User avatar
Fenhorn
Moderator
Posts: 4428
Joined: Thu 24 Apr 2014, 15:03
Location: Sweden

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Fri 30 Jul 2021, 08:02

Games that have situation-varied initiative (usually some sort of bonus if you charge or using spears or something) also have a dynamic initiative system. Using a d10 instead of cards would make it dynamic, sure that also means that you need to use simultaneous turns or let highest Agility break ties.

edit: Personally I don't think such rules add much to games.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
User avatar
Ursus Maior
Posts: 278
Joined: Tue 25 Aug 2020, 20:58
Contact:

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Fri 30 Jul 2021, 21:55

The problem with drawing two cards is that it becomes more relevant, when you draw cards than for the standard case of only drawing one card.
I don't follow what you're saying here.
T2K RAW knows exactly 10 initiative slots. So an average group of 4-5 players takes up about half of these, leaving the remainder of 5-6 cards for NPCs. Yes, the rules say, the referee can or even should group NPCs together into one initiative slot to speed up the game, but that's not always a sensible thing to do: to many NPCs in one slot can do a lot more than the player's could do, especially if the NPCs draw a high slot and act early or even first. Having only very few initiative slots available means multiple players or NPCs drawing multiple cards will benefit very differently from this ability: The later in the initiative order you draw two cards, the less useful the ability gets as the previous beneficiaries of this rule will most likely have seleceted the highest available cards.

To put this into an example: If a group of 6 NPCs armed with 2 SMGs, 2 rifles and 2 pistols is attacked by 5 player characters, 2 armed with SMGs, 1 with a pistol and 2 with a rifle, this would mean 4 or more slots (depending on how many initiative slots the referee assigns to the NPCs) would be selected by drawing two cards. Let's say the referee groups his NPCs by weapons, in order to avoid rifle-armed NPCs benefit from a bonus meant for NPCs armed with SMGs or pistols, then there would be 5 "drawing twice" slots. Whoever draws last, will get the drek 4 other "drawing twice" slots left over and in addition to the good cards that statistically the regular slots drew.

Since the order in which initiative is drawn is defined nowhere, as far as I know, this can go very bad for the players. If they're unfortunate, they will draw after at least the two pistol NPCs or - even worse - after the two SMG NPCs (or even both). That's alot of lead coming one's way and worst of all: they wouldn't profit at all from their own "draw twice weapons", since drawing late only means drawing from bad leftovers twice.
liber & infractus
 
sgt
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat 26 Dec 2020, 21:37

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Fri 30 Jul 2021, 22:00

One problem with "situation-based" initiative is that, because initiative is very important, the situation will be very important (and rules like this can easy be exploited). You can for example have an init-good weapon, but in your first round, you take cover and change weapon to another weapon which has nothing to do with the weapon that you earned you your good init card. Another example is that you maybe start the combat because you have a very init-good weapon, but as you first action you try to persuade the enemy to leave, something that has nothing to do with weapons (other than a weapon can be threatening).
Very good point.

If something, attributes (eg., agi and/or int) should affect the iniative draw. However, as others have pointed out, this is difficult to implement with the current system. Prob not worth it.
 
cheeplives
Posts: 107
Joined: Sat 28 Nov 2020, 09:39

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Sat 31 Jul 2021, 17:19

You don't keep both cards you draw.. you take one and put it back before the next person draws... so, in many ways, the two draws/keep one still helps someone who draws late because they're going to get the best of the remaining options. As far as the point that when you draw matters, that's true if everyone draws one or everyone draws 2... the number of draws before you limits your pool/options RAW. But getting the best of the last 2 cards is better that just taking one of the last two at random. It's like being able to "push" your Initiative draw... it increases (or decreases in the cast of draw 2, takes worst for slow weapons) your odds of getting the best of the remaining numbers.

And you just make sure whoever gets to draw two puts the unused card back before the next person draws. You could even declare that single draw players draw first and best/worst 2 cards are drawn second if you want to reduce the "unfairness"... but with a finite pool, it's always going to be least fair for the last person to draw, regardless of how many cards each player draws beforehand.

Regardless, the number of cards drawn doesn't fix the "fixed pool of numbers" problem you're mentioning, but it can alleviate some of the drawbacks to that system for those later in the draw order.
 
User avatar
Ursus Maior
Posts: 278
Joined: Tue 25 Aug 2020, 20:58
Contact:

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Sun 01 Aug 2021, 22:52

You don't keep both cards you draw.. you take one and put it back before the next person draws... so, in many ways, the two draws/keep one still helps someone who draws late because they're going to get the best of the remaining options.
[...]
But getting the best of the last 2 cards is better that just taking one of the last two at random. It's like being able to "push" your Initiative draw... it increases (or decreases in the cast of draw 2, takes worst for slow weapons) your odds of getting the best of the remaining numbers.
That's only true if you ignore the fact that each person drawing two random cards from a fixed stack of cards will choose the best option for themselves. But since this is exactly what will happen, the last person drawing 2 cards, while still having a choice of cards, will get to choose from what several others before him discarded. And with a initial deck so limited as T2K - 10 cards is really a very small choice of options - three, four or five persons drawing and choosing what to discard before you, will make a significant difference in what you'll be getting over what the first person potentially could get.

Are you still better off than the guy who cannot choose at all? Yes, of course, but that's besides the point. The point is that, whoever goes last, will not get near as much bang for his buck from this rule than the first person. Now, T2K 4E avoids to decide who goes first in drawing initiative cards by letting everyone (almost, if you look at specialisations) draw simply one card. That's a simple fixed assignment of slots based on random numbers. But once you meddle with the premise that each character gets one and only one card, the easiness of that solution goes out the window.

And at that point, it would be very much in a characters interest to draw their cards first and certainly not last. So at that point you need to introduce a rule of who has the initiative of drawing initiative, which just undoes the whole point of determining initiative.
liber & infractus
 
cheeplives
Posts: 107
Joined: Sat 28 Nov 2020, 09:39

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Mon 02 Aug 2021, 01:24

Hey, I just thought this was a better solution than having weapons reduce a drawn number which has problems with ties RAW. But there's no way you're going to convince me that letting people draw extra cards would break something that isn't already a moderately wobbly system.

Fixed finite initiative draw sucks for the last few regardless if everyone draws one or everyone draws two and throws back their least favorite. It's a finite resource, so I know there will be jockeying for who gets to draw first regardless of how many cards are drawn.
 
User avatar
Fenhorn
Moderator
Posts: 4428
Joined: Thu 24 Apr 2014, 15:03
Location: Sweden

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Mon 02 Aug 2021, 02:02

The 10-card system isn't built to draw extra (except for those that have the specialty Combat Awareness). The players simply get one card each and the various NPC will get cards from the left-overs (ore shared if needed). It is a system that works very well (I have been using it for years), if used as it is supposed to be used that is. Starting to modify it, you need to modify other things connected to it as well.

If you want to have a more dynamic system involving weapons or simply more initiative slots, you need to have either more cards or use dice (or something else). But you also have to think about the effectiveness of the specialty Combat Awareness. Using RAW Combat Awareness is good, not extreme, but good. Changing the number of init slots to, lets say 20 cards, you need to upgrade Combat Awareness as well, or that specialty will be less good perhaps even close to pointless.

Sure, in T2K you have only Combat Awareness to think about (unless I have forgotten something) so that is just one thing. Other YZE-games have mutations, multi-ranked talents, monsters or aliens - all connected to the init system.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
paladin2019
Posts: 432
Joined: Mon 07 Dec 2020, 09:16

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Mon 02 Aug 2021, 09:56

You could implement this if you use a full deck. Rules would be something like
  1. Declare actions before initiative
  • Some actions allow multiple cards dealt to choose from
  • Ties are broken by suit; spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs (reverse alphabetical order in English)
But I don't know what it adds to the game. And zipperguns should have significantly worse initiative in subsequent rounds.
 
User avatar
Viperion_NZ
Posts: 77
Joined: Tue 09 Mar 2021, 03:52

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Mon 02 Aug 2021, 11:26

As Fenhorn points out, this makes Combat Awareness virtually useless. Drawing two cards out of 10 (or 9, or 8, or 7, depending on where at the table you're sitting) is leagues better than drawing two cards out of 52 (or 51, or 50, or 49)
 
User avatar
omnipus
Posts: 742
Joined: Mon 22 Jun 2020, 20:58

Re: Initiative modifier for weapon types?

Mon 02 Aug 2021, 21:55

I have never really liked "initiative," in the trad RPG sense, in any system that has used it. Whether it's rolling dice or drawing cards, it tends to come down to this random fiddly thing that grinds the excitement and drama of "shots fired!" to a standstill, and then is set in stone for the rest of the battle. That's not what "initiative" is. The Reflex system was a noble attempt, especially within this genre, but it's pretty overly complex and annoying to track when it comes down to it.

Coriolis does this thing you're talking about, btw. If you take the bonus, you are obligated to use that weapon on your turn. Somehow this makes shooting with a compact pistol a "faster" thing to do than just sprinting flat-out with no weapon at all.

Anyway, maybe this is a digression, but I prefer systems and hacks that either do simultaneous or narrative driven actions, or a simple binary system. One such system for T2K could be: start of combat, roll your CUF. If you succeed, you'll act before the enemy. Otherwise, you act after. You could have particularly elite or dangerous NPCs roll as well, or use modifiers to reflect that, account for surprise, etc. This would feel much cleaner to me and reflect at least a small degree of actual character and situation.

Last, I'll just leave this here: a really nice write-up of a clean hack for a similar problem in Mothership. I agree 100% with all of his "whys" and almost all of them apply to T2K as well.
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests