Friday, April 29, 2011

Declaring Before Initiative? Maybe Not...

For years I've run classic D&D combat like this:

1. Players declare intentions.
2. Each side rolls 1d6 initiative. Tie = simultaneous effects.
3. Initiative winners do movement, spells, and attacks in whatever order they choose.
4. Initiative losers do movement, spells, and attacks in whatever order they choose.
5. Morale checks and other bookkeeping, if needed.
6. Repeat.

I know there are tons of variations on this combat sequence, many of them more complex than this, and that's fine... I settled on this sequence for my own games because it's fast and easy and the heavy drama of the group initiative roll is really really fun.

Recently, though, I've been experimenting with making things even simpler by dropping the player declaration step. I've been trying this for two reasons:

1. I want to speed combat up even more. Sometimes I'll referee for adventure parties with 8-12 characters, including NPCs and hirelings. It can take a few minutes for the party to decide on what their strategy is going to be - who's acting first, who's going to attack, who's going to hide, etc. Then they have to tell me what they decide. THEN I have to remember it all when the players' turn comes up. Of course I can never remember what all 10 characters all want to do, so they all have to tell it me all over again... Often this all feels like a drag at a game moment that should be fast, threatening, and exciting.

2. The primary outcome of declaring actions it is to penalize players even more for losing an initiative roll. While declaration might add a tough "realism" to D&D combat, in essence all it does is prevent players from reacting wisely to their opponents' actions. I am a firm believer in awesoming up my players, so I don't see anything wrong with giving players some consolation for losing initiative.

Anyway, the last couple sessions of D&D and Gamma World that I've run without declarations have gone great. With big groups the difference is obvious - everything plays way smoother and faster. For me quick abstract combat is a major attraction of old school D&D, and things just got even better.

14 comments:

  1. I dumped declaring BEFORE Initiative rolls back in the 90s.
    I allow my players to declare actions at the time of their initiative. Sure, there is some inherent benefit for the players, but I have enough challenges, etc. that it has never made the game unbalanced. Combat goes smoothly and is probably even more fun.

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  2. Do you give your monsters and creatures the same advantage if they lose initiative?

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  3. Do you give your monsters and creatures the same advantage if they lose initiative?

    Yeah. They pretty much respond to whatever the initiative-winning players just did.

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  4. A potential compromise position to experiment with is having the losing side declare actions after initiative is rolled. Gives them a slight advantage (since they can hedge their bets with safer actions) but still let's wnners preempt and prevent.

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  5. If a player is indecisive I impose the "Five second rule" where he or she has until the count of five to tell me what they do or they lose their turn.

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  6. I am definitely not a fan of action declarations do your experiments are very much I'n line with how I do things when I run D&D.

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  7. What if both PCs and NPCs are unable to cast spells if they lose initiative and were struck (or engaged in melee) during the initiative winner's phase? I don't declare anything but casting and withdrawal/retreat, because these seem like the things that matter. Arguably declaring them before the roll heightens tension: what's at stake here is that I might not get to cast, or to run away before I'm attacked. In practice, that's a lot of declaration for only a few times in which it matters.

    Another thing I've tried is to only roll initiative when it matters. You want to cast a spell before being struck, or run away before being attacked? Cool, we'll do a local initiative roll-off to resolve that; otherwise everyone just goes (perhaps organized by move/missile/melee, or by looking at regions within the encounter, or whatever else makes sense).
    - Tavis

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  8. What if both PCs and NPCs are unable to cast spells if they lose initiative and were struck (or engaged in melee) during the initiative winner's phase?

    Excellent point!! I think it gives away too much to spellcasters to make it so they don't have to declare spells. As you point out, it also lessens the tension if there's never a risk of losing a spell in melee. A major dimension of the game is lost if spells are not declared. I will change my approach to explicitly follow your example.

    The funny thing is, when I think back to the last couple of session I ran without combat declarations I still made players declare spells. I didn't consciously reason this through as I should have (and like you did) - I just did it...

    I still need to think the retreat thing through a bit more... I suspect it is also a good idea to force declarations on this.

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  9. What you describe is pretty much the quick and dirty way I do it.

    I had worried about spells (and missile weapons) not being interrupted. But at low level, my players' 4hp magic-users need all the help they can get.

    Maybe I can say that spells of higher power take longer to cast and thus require calling their intention once the MUs seem to have gotten over the hump power-wise.

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  10. Action declaration was one of the first casualties of this emerging principle in our game: if you keep forgetting to apply a rule, you need to drop it.

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  11. if you keep forgetting to apply a rule, you need to drop it.

    I like this!!!

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  12. I've never played with that rule. On paper, it just looked like a way to screw casters, and I would be hesitant to do that as a DM anyways. It's not like there's some intelligent tactical decision (except maybe choosing to cast when you have surprise). d6 group initiative is purely based on luck. I would have to be a real dick to interrupt some player's one spell they get per day (although I could see it as a good balancing tool against higher level casters with tons of spells).

    But again, this is all conjecture, as I've never actually used the rule.

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  13. None of my gaming groups ever bothered with pre-declaration, and that's starting as of like 1983. Pitch it!

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  14. Declaring was there to make winning initiative always a good thing. I have a much simpler solution.

    Lowest initiative announces their action, but anyone with a higher initiative can interrupt and do their action first instead (you can chain interruptions with ever higher initiative). After that is done, the next lowest initiative acts etc.

    Thus winning initiative is always good, but you don't have to plan ahead. When its your turn you just do something, if someone else cares they can interrupt you.

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