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cheshire
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 Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:27 pm Post subject: |
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| slaughterj wrote: |
The problems are:
1. The rules say you can't, and probably had a good reason for such.
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Isn't this a fallacy? It seems that one shouldn't just assume there was a good reason without any indication of that reason. It also undermines the entire established practice of house rules.
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2.. Given the unique nature of the initiative system - i.e., the split of declaration and action - it doesn't work well like other games, which might be the basis for #1. If you win initiative, you choose whether the declare first or act first. Let's say you choose to act first, but then as your action, you decide to hold your action (if such were allowed) - then what was the point of having a split declaration/action setup? It seems that you would always choose to act first, because there would be no detriment to doing so. That suggests that allowing holding actions is not good, because it defeats the purpose of the initiative system.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that your second point can be reduced to the questions "Why would you want to hold an action if you won initiative," and "What would be the point?" I think that the point would be exactly to prevent the problem with the scenario you raised to begin with. Why would someone hold off an action if they won initiative? That's easy. People in real life do it all the time in combat. They often wait and see what the opponent is going to do even if they think they can make the first move. I deal a LOT with historical swordwork both in the one-on-one combat and larger scale group tactics. Even if you think that you can get in first, many times there are advantages to decreasing risk and increasing your kill rate. I've noticed in another post that you mentioned that if you could hold actions then it makes no sense to have a "skipping" rule. Again, house rule it. (Yes, I know this is the official rules forum, but sometimes we have to depart from the official rules to make it fit what we see as realism.)
So far I haven't seen anyone present an in-game instance where skipping leads to negative consequences. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Further, if you can hold your action, and your foe decides to as well, each of you waiting for the other to act, what happens? Maybe you just roll over to the next round? |
Yup. I had exactly that happen once. 3 pcs against 5 npcs. Each had their hands near their weapons, 'waiting for the other to initiate hostilities... (*EG draw!)... PC's had lost init, and i state they were looking like they were holding actions to see the PC's response. Pc's held as well, so we went into the next round, the round after that one and so on for 8 straight rounds before one of the pcs got ansy and drew his pistol SLOWLY then dropped it on the ground. This got the npcs to do the same, and they went into negotiations for a truce.
| Quote: | | The "alternating actions" does establish some balance in the game that 1e may have been lacking (e.g., you can't win initiative and take a quick 3 shots at your foes before they act, not a big deal if they are not surprised and can "reaction" dodge, but a problem if they cannot dodge due to surprise). |
Agreed. IMO that is exactly why they put that in. As of first ed, you could feasabily get a pc with 12d in blaster shooting all 7 stormtroopers facing off against him all before they got a chance to have even one shoot back.
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And it does other useful things like if a character chooses 2 actions, intending to grab a gun from the floor and then shoot his foe, it gives his foe a chance to take an intervening action and perhaps wrestle for the gun from the character. |
True, which imo makes things more dramatic.
| Quote: | | Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that your second point can be reduced to the questions "Why would you want to hold an action if you won initiative," and "What would be the point?" I think that the point would be exactly to prevent the problem with the scenario you raised to begin with. Why would someone hold off an action if they won initiative? That's easy |
Not only that, but some people do it to try and out 'fake'; their opponents, like a tradtional staredown.
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Gry Sarth
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| Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Further, if you can hold your action, and your foe decides to as well, each of you waiting for the other to act, what happens? Maybe you just roll over to the next round? |
Indeed, such a thing happens quite often. One side waits for the other to act, and the other side waits as well. This is not a problem with the system, this is just how the scene is playing out. If both sides are waiting for each other, nothing happens. Then you move out of "round-time" and switch back to "scene-time". Eventually someone will have to decide to do something other than wait, or this will be one boring adventure, indeed.
| Quote: | | At the start of the round, you roll initiative. The winner gets to choose whether to go first or go last (and seeing what the foe does). If you win, there seems to be no reason to choose to go last if you can hold your action. Simply say "I'm going first" and then hold your action, and either take it immediately, take it when you want to interrupt your foe, or take it after them (i.e., no downside compared to choosing to wait). You might say, "well, that's no real big deal, works like DnD and most games," and maybe you are right, but then (1) what's the point of choosing to go first or last and (2) why would they have a rule that you can't skip your action and take it later? |
Okay, I see what you mean. You're just taking the rules text far more literally than I would. The rules state that if you win initiative you can decide whether to act first or after your opponent. You took that to mean that this is a choice you have at the initiative phase, and once you decide, that's it, the round begins and you have to live with your decision. I (and everyone else here it seems) take it to mean that if you win initiative you can chose to act whenever you like (either first or last), but that's something that you get to decide as the actions are taking place, not beforehand. In that sense, the option of acting first is always open to you, unless you choose to act last. This works, it has worked for 10 years, and it's just a different interpretation of the rules than the one you made.
Of course, as the GM you have to use your common sense to decide on some tricky situations where a person shouldn't get to use his held action to act before his opponent. Say your opponent is standing in front of you, with a blaster pointed to your head. You also have a blaster on your hand, but it is lowered. You roll initiative and win. Now, if you say you want to shoot your foe before he shoots you, that's fair game. If, however, you say you want to hold your action and wait to see what your opponent will do, then you've effectively given up on your advantage. If he pulls the trigger, I won't allow you to shoot him before he shoots you, you simply can't react fast enough to his action (unless maybe you're spending a Force Point or something).
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slaughterj
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject: |
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| jmanski wrote: | | I guess I don't understand what you are looking for. Do you want an answer, or is your question rhetorical? I'm not trying to be mean or anything, its just that this thread seems to be very repetitious. |
I'm trying to figure out how to run the game in a smooth fashion, but the rules seem to be thwarting me with the alternating action requirement. I agree that the thread is getting a bit repetitive.
| jmanski wrote: | | Personally I don't see any problem with holding actions. None of your examples, in my opinion, really shows a clear-cut case of why holding an action is neccessary, though. |
Here's a problem in Star Wars with holding actions. Say you declare you are going to take three actions, and your foe declares two. What's to say you don't hold until your foe's actions are complete, and then take all three in rapid succession? The rules seem to indicate that you lose your action if you don't act on it, which would avoid the issue of piling up a bunch at the end of a round. Plus if you wait later in the round, you theoretically have less time to act and can't do all those actions you intended. But it is difficult to figure out how to balance this with other games, e.g., DnD, where you take all your actions at one time (usually only a move and standard action, but still that standard action could contain multiple attacks...) and holding is okay...
| jmanski wrote: | | slaughterj wrote: | | But in Star Wars D6, your actions take turns with your foe's, and you can only take one move action, so it is hard for you to run by a foe and punch him (because you can only take one move action, presumably you move up to him, then he acts, then you punch him, then you can take some more actions but they can't be movement away because you already took your movement action) |
Yes it is hard to run by a foe and punch him- it's hard to do that in real life, isn't it? Sam the Stormtrooper isn't going to stand by idly while you move closer to attack. |
It might be hard to do in reality but:
1. it can be done,
2. other games recognize it can be done and allow it, e.g. Hero with a move-through, MnM with a feat, Conan as a default rule, etc.
3. SW RPG recognizes generally that multiple actions are more difficult and assigns penalty, so this seems to work as a generality
4. Star Wars is about more fluid free-flowing game play, but an artificial restriction that doesn't even match reality is a real barrier to such fun gaming.
So in summary, it should be able to be done in SW RPG. Or are you saying that just because something is difficult, that you shouldn't be able to do it in the SW RPG?!  |
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slaughterj
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| cheshire wrote: | | slaughterj wrote: |
The problems are:
1. The rules say you can't, and probably had a good reason for such.
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Isn't this a fallacy? It seems that one shouldn't just assume there was a good reason without any indication of that reason. It also undermines the entire established practice of house rules. |
It isn't a fallacy, look up the definition of "fallacy." It is an assumption, and a fairly reasonable one. One would expect that professional game designers would have put a fair amount of thought into the fundamental operation of their game system, as well as playtesting, before establishing a rule about it. While that might not be the case, I think it is a fairly reasonable assumption, as opposed to house rules, which are often implemented because someone doesn't like a rule, i.e., house rules don't go through the same sort of laborous thought process and testing that official rules do in general. So no, this is not a fallacy, and it also does not undermine the practice of house rules.
| cheshire wrote: | | slaughterj wrote: |
2.. Given the unique nature of the initiative system - i.e., the split of declaration and action - it doesn't work well like other games, which might be the basis for #1. If you win initiative, you choose whether the declare first or act first. Let's say you choose to act first, but then as your action, you decide to hold your action (if such were allowed) - then what was the point of having a split declaration/action setup? It seems that you would always choose to act first, because there would be no detriment to doing so. That suggests that allowing holding actions is not good, because it defeats the purpose of the initiative system.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that your second point can be reduced to the questions "Why would you want to hold an action if you won initiative," and "What would be the point?" I think that the point would be exactly to prevent the problem with the scenario you raised to begin with. Why would someone hold off an action if they won initiative? That's easy. People in real life do it all the time in combat. They often wait and see what the opponent is going to do even if they think they can make the first move. I deal a LOT with historical swordwork both in the one-on-one combat and larger scale group tactics. Even if you think that you can get in first, many times there are advantages to decreasing risk and increasing your kill rate. I've noticed in another post that you mentioned that if you could hold actions then it makes no sense to have a "skipping" rule. Again, house rule it. (Yes, I know this is the official rules forum, but sometimes we have to depart from the official rules to make it fit what we see as realism.)
So far I haven't seen anyone present an in-game instance where skipping leads to negative consequences. |
That's not my point at all. My point is that by winning initiative, you get to choose whether to act first or last. But if you can hold your action, there is no reason to choose to act last - if you win, just choose to go first, and have the option to use your held action whenever, either before, during, or after the other side. Therefore, by allowing holding of actions, that defeats the purpose of the initiative system's option of choosing to go first or last. |
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slaughterj
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Gry Sarth"] | slaughterj wrote: | | At the start of the round, you roll initiative. The winner gets to choose whether to go first or go last (and seeing what the foe does). If you win, there seems to be no reason to choose to go last if you can hold your action. Simply say "I'm going first" and then hold your action, and either take it immediately, take it when you want to interrupt your foe, or take it after them (i.e., no downside compared to choosing to wait). You might say, "well, that's no real big deal, works like DnD and most games," and maybe you are right, but then (1) what's the point of choosing to go first or last and (2) why would they have a rule that you can't skip your action and take it later? |
| Gry Sarth wrote: | | Okay, I see what you mean. You're just taking the rules text far more literally than I would. The rules state that if you win initiative you can decide whether to act first or after your opponent. You took that to mean that this is a choice you have at the initiative phase, and once you decide, that's it, the round begins and you have to live with your decision. I (and everyone else here it seems) take it to mean that if you win initiative you can chose to act whenever you like (either first or last), but that's something that you get to decide as the actions are taking place, not beforehand. In that sense, the option of acting first is always open to you, unless you choose to act last. This works, it has worked for 10 years, and it's just a different interpretation of the rules than the one you made. |
Not exactly. My point is that the initiative system allows you to choose to go first or last. Why would it even bother if you can just hold your action? You would never choose last if you could hold your action and either act before, during, or after the other side. Holding appears to be restricted because time is passing while you are standing around not acting, so your action is lost. Consequently, the advantage to winning initiative in SW RPG is to choose to go before or after your foe, and if you want to go after, then you have to decide to do so, not choose first and wait around and then finally act.
| Gry Sarth wrote: | | Of course, as the GM you have to use your common sense to decide on some tricky situations where a person shouldn't get to use his held action to act before his opponent. Say your opponent is standing in front of you, with a blaster pointed to your head. You also have a blaster on your hand, but it is lowered. You roll initiative and win. Now, if you say you want to shoot your foe before he shoots you, that's fair game. If, however, you say you want to hold your action and wait to see what your opponent will do, then you've effectively given up on your advantage. If he pulls the trigger, I won't allow you to shoot him before he shoots you, you simply can't react fast enough to his action (unless maybe you're spending a Force Point or something). |
That seems all well and good, but holding actions seems disallowed, and for good reason as noted above. If you then start to allow it, you have to think through how you are going to handle it. Can someone interrupt the action of another, or will their action merely go directly after? If they can interrupt, what mechanism do you use to determine if they are successful in interrupting - will it be automatic, a PER roll comparison, a comparison of rolls for the respective actions being taken (e.g., Hero wants to interrupt Trooper, shooting Trooper before Trooper shoots Princess, does the Hero and Trooper roll off their respective Blaster skills and see if the Hero shoots the Trooper first?), or what? Sure, one can simply house rule that holding actions is okay, but then you have to recognize the effect such has on the initiative system as well as determine the means by which holding actions work (interrupt or not, etc. etc.). |
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Gry Sarth
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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You just has to use common sense to deal with the kind of situation you mentioned, no additional rolling should be required. If you win initiative, that means you COULD act before your opponent, but you can choose to just stay on your guard and just react to whatever your opponent does. There are some actions you can interrupt, but others are to sudden to be prevented. A shot is too quick to be prevented. However, if the person has to raise his blaster before shooting, it is then possible to interrupt his action. Because you won initiative and is on your guard, the instant you see him raising his blaster, you can fire your shot. If all your opponent is already aiming and only needs to pull the trigger, than you would act to act before him, cause once you decided to wait to see what he does, it would be too late.
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jmanski
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | It might be hard to do in reality but:
1. it can be done,
2. other games recognize it can be done and allow it, e.g. Hero with a move-through, MnM with a feat, Conan as a default rule, etc.
3. SW RPG recognizes generally that multiple actions are more difficult and assigns penalty, so this seems to work as a generality
4. Star Wars is about more fluid free-flowing game play, but an artificial restriction that doesn't even match reality is a real barrier to such fun gaming.
So in summary, it should be able to be done in SW RPG. Or are you saying that just because something is difficult, that you shouldn't be able to do it in the SW RPG?! |
I'm not saying it can't be done- I'm saying it would be difficult; this difficulty, I believe, is represented in the SW RPG.
And where is this "artificial restriction"? Do you feel you should be able to clump more than one action together?
If you want to run across the room and hit someone- you move. Your opponent has a chance to react to that (as in real life). You take a swing at him, he has a chance to react (as in real life). If you allow a character to move/punch in one action then yes, that would unbalance the game. If you only allow one action at a time- there is no unbalance.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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Good point Jmanski... thouugh i could see a move being combined with a hit, for a charge style attack (football tackle etc)..
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jmanski
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| Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2007 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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How do you go about that- make it a special skill or a special ability? Or do you make some kind of combination roll? That is an interesting thought.
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slaughterj
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| jmanski wrote: | | Quote: | It might be hard to do in reality but:
1. it can be done,
2. other games recognize it can be done and allow it, e.g. Hero with a move-through, MnM with a feat, Conan as a default rule, etc.
3. SW RPG recognizes generally that multiple actions are more difficult and assigns penalty, so this seems to work as a generality
4. Star Wars is about more fluid free-flowing game play, but an artificial restriction that doesn't even match reality is a real barrier to such fun gaming.
So in summary, it should be able to be done in SW RPG. Or are you saying that just because something is difficult, that you shouldn't be able to do it in the SW RPG?! |
I'm not saying it can't be done- I'm saying it would be difficult; this difficulty, I believe, is represented in the SW RPG.
And where is this "artificial restriction"? Do you feel you should be able to clump more than one action together?
If you want to run across the room and hit someone- you move. Your opponent has a chance to react to that (as in real life). You take a swing at him, he has a chance to react (as in real life). If you allow a character to move/punch in one action then yes, that would unbalance the game. If you only allow one action at a time- there is no unbalance. |
It appears you missed my point. The "it" in #1 above is running by someone and hitting them in the process. The artificial restriction in SW is that you cannot run by someone and hit them while doing it, unlike other games. Further, in SW, you cannot move before and after attacking someone. In SW RPG, you have to declare a move action to run up to them, then take an attack action, then you cannot move away because you can only declare one move action. So there's no fluidity in the game that allows for running along and taking a wild swing at someone while continuing on past them. That is an artificial restriction.
I'm starting to think the solution to this in SW is that if you want to move in SW (move more than cautious), then you can either declare so at the start and move some simultaneously in each action you take (up to your total move) (and also incurring the -1D penalty for all other actions), or if you decide to run later in the round in place of another action (e.g., if you were to start combat declaring two action and using an action to shoot at a trooper that appeared around a corner, but then his 12 buddies appeared around the corner on their action, you might choose to run with your second action). |
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jmanski
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | It appears you missed my point. The "it" in #1 above is running by someone and hitting them in the process. The artificial restriction in SW is that you cannot run by someone and hit them while doing it, unlike other games. Further, in SW, you cannot move before and after attacking someone. In SW RPG, you have to declare a move action to run up to them, then take an attack action, then you cannot move away because you can only declare one move action. So there's no fluidity in the game that allows for running along and taking a wild swing at someone while continuing on past them. That is an artificial restriction.
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You can make up to 3 moves per turn (4 would be "all-out"). Take 3 moves, 1 attack action- move once, hit the guy, then move 2 more times. Like I said, I don't see an artificial restriction.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| jmanski wrote: | | How do you go about that- make it a special skill or a special ability? Or do you make some kind of combination roll? That is an interesting thought. |
Was that directed my way? If so, for 'football tackles' (which i have had come up in the past), where they, the pcs, wanted to hit someoneat teh end of the move before their opponent got a chance to do something, i usually just severly upped the brawl diff (eg gave a bonus to the parry roll) based on the movement/running diff for the terrain. Taking into account the speed they were going..
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slaughterj
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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| jmanski wrote: | | Quote: | It appears you missed my point. The "it" in #1 above is running by someone and hitting them in the process. The artificial restriction in SW is that you cannot run by someone and hit them while doing it, unlike other games. Further, in SW, you cannot move before and after attacking someone. In SW RPG, you have to declare a move action to run up to them, then take an attack action, then you cannot move away because you can only declare one move action. So there's no fluidity in the game that allows for running along and taking a wild swing at someone while continuing on past them. That is an artificial restriction.
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You can make up to 3 moves per turn (4 would be "all-out"). Take 3 moves, 1 attack action- move once, hit the guy, then move 2 more times. Like I said, I don't see an artificial restriction. |
The book says you can only take 1 move action per turn, not multiple ones. You would do all your movement in the action you designated as moving, whether it is a jog or all out.
Also, doing it your way would mean that you would take major penalties to your non-move action in the process if you had to do multiple move actions (i.e., move before and move after attacking). What's the difference between moving 10 meters and attacking (presumably 2 actions) and moving 5 meters, attacking, and moving 5 more meters? Not much really.
Finally, if you break up the movement into separate pieces like that, it becomes a logistical nightmare. Specifically, if you are in a situation where you have to make checks to cross rough terrain when moving a higher rate of speed, but you say to the GM "I take a move action and jog over there 10 meters" and he says "okay, you make it because that rate doesn't require a check" but then you go on to do a couple more move actions, effectively you've done a run / all-out, and you should have had to make the first check at that penalty level, but instead you tricked the GM into thinking you were moving slower that round.
Last edited by slaughterj on Fri Feb 23, 2007 1:30 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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jmanski
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| Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2007 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The book says you can only take 1 move action per turn, not multiple ones. You would do all your movement in the action you designated as moving, whether it is a job or all out. |
Actually- 2nd Ed. says "Any character or vehicle may make up to 4 moves per round"
| Quote: | | Also, doing it your way would mean that you would take major penalties to your non-move action in the process if you had to do multiple move actions (i.e., move before and move after attacking). What's the difference between moving 10 meters and attacking (presumably 2 actions) and moving 5 meters, attacking, and moving 5 more meters? Not much really. |
Yes, there would be major penalties- no one said this would be easy.
Moving 10m and attacking would be 2 actions.
Moving 5m, attacking, moving 5m would be 3 actions.
| Quote: | | Finally, if you break up the movement into separate pieces like that, it becomes a logistical nightmare. Specifically, if you are in a situation where you have to make checks to cross rough terrain when moving a higher rate of speed, but you say to the GM "I take a move action and jog over there 10 meters" and he says "okay, you make it because that rate doesn't require a check" but then you go on to do a couple more move actions, effectively you've done a run / all-out, and you should have had to make the first check at that penalty level, but instead you tricked the GM into thinking you were moving slower that round. |
Yes, bookkeeping could get tedious. If you declare three moves, you make three moves. If you declare one move, you cannot make more.
I hope I'm not coming across the wrong way, I'm just trying to help. We all run our own rules and house rules, so if you don't like something- try something new by playtesting. If the players don't like it- apologize and go on. D6 is flexible, after all.
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