Initiative - How simple/complex?

[reverse_atomic_roger]

Hi all.

I'm working on a simple system. Characters have stats, like strength and dexterity, and skills, like armed combat and computing. For task resolution the players rolls a number of dice equal to the relevant stat, keeping a number equal to the skill. Add the score up and compare to a target number. This covers most of the system, I'm trying to keep it fairly simple.

I may have got carried away with initiative though, see what you think.

Each player has an initiative modifier. The default value is 10, and this can be improved at character creation to reduce its value. At the start of combat each player rolls a die and adds his initiative modifier. The character with the lowest score acts first. Each action has an initiative value. Once the action is complete the player rolls again for initiative, adding his modifier and the value of the task, then adding that to his previous total. Then the person with the lowest score acts, and so on.

An example might be easier...

Tim is quite quick witted and has an initiative of 5, while Dave is slower and has initiative 10. They both roll a die and add their modifier. This leaves Tim with a total of 10 and Dave with 18. So Tim acts first and fires his gun. This action has an initiative value of 5, so once the action is resolved Tim rolls again, adding his initiative of 5 and the value of the action (also 5). If Tom rolls a 5 on his initiative die this gives a total of 15, which is then added to the score of 10 that Tim already had, making his new total 25.

Since 18 is lower than 25, Dave takes the next action. Theoretically though, with good rolls, Tim could have taken two actions before Dave got to act once.

Also, skills are rated between 1 and 10, and I'm thinking of subtracting skill from the init value of actions. For example a skill of 3 in ranged combat would reduce the value of firing the gun from 5 to 2

Finally, I'd also like to allow the players to queue up actions, so that they announce several actions at once, and each is done in order. The players initiative is increased by the initiative value of the action each time, but no more dice are rolled until the queue is finished. This way players can think ahead and gain an advantage, with the possible draw back that they end up doing actions that are not a good idea by the time they come round. I expect most players to only queue up a couple of actions for this reason (although I plan on having a way to break the action chain early, with a bit of a penalty).


My objective for this was to let the players do clever things with initiative. Most of the players in my group like to play clever characters, often deliberately building characters that are sub-optimal mechanically so that they can make smart choices and devise cunning plans in combat to make up for it. In terms of actual combat options, this cleverness doesn't often need direct mechanical expression, because it will be things like shooting the ceiling to cause a rock slide or booby trapping a door that use normal rolls to achieve something unusual, but I thoguht it would be nice to let them play with initiative too.

So my questions are;

1. Do you think the initiative system is too complex for a system that is trying to be "simple"?
2. If so, would it work in a more involved system?
3. Would you change anything to improve it?

[Vladius]

Since your system seems simple enough as it is, you could just develop the entire game to focus on initiative, so that the combat and everything else is based on split-second decision making and lightning fast maneuvers. The system for initiative that you have going is pretty cool (I like spending pieces of initiative in points to perform actions). So you could have a gun duel simulator or something, where you have to aim your shots and economize on how fast you act.

[MacLeod]

It doesn't sound too complex to be playable. One thing you'll want to watch out for, if the numbers you have presented are accurate, is cost reduction as skill rises. You don't want folks actions before the opponent even makes one. Perhaps maybe a cost reduction at Skill Level 4, 7 and 10.

You should also include ways for combatants to alter their opponents' initiative. I'm not sure how your damage system goes... but for the game I'm writing, Intergalactic League of Brawlers, each hit reduces the opponent's Initiative Rank based on how hard the hit was. You could do something similar, folks that get hit add points to their Initiative.

Furthermore, a light/medium/heavy attack option for melee and a hip/snap/aimed shot for ranged would add some agreeable complexity. For melee, heavier attacks equal +damage, +initiative and -accuracy while ranged is +initiative and +accuracy and perhaps +critical if your system uses such a thing.

[JoyWriter]

Allowing people with higher initiative to act more times can be a minefield, because it means that higher initiative multiplies the value of all your skills! If you are going for a gamist competitive system, as it appears you are, that's something to watch out for. If you want to get very exact about it, you can compare the fractional actions per round based both on initiative and the probability of success. Even that is not a perfect representation of the value, but may be helpful.

Now on the question of simplicity, do you anticipate asking people to add together more than five dice? I suspect they may not want to!
Dice pool/keep systems work pretty well, but recognising is quicker than adding, and comparing is quicker than both (If I remember correctly). If you want to keep the adding, you may have a low level of differentiation of characters based on the stat system.

More broadly on simplicity, I don't know if you have seen how simple these games can go, but otherkind, shadows and the pool are good playable simple systems, and there are lots of others too.

Basically I hope by showing you these games that you'll go "Ok, what do I want more than just simplicity?". Someone clever said that you should make things just simple enough, but no more, and in rpgs that means just complex enough to make the kind of play you want. You'll know if it's too complex because people won't pick it up very fast, and will get confused and pause lots when trying to work out what they are doing, and you can make it less complex by reducing the things they have to remember at once.

For that reason I'd probably skip the "deduct skill" thing, my prediction is that would get confusing. I like the idea but I think it's probably too much on top of what is currently going on.

Also when does the count up stop? If the combat goes on for a long time, would you just put new people entering the combat (or whatever confrontation requires initiative) in with an appropriate starting value to show the passage of time, and have the overall numbers mount up to infinity? Or are you thinking of resetting every round or minute or something?

I probably don't agree with MacLeod on adjusting enemies initiative, as it may not suit your style of game. Depending on how you want fights to work it could be very cool though.

Finally, although the core of your initiative system seems pretty good, (the incentive for rigid action could represent drills quite nicely), I couldn't resist showing you some previous discussion that we put into initiative systems. I learned a fair amount from it.

[reverse_atomic_roger]

Thanks guys for the comments and encouragement.

It doesn't sound too complex to be playable. One thing you'll want to watch out for, if the numbers you have presented are accurate, is cost reduction as skill rises. You don't want folks actions before the opponent even makes one. Perhaps maybe a cost reduction at Skill Level 4, 7 and 10.

You should also include ways for combatants to alter their opponents' initiative. I'm not sure how your damage system goes... but for the game I'm writing, Intergalactic League of Brawlers, each hit reduces the opponent's Initiative Rank based on how hard the hit was. You could do something similar, folks that get hit add points to their Initiative.

Furthermore, a light/medium/heavy attack option for melee and a hip/snap/aimed shot for ranged would add some agreeable complexity. For melee, heavier attacks equal +damage, +initiative and -accuracy while ranged is +initiative and +accuracy and perhaps +critical if your system uses such a thing.

The cost reduction for increased skill was a concern, but not one I'd thought much about how to resolve. Possibly a smaller reduction as you suggest would be a good way to do it.

I hadn't thought about attack options or changing opponent initiative, but I like both ideas. I'm not sure how changing enemies initiative would work, as I don't want the possibility of the PCs chaining actions and stopping an opponent from acting altogether. I'll have to think about it.

Allowing people with higher initiative to act more times can be a minefield, because it means that higher initiative multiplies the value of all your skills! If you are going for a gamist competitive system, as it appears you are, that's something to watch out for. If you want to get very exact about it, you can compare the fractional actions per round based both on initiative and the probability of success. Even that is not a perfect representation of the value, but may be helpful.

I'm expecting that with die rolls added and a fixed value added for each action, that the faster people will only get 1 additional action for every 3 or 4 actions taken. Also, character creation involves quite a limited number of points spread amongst all traits, so unless someone builds a very, very focused character, they would not be able to have good initiative and good skills.

Now on the question of simplicity, do you anticipate asking people to add together more than five dice? I suspect they may not want to!
Dice pool/keep systems work pretty well, but recognising is quicker than adding, and comparing is quicker than both (If I remember correctly). If you want to keep the adding, you may have a low level of differentiation of characters based on the stat system.

I'm expecting starting characters with high skill to roll 6 keep 4, roughly. Although I'm seriously considering reducing that a bit now that you mention it. The experience system, when I come up with it, should be fairly slow, so I'm not expecting the amount of addition to go up too far.

. You'll know if it's too complex because people won't pick it up very fast, and will get confused and pause lots when trying to work out what they are doing, and you can make it less complex by reducing the things they have to remember at once.

For that reason I'd probably skip the "deduct skill" thing, my prediction is that would get confusing. I like the idea but I think it's probably too much on top of what is currently going on.

Thanks for the links. Those are simple! I might even suggest a couple of them to my group. I'm planning to put something on the character sheet that lists the modified values for each action. So instead of remembering 10 for firing a gun, say, they remember 7 instead, and its noted down on the sheet somewhere. Do you think this would be workable?

Also when does the count up stop? If the combat goes on for a long time, would you just put new people entering the combat (or whatever confrontation requires initiative) in with an appropriate starting value to show the passage of time, and have the overall numbers mount up to infinity? Or are you thinking of resetting every round or minute or something?

My idea was to have a loop of boxes around the edge of the character sheet and each player keeps track of his or her initiative with a glass bead or something. The boxes would be numbered and when you get to the top you just start again at 0. There is no danger of a massive spread because those on a lower initiative keep acting until they catch up with the others. New additions to the combat can just be added somewhere sensible. They would probably roll initiative and add it to the number of whenever they entered the room.

[MacLeod]

I hadn't thought about attack options or changing opponent initiative, but I like both ideas. I'm not sure how changing enemies initiative would work, as I don't want the possibility of the PCs chaining actions and stopping an opponent from acting altogether. I'll have to think about it.

I come from a video game sort of background so it helps to think in terms of real-time being broken down into a turn-based game. In fighting games, for instance, when an attack hits the opponents stops for just a moment... long enough usually to continue an attack or prepare a suitable defense.

The Initiative penalties for an opponent can be as simple as adding +1 each time they are hit.

For the attack options... if you want a system of combo maneuvers you can set up a Combo Potential for each attack type (light/medium/heavy). Players always roll a specific die with their attacks that indicates whether or not they are capable of making a combination action. The heavier attacks have a smaller potential.

(what I have described above is one of the building blocks for a project of mine designed to emulate fighting games Guilty Gear XX)

[Mike Sugarbaker]

Roger, you should look at the board game Red Gnovember - it has an action-timing system that's similar to this one, and tracks it in a really elegant way which you could probably steal and adapt to your needs.

[David C]

If you were trying to do the simplest thing possible, this is how I'd suggest doing it.

If the players get the jump on the non players, start at the GM's left and go clockwise.  If the NPCs get the jump, start at the GM and go clockwise.  If neither get the jump, make a coin toss, then go clockwise. 

The system you mention seems complicated.  The first RPG I made had a system like yours, and it was definitely very gamy. Which isn't a bad thing, but make sure whatever you use fits your goals. 

[tenebrax]

I also designed a similar initiative system in my first RPG, and we added some more mechanics within the system, for example:

- Get a modifier to your initiative value and suffer an equivalent bonus/malus to the associated action.
- Injuries would also delay the action depending on the severity of the blow.
- Special actions may be able to impact the ennemies initiative (intimidation, tactics)

We also printed a board with all values from 1 to 120 and each player would put his pawn on his next initiative value, making it easier for everyone to see who acts next. We had decided that the 1 point of the board would represent about 0.5 sec for the purpose of keeping track of time.

The problems we ran into with this system may be helpful to you as well:
- When you decide to re-roll initiative for your next action and you apply a modifier correspondint to the action you previously made... Some of the players argued that when you resolve the action, it is done. Why take it into account for the next initiative roll? Some of them suggested that we decide for our next action before rolling initiative, with the modifiers for what we are trying to achieve. If another action disrupt our action, then we would suffer additional malus.
- Keep the balance is delicate... If you can adapt your actions to impact your initiative score, the extremes will cause problems. The character who is the fastest may act 2-3 times while the slower character will only act once. We experience some problems of balance which forced us to modify our combat system: instead of having an attack vs defense, we had to change it to a contested attack rolls, so the defender may be able to injure the attacker if he was the winner of the contested roll. It solved part of our problems by making possible the attacker be injured on his turn.
- When too many opponents... If you are having of fight of 5 against 15 for example it is getting really complicated to keep track of the actions. To resolve this we added some groupe combats rules for NPC (a groupe of X similar NPCs would be treated like a single entity for the purpose of initiative and combat resolution).

Hope this helps

[JoyWriter]

Thanks for the links. Those are simple! I might even suggest a couple of them to my group. I'm planning to put something on the character sheet that lists the modified values for each action. So instead of remembering 10 for firing a gun, say, they remember 7 instead, and its noted down on the sheet somewhere. Do you think this would be workable?

Almost definitely! People keep track of D&D 3.5's varying array of class-based bonuses quite well, it just depends on your audience, and how much you put things into categories like simple action/complex action etc. But once you put it on a sheet like that, to maintain the complexity saving you pretty much cannot have any other adjustments to the value, except when people start taking a rubber to the sheet during advancement.

Also, it occurs to me now that the two objectives might actually cohere quite well: You need skills to be small valued to avoid minus numbers on action durations, and you need small numbers to keep dice additions below 5 dice (or a bit less). This suggests something about your world: Skill will be heavily stratified and discriminating, whereas stats will be closer to tie breakers. This gives you more freedom in generating stats, providing initiative and skill are kept within strict limits. I'd probably say that stats could be 1-10 and skills 1-5, and initiative 10-5; that would mean given your example, a very fast person would be able to do things he is a master of almost twice the speed of another fast person if they both did it as routine, ie 5+5-5 vs 5+5-2. With acting in uncertain circumstances making the advantage less substantial. Against a slow person it could be 5+5-5+d10, vs 10+5-2+d10, which is pretty much acting twice as fast, four times if they go on automatic! And each success is at least twice as successful.

Very impressive, but if it is the apex of a slow advancement system, it may not be too objectionable, especially if you can manipulate their routine to your own advantage. In fact I'm not sure I would add a get-out clause at all; the power of cuing up actions is quite significant; by itself if offers one extra action between "every five actions" and "for every action", depending on stats. I'd just have it that if an action becomes inappropriate you can choose to try to do it anyway or pause and loose the action, but still use up the time. As an unenegmatic loss that should hopefully encourage people to use it sparingly and appropriately.

On the stat front, a stat of four could be the average, so that they don't act too much as a skill cap at the start of a game.

My idea was to have a loop of boxes around the edge of the character sheet and each player keeps track of his or her initiative with a glass bead or something. The boxes would be numbered and when you get to the top you just start again at 0. There is no danger of a massive spread because those on a lower initiative keep acting until they catch up with the others. New additions to the combat can just be added somewhere sensible. They would probably roll initiative and add it to the number of whenever they entered the room.

That's a pretty fun idea, I'd indent it quite a bit though knowing how my friends treat their char sheets! It's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking, but with a good way to remember it, I reckon you'll probably get about 4 "rounds" of combat out of it.

Now in all of this I'm predicting a very competitive combat based game. I have no idea if that is correct, or whether this is supposed to directed towards other goals, but I think something like this could be pretty fun. However, you have said the advancement could be quire slow, so have you considered removing it entirely? Or having it work in discrete jumps if you "complete" certain things? Because I found in one of my games that I really didn't want to track advancement, just insure it happened as the level of challenges to the characters changed, which tended to be quite abrupt. What kind of things do you anticipate the characters doing?

- When you decide to re-roll initiative for your next action and you apply a modifier correspondint to the action you previously made... Some of the players argued that when you resolve the action, it is done. Why take it into account for the next initiative roll? Some of them suggested that we decide for our next action before rolling initiative, with the modifiers for what we are trying to achieve. If another action disrupt our action, then we would suffer additional malus.

Lol, this reminds me of that thing in the lion king film: [hits him on the head] "it doesn't matter, it's in the past"

I totally agree on the group rules though, my shorthand would be that they use the slowest action duration and initiative there, and roll once, like the rules for ship movement in many 4x games. Also interruption is an interesting thing, sometimes easier resolved by "set-up actions" within a system like this, with any disruption between it and the action it is setting up removing the bonus for focusing.

[reverse_atomic_roger]

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Things I want to do/use/add/change:

Any character hit by an attack gets +1 init.
Special actions to change init, eg. Intimidation.
slow init to improve action/reduce action effectiveness to improve init - this might be in the form of light and heavy attacks, etc.
Group similar NPCs in large battles
Reduce the init bonus of high skill

Other stuff I'm thinking about:
Going to look at Red November and see if it helps with the init tracking. I'm fairly happy with the idea I have but I'm always looking for new and better ideas
Probably going to tweak my idea for advancement as suggested, to discreet jumps at certain points.
I'll play around with some test characters and a couple of friends to decide on reasonable limits for stats, skills, initiative, and the costs for them.

Also:
For breaking a chain of actions I'm thinking something along the lines of the following: When you decide to break the chain replace your next action in the chain with "Do Nothing" but retain the initiative value of the action you replaced. Roll initiative as usual using this value.

So basically you do nothing for a bit to re-assess the situation.

I've thought about what I want when I say 'simple system'...

1. Broad, flexible skills - a short skill list.
2. No 'feats' that add bonuses left right and centre in a variety of situations. I will have special powers of some sort, but I'm in a DnD4 game atm and I have 3 different ACs depending on the situation.(Normal, Opp Att, Near 2 larger creatures) I don't want my players to have to keep track of that many variables for something that should be straightforward. The problem is more one of remembering everything than adding lots of numbers together.

As it stands at the moment, I think the initiative is still simple enough. Choose action, roll for action. Apply effects. Roll next init.

Does that seem reasonable to you guys?

Now in all of this I'm predicting a very competitive combat based game

It didn't start out that way. I had an idea for an adventure setting and wanted a system to fit it. There was going to be some combat but not huge amounts. But I really like the way the system is going, even if its not right for my original game. Having said that, combat is the most mechanical part of most games. Out of combat you can have fewer dice rolls in general, timing is less important, etc. So I might use this system for my game anyway, I'm fairly sure it would work out alright.

[Catelf]

I'm very new to the net, but not to rpgs: Have anyone ever concidered to simply go in the order of the noted lowest initiative stat, or highest speed stat, whatever you are using?
If you want some more complexity, just add the "different attacks has different modifiers" thing, and/or that the one hit become slower!