Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;642734One thing that puzzles me - how is the first option (B going first and killing A before he got his swing going) a plausible explanation - wouldn't that be modelled by A winning initiative and hitting, a different set of rolls?

Age of Heroes (like say HERO System) doesn't roll for initiative, but instead goes in a order fixed by an Initiative Stat (which rarely changes in the middle of combat).

It also uses 6 second turns, and thus 'one blow' represents the best effort in those 6 seconds.

A small time scale may or may not improve things. Typically what goes wrong is too much happens with small scales (sub-one second) and anything say 1 second or longer typically allows more than one thing to happen. Thus the turn sequence (and movement/placement on the map) is always abstracted on the PnP tabletop and only ever completely correct in a computer game (if then, in truth there's abstraction even there).

Quote from: gleichman;642724It's sort at the same level as the turn sequence problem. The mechanics if taken completely at their word say you've locked your facing in one direction when that isn't really the truth.

This is something of a white lie, a simplification that by itself doesn't cause much if any harm to the total Simulation of Process. The lack of harm is why I overlooked it until pointed in its direction by Grymbok.




This on the other hand causes greater harm, the reason for such mechanics is to deal with the weakness of the original Map and Turn Sequence Abstractions. If they're removed and not replaced what was a small harm becomes a major one.

Stated an another way, the Turn Sequence and Map may place things out sequence or direction- but the lack of AoOs and ZoC removes events along with their causes and effects (and still places things out of sequence and direction).


I think the minor breaks with Simulation of Process are almost unavoidable on the table top.

I agree that no AoO option can be problematic. it is a real issue for me in Savage Worlds where all activities occur in initiaitive order. So a character can run straight past another and not be targetted.
I instigated a phased movement option for when this occurs, effectively implementing a tick system for movement that starts at the initiaitive of the fastest character. Its slower for sure but as it only happens in tense combats when people are running about the slowness adds a certain tension and bullet-time kind of aspect which off-sets the additional time.

Quote from: jibbajibba;642742I agree that no AoO option can be problematic. it is a real issue for me in Savage Worlds where all activities occur in initiaitive order. So a character can run straight past another and not be targetted.
I instigated a phased movement option for when this occurs, effectively implementing a tick system for movement that starts at the initiaitive of the fastest character. Its slower for sure but as it only happens in tense combats when people are running about the slowness adds a certain tension and bullet-time kind of aspect which off-sets the additional time.

I'm torn on AoOs. As Brian said they're probably a necessary patch for any system using the "my turn, your turn" approach to character actions, but I've always found they turn combat in to trench warfare, where no-one ever wants to disengage from melee once they've entered it. Although to be honest, I'm getting that with my players again lately in Savage Worlds just with the attack-on-disengage in that system.

Quote from: Grymbok;642805I'm torn on AoOs. As Brian said they're probably a necessary patch for any system using the "my turn, your turn" approach to character actions, but I've always found they turn combat in to trench warfare, where no-one ever wants to disengage from melee once they've entered it.

I don't see what that's case as AoO and melee disengagement are typically two different things or at least IMO should be. Is there a specific game you're talking about?

Quote from: gleichman;642830I don't see what that's case as AoO and melee disengagement are typically two different things or at least IMO should be. Is there a specific game you're talking about?

Doesn't D&D 3e/d20 use AoOs for disengagement? It's been a while, I could be misremembering the rules there.

EDIT: Anyway, aside from disengagement I've found in the past that d20 AoOs (and the ridiculous iterative attack rules in that system) do seem to steer players down the path of planting their feet in the mud and only moving if they have to.

Quote from: Grymbok;642833Doesn't D&D 3e/d20 use AoOs for disengagement? It's been a while, I could be misremembering the rules there.

Haven't played D&D 3.x in forever, and don't want to dig out my mothballed books. But I'm sure someone can answer.

Also maybe am I behind the times, but I don't recall many games having AoO and ZoC rules. Age of Heroes and D&D 3.x (maybe 4.x?) are the only ones that come immediately to mind.

I checked the online SRD, and yes, you get an AoO if you move out of melee unless you do it in one of the approved ways that means you don't.

I have no idea how common they are - certainly d20 is the only game I've played which I recall featuring them.

Quote from: Grymbok;642833EDIT: Anyway, aside from disengagement I've found in the past that d20 AoOs (and the ridiculous iterative attack rules in that system) do seem to steer players down the path of planting their feet in the mud and only moving if they have to.

Pre-3rd edition so did the HP system of D&D. There is little to be gained by moving once you've engaged a target (unless there is something more high value elsewhere, in which case you should have already engaged it) once you've engaged something. Do a bit of damage and moving on to do a bit of damage on something else isn't wise, focused attack is better.

Oddly enough, it's the lack of ZoC and AoO that allows such focus to be easy achieved.

Quote from: Grymbok;642837I checked the online SRD, and yes, you get an AoO if you move out of melee unless you do it in one of the approved ways that means you don't.

Many games make retreating from melee a special type of action even if they don't have ZoC and AoO.

Quote from: gleichman;642838Pre-3rd edition so did the HP system of D&D. There is little to be gained by moving once you've engaged a target (unless there is something more high value elsewhere, in which case you should have already engaged it) once you've engaged something. Do a bit of damage and moving on to do a bit of damage on something else isn't wise, focused attack is better.

Oddly enough, it's the lack of ZoC and AoO that allows such focus to be easy achieved.

Where I'm coming from is that my experience of 3e D&D is that combat turned in to a bunch of people stood still and just going for "I hit it with my sword" every turn until someone died. My memories of playing other RPGs when I was younger (I took a gaming break from 2003-2008, and only played 3e after it really) is that combats tended to be more free flowing than that.

This may just be a rose-coloured glasses issue, or it may be something about the group I'm playing with now, who knows. I'm just starting to wonder if it's the rule systems we've been using lately which are pushing this more static approach.

My main concern is that what seems to happen is the players "dig in" for melee combat in this way, and then if their Plan A doesn't seem to be working, they worry that attack-on-disengage means that no Plan B is possible.

But now I'm drifting out of discussion of "Simulation of Process" and in to "Grymbok needs a new RPG system"

You can disengage from combat without provoking AoO in 3.x so long as you actually declare that you are doing so.  It's a full-round action, so you can't do anything else in the round that you are withdrawing, and you also can't freely run in and out of multiple threatened areas without provoking in that round.  If you can't remove yourself from combat without passing through multiple threatened areas you'll still provoke attacks, but that is the advantage your enemy gets for having you surrounded and cornered in the first place.

You can also usually move 1 square/5ft without provoking, so combat in 3.x usually involves a lot of shuffling around.  You can't take 5ft steps if you are in difficult terrain or any situation that doubles movement costs, and there are Feats available that allow someone to still get AoO on you even if you only take 5ft steps, although those aren't very common for monsters.

I don't really like movement heavy combat in a melee heavy game.  All of the compulsory movement in 4e was one of the dealbreakers for me.  I don't like having to constantly shuffle a bunch of miniatures around all the time.  The Stand and Slug It Out mode of combat in 3.x is only a problem because for the most part this is only a player restriction.  The multiple attacks or singular powerful attacks monsters possess usually aren't Full Attack Actions like Iterative Attacks are, so they are actually more mobile than players (and can sometimes be played in a way to work to deny players with iterative attacks from getting them.) At higher levels suffering AoOs from several opponents is a better option than suffering multiple Full Attacks, so you'll almost never get full attacks against a smart monster.  In the end it makes for a system where a halfling armed with a short sword is the one looking to stand toe to toe against a giant that is cagey and wants to dance around to avoid blows.  If it weren't for this disconnect it wouldn't be a problem.

Running around in a fight more emulates the style of gunplay in movies than it does swordplay in any fiction.  In 3.x you can still back up a staircase while being pressed by another combatant, or circle each other with 5ft steps.

QuoteThis may just be a rose-coloured glasses issue, or it may be something about the group I'm playing with now, who knows.

I think it's both.  My experience of pre-2e is limited, but even in pre-C&T 2e it was pretty much a stand and deliver kind of game (there was not much incentive for tactical movement, so it just wasted time).  There is no reason not to take those 5ft steps in 3.x however, so they should be happening all the time.  

Maybe your group in particular just doesn't care about flanking, or your DM doesn't try to have monsters avoid being flanked or avoiding iterative attacks, which I've seen at tables, but it really seems to be a matter of the players and DM just wanting to get through a combat so resolving it with a slugfest instead of the monsters actually trying to kill the players and the players being forced to respond.  My melee players are always shifting unless they've got an enemy flanked and I fail to shift him out of that situation (which I do for things like zombies et cetera that wouldn't care or know about being flanked anyway versus orcs and stuff that actually knows how to fight).

Some older versions of D&D had a 'free attack' on an opponent who withdrew from combat. 2E AD&D for instance gave the free attack unless the character withdrew at 1/3 speed - as a type of movement this isn't called out as an action and (IIRC) the withdraw could be performed after an attack, though the enemy could likely follow easily unless someone else blocked their path. There probably isn't a literal Zone of Control in 2E since, as I read the rules anyway, it seems someone can move past a guy with a sword unless they're already fighting him.
In other systems, HarnMaster gives free attacks on targets moving past much like 3E, and I think so did The Fantasy Trip (I'm looking at a retroclone of it rather than the real thing, which actually calls it a Zone of Control). In other weirder variations, the old Warhammer Quest game made characters roll to disengage from an enemy successfully. JAGS doesn't do it based off hexes, but has a fairly complex interrupt system where an active defender can start any action with a shorter action time in response to another action (strike someone charging at you or standing up, for example, since Strike is Medium and charging or standing up are Long actions).

Quote from: Wolf, Richard;642856Running around in a fight more emulates the style of gunplay in movies than it does swordplay in any fiction.

Unless it's Jedi, in which case you cover a lot of ground in your boss fight, up and down mountains and across cities- to be undone by a six inch high ground advantage at the end...

Also (no one will get this reference) Claymore when leaping from roof to roof top in the middle of a sword fight is fair game.

Or a Cav charge sweeping through your foes.

I could go on.

But actually I sort of agree with you, except when I don't A game should IMO have tactical conditions that result in both possible styles.

Quote from: gleichman;642665In Age of Heroes and its turn sequence we know that Character A gets to attack first, and if he fails character B gets to attack next. Let's say A misses, and B takes off A's head in reply.

The cause and effect is clear, for *some* reason A failed and for *some* reason B killed him.

The abstraction of the dice prevent us from knowing the actual causes for the reasons above. The abstraction of the turn sequence prevents us from knowing the actual order.

So it's very possible that in truth, B went first and killed A before he even got his swing going. Or maybe A did swing and miss, and while recoving from the swing B then killed him. Maybe A dropped his weapon, bent over and lost his head to B. We flatly don't know.

And not knowing, we can't tell if the system lied. Thus we can't know if it failed Simulation of Process, hence we assume it did not.

First, if Simulation of Process is perfect, then there would be no input needed from players. However I find these abstractions, when small and defined enough, are immediately and subconsciously filled in by players, and that to me is a fundamental part of what an RPG is played for.

Second, this is basically the uncertainty principle in macro scale. No matter how good your Simulation of Process, there will be unsupportable assumptions necessary. Take mathematics. It happens to work because it's based on a good set of unprovable Axoms. What is the Simulation of Process in 2+2=4?

Third, a Simulation of Process is nothing more than a series of Simulated Outcomes, because such simulations must be done in discreet steps in an rpg much like they are on a computer. And though one day we may be able to directly compute over continuous values, we're not there yet.

Quote from: gleichman;642665I think it's possible to make the case that due to limits of scale and complexity that all systems are failures with respect to Simulation of Process. That the only difference is if the failures come in small slices (like the turn sequence) or large ones (like the entire combat).

Yep. Pretty much.

I mean, doesn't EVERY game which uses dice fail as a Simulation of Process?

Quote from: gleichman;642680It's not enough to be unable to prove that the system lied, it's enough to know that it may well have. Thus I'd have to label that style of initiative as a failure of Simulation of Process.

Sounds about how mathematicians and system testers would approach things, so I'm down with it.

Quote from: John Morrow;642384The excuses for what HP and AC "simulate" just doesn't hold up outside of who people whacking each other with weapons in an abstract battle space until one falls down.

So, something designed to be used as a wood chisel doesn't make a very good toaster oven. This is to you a dismaying revelation?

As I wrote elsewhere, the fundamental problem is that people come at D&D (and other early RPGs) with a board-game mentality, which is not how they were designed.

I dig Squad Leader (which, parenthetically, has simulation issues as well) and Star Fleet Battles, as well as Auction Pinochle among other games.

That's a whole different breed of critter, and vive la difference! Part of the appeal that RPGs (and the miniatures hobby from which they emerged) hold for me is that they're not just more of the same.

The Chainmail-derived combat system gets combat done expeditiously, which is what it's for.

It was not intended to do other jobs, and if you don't like even how it does its intended job, you are as free to change it as to change every other thing offered in those little brown booklets. They're suggestions, not freaking Federal laws!

In fact, if you are unwilling to do your own thing, that's about as close as you can get to actually "playing the game wrong."