Initiative and Dynamic Combat
It's definitely no secret that RPGs (and many videogames) can often fall into repetitive boring 'exchange of blow' type combats that don't emphasize dynamic use of the surroundings or player-player cooperation. Many games try to introduce the concept of maneuvers but issues with vanilla initiative systems usually foil the attempt. I bumped into two completely unrelated posts this week that, together, provide a pretty cool set of ideas for fixing this problem.
The first issue is with initiative. In D&D (and the majority of games) a die (or card) is used to determine your position in the initiative track and your only involvement is keeping an eye on when you're up so you can take your action (generally, make your attack). The second problem is the lack of interactivity with the environment or other background elements (NPCs standing around for instance). How to fix?
The first post I found was about an idea called "Popcorn Initiative" take a quick look at the article on AngryDM and then come back. The second post from Immersion-RPG is more about inspiration than game mechanics for handling this, but it prompted me to try to imagine how to combine the ideas.
Here is how I think it should work: using Popcorn Initiative every actor rolls for initiative and the best roll goes first. That person takes a bit of narrative control and using the techniques described on Immersion-RPG describes how the scene leads from their finishing action to the next actor who then incorporates that narrative element into their action, and so on. Because players can chain their actions together (or collectively wait until it's appropriate to act) the initiative order fits better into the narrative of the action and with a little creativity I think something magical would emerge.
I'm excited to try this out in my next (insert version here) D&D game and with a little work it might easily adapt to other systems. My wishlist of non-D&D games I want to run consists of Savage Worlds and Rogue Trader, which would both be harder to modify than D&D.
The first issue is with initiative. In D&D (and the majority of games) a die (or card) is used to determine your position in the initiative track and your only involvement is keeping an eye on when you're up so you can take your action (generally, make your attack). The second problem is the lack of interactivity with the environment or other background elements (NPCs standing around for instance). How to fix?
The first post I found was about an idea called "Popcorn Initiative" take a quick look at the article on AngryDM and then come back. The second post from Immersion-RPG is more about inspiration than game mechanics for handling this, but it prompted me to try to imagine how to combine the ideas.
Here is how I think it should work: using Popcorn Initiative every actor rolls for initiative and the best roll goes first. That person takes a bit of narrative control and using the techniques described on Immersion-RPG describes how the scene leads from their finishing action to the next actor who then incorporates that narrative element into their action, and so on. Because players can chain their actions together (or collectively wait until it's appropriate to act) the initiative order fits better into the narrative of the action and with a little creativity I think something magical would emerge.
I'm excited to try this out in my next (insert version here) D&D game and with a little work it might easily adapt to other systems. My wishlist of non-D&D games I want to run consists of Savage Worlds and Rogue Trader, which would both be harder to modify than D&D.
Comments
Post a Comment