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

[Kansas Jim]

Benn writes:

[...]

> Another Torg Note:  The Haste card is **not** included as part of this 
> system.  What does that mean?  Either:

What about other elements of the game that can affect initiative? For
example, the Fanaticism miracle lets the character Flurry for a number
of rounds and the MA discipline Spring Attack lets you go first during
the initial round of a fight regardless of the actual initiative.

[...]

> Also, you guys may be thinking, “This 47 page post is the simple 
> system?!  WTF?” – at least those of you who read this far.

> This **is** the simple system.  There are five reasons that it probably 
> seems more complex than it is:

There's a sixth possible reason - your definition of "simple" isn't
the one everyone else is using!

What you've outlined may be simpler than what you'll do with Standard
and Perfect but it's hardly what I would call a simple initiative
system. Simple initiative systems aren't going to account for
interrupts, changing actions and the other complexities you're aiming
to include because they're, well, simple.

I think something like Basic or Plain might be a less confusing name to
use than Simple.

[...]

> Normally in Torg one gets to do several things in a single round: a 
> simple action, a full move action, a dramatic action, and (if that 
> dramatic action was not an active defense) a passive defense.  Under 
> this system that remains true.

Normally you can do as many simple actions as seems reasonable within
a ten second time frame, there is no rule limiting it to just one. It
also sounds like you're limiting the character to a single passive
defense per round?

[...]

> ·         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:

This completely fails my rationality test. Take a normal person with
DEX 8. You're saying that to move across a room and pull something out
of his pocket will require making a multi-action made against DN 10 and
12. In other words, an average person can only do that 20-30% of the
time. Boy, I must have an awesome DEX since that's pretty easy for me
to pull off!

If you're going to require it as a multi-action, at least reduce the
difficulty down to Very Easy (3) or Easy (5) so that the results will
bear some semblance to reality.

> o   On his Base Initiative count of 18, Andy tell the GM that he wants 
> rush Brad (who is Andy’s full movement value away) while pulling out his 
> dagger and attacking him.

Hopefully the GM doesn't mistake that use of "rush" as meaning that Andy
is going to make Brad's action take less time to do. ;)

[...]

> *Improving One's Initiative: Surging*
[...]
> *Improving One's Action Speed: Rushing*

These two things are perfect examples of why this isn't a simple
initiative system IMO, they're layers of complexity that are going to
have players constantly juggling numbers in their head as they plan out
their actions, balancing speed versus chance of success. Personally
I'd say that these would be better off left out of this part and saved
for the Standard system.

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html