[Torg] Reboot: 3 New Initiative Systems Part I: The Simple System (LONG)

[Benjamin Grant]

Right off the bat, let me extend my sincere gratitude for reading through my entire post and thinking about it – I am enormously grateful to have been the recipient of your time and mental energy, your generosity is fully appreciated.

 

Thanks! :D

 

Now, on to your thoughts and ideas, and few response of my responses:

 

 

From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of Phil Dack
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2008 5:12 AM
To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
Subject: Re: [Torg] Reboot: 3 New Initiative Systems Part I: The Simple System (LONG)

 

Interesting stuff in its way. I think you would benefit from checking out both CEATSII, an initiative system designed for Rolemaster that has some similar features, and also the initiative system used in the latest edition of Chivalry & Sorcery. You could also do worse than looking at the action point system used by certain PC games: the Xcom series and their bastard off-spring, the UFO series.

 

[Benn says]  I will try to get a hold of those or find some other way to check them out.

 

I've still got big issues with your system, and not just because I think its unnecessary. It's logically inconsistent. If you're doing a count-down, action-point style initiative system, why are you still limiting people to a single attack or defence? If an attack takes Speed 3, why can't I attack 3 or 4 times if my initiative is high enough?

 

[Benn says]  Two reasons.  For the Simple system I was trying to preserve Torg’s idea of what you can do in a round: a simple action, a full movement, a dramatic action, and a passive defense.  All I was trying to do with this system is better delineate the timing of those events within a round.  Also, the more complex system coming which I call the Perfect System does just that – it counts up, and it allows people as many actions as they can quickly do.

 

Why can't I move and draw a knife at the same time without penalty? (after all, both are "Simple" Actions that don't require a roll, unless you're pushing your speed)

 

[Benn says]  I am not inflexible on how movement is handled – after all, one of my suggestions was:

 

Movement note:  The easiest way to handle movement is to assign a speed of 3 to a character moving half his full movement allowance.  There are a few different ways to handle combining movement with other actions:

·         The easiest is to simply prohibit simultaneous movement and action.  Move before or after an action, but not during.

·         Or, you can permit a character to move half his movement amount while performing a simple action (since both have the same speed of 3), but not to move while performing a dramatic action.

·         You can of course choose to permit simultaneous movement during any action at all, without penalty.

·         Finally, (my favorite) you can permit simultaneous movement, but only as a multi-action using the one-on-many chart.  Normally one doesn’t have to roll for a movement or simple action, but this changes when one or both occurs as a multi-action.  Now the difficulty for either roll is 8, and of course, you also have to factor in the multi-action penalty:

 

 

While I personally tend to favor the last idea – as I find it believable that people can fumble if they do a simple action while moving flat out – the answer to your question is simply use the second of my suggested options “permit a character to move half his movement amount while performing a simple action (since both have the same speed of 3), but not to move while performing a dramatic action.” – I think this answers your needs as stated.

 

Few other general points:

·         If you flip it around to a count-up, rather than a count-down system you don't ever need to worry about held actions or aborting, because everything is calculated as an ongoing flow. Might be worth considering.

[Benn says]  Like I said, I do have count-up goodness in the yet to be revealed Perfect system, but I will try to see if there’s a way to use it in the Simple system that doesn’t break anything.  Hey – if it was a count up system, you would have to *subtract* your bonus number roll from 20, instead of add – which is kind of counter intuitive.  If people are fighting over going first, we could also be talking about negative initiative counts happening when things are most dramatic.  My gut says that count up won’t work with the Simple system, but will continue to think on it.

·         If initiative can be rolled, then I'd suggest it needs a skill. In particular, I suspect (without any actual experience!) that "cool" is more important than agility / dexterity in determining who goes first, and that as far as combat is concerned the most important factor is previous experience of combat. I am reflecting this in a traveller variant that I'm developing by having a value that measures the level of combat experience of each character. That might be too gritty for Torg, but should probably be abstracted in a skill at least.

[Benn says]  I specifically stayed away from skills factoring into Initiative because skills bring attributes, and I do not want one single attribute to determine initiative speed.  If we chose Dex, for example, that means that the psionicist is not going more slowly, even though his main skills do not partake of Dex.  The other solution of using the relevant attribute that round for that character means you need to know ahead of time what the character is doing, and if he changes his action to a different one, there can be significant inconsistencies.

 

Still, I have an idea about that and it’s going into the Standard system – and the Perfect system doesn’t even suffer from this by its nature.

·         The cards add some nice touches to the ebb and flow of combat. You could easily combine both, letting the cards dictate approved actions and initiative line effects, and giving a +5/-5 modifier to initiative. Or ignore the initiative effect if you prefer.

[Benn says]  Sure, that’s a matter of taste.  The reason I am designing these system is to completely replace that mechanism, because I do not care for it, but nothing says you can’t have both, it’s up to the GM.

·         Simultaneous movement - I have an alternative suggestion for you. Any action carried out during movement takes 50% longer, so with initiative 18 if you start moving for 6 counts and drawing a weapon for 3 counts, you finish drawing on 13 and finish moving on 12. Movement in a system like this can cause problems though - movement in Torg is rated in terms of rounds, but each round in your iniative model is a variable number of counts. The higher the initiative, the smaller distance you move each count. That could get a bit fiddly for you....

[Benn says] It can get a bit fiddly, which scares me.  I think I do like the idea that half of your full move takes 3 counts, no matter what, and you can do that twice per round.  As far as what to do when you move while doing something else, one among the four or five options I suggested should work for anyone, I should think.  That’s why I came up with several options, to suit every taste.

·         Why flip a coin on tied initiative? Sometimes things just happen at the same time. It's a great cinematic staple - just think of the ending of Reservoir Dogs

[Benn says]  That’s completely doable.  In fact, you might even decide that if an action resolves at the same count as another action, they are simply to be treated as simultaneous, and that’s fine.  I was only worried that people resolving on the same count might not be that rare – and I think true simultaneous action should be somewhat rare – so I threw in a few more ways to break the tie, such as at that point comparing actions totals – which is also good because if someone Surged and/or Rushed to get more favorable timing, because of the action total penalties, he will still most likely be going after anyone else resolving that count.

Finally, I'm still concerned with your objective. I understand that you want a more "realistic" initiative system, but you don't seem to be taking into account that, by definition, reality varies by cosm. What's good for CE might not be good for Aysle or Nile Empire. Are you thinking of modifying your initiative system to reflect these different realities, and if so, how?

 Phil

[Benn says]  The argument that this system is a problem because cosms vary doesn’t work for me at all, I’m afraid, because that charge is true for *any* and *every* initiative system, including Torg.  *Any* system you come up with, by definition, will be static across the cosms unless cosm laws overrule it.  Frankly, I do not find the existing Torg Initiative system that appropriate for many modern cosms.

 

I would simply suggest solving the problem the way any Initiative system would have to in such a multi-genre game:  Different cosms, where appropriate and important, tweak the rules of initiative just like they tweak other rules.  That’s the point of cosm laws after all, isn’t it?

 

Also, just speaking to my use of Torg, I do not play the possibility wars scenario, and haven’t since it came out.  I have my own stories to tell.  And frankly, Torg is such a damn good game that I will pull it off the shelf even if am not even planning to go multi-genre.  I have used it for single world and single genre superhero games, fantasy games, horror games, modern games, sci-fi games, you name it.  So in creating these Initiative systems, I must confess that my life with Torg doesn’t contain Darkness Devices, Eternity Shards, High Lords, Cosms invading cosms, heck, I don’t even worry about transformation or disconnection even in the few multi-genre games I have run, preferring instead to simply have abilities unsupported by the cosm to “turn off” until the one leaves the cosm or one raises a reality bubble.  I only mention this in the interests of full disclosure.

 

Thank you very much for your response.

-Benn Grant

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