Quote from: Exploderwizard;419339You want players to stay focused and operate as a team? The best way to do that is with good old side based initiative and let them coordinate and actually work together as a team. Party wins initiative and gets to decide who will do what first. Individual turns just encourage those waiting to zone out until it's time to do something. Actually getting to coordinate activity with the rest of party so that every member can act together maintains focus on the party as a group instead of everyone being fixated on their own little slice of ME time.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;419346You might be on to something with that.

In my experience this works out well. I have seen good results in Basic D&D style play with a compromise between the two, where each side uses the same roll, but dexterity can modify the initiative, but generally the modifier is only a point or two either way and doesn't come up every time. In 3/4e it would probably be messier, but it would be interesting to try it and see how it worked out.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;419346You might be on to something with that.

Yes, really really. It's really about group dynamics, whether you are staring at your own dice and not giving a shit what other players are doing, and otherwise.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;419320I like the no books at the table idea but "game mastery" is irritating as hell.

A game should be fun to play. Not every player enjoys spending all available free time outside the game reading rules, options, tactics and stuff.

Well, I was meaning that only as athing I could do as GM. See, I'm lucky enough to have (most of the time) lots of free time available, as I am a psychotherapist and HR consultant, and pretty good managing my time. I have the occasional fuckton of work with long hours, but that's seldom happening.

So I can really spend time re-reading books, making notes and mastering the rules, so I can leave the book behind when I GM. Specially as I am running BRP games, with a system I know by heart.

Also, the best starter set for me is the Mentzer Red Box. Different tastes, I guess.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;419339You want players to stay focused and operate as a team? The best way to do that is with good old side based initiative and let them coordinate and actually work together as a team. Party wins initiative and gets to decide who will do what first. Individual turns just encourage those waiting to zone out until it's time to do something. Actually getting to coordinate activity with the rest of party so that every member can act together maintains focus on the party as a group instead of everyone being fixated on their own little slice of ME time.

You are definitely right. Now, let's get something useful from these idea.

Let's say I'm running a CoC game (which I am). Initiative goes in order of DEX, so I usually count down from highest to lowest, and when it's someone's turn they declare and act. Pretty fast and smooth.

How would we implement a similar system in CoC? I'm really into people avoiding to zone out during combat.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;419339Individual turns just encourage those waiting to zone out until it's time to do something. Actually getting to coordinate activity with the rest of party so that every member can act together maintains focus on the party as a group instead of everyone being fixated on their own little slice of ME time.

You address an important issue here. I'm seriously starting to consider adopting group initiative for my games. It would probably speed things up a bit, and be better for the "teamwork" aspect of the game. It's something to think about...

Quote from: Imperator;419361Let's say I'm running a CoC game (which I am). Initiative goes in order of DEX, so I usually count down from highest to lowest, and when it's someone's turn they declare and act. Pretty fast and smooth.

How would we implement a similar system in CoC? I'm really into people avoiding to zone out during combat.

Initiative system reworking can be tricky in systems that feature high stats or other character building resources as having a large impact on who can act when.

In this case if we simply have each "side" roll a d10 each round then we have negated part of the value of having a high DEX in the system.

What would be needed for group initiative to work here is a way for DEX to still influence initiative.

IIRC CoC uses percentile values for stats (it's been a while).

Determine the highest DEX score for each side in the conflict by finding the member of each team with the best score.

Have each team roll a d10 and add +1 for each full 10 points of DEX that the fastest member of the team has.

A team of investigators including one member with a 75 DEX is engaged with a group of cultists whose fastest member has a 56 DEX. Each team rolls a d10. The investigators add 7 to their roll and the cultists add 5. Highest roll wins initiative for their team.

This gets re-rolled each round. It also adds to the excitement by not having a fixed order. Turn based action can become so predictable once the order is established that it becomes a snoozefest of repetition even if the turns move quickly.

Player's internal monologue:

OK so Jack is going to shoot the big guy, then Pam's gonna throw a knife at the high priest. Then it's the machete guy's turn. Then I get to go............zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Christian: perhaps you should check out Hackmaster Basic from Kenzer and Company. Combat counts up from 0. Once your Initiative comes, from then on you can move every single count 5'. So each combat round everyone at the table is moving their models, reacting to one anothers' actions and reactions, setting up for combat synergy against monsters, etc. And combat is very quick in HM5e (unlike Hackmaster 4th edition, which was just an AD&D clone).

-=Grim=-

Although I have to say- if you aren't doing teamwork in 4e, you are probably extremely new to 4e, and slowing everyone down to boot. Strikers are the only ones who don't really augment other PCs, but they can't stand up for long without either a defender or controller shaping the battle or a leader keeping them healed.

Quote from: GrimJesta;419464Christian: perhaps you should check out Hackmaster Basic from Kenzer and Company. Combat counts up from 0. Once your Initiative comes, from then on you can move every single count 5'. So each combat round everyone at the table is moving their models, reacting to one anothers' actions and reactions, setting up for combat synergy against monsters, etc. And combat is very quick in HM5e (unlike Hackmaster 4th edition, which was just an AD&D clone).

-=Grim=-

What keeps this system going fast in practice? It doesn't sound any faster than any other miniatures based combat, and arguably slower due to the incremental movement. But that's just from a very general description

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;419515Although I have to say- if you aren't doing teamwork in 4e, you are probably extremely new to 4e, and slowing everyone down to boot. Strikers are the only ones who don't really augment other PCs, but they can't stand up for long without either a defender or controller shaping the battle or a leader keeping them healed.

In 4e I haven't seen the problem as lack of teamwork so much as the particular application of the team dynamic slowing play - I know you've said before that the best way to roll is "just take an action, just do it" but in my experience (obviously, much less than your own) a lot of time is dedicated to selecting your action with an eye toward "setting things up" for the other players" which isn't always fast, but is generally pretty rewarding in terms of combat success. And depending on who you're playing with, each character often gets (and may actually want) four other players' input on team tactics.

I'm not saying this is necessarily bad, I'm just saying that the thread has been addressing at least two element of combat "drag," turn slowdown and turn zone-out, and while they often go hand in hand, they don't always - i.e. in 4e I've seen a lot of slowdown and not much zone-out, whereas, for example, late 3.5 I saw a lot more zone-out relative to the slowdown.

I run a very fast-paced D&D Encounters table (one of two for Keep ont he Borderlands.. not sure how the other DM is running his because we have two rooms).

Last week had new players, (who both said they had been playing since it came out..) -- two of the other players are 12 years old, one other guy is a bus driver who literally (I swear to god) cannot add 2d6 together*, and one other player is a longtime rules expert type guy who has one of those really impressive commands of the rules.

So there we are we are zipping along, and the combat involves going down into this trapped tomb thing. My 12 year olds are fine, my math-challenged guy is great, my rules-guy is fine, one of my new guys is trucking along.. and then it got to my other new guy. He was playing a hexblade warlock. It got to his turn- total shut down..he's reading his character sheet, trying to figure out which power works best, paging through the book he just bought..

After about 30 seconds I just said "pretend there's no rules. What do you want to do?"

And he said "well, I want to go up and attack this construct here.." (and he points out the nearest one.

"from range or with your sword?"

He chose sword, and we just pointed out the two choices he had for doing that, and he was fine the rest of the combat once he understood that either way was cool.

Part of it is- you don't want to look like a noob, and you think "here are these guys playing a game, I need to show that I'm doing the right move..".. but I say, it doesn't matter. In D&D, there just aren't any mistakes that are not worth making at least once.  


* Ok, it's true about this guy, but I want to say, one of my favorite players ever, because he's very good-natured about it. Ironically, he plays an eladrin wizard.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;419534After about 30 seconds I just said "pretend there's no rules. What do you want to do?"

And he said "well, I want to go up and attack this construct here.." (and he points out the nearest one.

"from range or with your sword?"

He chose sword, and we just pointed out the two choices he had for doing that, and he was fine the rest of the combat once he understood that either way was cool.

Yeah, people need to just stop sweating the small stuff. Especially with a nitpicky game system. First you indeed try to prove yourself as a "good player" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and then that becomes a habit, other players start to mimick it, and it becomes a huge problem at the game table. The solution is to just not start to begin with, or to just give a break and make people realize that hey, they don't have to sweat the small stuff.

It's like using minis in an RPG. It's all in the way you look at it.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;419377IIRC CoC uses percentile values for stats (it's been a while).

Determine the highest DEX score for each side in the conflict by finding the member of each team with the best score.

Actually, CoC stats are 3-18, but you can use a d100 if you multiply them by 5. Then you can make opposed rolls, using UA mechanics.

So, group of PCs (best DEX 17) against bunch of cultists (best DX 13). So PCs have INI 85% and the baddies 65%. So both roll, PCs get 74 and baddies 83, so PCs first.

Next turn they roll 40 and 59, each. So the cultists get the highest successfull roll, they go first.

It could work...

Or to save doing the multiplication, you could just use the resistance table. Usually Power vs Power, but in RQ it was also STR vs STR for arm wrestles, etc.  

For example in my current campaign it's been used when a giant snake appeared in a doorway and went "hssssss" at a PC (POW vs POW, he failed and panicked), when a falling block trap was discovered and set off and they wanted to move the stone out of the way (STR12 vs SIZ20, critical success, so he was able to just casually toss the stone wherever he wanted), and so on.

If you do want to roll percentile vs percentile, then rather than DEX I'd use the primary weapon skills of the combatants. Part of learning to fight is learning to move first and quickly. However, that's only in the situation where two parties stumble into each-other. Hopefully at least one side is smart enough to have prepared an attack, so there's no initiative - it's an ambush.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;420008Or to save doing the multiplication, you could just use the resistance table. Usually Power vs Power, but in RQ it was also STR vs STR for arm wrestles, etc.  

For example in my current campaign it's been used when a giant snake appeared in a doorway and went "hssssss" at a PC (POW vs POW, he failed and panicked), when a falling block trap was discovered and set off and they wanted to move the stone out of the way (STR12 vs SIZ20, critical success, so he was able to just casually toss the stone wherever he wanted), and so on.

If you do want to roll percentile vs percentile, then rather than DEX I'd use the primary weapon skills of the combatants. Part of learning to fight is learning to move first and quickly. However, that's only in the situation where two parties stumble into each-other. Hopefully at least one side is smart enough to have prepared an attack, so there's no initiative - it's an ambush.

That definitely could be a solution, and also would involve only one roll, on behalf of the PCs, and saves me the roll. Thanks!