty of what happens inside of a round, and considers more generally what the results of a round of combat were. This seems somehow simpatico with the notion of the character as an agent moderated by the player, rather than an avatar of the player.
As I understand, Traveller uses a similar approach to initiative.
Tick Systems
I've never gotten to play any of these. But Exalted and Scion use such systems. A given action takes so many ticks, and you may declare a new action when you have finished the first.
I understand that this is messy in practice, and requires a lot of handwaving and arbitration.
I think people love Exalted and Scion more for the setting than the mechanics anyways. Who wants to count successes on 17d10?
Also, weapons like daggers usually go more quickly than full-sized weapons in tick systems. This might make sense. but it isn't really the case, as Matt Easton explains.
Damn, Matt, how do you afford all those antique swords and reproduction weapons?
Anyway, Matt makes a point: to use a smaller, wieldier weapon, you have to take the time to get closer, and in that time, you are vulnerable to the guy with longer reach. This is the reason why people don't typically take a dagger to someone with a longsword.
If we are going for realism, we might as well actually go for realism.
Since we are talking about the relative time necessary to step in and stab someone, it seems a good place to mention that space and positioning are really the keys to determining when someone acts and when that action has its effect.
From this perspective, movement rate and attack range can calculate initiative, rather than relying on a random value from dice. But I can see that being ridiculously technical and time consuming to run. It would also still require handwaving and arbitrary judgment to account for just how long it takes to do anything else but attack.
Sure. We can easily say you have a movement rate of 3 meters and an attack range of another meter. But that doesn't tell us anything about how long it takes for you to find a potion in a backpack or tie a knot.
All in all, I am against having to assign time-values to actions in games where the paradigm is that anything may be attempted.
Perhaps better keep it simple then...
We can assign timing to actions in a more general sense without assigning numeric time values to every little thing. Like this; it seems pretty reasonable:
Choose your own?
I poked around on a forum to get some perspective on t the possibilities here. A LOT of people seem to like the initiative system of Marvel Heroes; where the aggressor acts first, but then chooses who goes next. The last person to go may even choose themselves to get the first action of the next round-allowing for a double action. This creates the balance and forces you to allow your enemies their turn if you don't want them to act twice.
Also in the realm of choose-your-own is the Imperial Assault miniatures-combat game. I've actually gotten to play this and found it pretty interesting. Players may discuss amongst themselves and choose who gets to act. Then the GM chooses a unit from the enemy force to perform their action(s). Then the players elect the next to act, and the GM chooses another unit to move and so on until every Character or unit has acted. Then the round resets.
This requires enemy forces to be divided into a number of units equal to the number of players, so you get three stormtroopers acting at once. Good thing they are crappy shots.
I enjoyed the tactical depth which this created, but noticed that the players had a tendency to quibble and take up time when one course of action was not clearly superior to another.
When designing an initiative system, we need to start with an idea of just how abstract or specific we want to be.
If we are being specific, like D&D seems to be aiming for, I personally dislike the idea of moving and acting in the same turn. If the bear starts moving towards you, you might want to try and do something before it gets to you. systems that allow for this are called "dynamic."
If we are being more abstract, we have to take our hands off the action more than may be really enjoyable or allow for the proper amount of agency.
And then there's this:
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