How realistic is initiative?

[smascrns]

Honestly, this is one of the holy cows of rpg combat and... I just can't find justification for initiative (whether rolled or not) in actual combat reports.

Now, I find plenty of justification for surprise. I find plenty of justification for timing. But not for initiative, at least the way it is implemented in rpgs.

Why did you retain it? What's your realistic base for it?

[Wratts]

It is somewhat realistic, but not necessarily how the holy cow is regularly implemented, perhaps.

Rather, something like "reflexes" would be the case.

The most common procedure in the games is:

Character with highest initiative does action X
Character with second-highest initiative does action Y
etc.

Only few games went the other way around -- where the characters with lowest initiative go first, and the ones with the higher ones may interrupt their actions with quick reactions.


Basically, you'd need "Raw Reaction" to replace "Initiative", letting characters act from lowest to highest, but the ones with higher Raw Reaction getting to interrupt their actions. And then, a secondary attribute to replace "Initiative", perhaps something like "Reflexes" which limits how many times the character can interrupt or act altogether in the round.

I don't know if that would be more realistic, let alone better for combat resolution in a tabletop RPG, but it's an idea of mine.


If there's something I for my part don't like about the holy cow, then it's how random "Initiative" always is! I welcome all the games that treat it as a static rating.

[smascrns]

Basically, you'd need "Raw Reaction" to replace "Initiative", letting characters act from lowest to highest, but the ones with higher Raw Reaction getting to interrupt their actions. And then, a secondary attribute to replace "Initiative", perhaps something like "Reflexes" which limits how many times the character can interrupt or act altogether in the round.
My problem with this type of mechanics is how complex they may become. This problem is linked to a second one that I find in many initiative systems: They are based on talent with no input from skill. Now, in combat timing actions and reactions is very much dependent on how skilled one is.
If there's something I for my part don't like about the holy cow, then it's how random "Initiative" always is! I welcome all the games that treat it as a static rating.
That's the case with RuneQuest 2 and 3 that don't have initiative, they have Strike Rank instead. This is based on dexterity, size of the character and weapon size. And it's a fixed value. It still lacks skill, though.

My own take is that we can drop initiative, strike ranks, reactions (as you describe them) all together. They are factored into the skill/ability roll. If a character succeeds in his attack, it means he has outdone the other character in terms of timing-initiative-reaction, what ever you call it.
Since many game systems factor the same stats (like dexteriry/agility) that are used in initiative into the skill roll, initiative - when this happens - seems to be a case of doubling the usage of a stat for no particular reason.

Also, my understanding is that initiative is a legacy of the wargaming roots of our hobby. In some wargames mechanics like initiative figure proeminently because they allow to order players turns, another abstraction that is based on gamist needs more than on the modelation of actual combat.

One advantage of dropping initiative is that it makes combat simpler. After all, it's one less layer we need to deal with.
Instead of initiative or similar mechanics, one can still retain the impact of the stats associated with it as modifiers to the skill/ability roll.

[Wratts]

My problem with this type of mechanics is how complex they may become. This problem is linked to a second one that I find in many initiative systems: They are based on talent with no input from skill. Now, in combat timing actions and reactions is very much dependent on how skilled one is.
I called it "attributes" but it could be skills or whatnot. In Unknown Armies for instance, Initiative is a skill.

My own take is that we can drop initiative, strike ranks, reactions (as you describe them) all together. They are factored into the skill/ability roll. If a character succeeds in his attack, it means he has outdone the other character in terms of timing-initiative-reaction, what ever you call it.
Since many game systems factor the same stats (like dexteriry/agility) that are used in initiative into the skill roll, initiative - when this happens - seems to be a case of doubling the usage of a stat for no particular reason.
Yep, and it's mysterious why Intelligence/Reason/whatever never plays a role in it.

You know, there are two problems with tying it to a skill/ability roll in my eyes. One, you're still rolling for it -- that's a personal one. Two, which is more pressant in my eyes; maybe characters should have other options in combat than fighting? Then you have to always have them resort to using a skill in combat to determine order, even if it isn't a combat skill. As you've said, it's still a fossil from the wargaming.

There are games that have done away with it altogether (I'm thinking of SAGA Dragonlance right now). Instead, all actions are resolved and are considered to happen simultaneously, the round being a minute. So even if Character A acts after NPC X and takes mortal damage, Character A still gets a move on NPC X and they might end up both dropping in a double K.O. at the end of the round.

One advantage of dropping initiative is that it makes combat simpler. After all, it's one less layer we need to deal with.
Instead of initiative or similar mechanics, one can still retain the impact of the stats associated with it as modifiers to the skill/ability roll.
I agree about the advantage of dropping the initiative and making combat resolution simpler. I disagree though about defaulting it to something else, when it truly could be done away with altogether. :)

If order is needed at the game table, it can be done just like in any standard issue board or card game -- the player to your left is next.

[Kintara]

Okay, question. If D20's initiative check was a BAB check instead of a Dex check, would that be better? What if it was just a score, perhaps with a "coin-toss" tie-breaker?

[smascrns]

Okay, question. If D20's initiative check was a BAB check instead of a Dex check, would that be better?
What's a BAB? (Don't assume everybody knows D20's lingo just because it's the more popular "infrastructure"; I've seen D&D3 - and reviewed it long ago -, didn't like it and never went back so I don't know what you are referring to.)
What if it was just a score, perhaps with a "coin-toss" tie-breaker?
My question is not what's the better implementation of initiative, it's more fundamental: Do we need it? If we don't, we don't, no matter how good the implementation may be.

So, why do you think we need initiative? What's its purpose in game terms? Is it realistic in the sense used by the author of the column, meaning does it correspond to something we can perceive in real combat?

[Stephen Tannhauser]

Why did you retain it? What's your realistic base for it?

I retain it in all my games because the one thing I always found, always, to cause more game-stopping arguments than anything else was when the GM had to tell a player that something unpleasant happened to them too fast for them to get a chance to stop it, and the player tried (not unreasonably) to counterargue why they shouldn't be so blatantly hosed.

These arguments never ended well -- the player either got told to shut up and take it and was condemned to sulking resentfully, or the GM gave up and made it just that much more likely the next player would try to argue as well (since it had been proven to work), and everybody else got bored or uncomfortable or drawn in.

The one thing you never do to a player is take away their chance to do something to affect the outcome, unless that helplessness can be directly shown to be an inescapable consequence of their own previous choices or die rolls. So for me, any situation in which there's a question as to who can begin or finish an action before another does, and the outcome makes a serious difference to the welfare of the characters involved, requires some form of initiative determination that isn't simply GM fiat.

(This is also important for any game involving a Kewl Power that gives superfast characters many more actions per turn than normal; determining exactly who goes when becomes a critical part of action resolution, especially if the timing of the one action you get against a superfast foe is crucial -- look at the final fight in The Chronicles of Riddick for an example.)

As for the notion of it being based on a raw talent rather than a trained skill, again, I see this as a necessary compromise for a game: if the ability to seize initiative can be improved as quickly and as comparatively cheaply as most weapons skills can, what you wind up with is a situation where newcomers have next to no hope against anyone more skilled than they are -- the better foe not only strikes more accurately than they can defend against, but strikes before they can strike back. This may be a design goal for a particular type of game, but it's not one that most players will want. By making it an inborn ability that improves more slowly than trained skills, you level the surviveability slope between novice PCs and experienced NPCs.

Initiative, for me, is a concession to the need to make a playable and fun game, rather than a strict attempt to simulate the reality of fighting.

[CodexArcanum]

What's a BAB? (Don't assume everybody knows D20's lingo just because it's the more popular "infrastructure"; I've seen D&D3 - and reviewed it long ago -, didn't like it and never went back so I don't know what you are referring to.)

Base-Attack-Bonus. I don't play much D&D either (or... at all) but I believe that the number you add to a d20 roll to determine if you hit someone or not in combat. It's a derived number from many sources, including: the dexterity modifier, the character class and level, and I think a few other things (magic especially).

Basing initiative off that would mean that fighters and others more skilling physical combat would go sooner, in addition to those who have higher dex. Gameplay-wise, you would see fighter-types going first (in order of Dex) followed by the mix types (bards and rogues I guess) and the mages would always go last.

Initiative, for me, is a concession to the need to make a playable and fun game, rather than a strict attempt to simulate the reality of fighting.


I agree with Stephen. Even narrative games with very little combat usually have some concession about who speaks first and who's actions go first. Nobils, for example, I believe operates under the idea that higher powered miracles occur first. A lot of narration heavy games will state that turn order is clockwise, starting to the left of the GM. GM going last or first is often a good policy, so that players can react to what the bad guys are doing (since the players are the main characters.)

The ORE system does this best for me. Players declare action in reverse order of the Sense attribute, ties broken by the Sight skill. The idea is that more alert characters will spot what others are attempting to do, and can react to that. Initiative is determined as part of the roll, so even if you react first, the action can end up going off dead last. Damage is, as a quirk of the system, tied to initiative such that faster attacks do more hurt. Tied with a low amount of health and the ability of quicker attacks to disrupt slower ones, and initative is incredibly important in ORE.


Which is one thing that isn't modeled much in games, and lessens the impact of initiative. It isn't a huge deal who goes first in D&D, because you'll be fighting for several rounds and there's usually enough HP to last for a while. In Reign or another ORE game, there's very little "hit points" and damage is big and consequences severe. So who goes first, often wins the fight.

[Strange Visitor]

To be honest, like damage, its a really high-order abstraction at best; but _any_ solution to timing would be that, because to get anything approximating reality almost requires s computer moderation or the like. The only question ends up being what parts of the process are important to you in simulation, and how much mechanical overhead you're willing to deal with to get them.

[smascrns]

I retain it in all my games because the one thing I always found, always, to cause more game-stopping arguments than anything else was when the GM had to tell a player that something unpleasant happened to them too fast for them to get a chance to stop it, and the player tried (not unreasonably) to counterargue why they shouldn't be so blatantly hosed.
So, the problem has to be seen at two levels:
The game level, where initiative is a player-to-player thing, what you are point to here. And in-setting level where initiative is a feature of the game world, what the rules are supposed to model.
The one thing you never do to a player is take away their chance to do something to affect the outcome, unless that helplessness can be directly shown to be an inescapable consequence of their own previous choices or die rolls. So for me, any situation in which there's a question as to who can begin or finish an action before another does, and the outcome makes a serious difference to the welfare of the characters involved, requires some form of initiative determination that isn't simply GM fiat.
Of course the game rules should catter to this. That's why I mentionned that there is scope for surprise rules.
(This is also important for any game involving a Kewl Power that gives superfast characters many more actions per turn than normal; determining exactly who goes when becomes a critical part of action resolution, especially if the timing of the one action you get against a superfast foe is crucial -- look at the final fight in The Chronicles of Riddick for an example.)
True, but that is not what the column was discussing.
As for the notion of it being based on a raw talent rather than a trained skill, again, I see this as a necessary compromise for a game: if the ability to seize initiative can be improved as quickly and as comparatively cheaply as most weapons skills can, what you wind up with is a situation where newcomers have next to no hope against anyone more skilled than they are (skip) By making it an inborn ability that improves more slowly than trained skills, you level the surviveability slope between novice PCs and experienced NPCs.
Once more, this is a question of expediency in terms of game design. To this can be countered by the player with the more experienced character that it makes no sense having his better skilled but less talented character always or mostly being outrun by the less experienced character. This is particularly serious if attacks can be deadly. The master can find himself being killed by a novice without having the opportunity to react. Your argument goes both ways.
Initiative, for me, is a concession to the need to make a playable and fun game, rather than a strict attempt to simulate the reality of fighting.
The question is, do we really need to make such concession? I think not.

Let me give you an example how the fun can be diminished with innitiative instead of improved: Look at the final combat in Excalibur where Arthur fights to the death with his son Mordred. In games with innitiative a scene like that would not be possible. Arthur impales criticaly Mordred and Mordred dies. He would not have the chance to kill his father after being mortally wounded. In a game without innitiative, nothing more simple: Both are able to kill each other at the same time.

[smascrns]

Basing initiative off that would mean that fighters and others more skilling physical combat would go sooner, in addition to those who have higher dex.
But if one has a BAB (thanks for the explanation, I am aware of the content, just didn't realise the expression) that incorporates everything that goes into innitiative, why duplicate it with a separate step for innitiative? That's my point.
I agree with Stephen. Even narrative games with very little combat usually have some concession about who speaks first and who's actions go first.
Once more, you describe a "gamist" issue while discussing a "simulationist" issue. Yes, there has to be an ordering of the players when these describe their characters' intentions. It makes sense to choose a character trait to arbitrate this. For instance, it can be by order of skill in a skill-based game. But this does not mean that we need to include a step in the action resolution process and a stat to deal specifically with innitiative.

[Strange Visitor]

Let me give you an example how the fun can be diminished with innitiative instead of improved: Look at the final combat in Excalibur where Arthur fights to the death with his son Mordred. In games with innitiative a scene like that would not be possible. Arthur impales criticaly Mordred and Mordred dies. He would not have the chance to kill his father after being mortally wounded. In a game without innitiative, nothing more simple: Both are able to kill each other at the same time.

That could just as easily be a consequence of damage systems that don't distinguish between mortal and instantly lethal wounds (the latter are much rarer in real life and fiction than the former); I've seen games with initiative systems where the scene is possible because the dying character doesn't die instantly and isn't necessarily disabled (hell, this is true in Hero; you can have negative body, be losing it every round, and still be fighting).

[Stephen Tannhauser]

Let me give you an example how the fun can be diminished with innitiative instead of improved: Look at the final combat in Excalibur where Arthur fights to the death with his son Mordred. In games with innitiative a scene like that would not be possible. Arthur impales criticaly Mordred and Mordred dies. He would not have the chance to kill his father after being mortally wounded. In a game without innitiative, nothing more simple: Both are able to kill each other at the same time.

I feel obliged to observe that you may have picked a bad example here. Excalibur's climactic duel is a fantastic moment of drama for an essentially tragic story, but I'm unsure how useful it is an an example to emulate for most RPG groups and players. In my own experience, players who like playing tragic heroes doomed by their own choices are usually significantly fewer in number than those who like playing dramatic heroes who win through their own choices. This makes moments like this one highly problematic.

Think of it this way: In the Arthur-Mordred duel, who do you think is the PC? If Arthur is the PC and Mordred the NPC, then the player gets his character taken out by somebody he's already defeated, which tends to go over badly, especially if the duel was very hard-fought and the player feels he's earned a victory. If Mordred is the PC and Arthur the NPC, then you at least get the consolation of taking out the NPC who just took you out -- but it's still pretty thin gruel, since an NPC loss to a GM is usually much less bothersome than a PC loss to a player. And if both are PCs, then neither really feels like they've "won" if both get killed (which, if you don't want PC-vs.-PC conflict to be an attractive option for players in your game, may actually be a good thing).

But more generally, I tend to feel that whatever the situation, the "double-kill" as a game event is almost always a no-win (by definition) for anybody involved, especially if it occurs in an anticlimactic or inappropriate situation. (Arthur and his own son Mordred killing each other during the Fall of Camelot: Great drama. Arthur and Sir Pedigraine killing each other by accident during a tourney three years before: Pointless.) For some very few situations or conflicts, it may be appropriate, but in general it simply doesn't (to me) offer enough game value in itself to be worth giving up the capacity to organize the action sequence in a way that, if not strictly realistic, keeps the majority of players much happier the majority of the time.

We are designing games, not writing stories or making movies; and what works to create drama in films or novels is not always the best structure for players to create drama in games.

[Kintara]

Once more, you describe a "gamist" issue while discussing a "simulationist" issue. Yes, there has to be an ordering of the players when these describe their characters' intentions. It makes sense to choose a character trait to arbitrate this. For instance, it can be by order of skill in a skill-based game. But this does not mean that we need to include a step in the action resolution process and a stat to deal specifically with innitiative.Sorry I slipped into an assumption there regarding D&D.

Anyway, you said you read the new edition at some point. The way it works in D&D now-a-days is pretty simple, in my opinion. You roll once at the start of the encounter, and then you're done. Your initiative can change if you hold your action for some reason, but generally your initiative score doesn't change. It's determined by a Dex check, but it could easily be a Base Attack Bonus check instead, or whatever else you feel is appropriate. The interesting thing about initiative in D&D is that it really doesn't matter that much once the first round is over. It basically just becomes a turn order once enemies cease to be flat-footed.

But it sounds to me like you're talking about initiative like you'd see in Exalted First Edition where you roll for initiative each round, with significant tactical consequences between going first and not going first. I don't know if it's lacking in "realism," but it is clunky.

I'm not sure about judging initiative on realism though. Initiative is touching on an area of roleplaying games that is most abstract. Real fights happen in real time. RPG fights typically happen in discrete turn-based steps. Objects are manipulated methodically, one at a time. In the real world everything moves at once. I'm not sure there's a way to take a turn-based system and make it operate "realistically." It's an unnatural process. Initiative is just an extension of that.

[smascrns]

That could just as easily be a consequence of damage systems that don't distinguish between mortal and instantly lethal wounds (the latter are much rarer in real life and fiction than the former); I've seen games with initiative systems where the scene is possible because the dying character doesn't die instantly and isn't necessarily disabled (hell, this is true in Hero; you can have negative body, be losing it every round, and still be fighting).
Of course, we can find a solution, but it's a fix. What you describe is an needless layer of rules complexity. One can achieve exactly the same in-setting results witout out-setting initiative, and "negative body" which was always to me a strange if not outright wrong concept. (If one needs to ressort to concepts such as "negative body" or "negative hit points", then there's something wrong in the game design.)

[smascrns]

I feel obliged to observe that you may have picked a bad example here. Excalibur's climactic duel is a fantastic moment of drama for an essentially tragic story, but I'm unsure how useful it is an an example to emulate for most RPG groups and players.
I personaly consider that the best fantasy combat roleplaying is the one where climatic duels are turned into moments of drama. If my character dies, I hope he dies in an essencialy tragic way, not as if it was just bad turn in a night of too much drinking and careless driving.
In my own experience, players who like playing tragic heroes doomed by their own choices are usually significantly fewer in number than those who like playing dramatic heroes who win through their own choices.~
Of course, but the essence of roleplaying is that things can turn wrong for the character. And if it does, it's better to have it tragic.
his makes moments like this one highly problematic.
As I said, my character can die and if he does, I hope it will be this way.
Think of it this way: In the Arthur-Mordred duel, who do you think is the PC? (skip)
That's for the players to decide, and it depends on the game. Call of Cthullu has shown more that 25 years ago that one can enjoy a game that ends in the doom of the character, and that such a game can be very popular. A tragic Arthurian game can work on similar lines.
Besides, I used Excalibur as an example because it is more accessible to most people. I could as well use the death of D. Pedro de Menezes or of D. Lourenço de Almeida, two real world characters that died in the field, fighting to the end, but then I would need to put a lot of things in English for which I have no time.
But more generally, I tend to feel that whatever the situation, the "double-kill" as a game event is almost always a no-win (by definition) for anybody involved, especially if it occurs in an anticlimactic or inappropriate situation.
I see the double kill as a possibility. It may happen, but not necessarily often. If it happens too often, there's something wrong with the game system. Whether it is dramatic or not, anticlimatic or not, depends on the way the game is played.
We are designing games, not writing stories or making movies; and what works to create drama in films or novels is not always the best structure for players to create drama in games.
Certainly. Yet, I was comenting on something the author of the column presented as design goal, to be realistic. True, I gave an example picked from a movie but that was for the reason presented above.

[smascrns]

Anyway, you said you read the new edition at some point.
It was years ago, I didn't like the system, so I forgot most of the details.
The way it works in D&D now-a-days is pretty simple, in my opinion. You roll once at the start of the encounter, and then you're done. (skip) The interesting thing about initiative in D&D is that it really doesn't matter that much once the first round is over. It basically just becomes a turn order once enemies cease to be flat-footed.
Ok, it works from this perspective. On the other hand, I prefer systems with simultaneous action instead of alternate action, so D&D still doesn't work for me.
But it sounds to me like you're talking about initiative like you'd see in Exalted First Edition where you roll for initiative each round, with significant tactical consequences between going first and not going first. I don't know if it's lacking in "realism," but it is clunky.
Not Exalted (another game I reviewed, didn't like, and forgot), but other games I'm more fond of.
I'm not sure about judging initiative on realism though.
Well, most often than not it is computed from variables that are supposed to be observable in real combat situations, so I think it can judged on realism.
I'm not sure there's a way to take a turn-based system and make it operate "realistically." It's an unnatural process. Initiative is just an extension of that.
That's very right but there's no better way to model reality in a rpg other than by rounds, at least an option I'm aware of. In the end, all we do is look back at the way the combat went in the rpg, the results it produced, and see if it is more or less similar to how things work in the real world (or the work of reference if the game is about a fictional wold). If it is similar, then it is realistic.

[Stephen Tannhauser]

If my character dies, I hope he dies in an essencialy tragic way... That's for the players to decide, and it depends on the game. Call of Cthullu has shown more that 25 years ago that one can enjoy a game that ends in the doom of the character, and that such a game can be very popular. A tragic Arthurian game can work on similar lines.

Granted. But saying that you can dispense with initiative in a particular game that you want to be able to produce particular types of outcome is very different from saying you can dispense with initiative in all kinds of RPGs -- and it's the latter point I challenge: that something proven to work in one game is necessarily a desireable thing to adopt for RPGs in general.

I do admit that the primary reason I argue for retaining initiative is that it is a compromise between the game and the simulation, so to some extent your point about it being "unrealistic" is undeniable. I just come from the school of thought which insists on never forgetting that it's a game being designed, and as such certain concessions to game structure are necessary. I believe initiative is one of those necessary concessions because, as I said before, in my experience any game where negative consequences to PCs rest on nothing more than GM decision about who got the first shot in is going to produce unpleasant experiences for most players.

[smascrns]

Granted. But saying that you can dispense with initiative in a particular game that you want to be able to produce particular types of outcome is very different from saying you can dispense with initiative in all kinds of RPGs -- and it's the latter point I challenge: that something proven to work in one game is necessarily a desireable thing to adopt for RPGs in general.
I didn't say that! I said that we can dispense it in realistic rpgs, in other words, in games that attempt to represen real world combat situations. In a supers game or in a game where there is a great disproportion in terms of action speed and timing between characters we may need something like an initiative mechanic but that's not what was being discussed in the column.
I just come from the school of thought which insists on never forgetting that it's a game being designed, and as such certain concessions to game structure are necessary.
We are in the same league. I never forget the expression "game" in role playing games.
I believe initiative is one of those necessary concessions because, as I said before, in my experience any game where negative consequences to PCs rest on nothing more than GM decision about who got the first shot in is going to produce unpleasant experiences for most players.
This is where we disagree, and the reason is simple: I don't think a game needs to work on the assumption that there is a "first shot" and that ordering shots should be a determinant aspect of game situations. If I think we can drop initiative it's because I think this kind of generic mechanic can be completely dispensed off with.

This is not to say that games can dispense completely with ordering actions. Where this is an issue, it has to dealt with. Take, for instance, a Western duel. One needs to order who fires first. But this can de donne without an initiative mechanic that's part of every instance of combat. There are many ways to catch flies.

[Strange Visitor]

Of course, we can find a solution, but it's a fix. What you describe is an needless layer of rules complexity. One can achieve exactly the same in-setting results witout out-setting initiative, and "negative body" which was always to me a strange if not outright wrong concept. (If one needs to ressort to concepts such as "negative body" or "negative hit points", then there's something wrong in the game design.)

I completely disagree. I think instant-kill damage results are profoundly unrealistic in the vast majority of cases, and that damage systems that _don't_ assume most lethal wounds are immediately so are a much better design, and in fact, address a lot of other logical and cinematic problems than just your example. I wouldn't describe it as in the least needless, but in fact, highly desirable in anything but the most straightforwardly gamist RPG.

[Stephen Tannhauser]

I don't think a game needs to work on the assumption that there is a "first shot" and that ordering shots should be a determinant aspect of game situations.

Tell me that again when you've lost a PC to a GM flatly declaring that the bad guy drew his dagger and knifed you before you could dodge. ;) :D

(Granted, this isn't actually that frequent. But it's sufficiently disruptive when it does happen that I believe rules should be in place to prevent it from step one.)

Perhaps a better way to phrase it might be that in combat, what needs to be determined from round to round is who has seized the active, aggressive role and who has taken the defensive, responsive role. One not unrealistic observation is that this very often depends on who manages to initiate their action first and complete it fastest -- hence the long-running term "initiative".

One reason I think it's important to separate initiative and action sequence from basic weapon-skill is that otherwise there's no way to represent one of the most common patterns of fighting in both drama and real-life -- the idea of the hasty amateur acting too fast and having his own hastiness turned to his disadvantage by a superior defendant, who can afford to wait and take the reactive role. If everything is abstracted down to one clash, this becomes problematic.

It's also worth remembering that people can do other things in combat besides exchange blows. One of the great advantages of an initiative tracking system is that it allows objective determination of when non-combat actions are completed, especially if the outcome of the non-combat actions can significantly affect the combat. If action sequence is abstracted into a single clash, it can be down to the GM to determine whether somebody else got to the escape switch before or after the clash resolved -- and that puts us back in the situation I always wish to avoid: The GM deciding by fiat whether a player has the chance to affect an outcome at all.

[smascrns]

I completely disagree. I think instant-kill damage results are profoundly unrealistic in the vast majority of cases, and that damage systems that _don't_ assume most lethal wounds are immediately so are a much better design, and in fact, address a lot of other logical and cinematic problems than just your example. I wouldn't describe it as in the least needless, but in fact, highly desirable in anything but the most straightforwardly gamist RPG.
I honestly don't see what you are disagreeing with. Dropping initiative or negative body / hit points is one thing. Instant kill damage is another thing.

I was not proposing instant kill damage by any strech of mind. Yes, I think any good game system must allow for it in the most extreme cases, but not as a normal output of man-to-man meleed combat situations. Yes, a good game system must have a ladder of increasing wounds lethality, including non-instant-kill lethat wounds and, at the top, instant-kill lethal wounds. Certainly, that's highly desirable. But we don't need initiative or negative hps to model this. That's all I was saying. Where's the disagreement?

[smascrns]

Tell me that again when you've lost a PC to a GM flatly declaring that the bad guy drew his dagger and knifed you before you could dodge. ;) :D
The word you used is “dodge”. It is in the same league as “attack”, “defence”, “parry”, “shoot”, etc., words that refer to combat actions usually handled as skills or abilities. Your own example demonstrates that we can deal with the situation without needing initiative.
in combat, what needs to be determined from round to round is who has seized the active, aggressive role and who has taken the defensive, responsive role.
I’ve been toying with these ideas for long a long in my amateur game design attempts. You know what? I was never able to turn them into a workable system. This may only mean that I’m a poor game designer, tough. I’ll get back at this after…
One reason I think it's important to separate initiative and action sequence from basic weapon-skill is that otherwise there's no way to represent one of the most common patterns of fighting in both drama and real-life -- the idea of the hasty amateur acting too fast and having his own hastiness turned to his disadvantage by a superior defendant, who can afford to wait and take the reactive role. If everything is abstracted down to one clash, this becomes problematic.
It does not become problematic, it’s implicit in the skill/ability roll. It can be handled at the descriptive level, for instance: If a character is “hasty” the narration of his actions show that hastiness. In this case it’s all about colour, not about mechanics. Of course, it’s very easy for a game system to forget to provide directions for the players on how to implement that colour, and their playing suffers from it.

Yet, since we are discussing mechanics we have to focus on the mechanical side. What you describe is something that happens often in combat sports. For instance, Cassius Clay/Mohamed Ali was an expert on fighting in the defensive. He danced in front of his adversaries before the killing jab. Now, the problem is that no one in combat is being wholly defensive or wholly offensive, the good fighter is being both at the same time, and he will use a defensive or offensive posture depending on which he thinks works better to defeat his adversary.

The problem I see is that initiative rules are particularly prone to misrepresent these situations. Since they work on the assumption of ordering attacks from first to last, they benefit the hasty fighter since he attacks before the “defendant”. Your example actually demonstrates that most initiative rules should be dropped, not the other way around!

My readings of Medieval and Renaissance fighting manuals including the famous Book of the Five Rings that inspired the rpg of the same name (I don’t claim to be an expert on the issue, just an amateur that read some things to get direction on his designs) does not show a concern with offensive vs. defensive stances. What it shows is a concern with a different concept: Timing. The key issue is to time the attack in such a way that it will pierce the adversary’s defense. It doesn’t matter if one has to wait patiently for that opening to happen. That’s what Cassius Clay was good at. The hasty fighter looses because he has poor timing. Initiative centered on ordering attacks from faster to slower just does not address this issue.

There’s another key issue, surprise. If possible, one wants to attack before the adversary is able to defend himself. Once more, initiative is a poor way of dealing with surprise.
people can do other things in combat besides exchange blows. One of the great advantages of an initiative tracking system is that it allows objective determination of when non-combat actions are completed, especially if the outcome of the non-combat actions can significantly affect the combat.
This has to be shown. My own take is that often people give too much importance to the order of events. In real life things are a lot more muddled. And even when we need to handle order of events in a strict way, we may do it without recourse to initiative and without having “the GM deciding by fiat whether a player has the chance to affect an outcome at all”. Let’s see this from your example:
If action sequence is abstracted into a single clash, it can be down to the GM to determine whether somebody else got to the escape switch before or after the clash resolved -- and that puts us back in the situation
Now, what do we have here? A complex situation with several things happening at the same time, so it’s better to figure which are those things:

OPTION 1
There’s a one-to-one combat, let’s say that A is fighting B. Many systems treat this as a confrontation with opposed skill/ability rolls or similar mechanics, and two actions:
(1) A attacks B, B defends.
(2) B attacks A, A defends.
Of course, (1) and (2) are parallel actions involving the same persons. I said that I think we don’t need to order their results since I live happily with both being successes. Because of that I’ll refer to them as (1+2) form now on.
(3) Someone, let’s call him C, attempting to get to the escape switch. If nothing else was happening this would be handled as a simple or independent action where there is no opposition.

On the other hand, (1+2) happen simultaneously but independently to (3). Now, what’s the interdependence between (1+2) and (3)? If there’s no interference between (1+2) and (3), there’s no reason to arbitrate an order other than by what seems to be more interesting in game terms.
If there is an interference between (1+2), and (3), meaning that the outcome of one of the actions can impact on the outcome of the other action, then we need to decide which is finished first. How to do it?
In this case (1+2) and (3) are competing actions. A competition is different from a single action and from an opposed action. Whatever rules the game system uses to deal with competitions should apply here as well, so we still don’t need initiative to decide on this matter. (Notice that many systems don’t actually distinguish these three types of actions, though.)

OPTION 2
(1+2) The same as in option 1.
(3) What’s different is that the person attempting to get to the escape switch is one of the combatants, say fighter A.

In this case we have one of the fighters attempting two actions simultaneously (as usual his chance of success will be reduced for both actions). On what concerns the ordering of the actions, the departing point is the next consideration: It’s up for the player of fighter A to decide his order of priorities, in other words, what goes first, to attack or to get to the escape switch? Thus we narrow the situation to one where we have either (1+(2 next 3)) or (1+(3 next 2)). Complex? Yes, that’s how the players want it.
The important point is that this is either reduced to a competition or to a confrontation where one of the parties wants to act first as a tactic (see above):
It’s a competition of A forfeits defense and concentrates on reaching the escape switch first. The competition is to decide who acts first, him reaching the escape switch or B attacking him. If A gains the competition he escapes before B attacks him; If B gains, he does an attack unopposed before A escapes (and A may not be in condition of escaping if the attack does enough damage).
It’s a confrontation if A does not forfeit defense. In this case we have B attacking A and A defending; and we have A trying to escape which may be automatic or it may be a maneuver or any other suitable skill usage. It’s handled as (1+2).
Once more, we don’t need initiative to deal with these situations.

[Stephen Tannhauser]

I think where we may be talking past each other is this line here:

It can be handled at the descriptive level....

For me, in real experience, trying to handle things at "the descriptive level" never gets anywhere useful. Because all too often the "descriptive level", as you note, simply turns into GM fiat which, to the players, feels like an arbitrary and unnecessary hosing -- even if it's merely an alternate interpretation of something the dice have already established.

I remember one time running a game when, in an effort to describe how hit point loss is usually understood to be an abstract thing rather than necessarily a physical, significant wound, I actually described a die-confirmed hit as something like 'a near-miss that shakes your confidence and saps your energy.' Well, I immediately got dogpiled by the table. You said he didn't hit; well if he didn't hit, there shouldn't be any hit point loss! the players all said, and no matter how I explained that I was just putting a narrative spin on what the dice had already established, they weren't having it. I'd said there was no hit; that meant there was no damage.

The perception of being powerless to affect an outcome is just as damaging to player enjoyment, in some ways even more so, than its reality; and handling things "on the descriptive level" is particularly prone to this because it deals in nothing but player perceptions, especially if a deliberately generalized resolution mechanic result has to be interpreted in detail to make descriptive sense. Anywhere a general result has to be interpreted to obtain specifics, there's room for players to argue about the interpretation; and one thing I tend to believe about players is that if they have a chance to argue for a better interpretation, they will. For hours at a time, if need be, especially if their own characters' welfare is on the line.

(I'll admit right up front that I come from an older school of gaming where the player-GM relationship was more often adversarial than not, and that experience colours a lot of my design decisions and perspectives.)

But the fact is there are real, physical differences that affect a fight's outcome based on who acts when and who completes which action first, especially in a fight involving more than two participants or different weapon/armour matches, and I don't think that abstracting that determination of action sequence out to the purely descriptive is an adequate solution. Not only is it open to argument from players, as any purely descriptive interpretation is, it removes an opportunity for vital tactical planning from the game and blurs a legitimate simulative distinction between action speed, action accuracy, and action impact. (A fast punch is of limited utility against a man in armour, whereas a slower weapon may do enough damage in a single strike to be worth its comparative slowness as long as you're good enough; a single abstracted attack/defense clash tends to eliminate these distinctions, in my experience.)

As an example of this, I'll ask you to explain this comment further:

The key issue is to time the attack in such a way that it will pierce the adversary’s defense.... Initiative centered on ordering attacks from faster to slower just does not address this issue.

How, exactly, does one determine whether the timing of one attack in relation to a defense is correct or not, if not by measuring their comparative speed -- which is just another way of saying in what order they actually accomplish (or not) their intended results?

Abstracting it back to the basic attack/defense roll is just a way of saying that it's narrative fluff; that "timing" is just the word we use to "explain in-game" why one attack hit and another didn't. The reality is more complex than that, and an interesting game, I think, needs to go into more mechanical detail about the process.

OPTION 1
If there is an interference between (1+2), and (3), meaning that the outcome of one of the actions can impact on the outcome of the other action, then we need to decide which is finished first. How to do it?
In this case (1+2) and (3) are competing actions. A competition is different from a single action and from an opposed action. Whatever rules the game system uses to deal with competitions should apply here as well, so we still don’t need initiative to decide on this matter.

What I think you're forgetting is that in this model, you're using one result to determine the success of two essentially unrelated events. If A and C are on the same side, for example, then if B fails, that means either that he didn't win his clash with A and that A inflicted damage, or that C got to the escape switch first and teleported himself and A away, or even both! If you're B, the difference between these is going to be vital -- and letting the GM choose which is a good way to get hosed.

If, on the other hand, B wins his clash with A but C beats B's roll anyway, that could mean that A and C teleported away before B could hurt A -- or it could mean that A and C teleported away but B got A before he vanished. If you're A, again, that's a vital difference -- and not one you want to leave solely up to GM description or interpretation.

"Initiative" is merely the process for using rules to determine order of actions separately from determining the success or failure of those actions (as opposed to your model, where what happened first is retroactively inferred from the success/failure results). I personally think there are enough realistic situations where the two factors must be separately adjudicated that having a general rule for initiative is both useful and interesting as a tactical option -- as well as for preventing game-stopping arguments.

[Strange Visitor]

I honestly don't see what you are disagreeing with. Dropping initiative or negative body / hit points is one thing. Instant kill damage is another thing.

I was not proposing instant kill damage by any strech of mind. Yes, I think any good game system must allow for it in the most extreme cases, but not as a normal output of man-to-man meleed combat situations. Yes, a good game system must have a ladder of increasing wounds lethality, including non-instant-kill lethat wounds and, at the top, instant-kill lethal wounds. Certainly, that's highly desirable. But we don't need initiative or negative hps to model this. That's all I was saying. Where's the disagreement?

In the last statement; I think negative HP is a perfectly reasonable straightforward solution to the problem, as long as the HP model is such that it doesn't make the margin so large as to be meaningful. I don't see anything either overly complex or clunky about it.

[Strange Visitor]

I think where we may be talking past each other is this line here:



For me, in real experience, trying to handle things at "the descriptive level" never gets anywhere useful. Because all too often the "descriptive level", as you note, simply turns into GM fiat which, to the players, feels like an arbitrary and unnecessary hosing -- even if it's merely an alternate interpretation of something the dice have already established.




I have to agree; even moreso when its a controlling element on the system rather than simply color commentary.



I remember one time running a game when, in an effort to describe how hit point loss is usually understood to be an abstract thing rather than necessarily a physical, significant wound, I actually described a die-confirmed hit as something like 'a near-miss that shakes your confidence and saps your energy.' Well, I immediately got dogpiled by the table. You said he didn't hit; well if he didn't hit, there shouldn't be any hit point loss! the players all said, and no matter how I explained that I was just putting a narrative spin on what the dice had already established, they weren't having it. I'd said there was no hit; that meant there was no damage.



Well, to be fair there, I don't think most hit point models work well for the "near miss" interpetation; they can work for the "light graze" interpetation, but since hits often have other effects than straightforward damage, I have some trouble with "near misses" that can potentially deliver poison or do other effects clearly requiring at least contact if not penetration.




(I'll admit right up front that I come from an older school of gaming where the player-GM relationship was more often adversarial than not, and that experience colours a lot of my design decisions and perspectives.)



Well, I'm still of the opinion that to a large degree that's still true of most of the hobby, RPG.net exceptionalism not withstanding.



But the fact is there are real, physical differences that affect a fight's outcome based on who acts when and who completes which action first, especially in a fight involving more than two participants or different weapon/armour matches, and I don't think that abstracting that determination of action sequence out to the purely descriptive is an adequate solution. Not only is it open to argument from



Its particularly the case with modern weapons, where there's a much greater chance (though not a reliable one) of a one-shot disable than is probably the case with more primitive weaponry.





How, exactly, does one determine whether the timing of one attack in relation to a defense is correct or not, if not by measuring their comparative speed -- which is just another way of saying in what order they actually accomplish (or not) their intended results?



"Initiative" is merely the process for using rules to determine order of actions separately from determining the success or failure of those actions (as opposed to your model, where what happened first is retroactively inferred from the success/failure results). I personally think there are enough realistic situations where the two factors must be separately adjudicated that having a general rule for initiative is both useful and interesting as a tactical option -- as well as for preventing game-stopping arguments.

Indeed. A classic example was the Old West gunfight (though the iaido duel was not dissimilar) where it was the intersection of speed and accuracy that became crucial; if you were accurate, but too slow, you might well not get a shot off at all; if you were fast but inaccurate, you might miss or get a non-critical wound that would still allow your slower opponent to finish you off.

[Tarafore]

My problem with this type of mechanics is how complex they may become. This problem is linked to a second one that I find in many initiative systems: They are based on talent with no input from skill. Now, in combat timing actions and reactions is very much dependent on how skilled one is.

That's the case with RuneQuest 2 and 3 that don't have initiative, they have Strike Rank instead. This is based on dexterity, size of the character and weapon size. And it's a fixed value. It still lacks skill, though.

Well, to some degree I do address the skill issue. Prowess, the same Trait that governs hand to hand combat, governs initiative in melee. Awareness, which also handles dodging at range, handles initiative in ranged combat.

My own take is that we can drop initiative, strike ranks, reactions (as you describe them) all together. They are factored into the skill/ability roll. If a character succeeds in his attack, it means he has outdone the other character in terms of timing-initiative-reaction, what ever you call it.
Since many game systems factor the same stats (like dexteriry/agility) that are used in initiative into the skill roll, initiative - when this happens - seems to be a case of doubling the usage of a stat for no particular reason.

Also, my understanding is that initiative is a legacy of the wargaming roots of our hobby. In some wargames mechanics like initiative figure proeminently because they allow to order players turns, another abstraction that is based on gamist needs more than on the modelation of actual combat.

One advantage of dropping initiative is that it makes combat simpler. After all, it's one less layer we need to deal with.
Instead of initiative or similar mechanics, one can still retain the impact of the stats associated with it as modifiers to the skill/ability roll.

This would work perfectly well for duels, but the problem is having an orderly timing of what happens when in combats involving large numbers of characters doing large numbers of things, from drawing weapons to performing first aid to shooting and wrestling on the floor.

Initiative is especially important when characters react to what other characters are doing and try to interrupt them (usually to intervene to protect less formidable members of their group).

For me, initiative is not so much a gamist issue as a need to be able to keep things straight.

That said, I'm working on a simpler, rules-light game system that has "one roll combat" - each turn, opposing characters make one opposed roll, which sums up initiative, to-hit, and damage. So far, it looks promising, but it's not been tested nearly as extensively as the Tarafore System. It's also abstracted to the point that it loses a good bit of realism.

[Tarafore]

So, the problem has to be seen at two levels:
The question is, do we really need to make such concession? I think not.

Let me give you an example how the fun can be diminished with innitiative instead of improved: Look at the final combat in Excalibur where Arthur fights to the death with his son Mordred. In games with innitiative a scene like that would not be possible. Arthur impales criticaly Mordred and Mordred dies. He would not have the chance to kill his father after being mortally wounded. In a game without innitiative, nothing more simple: Both are able to kill each other at the same time.

It could happen a couple of ways in the Tarafore system.

* An initiative tie can be a simultaneous action.

* A mortally wounded character (one who has taken an "Extreme Wound" and will bleed out within 5 minutes without a Ridiculously Difficult medical roll) may not be stunned at all, and may be able to keep fighting. This happens a lot more than most people think in gunfights, even when nobody's on drugs [1]

*Depending on the setting and the genre, characters can burn Willpower to get one last desperate action, or ignore wound penalties for a short time.


Initiative doesn't prevent any of this, at least not in a game in which a single attack can mean something. In a hit point attrition game, it gets harder to have anything resembling a realistic or cinematic combat, IMHO.

---
1) The reason .38 caliber round-nosed lead bullets are called "Widow makers" isn't because they're so deadly, but because they so often failed to stop murderous criminals. Though the criminals often died later of their wounds, they often had time to dispatch the police officers who'd shot them, turning their wives into widows (this was before many women were police). Unfortunately, the round-nosed bullets were mandated by big city police chiefs who never left their lush, well-protected offices...

[smascrns]

In the last statement; I think negative HP is a perfectly reasonable straightforward solution to the problem, as long as the HP model is such that it doesn't make the margin so large as to be meaningful. I don't see anything either overly complex or clunky about it.
I didn't say that negative HP don't work at the mechanical level. What I mean is that HP, as all other game terms, are not abstractions, they are suppose to model something in the real or fictional world we play in. HP are usually the measure of physical integrity. As any whole, there's nothing bellow 0. Whenever a whole reaches 0, it ceases to exist. Negative HP represent life when there should be no more life left. They are a faulty model of the reality they are supposed to represent.
And they are not even needed to model that reality. Just have a ruling saying that the character gets bellow X HP then he is in a lethal condition. He will start loosing HPs and if he goes down to 0 he is dead. There is nothing we can do with negative HP that cannot be done with positive HPs, so why use the former? That's my issue.

[smascrns]

For me, in real experience, trying to handle things at "the descriptive level" never gets anywhere useful. Because all too often the "descriptive level", as you note, simply turns into GM fiat which, to the players, feels like an arbitrary and unnecessary hosing -- even if it's merely an alternate interpretation of something the dice have already established.
No, it does not turn into GM fiat. Fiat is deciding what happens in terms of process and outcome. Yes, this can be done arbitrarly and expressed in terms of narration but I'm not talking about this. Besides, the narrative level has to incorporate the language of the game and be faithful to that language.

For instance, in your example my take is that your players were right in complaining. You did a poor job at the descriptive level by using game terms and distording their meaning, thus generating an ambiguity. Everyone of us can make such mistakes, but we have to accept it was a mistake. We cannot say that the descriptive level does not work because we do mistake now and then.

Now, let me explain what I mean by handling things at the narrative level:

Suppose the game rules does not distinguish between the offensive fighter and the defensive fighter. This distinction has no impact at the mechanical level, so it is not relevant to decide on the process and outcome of the action. Yet, the gamebook suggests this distinction as something that may offer variety in terms of descriptions of combats. A character may be describe as being offensive or as being defensive, but is supposed to be there just to colour the description of the fight. In this case we have the next options: Both fighters are offensive; both fighters are defensive; one fighter is offensive and the other is defensive.

Suppose that the mechanics rule that one character hits the adversary and the other character does not. We then have several alternatives in terms of narration of the events. For instance (notice that I put the PC in the worst position since you are discussing how a GM handles the reaction of the players to something nasty happening to their characters):

Offensive NPC hits offensive PC. GM "Your PC and the NPC jump on each other, exchanging a flurry of blows. They twirle all around, sparks flashing from their blades, shouting at each other. Hellas, he hits you".

Defensive NPC hits defensive PC. "Both of you circle around, carefully studing each other, waiting for an opening, exchanging some tentative blows. Slowly you close on each other, ready to dodge or parry any incoming hit, waiting for the other party to do some foolish move that will provide an opportunity for an attack. Hellas, your excessive carefulness does not pay since he is able to perceive a blindspot on your defence and hits you".

Offensive NPC hits defensive PC. "The NPC comes on you furiously, covering you with a flurry of blows. You step back, dodging and parrying the deluge while waiting for an opportunity to couterattack. Hellas, that opportunity does not materialise and the NPC proves too quick for you to keep him away. He hits you".

Defensive NPC hits offensive PC. "You jump on the NPC furiously, covering him with a flurry of blows. He steps back, dodging and parrying your deluge while waiting for an opportunity to couterattack. Hellas, in your eagerness to finish him you create an oppening that the NPC readily explores. He hits you".

As you can see, in none of this situations does the narrative have mechanical impact, they don't change the process or outcome. The different narrations are there to add colour, to make combat more varied and less abstract. Players like to introduce colourful bits into the description of their characters; GMs also like to do this in the case of their NPCs, at least the more important ones. The description just uses these bits in order to break the austherity and greyness of the game system.

Notice that none of the descriptions imply anything like initiative or other variations in terms of outcome that might require added rules and mechanics. The fight may be furiously offensive or controled and defensive, nothing is mentionned about the moment the hit happens and its impact afterwards. It may happen at the begining or at the end of the round but we don't know.
The perception of being powerless to affect an outcome is just as damaging to player enjoyment, in some ways even more so, than its reality; and handling things "on the descriptive level" is particularly prone to this because it deals in nothing but player perceptions
Well, if the players are not able to understand that the description adds nothing in mechanical terms; or if the GM is not able to describe things without introducing components that require mechanics; then it's better to drop the descriptions all together. They have that option. Descriptions should only be introduced if they contribute to the game, not if they distract or create problems.
Without descriptions the players are left each one of them to his own perceptions and imagination. They keep this to themselves and don't share it among them. For some people this means a more poor game, for other people this means a better gaming experience. We cannot generalise these things.
especially if a deliberately generalized resolution mechanic result has to be interpreted in detail to make descriptive sense.
If this happens there’s something wrong with the rules. Once more, we cannot be driven to conclusions based on the bad cases.
Anywhere a general result has to be interpreted to obtain specifics, there's room for players to argue about the interpretation
Of course. They are entitled to. What they and the GM should realize is that what’s wrong is not the fact they argue about the interpretation of the rule, what’s wrong is the rule itself.
(I'll admit right up front that I come from an older school of gaming where the player-GM relationship was more often adversarial than not, and that experience colours a lot of my design decisions and perspectives.)
So am I.
But the fact is there are real, physical differences that affect a fight's outcome based on who acts when and who completes which action first, especially in a fight involving more than two participants or different weapon/armour matches, and I don't think that abstracting that determination of action sequence out to the purely descriptive is an adequate solution.
A game system is an abstraction and there are always concessions in terms of realism, true. What's implied in a combat system without initiative is that the round is a block. Anything happening in that block will only change things in the next round. Needless to say, dropping initiative does not happen in isolation, it is connected with other game components like duration of rounds, what an attack/defense means (it’s a single blow or a series of blows?), etc.
I consider that in most cases there is no reason for initiative, it’s something that does not model properly any thing happening in real combat and it burdens gaming. It is also always possible to have special rules for the few cases where ordering combat actions is important.
Not only is it open to argument from players, as any purely descriptive interpretation is
Well, it is not open for interpretation if the game does not cover it. I don’t see the issue here. As my examples show above, describing the combat in more colourful ways than simply “you hit and do X points of damage” does not necessarily introduce concepts absent from the game system.
it removes an opportunity for vital tactical planning from the game
Initiative rules tend to: Benefit the “faster” character, does they give him a mechanical advantage; introduce a random factor (not always but often). Both of these reduce the opportunity for tactical planning, they don’t augment it.
blurs a legitimate simulative distinction between action speed, action accuracy, and action impact.
First, you are using the wrong concept. As per my readings the two last elements of action (accuracy and impact) are usually mentioned but not speed. What is mentioned is timing. Timing is not speed, and it is not initiative, at least the way initiative is usually worked in terms of game mechanics.
Second, the ability to maximize all of these components of action is what characterizes skill, yet they are separate concerns.

Let me explain a little the difference between speed, initiative and timing (both as general concepts and in game terms):
Speed is an absolute concept. We can measure speed for person A without measuring it for person B. It’s important for competitions were concurrent independent actions happen. It is not a good concept for opposed actions there are mutually intertwined.
Initiative is just an ordering in time. Who did what first? It tells us nothing about what is done. As such it is a conclusion about things that happen, not a precondition or an element of action. We identify the actions and see how they are ordered in time. In a game system all we need to see is what the characters are doing, and what are the results of their actions. Who decide to fight, the PC or the NPC? He has the initiative. This decision happens first in the minds of the players, of course, and it is not a mechanical outcome of a roll (unless the GM has some table to roll to see what’s the attitude of his NPCs; it happens in some games, specially for random encounters).
Timing is a relative concept. It relates to the interaction between the actions of two or more parties. It is not restricted to opposed action, it may also happen in collaborative action. For instance, A wants to jump from a boat to another boat, and B is in the second boat to catch A. If they time well their actions, A jumps and B catches him. If they don’t time well their actions, B will not catch A and A falls to the sea.

Since timing is about the interplay of the actions of the two fighters, timing is the right concept to model issues of time in combat.
Speed can be relevant, though, if combat is not about the interplay of the actions of two characters. For instance, in a Western what we have is a competition where both sides want to be faster at shooting, there are no defensive moves, just attacks. Also, an assassin wants to kill before the victim is aware of the attack, so that the latter cannot defend himself. In these cases we don’t have the interplay between attack and defense, we just have independent actions, possibly competing. Speed is a better concept than timing.
On the other hand, if there’s the slightest chance that a character may do a defensive move, then we have to look at timing, not speed. What does the cowboy do, duck for cover or reach for his colt? In the first case we have to consider timing. Is there a possibility that the victim may be able to sense the incoming blow, and try to defend himself? Then the assassin has to check the timing of his attack more than its speed.
A fast punch is of limited utility against a man in armour, whereas a slower weapon may do enough damage in a single strike to be worth its comparative slowness as long as you're good enough; a single abstracted attack/defense clash tends to eliminate these distinctions, in my experience.
It only does this if it factors into a single decision moment (a single roll, if you will) all components of combat, be it skill, natural talent, weapon used, armour, etc. I never said that I support such an approach. I only mentioned initiative.
As I said, skill is the ability to maximise timing, accuracy and impact. Each of these has its own variables, though. Impact is related to the characters’ size and their offensive and defensive weapons. Accuracy is related to the characters’ size, position, etc. Both manifest themselves at the level of the outcome of the action(s).
How, exactly, does one determine whether the timing of one attack in relation to a defense is correct or not, if not by measuring their comparative speed -- which is just another way of saying in what order they actually accomplish (or not) their intended results?
Simple, actually. As I wrote, timing is manifested in the interplay between the performance of both adversaries (performance in terms of attack moves, defensive moves and maneuvers). How do we know if the timing was right? If the attack is successful and the defense is unsuccessful, it’s as simple as this. We don’t need to come out with an independent “timing” moment in the action resolution process. We don’t need to look at the speed of the attack. Let me put it this way:
If the attack roll fails, one of the reasons is because the attacker was not able to time properly an attack. He never found an opening or he never decided to do a decisive attack move.
If the attack succeeds and the defense fails, the timing was perfect. The attacker was able to find an opening and the defender was taken unprepared to counter it.
If the attack succeeds and the defense also succeeds, the attacker found a potential opening but the defender was able to counter it. In this case the accuracy and impact of the attack may still mean that some damage pierces through the defensive action.
Here you have, timing explained without needing to create independent game variables such as “initiative” or “speed”. Actually, “speed” may be incorporated into the game situation through a stat relevant for the skill roll (dexterity, agility or something along these lines).
Abstracting it back to the basic attack/defense roll is just a way of saying that it's narrative fluff; that "timing" is just the word we use to "explain in-game" why one attack hit and another didn't.
Of course! But you are looking at things the wrong way. We don’t start with the game system, we start with the reality it is supposed to model: Actual or fictional combat. Next we create game entities (stats) and game mechanics to model that reality. If the game system models it appropriately, then it has done its job. If it does not model it appropriately then the game system is not doing its job.
Your “narrative fluff” demonstrates that the game system is doing its job in terms of modeling timing just with opposed skill rolls. If nothing else is required, why adding things that, (a) only make the game system more complex and hard to play, and (b) require added interpretative efforts to justify and explain them, thus creating more occasions for divergence of interpretations and conflicts among players and GM? What you propose actually works counter to what you want to achieve.
The reality is more complex than that, and an interesting game, I think, needs to go into more mechanical detail about the process.
Well, I consider that you are focusing on the wrong concept (initiative or speed instead of timing). If we consider timing, the reality is adequately modeled with opposed skill rolls or similar rules. The game does not need to go into more detail than what is needed to model reality. A separate step for timing would serve no purpose.

Of course, the game needs details to handle surprise, the situation where the victim of the attack is unaware and cannot react. But I’ve been saying this from the start of this thread.

What I think you're forgetting is that in this model, you're using one result to determine the success of two essentially unrelated events.
No, I’m not, you are by introducing things that were not there in the first instance. If the GM does that than the players have all reason to complain. Let’s see why:
If A and C are on the same side, for example, then if B fails, that means either that he didn't win his clash with A and that A inflicted damage, or that C got to the escape switch first and teleported himself and A away, or even both!
Until this moment there was no mention that the action by C would directly interfere with the interaction between A and B, you just made it up or introduced something you though about but didn’t specify before. Of course, this changes the analysis. Certainly, you are right to say that “If you're B, the difference between these is going to be vital -- and letting the GM choose which is a good way to get hosed”, but the GM can only blame himself for not specifying things in advance.

Let’s see how to handle this:

A and B are fighting. A may hurt B, and B may hurt A, there are four possible outcomes. These are to handled normally as per combat rules based on opposed skill checks, with no need for speed, initiative or explicit timing. Since both A and B can succeed, and since both can deliver lethal damage (let’s assume this), we have a situation where A can kill be and B can kill A. If it happens, the GM with the players will craft a good and dramatic description of the events if they wish so. Ordering both actions is not important, but the players may like to do it in their description. They can use some stats for this purpose, but this ordering does not change the outcome.

C runs for the escape switch that activates the teleporting mechanism that will take him and A away from that place. So, C’s action is in competition with the actions of A and B. Let’s work on the assumption that both attacks would succeed and do damage. In this case, ordering the actions makes sense and it is a necessity since, as you remark, depending on that ordering A and C may be teleported before any attack (of the several moves abstracted in the combat skill rolls) may succeed; the teleportation may take place after one of the damaging attacks (with different consequences depending on which attack happens first, A’s or B’s); or at the end, after both successful attacks.
Now, what’s at stake here is a competition. Whether A and B are aware that they are in a competition is meaningless. If this is a competition, we handle it as such. For instance, we treat the combat skill rolls by A and B as both combat rolls and competition rolls for ordering the actions.

Needless to say, we need rules to deal with this and the game should provide the same. I can think about several alternatives but that’s not the point. The point is that these rules are needed for a particular type of situations: Competitions. There is no point in introducing in combat, a complex situation where there is the interplay between the actions of the different parties, something that is required in a different set of situations modeled with different rules.
"Initiative" is merely the process for using rules to determine order of actions separately from determining the success or failure of those actions
Not exactly. When initiative is important, when the ordering of actions is important, then it is determined by the success or failure of the action aiming at a certain order of events. As I kept saying, that’s the case with competitions. Initiative is not a separate thing from the skill roll in a competitive action. Order is the outcome of the skill roll.
Where order of action is not important, and I think this is the best way to model collaboration and direct conflict, there’s no place for initiative.
In both cases, modeling initiative as something independent of the skill roll, based on different game entities and with separate mechanics makes no sense to me.
I personally think there are enough realistic situations where the two factors must be separately adjudicated that having a general rule for initiative is both useful and interesting as a tactical option -- as well as for preventing game-stopping arguments.
Yes, we need to deal with it. What I tried to show is that it was not by having an initiative moment in action independent of the skill roll. That’s my take. I’m not dropping things, I’m dealing with them differently.

[smascrns]

This would work perfectly well for duels, but the problem is having an orderly timing of what happens when in combats involving large numbers of characters doing large numbers of things, from drawing weapons to performing first aid to shooting and wrestling on the floor.
Well, most often than not combats with large number of people may be broken up into several separate combats involving a small number of people. Sthese smaller combats happening in parallel don't interfer with each other, there's no point in ordering things among them. It's simpler to move to the combat between PC A and NPC A to the combat with PC B with NPC B and treat them separately.
Initiative is especially important when characters react to what other characters are doing and try to interrupt them (usually to intervene to protect less formidable members of their group).
True. As I said above, this is a competition most often than not, and should be treated as such. It does not require a subset of rules independent of skill/ability mechanics, and less yet to have subset being applied universaly to all actions.
That said, I'm working on a simpler, rules-light game system that has "one roll combat" - each turn, opposing characters make one opposed roll, which sums up initiative, to-hit, and damage. So far, it looks promising, but it's not been tested nearly as extensively as the Tarafore System. It's also abstracted to the point that it loses a good bit of realism.
There are always compromises we have to do.

[smascrns]

It could happen a couple of ways in the Tarafore system. (skip the ways)
So you are using three separate special rulings to deal something I can represent with no special ruling at all? What's the gain in game terms other than more complexity, more things to remember, and more accounting to be done?

[Strange Visitor]

I didn't say that negative HP don't work at the mechanical level. What I mean is that HP, as all other game terms, are not abstractions, they are suppose to model something in the real or fictional world we play in. HP are usually the measure of physical integrity. As any whole, there's



What's wrong with them being a measure of the degree of integrity that's homostatically maintainable? Just because you happen to like Kelvin doesn't make Celsius an unusable system, nor inappropriate.



nothing bellow 0. Whenever a whole reaches 0, it ceases to exist. Negative HP represent life when there should be no more life left. They are a faulty model of the reality they are supposed to represent.



Bluntly, nonsense. That's only if you have a fetish about 0 being an absolute state rather than a relative position.



And they are not even needed to model that reality. Just have a ruling saying that the character gets bellow X HP then he is in a lethal condition. He will start loosing HPs and if he goes down to 0 he is dead. There is nothing we can do with negative HP that cannot be done with positive HPs, so why use the former? That's my issue.

Because 0 is a good mnemonic spot for people to remember that; any place you put it will be arbitrary, but knowing that at 0 the loss begins is easy to remember, and if you want the death state to be as far down as the uninjured state is up, the numbers are tidy.

[Tarafore]

So you are using three separate special rulings to deal something I can represent with no special ruling at all? What's the gain in game terms other than more complexity, more things to remember, and more accounting to be done?

Because three different things have happened.

The way in which they are perceived by the players (and the characters) will be different (unexpected simultaneous kill, wounded but didn't fall, wounded but forced himself to fight on through sheer force of will - and that last one isn't appropriate to all settings/styles/genres).

And you're generalizing out from a specific, extremely uncommon example to cast aspersion on the entire system. The truth is, I've seen nothing in your system that makes it simpler to figure out what happens when. And I know it all happens simultaneously, in blocks, but that doesn't seem to fit in with either accounts of actual battles or examples from genre fiction.

Sometimes the order of things matters. A LOT of the time, the order of things matters. And having to extrapolate that out of a simultaneous block of events is not simpler, easier, or psychologically easier on the players than having a regular system in place to determine it.

[smascrns]

What's wrong with them being a measure of the degree of integrity that's homostatically maintainable? Just because you happen to like Kelvin doesn't make Celsius an unusable system, nor inappropriate.
That's what I said. Negative hp work mechanicaly.
Because 0 is a good mnemonic spot for people to remember that; any place you put it will be arbitrary, but knowing that at 0 the loss begins is easy to remember, and if you want the death state to be as far down as the uninjured state is up, the numbers are tidy.
There's a small mistake: Positive hp represent both uninjured and injured states. What I think they should not represent is dead. I can easily admit that at 0 a creature may be functionaly incapacitated and dying since the death process may take time.

The reason why I think it's silly to represent death in terms of a negative value is because one creature is no more or less dead, just as it is not more or less alive. These are two coins of a binary pair. In this pair there are no relatives, both are absolutes. Using a relative scale to deal with absolute values is just not correct.
That's why it makes a lot more sense to represent numericaly death vs. life as 0 vs. non-zero where non-zero are positive values.
Now, if death is 0, why is life a variable value? Because it is not. The range represented by hps is not a representation of the presence or absence of life. It is instead a representation of the quality of life in terms of physical integrity. We can be more or less physicaly whole, but we are always dealing with positive values.

Or look at your Celcius example: You are wrong about it. In its origin it was designed to measure states in water: solid, liquid, gaz. If we look strickly at the purpose it was designed for, there's nothing below 0, there's no negative states.
What happens is that the instrument used to measure the water states could be used to measure the states of other things and what applies to water does not apply to those things. What to do? Have different scales for the different things? Or keep the scales and enlarge it with negative values that have no meaning for water but allow us to deal with other things? we know the answer.

What we get from this example is that just as it makes no sense to have negative values in the Celsius scale to measure the states of water, neither it makes sense to have negative values in a scale that measures the states of life vs. death. It's doable, yes, but it has no meaningful content.

[smascrns]

Because three different things have happened.
(skip) unexpected simultaneous kill, wounded but didn't fall, wounded but forced himself to fight on through sheer force of will
Of course I know there are three different situations. And of course we need to be able to represent them in a rpg. But for that purpose we need rules that address them in their own terms. Initiative is not an adequate rule, that's all I say.
The truth is, I've seen nothing in your system that makes it simpler to figure out what happens when.
It's simple, you are looking for things you can't find in my system. I mean, in it you can find what happens, what you can't find is "when", and that for a very good reason: My position is that "when" (by which I mean what you are looking after when asking about "when", in other words, an order of events within the combat round, see below) is irrelevant, so it is not present in my system. And if it is not present there, it cannot be figured.
And I know it all happens simultaneously, in blocks, but that doesn't seem to fit in with either accounts of actual battles or examples from genre fiction.
We would need to compare accounts of actual battles or examples from genre fiction. Sorry, I don't have the time for it.
In any case, that comparision would be ratter useless because rpgs (have to) introduce something we don't find in the examples: Combat rounds.
Sometimes the order of things matters. A LOT of the time, the order of things matters. And having to extrapolate that out of a simultaneous block of events is not simpler, easier, or psychologically easier on the players than having a regular system in place to determine it.
Certainly, but that order varies a lot from situation to situation. If one goes for a sports combat competition and looks at the way the action is ordered in the different combats, we see that the way things happen in time varies a lot.

A game system has to abstract and systematize a lot of things. One of the way to do this is by working with combat rounds. One of their main purposes is to define what happens when. I said above that I don't care about the "when" within a combat round, but I care for it a lot in terms of the whole combat that is a collection of rounds. By having rounds I'm able to deal with the when, that's all. My design effort is directed to have a break up of combat rounds that allows me to maximise the verissimilitude of combat in its time flow. This is one other reason why I don't need initiative or similar devices.

[Strange Visitor]

There's a small mistake: Positive hp represent both uninjured and injured states. What I think they should not represent is dead. I can easily admit that at 0 a creature may be functionaly incapacitated and dying since the death process may take time.



Or, you know, _not_ incapacitated and dying. That happens with gunshot wounds all the time, and I have no reason to believe stab wounds or others are any more immune to the effect of bleeding out.



The reason why I think it's silly to represent death in terms of a negative value is because one creature is no more or less dead, just as it is not more or less alive. These are two coins of a binary pair. In this pair there are no relatives, both are absolutes. Using a relative scale to deal with absolute values is just not correct.



Sorry, but as long as ongoing damage can accellarate the process, I don't see anything that makes it _not_ relative. You can certainly be relatively closer to dead from a dying state, especially where blood loss is concerned.



That's why it makes a lot more sense to represent numericaly death vs. life as 0 vs. non-zero where non-zero are positive values.



Still not seeing it.



Now, if death is 0, why is life a variable value? Because it is not. The range represented by hps is not a representation of the presence or absence of life. It is instead a representation of the quality of life in terms of physical integrity. We can be more or less physicaly whole, but we are always dealing with positive values.



Except I quite do see negative values, as in the range of injury where a character is dying, but not dead. 0 is the turnover point, and its quite functional as a positive-negative breakpoint there.



Or look at your Celcius example: You are wrong about it. In its origin it was designed to measure states in water: solid, liquid, gaz. If we look strickly at the purpose it was designed for, there's nothing below 0, there's no negative states.
What happens is that the instrument used to measure the water states could be used to measure the states of other things and what applies to water does not apply to those things. What to do? Have different scales for the different things? Or keep the scales and enlarge it with negative values that have no meaning for water but allow us to deal with other things? we know the answer.



And a similar result is here; you're dealing the with respectively, the numerical range between uninjured and dying, and dying and dead.



What we get from this example is that just as it makes no sense to have negative values in the Celsius scale to measure the states of water, neither it makes sense to have negative values in a scale that measures the states of life vs. death. It's doable, yes, but it has no meaningful content.

It certainly does to me, as I think I've explained.

[Tarafore]

Of course I know there are three different situations. And of course we need to be able to represent them in a rpg. But for that purpose we need rules that address them in their own terms. Initiative is not an adequate rule, that's all I say.

It's simple, you are looking for things you can't find in my system. I mean, in it you can find what happens, what you can't find is "when", and that for a very good reason: My position is that "when" (by which I mean what you are looking after when asking about "when", in other words, an order of events within the combat round, see below) is irrelevant, so it is not present in my system. And if it is not present there, it cannot be figured.

If "when" is irrelevant and not present in your system, then your system does not track well with reality or genre fiction.

We would need to compare accounts of actual battles or examples from genre fiction. Sorry, I don't have the time for it.

I don't want to sound snarky, but you did initiate a thread in which you basically called everyone else's systems unrealistic because those systems use Initiative. That may not have been your intention, but it was the impression that I and (from their responses) several other posters got from your post. I think it behooves you to research historical combat, defensive shooting, and hand to hand combat before starting something like this, honestly.

In any case, that comparision would be ratter useless because rpgs (have to) introduce something we don't find in the examples: Combat rounds.

I'm sorry - I don't see how the inclusion of combat rounds makes any comparison between genre fiction or real combat and RPG combat moot...especially not in a thread entitled "How realistic is initiative?"

Rounds are an abstraction, and as such further remove the process of rpg combat from the process of real combat. But they do not necessarily have any impact upon the realism of the results.

On a side note - I do not want very much realism of process when conducting rpg combat. I don't want my players getting PTSD when the emotions run high, and, for example, one PC ends up fighting or killing another (it's happened more than once, and not because of munchkinism, bad roleplaying, or out of character conflicts - the characters made choices based on their personalities, and those came into mortal conflict. It was intense, but memorable).

Also, I'll note that RPG's don't have to have rounds. I've used roundless combat systems before, but found they were a bit more trouble without enough gain to justify it. However, they did work, and if I had more crunch and combat oriented players, I might try one again (I am, by far, the most rules-heavy person in my gaming group - and you see how rules-light the Tarafore System is).

Certainly, but that order varies a lot from situation to situation. If one goes for a sports combat competition and looks at the way the action is ordered in the different combats, we see that the way things happen in time varies a lot.

A game system has to abstract and systematize a lot of things. One of the way to do this is by working with combat rounds. One of their main purposes is to define what happens when. I said above that I don't care about the "when" within a combat round, but I care for it a lot in terms of the whole combat that is a collection of rounds. By having rounds I'm able to deal with the when, that's all. My design effort is directed to have a break up of combat rounds that allows me to maximise the verissimilitude of combat in its time flow. This is one other reason why I don't need initiative or similar devices.

Certainly I don't say that you have to have initiative in your game. It's a game, after all, and you should do what works for you and your group.

However, this thread started with a challenge that those of use who used initiative were failing in the area of realism. I don't think there has been much support at all for that proposition.

Initiative has its uses, both in realism and in keeping the game flowing without undue mess. It's not absolutely necessary - you've proved that, and so have I in my simplified system - but it does have its uses.

[Jinntu]

That's what I said. Negative hp work mechanicaly.

There's a small mistake: Positive hp represent both uninjured and injured states. What I think they should not represent is dead. I can easily admit that at 0 a creature may be functionaly incapacitated and dying since the death process may take time.

The reason why I think it's silly to represent death in terms of a negative value is because one creature is no more or less dead, just as it is not more or less alive. These are two coins of a binary pair. In this pair there are no relatives, both are absolutes. Using a relative scale to deal with absolute values is just not correct.
That's why it makes a lot more sense to represent numericaly death vs. life as 0 vs. non-zero where non-zero are positive values.
Now, if death is 0, why is life a variable value? Because it is not. The range represented by hps is not a representation of the presence or absence of life. It is instead a representation of the quality of life in terms of physical integrity. We can be more or less physicaly whole, but we are always dealing with positive values.

Or look at your Celcius example: You are wrong about it. In its origin it was designed to measure states in water: solid, liquid, gaz. If we look strickly at the purpose it was designed for, there's nothing below 0, there's no negative states.
What happens is that the instrument used to measure the water states could be used to measure the states of other things and what applies to water does not apply to those things. What to do? Have different scales for the different things? Or keep the scales and enlarge it with negative values that have no meaning for water but allow us to deal with other things? we know the answer.

What we get from this example is that just as it makes no sense to have negative values in the Celsius scale to measure the states of water, neither it makes sense to have negative values in a scale that measures the states of life vs. death. It's doable, yes, but it has no meaningful content.


Well your argument works on one level, but there's the idea that frozen=/= dead in this analogy. Just because water is frozen doesn't mean that atomic activity has ceased. Death itself is more akin to absolute zero and freezing is akin to the physiological shift into the dying state. What constitutes this shift is in and of itself arbitrary within the game because of the range of factors that go into it in reality, but thinking of it this way, zero as a dying point works just fine.