/tg/ - Traditional Games

I think Savage Worlds uses a deck of playing cards, and everyone draws a card every round for initiative. As well some abilities key off card draws, mostly the Joker cards I think. Haven't gotten around to actually playing the game, but it certainly sounds interesting.

>>215420

For the most part, all TTRPGs use turns/rounds for determining who goes first, but that can vary heavily on system.

Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) has a pretty similar Initiative system to DnD, but wounds and being surprised can really set you back. And with how lethal the combat can be, you definitely want to go first.

Shadowrun uses a system that allows a character to act multiple times in a round, based on what actions they take and what weapons they use.

Much like Shadowrun, Exalted had a similar Initiative mechanic that would allow someone to act multiple times in a round. I had a character that worked in tandem with another, where my character would dice away the enemy's AC with dual shortswords (I believe I had something akin to 5-6 attacks in one round) and my buddy with a greatsword would follow up on his turn (with just one attack that hit like a freight train.)

Some games have Initiative that's rolled every round. I know L5R has this as an optional rule, that can also change based on character actions (so attacking in one round will penalize you more heavily in the next turn.) I believe older versions of Call of Cthulhu used a similar "roll every turn" system, but it's been a long time since I played those.

>For example, D&D5E describes rounds of combat as happening simultaneously, but you can also have a situation where it might be beneficial to go second in the turn order, for example if two fighters are running at each other - the first guy gets 30ft away from his enemy, then the enemy goes second and closes the gap, but he can also attack on his turn.

This isn't as much a fault of the Initiative system proper, as DnD has options for tactical actions (namely, for the example, the Hold action. Delays your turn until a certain criteria is met.) Though, DnD still suffers from "First Turn Syndrome," where whoever goes first has a huge advantage (which is only compounded by how many characters go before the enemy, and especially for mid to high level spellcasters.)

>>215455

Deadlands Classic is an interesting one with initiative. You roll your quickness and have to beat a 5. Then you get to draw a card plus another for every 5 over you got. So you can have up to 5 actions. Then you work your way down the deck for everyone to take an action. Also the DM has a separate deck he pulls from to determine when the bad guys go. So it is possible for the npcs to go at the same as the players. Also you can place one of your cards 'up your sleeve' which allows you go at another time even possibly interrupting another player's action. Also Jokers change things up.

I remember there was one game where you would go from lowest to highest declaring actions then work out the actions from highest to lowest. It allowed the person who won initiative to plan for things that other players or npcs were doing. I can't remember what game that was though.

>>215420

>What's your favorite system for resolving simultaneous actions like combat in an RPG? How does a typical exchange run in this system? What are the pros/cons?

Ironclaw! Essentially: attacking in their threat range provokes a simultaneously resolved attack of opportunity. Combat is pretty much always opposed rolls. The target can counter, parry, or dodge. By team, units use their two actions in any order. Default has players go first unless GM decides otherwise (ambush). You roll "initiative" at the start but it's just to see if you start with Focus (3 action turn OR one called action). No muckery with turn orders, it's player-centric and you don't have to worry about your allied turn order for optimal teamwork.

Generally speaking, you'll counter attack with an opposed roll (can even counter spells w/ spells). Highest die wins, each die in the pool represents a stat, skill, feat, bonus, or otherwise which lends well to narrative combat. Parry is best defense, and dodge works vs melee&ranged. It's got important rules regarding movement, and pressing or retreating paces, so the flow of combat actually moves around the board where you can force a rogue into the corner just pressing him on the defensive and then there's rules for not being able to retreat. Movement rules are a bit different having momentum (limited turning) and all-move turns putting you off balance. Lots of importance in play with bonus/penalty from being knocked off balance "reeling", and taking Focus for called actions or well planned turns, where a mere sling to the helmet can give enough bonus to the next attacker to take down anyone, plus the usual teammate flanking bonuses and such.

Really fun overall. Didn't buy the Omnibus but there's a PDF of it.

>>215420

There were some older RPGs that used sub-phases within a turn.

Say you had an "agility" of 3, out of 1 to 5. Now say each "turn" has 8 "ticks". The speeds correspond to having anywhere from 2 to 6 of the 8 ticks. When you declare an action, you dedicate as many "ticks" as it requires to complete unless something prompts you to stop, however you lose any initiative if caught with your pants down in the middle of an action.

In Anima everybody rolls initiative every round, and initiative is affected by the specific action they plan to do.

>>215455

>Shadowrun uses a system that allows a character to act multiple times in a round, based on what actions they take and what weapons they use.

Sounds like an Action Points system in videogames. Divinity: Original Sin let you have at most about 20 AP for a turn you could use to move, attack, cast spells, etc. Each thing had a different cost. Does it work well at the table?

>>215491

My 5E group tried something like this suggested by AngryDM - his variant on the "speed factor initiative" rules in the DMG. You each roll initiative per round and declare upfront what your action will be (Attack, Cast a Spell, Dash, etc). The type of action has a modifier for your initiative, making finesse fighters frequently go first while spellcasters and heavy weapon users go later. It worked out alright but we rolled back to just using roll-every-round without the additional modifiers.

I remember some game (Twilight 2000?) where the number of actions one took in a turn depended on his level of training and experience. The highest action always went first (so, in this case, the SF guy would act 5 times before the conscript acted once, then the conscript would act, then the SF guy once again, then the second action of the conscript).

Civilians took 1 action, Conscripts took 2 actions, Professionals took 3… all the way up to the SF guys that had 6 actions per turn. Makes some sense.

I am working on a homebrewed combat system where actions are descbribed from the least smart character (he acts without taking others into consideration) to the most smart character (he is able to consider everyone's actions before describing his), and then the GM resolves the whole turn as if everyone acted at the exact same time.

Been also studying the possibility of limiting the time to describe an action to ~30 seconds for pressure, to speed up combat and to induce failure and reward pre-battle coordination and planning. Not really sure about it, though - while it might be tense combat, it might also get too mechanic and non descriptive.

Night Wizard has an interesting take on the rounds/turns system.

At the start of the round you roll for your Count. Which is a pool of points used to pay for costs.

Your Move and Act actions on your turns costs 10+ Count. Base 10, + whatever is required for your special abilities.

Once you've spent your count, you drop down lower on the turn order, and can act again when you have the most count.

Once everyone is out of count the round is over (and round-based effects proc) and then a new round is started.

Riddle of Steel has a fast-paced, blow-by-blow combat system, so instead of it being Mike's turn for an action, then Bob's turn for an action, etc. you focus on one pair or group of combatants for a couple of exchanges until something happens or circumstances change (someone gets hit, or knocked down, or someone gets the upper hand).

Within these exchanges the opposing sides act simultaneously and are either on the offense or defense. If you're on the defense and succeed well on a parry or dodge or block or counter or something, you get the upper hand and are then on the offense.

I'm over-simplifying, and it's kind of hard to explain, but in practice it has the least video-gamey or chesslike feel of any RPG combat system I've ever played, a better feel even than Jadeclaw/Ironclaw, but it runs a lot smoother and quicker.

>>215494

the problem with 95% of action point systems is that increasing your action points is almost always the correct decision from a min-max perspective

It's been a little while since I last played, but the Mistborn RPG system has an initiative mechanic where initiative goes in reverse order, because it gives characters with the highest initiative the chance to react to all incoming attacks.

If I'm not mistaken, this is represented by the amount of dice you have to use each round. You can dedicate a few dice to each incoming attacker or pick and choose which hits, if any, you're going to take.

>>215541

I suppose the solution would be to make player class choices not have any effect on the amount of AP you have, but rather use it to allow more versatile turn-taking. You'd have to make movement very cheap though so people don't feel like they have to stand still in battle in order to do what they need.

>>215529

So rather than establishing a rigid turn order where everyone goes *once per round*, a slow heavy character might only get half as many turns as the nimble character? That sounds interesting.

>>215536

This also sounds interesting - rather than taking turns as a whole, you deal with individual single combats? What happens if it's two-on-one?

FFG's Starwars system has a weird system for initiative. Rather than generating your own initiative slot, you generate AN initiative slot for your team. Once combat begins anyone who hasn't already acted on your team may utilize the initiative slot.

I have no idea how well it works out in practice but in theory it allows you to shuffle your party's turn order around as needed.

>>215541

What's the other 5%?

>>215494

Sounds a lot like Anima, but it goes a little more specific. There isn't just an attack modifier, every weapon has its own specific initiative modifier. Big heavy weapons have bigger penalties, attacking unarmed or with small, light weapons gets a bonus. And on top of that, the crafting quality of weapons also improves their initiative.

>>215664

Answering about Riddle of Steel: multiple-opponents-on-one combats are deadly and you do your best to avoid them.

When you're facing multiple opponents you have to split your pool (that you use for defenses, attacks, manuevers, etc), which sucks a lot. You can also use some dice from your pool for "footwork" to try to limit how many of your opponents can face you at any given time.

It allows a lot of detail, tactics, and flexibility but it plays so smooth and fast. Honestly, if you're either looking for a TTRPG with a great combat system, or you're just interested in exploring cool system design philosophy, you need to check the game out. In my opinion it's never been matched or beaten. There's a reason in pops up in any discussion about TTRPG combat mechanics.

>>215500

A friend of mine used the 30-second rule in his Roll20 game. Switched to 1 minute for his "special" group.

It worked wonders.

There's also continuous time (not really broken into rounds).

Like Hackmaster, IIRC, or to lesser degree AD&D1 with its segments.

The advantage is that it can be used to achieve for more natural look&feel - instead of arbitrary N attacks/round, those who act faster, attack more often.

The disadvantage is inevitable clusterfuck.

>>217381

What system, anon?

And how did the players react?

>>217656

It was my friend's homebrew; his players grumbled for a bit and then got used to it.

>>215420

>I think the typical initiative system is alright, provided that your players can accept that it's an abstraction, but there are some situations where it doesn't really work out.

The most obvious inherent problem with the way it's done in Duh&Doh is "the guy with shorter weapon gets to stab first".

>>216952

other anon here. what if you want that kind of detail, but you also want to play something at a higher power level? could you just inflate a few stats, and increase the size of the dice pool so you can take on multiple opponents and large creatures as regularly occurring combats?

>>223092

Even without getting supernatural, if you're really, really good and you have a bunch of really, really weak opponents, it works pretty well. There are actually limits in place to keep a dozen guys from swinging on you at once, because they just can't fit, and like I said you can also limit how many you have face in this one moment with footwork, so you could be completely surrounded, but only have to trade blows with two or three at a time, cutting them down while both they and you look for openings.

Now a mortal would of course get tired and start to slow down, even if he outskilled them, but if you wanted high-power you could always just ignore that part.

Fighting large creatures will always probably feel like fighting large creatures though, it will always feel different and dangerous, and a lot like a hunt instead of where in D&D style games a large creature is basically just any other monster only it has more hit points and takes up more room on the board. But creatures are pretty easy to stat up once you grok the system so you could probably make them just hit and take damage more like people to get that feel.

If you did increase the pools to supernatural levels, then supernatural guys would cream mundanes like in exalted, but the problem would actually be the unwieldiness of dropping 30 dice or whatever. Riddle's quickness and smooth ease of play is one of it's strongpoints, so I wouldn't take that away. Instead I would steal the almost exponent-like idea from Rifts and say something like this dude is a powerlevel FIVE supersaiyan or whatever, so each individual one of his dieroll successes count as five normal successes, and/or every five successes from a normal person he gets to treat as one. That would give the effect of a sort of D&D higher power level "basically immune to goblins with daggers" feel without needing massive, unwieldy dicepools.

I've never tried to mix plausible with implausible on Riddle's framework, but it doesn't seem particularly impossible, although Riddle does definitely aim for plausible, and it's great if you're looking for that, AND you want fun and fast … But as much of a fanboy as I am, and as strongly as I believe it's the most fun combat system around, that's speaking with only my own palette to measure with. If plausible is something you don't want, you could try removing it from TRoS, and it might or might not work, and could work awesomely, but I honestly have no prediction for the outcome.

>>223103

thanks for the response! I got a pdf of the game to read over and it sounds really interesting.

Ryuutama:

Roll two dice (one for dex one for int, so for example 2d4 or d6+d8 and etc). That becomes your characters initiative for this battle, and their ac

I've been experimenting 2 systems.

1st one, everyone declares action/intent and rolls. Most successes gets to act first on his already declared intent.

2nd one, everyone declares action/intent. Everyone goes is considering acting exactly at the same time and GM (and players) describe it so. Resolution is done by "Scenes" (action focus/concentration points), from hottest to coldest.

Actions may be cancelled/redone mid description (e.g.: A feint), but at increased difficulty.

The dynamic of acting at the same time is really interesting. Forces more thought, interaction and planning, too.