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Turn-based combat, in which each participant takes actions in a defined order.

5 (45.5%)

"Impulse"-based combat, in which each participant decides what action to take, and they're all executed simultaneously.

6 (54.5%)

Total Members Voted: 11

[Bauglir]

So, I'm hashing out some of the unspoken assumptions I started writing a game with, and this is one I can't really work out for myself. So, I've decided to harvest your opinions.

When you're fighting* something in a tabletop RPG, how do you think the game should handle actions?

In the traditional turn-based system, each participant in combat has a turn on which to act, and there's a fairly orderly process to going through battle. Usually, there are sharp limits on what you can do outside your turn, and the most important one is that you usually can't take actions that render somebody else's retroactively useless. For instance, you can't usually decide to move after a fireball is lobbed your way so that you're no longer within the radius of the burst (although there are often countermeasures you can take, they're usually contested themselves and require you to give up your own turn in order to make them happen). This system is very straightforward, and its prevalence in almost all kinds of games makes it very intuitive to new players. How actions resolve is usually fairly clear, and this makes it relatively quick to play with. On the other hand, it can create strange situations that don't make sense unless you specifically reason in terms of the turns, and drastically increases the incentive to go first since it means you have an opportunity to make sure your opponent never gets to go at all. It also tends to make the game less interesting whenever it isn't your turn, because you can't often do much but wait.

In the "impulse"-based system, a term I'm using from the Wikipedia article on the subject, actions are resolved at least partially simultaneously, allowing players to react to other players within a single turn. In the version I'm considering, each player decides on a series of actions to take, and then everybody's actions are taken simultaneously (I seem to recall something similar being used in Burning Wheel). This is less straightforward, and will take more explanation for new players. Resolving actions can get complicated, so a system will need to be put in place to work out how actions interact with other actions - such a system is likely to get fairly complicated, particularly if I try to make things interactive so that counterattacks and such are a part of the game. On the plus side, once the mechanics are grasped, the results can be made fairly intuitive, since it approximates real-time to a certain extent. It doesn't necessarily make it mandatory to have the best reflexes, since your action will still go through even if you're defeated by your opponent's first decision, and it's essentially everybody's turn at once, so it's got less of a vibe of "Long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of excitement" that turn-based games produce.

Personally, I am leaning toward the latter option, but I don't know if that's just me latching onto something new or if it's a genuinely good idea. Is it worth the at-the-table complication to make it happen? Reasons for voting, suggestions, or alternatives are welcome replies.

*Combat's the default here, but any competitive encounter would use the same system.

[Telgin]

There is certainly merit to trying new ideas, but to be honest I'm having difficulty understanding quite how the simultaneous action thing would work in practice.

Does it literally consist of every player choosing (and GM choosing for each NPC) an action, which the GM has to resolve all at once?  Order is arbitrary I assume, so it's not possible to kill or incapacitate someone before they can attack?  Even if an attack would kill them, they still get theirs?

That does make sense for certain things.  Taking your fireball example, it makes sense that a guy might be able to swing a weapon while a fireball was en route to him.  Or some other relatively slow attack.  Even with faster attacks like bows shooting arrows or even gunfire it could be made believable enough.

You mention that this allows players to react to each other within a single turn, but to me it seems like this would complicate reactions a lot.  And the arbitration on how actions interact would probably be very complex, as you mention.  Especially if you try to work in reactive responses to attacks like parries and dodges.  I'm also not convinced that it would much reduce the problem of all but one player sitting around while one works out what they're doing.  Frequently the players have to get exclusive time with the GM to work out how X affects Y in their action, for example.

Another thing that I wonder about is how much this would encourage behavior like, "Oh, wait, no I do Z instead of W then!" when a player finds out someone else is doing something they didn't expect.  Would you permit that sort of thing?  It seems like it's almost an intended feature of such a system, but might cause a lot of slowdown as players cascade changing their actions.

[Bauglir]

For prioritizing decision-making, I'm thinking of a kind of initiative analogue in which the best score gets to choose their action "last" (really, with the most potentially available information). Once every choice is in, that's it - all of the effects happen simultaneously, based on whatever the board state was before anything happened. Arguably, it's a model of reaction time and momentum - you get shot, but your sword was already swinging. Most of the complexity will come from special actions (like parries or dodges, to use examples you gave) that rely on other creatures taking certain actions, and from the exact kinds of effects I wind up writing (since there will inevitably be confusing corner cases that need resolving).

I'm thinking everybody writes down their action at once, including the GM for NPCs, and then they're all revealed at once. You can choose a single opponent (allies can freely share the information, chalking it up in-universe to effective teamwork and subtle communication cues) who's got a worse initiative than you and try to predict their actions with some kind of check, and can change your own actions accordingly. I'll probably want to introduce some cost to avoid making it an automatic decision, because I don't want to slow down gameplay more than necessary, and if everybody does it it just becomes a standard initiative system with a weird resolution mechanic.

Working things out with the GM will still need one-on-one time, but I don't think the turn order strategy is necessary for that, and usually most players don't need that time each turn, so they can just go ahead and write out whatever they need to. You'll basically get people asking questions as they become relevant. You still inevitably wind up with some downtime, but it's less pronounced because of the way it's budgeted (I'd expect there's roughly the same amount of total downtime, but distributed more evenly at any given time).

[tompliss]

Voted turn-based.

but every turn-based is not the same. I played a Dark Heresy game last week-end, and the combat system had a pretty neat feature :
After rolling initiative, the players, starting from the LOWEST initiative (the slowest) say what they are going to do, so the quickest characters can react to what other characters do "at the same time". It is really simple to apply, as you don't need to ask for extremely precise action description beforehand, but it really changes the whole concept of initiative, meaning "Reacting to what you see other people do" in this one...

[Dorf_Lundgren]

I run burning wheel, and that uses a simultaneous combat system. Each player chooses three actions in secret, and all are revealed one at a time and resolved. There is a level of uncertainty that isn't present in more traditional I-go-you-go systems, but unless all the players are proficient with the system it can be slow. Personally I prefer that uncertainty even with the added complexity.

Mouse Guard and the upcoming Torchbearer rpgs use a simpler system of the burning wheel combat system, and both flow a lot faster while still using the simultaneous method.

John

[Grek]

There is certainly merit to trying new ideas, but to be honest I'm having difficulty understanding quite how the simultaneous action thing would work in practice.

Ever played the board game, Diplomacy? Everyone submits an action, in secret, for every piece they control. Then the DM works out which actions conflict and resolves them with the rules.

What you'd end up with is a turn like this:

Red: Charge the Lich King!
Blue: Cast Healing on Green!
Green: Cast Vine Spear on Goblin!
Goblin: Attack Green!
Orc: Attack Blue!
Lich King: Cast Wall of Iron between me and the Heros!

and then the DM sees that there's a conflict between Red and the Lich King (does the Lich King get the wall up before Red gets to him or not?) and between Green and the Goblin (Can the Goblin hit Green before getting entangled by the Vine Spear?) which means that the Conflict Resolution System needs to be used twice to figure out those two cases. And possibly some savings throws or dodge rolls.

The Conflict Resolution System is the real meat of the system in this case. In Diplomacy, it's fairly simple: If one unit has more Supports (units can give support to other units as an action instead of moving themselves) than the other unit's, it succeeds and the less supported unit fails. If both are equal, both fail. This would be unsatisfying for a TTRPG, so instead of counting up supports, you'd want to use opposed rolls, stat comparisons or some sort of "Action Speed" system where the action with the faster Action Speed beats the action with the slower Action Speed, but where fast actions have smaller effects than the slow and interruptible actions. Or some combination of the two, where each action has an Action Speed, but if you make a good enough roll, you can make the action be faster.

[Singularity-SRX]

How about a system that goes like this:

Red: Charge the Lich King!
Blue: Cast Healing on Green!
Green: Cast Vine Spear on Goblin!
Goblin: Attack Green!
Orc: Attack Blue!
Lich King: Cast Wall of Iron between me and the Heros!

With each character helping with the attack/defense rolling a die (1dtheirlevel +or- a modifier) then adding the total up, and comparing it to the monster rolling a die, with the same system as the characters (1d monster level +or- modifier)?
The group with the highest total manages to act first, and maybe get a small bonus.
The modifier could be like if the monster or character is wounded, and so would therefore be slower.

I'm not sure how effective this would wind up being though, so just take it as a grain of salt.

[sjm9876]

Voted turn-based.

but every turn-based is not the same. I played a Dark Heresy game last week-end, and the combat system had a pretty neat feature :
After rolling initiative, the players, starting from the LOWEST initiative (the slowest) say what they are going to do, so the quickest characters can react to what other characters do "at the same time". It is really simple to apply, as you don't need to ask for extremely precise action description beforehand, but it really changes the whole concept of initiative, meaning "Reacting to what you see other people do" in this one...

Wow. this seems great. how have I never heard of this before? turn-based for my vote.

[Grek]

I'm not sure how effective this would wind up being though, so just take it as a grain of salt.

Incredibly impractical. For one, they don't make dice in d1, d2, d3, d5, d7, d9, or d11 sizes. And, even if they did, it means that larger groups act, collectively, faster than smaller groups. You'd want to bring along a dozen peasants for the massive initiative bonus. Not to mention it's a complicated calculation (two addition operations and one rolling operation for every single token on the table) for an ultimately binary result.