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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 12:37PM
#51
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I had the same experience. I ditched cards all together for table tents. I call out "anyone higher than 30?", "anyone higher than 25?", etc. based on tier and toss the init table tent to the player or assign it to the monster group. I have never needed more than 11 cards, which took all of two sheets of cardstock and a marker.
The table tents let everyone have equal knowledge of initiative order. I know the PC's, they know mine, all is fair. It lets players coordinate easily, which is huge for leaders. It lets players know their turn is coming up, or when the monster will go, saving time.
Another minor pet peeve of mine is DMs that hide the init results so players don't know when a monster will go. Not a big deal, but seems lopsided against the players when the monsters know the players' init.
I actually disagree. I remember thinking about how interesting your table tent intiative system was at Gen Con and certainly creates a unique play experience, but I'm of the opinion that players should not know when the monsters are going to act. It creates a lot of meta-gaming opportunity that I don't think should exist. As far as monsters knowing when PCs are going to act - the onus is on the DM not to metagame that sort of thing.
I'm totally cool with players knowing when other players act. I just don't want the players to know when my monsters act. I've had players keep their own initiative system as a team and then I just had my monsters act as they counted down the initiative. That always worked very well. When players are lazy, I use index cards.
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 12:49PM
#52
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
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I use a dry-erase board (with magnets) that everyone can see. (I've recently taken some DMG advice and have a player track initiative on the board.) Players roll their initiative and set up the board while I'm getting the encounter set-up.
I don't tell the players the monsters' initiative until the monster acts in the first round. (At this point, it becomes public knowledge - since any player paying close attention will know when the monster will get its next turn.) After the first round, this helps speed up the game as players can look at the board and quickly determine if their turn is coming up soon. (Magnets make ready/delay easy to adjust as well.)
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 1:02PM
#53
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2008
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Darn those players who slow down gameplay to use their abilities. Stupid fighter combat challenge, slowing down gameplay. Stupid yield ground slowing down gameplay. Games would go so much faster if PCs and monsters just lined up and beat on each other without moving.
IIRC, Magic simplified the Interrupt/Instant system years ago, partly because it took so long to adjudicate, but also because it was stoopid.
"My monsters interrupt when the other monsters get into flank, but you interrupted the attack, so which interrupt goes first?"
Since the DMG gives you leave to clump monsters together, and since your interrupts are basically designed to screw up the monsters' attacks, I personally would have left the monsters clumped in initiative, let you screw up the attack and if the monsters still have actions or moves left, continue from there. Not a big deal.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 2:12PM
#54
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Date Joined:
Apr 25, 2002
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I'm totally cool with players knowing when other players act. I just don't want the players to know when my monsters act. I've had players keep their own initiative system as a team and then I just had my monsters act as they counted down the initiative. That always worked very well. When players are lazy, I use index cards.
I actually like it when the PCs don't know when they act or when the monsters act either. It reduces some of the metagaming involved in the 1st action - where the Rogue who rolled a 25 knows to delay for the Defender who critted init for a 24. It also means that when you deliberately don't burst the party 5 times before they get to go, there's some kind of compensation going on for that.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 4:20PM
#55
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Date Joined:
Feb 14, 2007
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Since the DMG gives you leave to clump monsters together, and since your interrupts are basically designed to screw up the monsters' attacks, I personally would have left the monsters clumped in initiative, let you screw up the attack and if the monsters still have actions or moves left, continue from there. Not a big deal.
I agree. This speeds up combat, and speedy combat is pretty darn important in my book.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 5:48PM
#56
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Date Joined:
Dec 17, 2009
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Elder_Basilisk: Maybe so, but I've played a lot of mods with three flameskulls in them in LFR and I've yet to have one instance where the DM didn't drop all the fireballs on the party in round 1 (while they were still in the "players start here" penalty box). I think working on better methods for initiative is probably an easier sell to the LFR DM community than staggering the fireballs.
Disagree.
I'm watching football highlights right now, so I'll explain it like this: If your quarterback sucks, you don't shrug your shoulders and lose games. You retrain your quarterback, or you get a new one. You can't settle for mediocrity just because it's easier to teach people.
I run a lot of games for brand-new players, ones who have no idea what pen-and-paper gaming is about. If I run by-the-book tactical grinders, they never come back. I lose new players, and I reinforce all their misconceptions about the game being only for dorks. That's bad. I have to raise the bar ...
... like how later you said:
Elder_Basilisk: I suppose that it does raise the DMing bar a little bit to expect DMs to know how the tactics they are employing actually work in the game system, but it's not an unreasonably high bar ...
I just don't see how a complex discussion about evening a point spread raises that bar. The point of the game is to tell a story, not to crunch numbers. Forget about how the tactics work within the system; worry about how they work within the story.
Bottom line, ask yourself which combat would be more fun?
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 7:30PM
#57
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Date Joined:
Dec 16, 2005
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Elder_Basilisk: I suppose that it does raise the DMing bar a little bit to expect DMs to know how the tactics they are employing actually work in the game system, but it's not an unreasonably high bar ...
I just don't see how a complex discussion about evening a point spread raises that bar. The point of the game is to tell a story, not to crunch numbers. Forget about how the tactics work within the system; worry about how they work within the story.
Bottom line, ask yourself which combat would be more fun?
That's easy. The combat where the DM actually knows what the heck he is doing and what the PCs are doing and doesn't freeze up if one of the game's many complexities shows up is more fun. (One such complexity is an interrupt or reaction preventing his anticipated beatdown from working; another would be how chillborn zombie auras stack--are they additive so that they effectively become an aura 5/10/15/20 depending upon how many are in the area or are they cumulative so that you get hit for four separate instances of 5 damage?) If you don't know how the system works, you aren't likely to be able to use it to tell a story and if you pick your options and interpretations at random, you are unlikely to end up telling the story you wanted to tell. (The story of the fight with chillborn zombies, for instance, is likely to play out very differently if it turns into an aura 20 than if it is four instances of an aura 5).
Also, combat is (or can be) a fun mini-game all by itself and when the mod's story is incoherent, non-existent, or otherwise bad (as it sometimes is), it's all that an LFR game has going for it. So, I would hope that the DM learns the tactics and system that are necessary to make at least that part of the game fun.
I would also hope that the DM puts effort into making even the combat parts of the game tell a story, but mechanical skill is eaiser to impart and encourage than storytelling skill. (And a lot of people seem to like the part of the story where the heroes have a really tough fight which won't happen if you don't deploy tactical skill).
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 9:39PM
#58
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Date Joined:
Aug 14, 2006
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Elder_Basilisk: Maybe so, but I've played a lot of mods with three flameskulls in them in LFR and I've yet to have one instance where the DM didn't drop all the fireballs on the party in round 1 (while they were still in the "players start here" penalty box). I think working on better methods for initiative is probably an easier sell to the LFR DM community than staggering the fireballs.
Disagree.
I'm watching football highlights right now, so I'll explain it like this: If your quarterback sucks, you don't shrug your shoulders and lose games. You retrain your quarterback, or you get a new one. You can't settle for mediocrity just because it's easier to teach people.
And if LFR had only a single DM, then your strategy of making sure he's awesome might have merit. That isn't what we have, though; LFR is DM'd by a crew. You can't fire every DM who's less than awesome, nor can you force them to improve to whatever standard of awesome you happen to have. The campaign's guidelines have to be something that pretty much everybody on the crew is capable of handling.
Moreover, because it's a crew of volunteers, the guidelines also have to be something the crew is willing to implement. If you tell the DMs that they are required to use suboptimal monster tactics, a non-trivial number of them are going to reject that idea. On the other hand, telling them to use a standard initiative array would probably not meet any significant resistance, as Elder_basilisk was pointing out.
I run a lot of games for brand-new players, ones who have no idea what pen-and-paper gaming is about. [...]
The point of the game is to tell a story, not to crunch numbers. Forget about how the tactics work within the system; worry about how they work within the story.
Um, no. If you love roleplaying, good for you. Don't act like that's the only valid way to approach the game, and don't tell me that I'm doing it wrong because I happen to like the tactical parts.
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 11:08PM
#59
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- Dragon Slayer
- If only he would apply himself
- Dammit Jim, this is Star Trek, not D&D!
Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2006
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Except it doesn't actually slow down game play to say, "X moves to hear and readies; Y moves to here and sets off X's ready [roll dice] then attacks [roll dice]."
But it has little reason to even be stated. It is an obvious part of the game, hence why the 4E DMG states that you should just assume this is what happens.
I'll give another example. This was online play and I highly respect the excellent DM. I had the highest init. I have darkvision, room is dark. We had learned that a certain critter would be in this room. I go in, and seeing the spot for the mini, say I will attack it. She says I can't see it, it is hidden. I grumble about the hiding when it has nothing to hide it (no DM is perfect, but...) and then the player of the ranger says "wait for me, I can point it out, I'll delay until after you". So, I consider grumbling about this idea, since they shouldn't really be able to point it out to me (outside of the square it is in). So I say it won't likely help and I'll just ready until the critter I expect to be there acts... and then the DM says that it will work and I should do as the player is suggesting and just delay until they go (and they spot it) and then I can do everything I meant to do. Now, we all know our inits. Both I and the other player go before the critter. I delay, ranger goes, spots it, delays, and I go. Complete and utter waste of time! Sure, a few questionable rules involved, but those aside, the whole exercise was completely futile. Nothing gained but burning some clock. Since the ranger had stated their intention to delay (actually done before I even started to act), it was just a waste. Again, no DM is perfect and I really like this DM. Within her understanding of the rules she was trying to follow a very literal play of the rules. It was a waste of time.
The issue with readying is similar. It just has no benefit to it. Sure, if a player asks, you explain, but it has absolutely no bearing when you have monsters on the same init. It is even in the rules.
I suppose that it does raise the DMing bar a little bit to expect DMs to know how the tactics they are employing actually work in the game system
I really appreciate the vast majority of your posts. I'm certainly better at grasping the game for your being on these boards. However, comments like these (and there are several) come off as antagonistic. Just because posters disagree does not mean they do not have a comprehension of the game. There are often several ways of achieving the same end goal (let alone the overarching goal of having players say "that was a fun table!" I'm sure you and I both have those results and neither of us is an idiot at tactics nor a person that can't stand to learn from someone else.
Follow my blog and Twitter feed with Dark Sun campaign design and DM tips! Dark Sun's Ashes of Athas Campaign is now available for home play (PM me with your e-mail to order the campaign adventures).
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3 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2009 - 11:17PM
#60
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- Dragon Slayer
- If only he would apply himself
- Dammit Jim, this is Star Trek, not D&D!
Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2006
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The table tents let everyone have equal knowledge of initiative order. I know the PC's, they know mine, all is fair. It lets players coordinate easily, which is huge for leaders. It lets players know their turn is coming up, or when the monster will go, saving time.
Another minor pet peeve of mine is DMs that hide the init results so players don't know when a monster will go. Not a big deal, but seems lopsided against the players when the monsters know the players' init.
I actually disagree. I remember thinking about how interesting your table tent intiative system was at Gen Con and certainly creates a unique play experience, but I'm of the opinion that players should not know when the monsters are going to act. It creates a lot of meta-gaming opportunity that I don't think should exist. As far as monsters knowing when PCs are going to act - the onus is on the DM not to metagame that sort of thing.
I can see that. It was born of our LG group, which used the tents so we could track our order. Back then, the DM tracked everything and this was our supplemental way of knowing when we acted so we could do it accordingly. We then started using our tents for the DM as well, so we could track when the foes would go once we figured out the order. It greatly sped up our play and our tactical coordination.
Tents absolutely help the players, but this seems particularly appropriate for the tactical play of 4E. And, now the monsters and PCs are on absolutely equal footing. It is all an abstract system for what should be roughly simultaneous constantly ongoing battle, so there isn't a right or wrong to it. For me, the speed up in play is a big boost that is worth the small boon to players. And, honestly, I think it makes players follow the action more closely. While they could use it to goof off, generally it sharpens their focus of what is coming up... that foe is about to go... only two more until my turn is up... I'll delay for the paladin, etc. Often players will just say to me "I'll delay, so I'm 5 and he is 6" and just switch the cards, even when it is their first time at the table. That's a nice time-saver and speaks to the system being easy to follow. I used to do the index cards, and before that an init cirlce drawn on the battlemap with lines tracing the order. I would not go back.
If I wanted to keep monster inits secret, I still could. I could write down everyone's init, then give the stack of tents to a player, then have them hand them out as I call out who acts. It would be the same as our old LG system. But, I like this better. No writing down, no index card shuffling. And I practically never skip someone's turn, because everyone is following the action.
Follow my blog and Twitter feed with Dark Sun campaign design and DM tips! Dark Sun's Ashes of Athas Campaign is now available for home play (PM me with your e-mail to order the campaign adventures).
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