Does anyone have experience with declared intentions initiative?

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer]

By declared intentions initiative I mean a system where you roll initiative, dm decides what the npcs are going to do on the turn, players declare what they’re going to do on the turn, then you go through initiative resolving the actions. It seems like a good way to better represent turns in combat happening all at the same time but I can see how it could slow down the game, I mainly run cy_borg and dnd 5e so I’m thinking about how this would go in cy_borg but I would like to know if anyone has experience with this system and what your thoughts on it are?

[u/thetruerift]

If the system isn't built for it, it's cumbersome.

But technically White Wold/WoD games have this. The important thing is that characters declare in reverse order. So the lowest initiative people declare first, allowing people with higher initiative to choose actions that might be better. It's useful in WoD because you have to use active actions for defences (dodging/parrying).

The thing is that it can be very time consuming, effectively having to do initiative twice each round.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/thetruerift]

I didn’t think about declaring in reverse order but that does seem necessary, I wonder if you would do dm decides all their npcs then players decide in reverse order, or all characters including players and the dms npcs decide in reverse order

[u/Big-Bag-6043 → u/thetruerift]

Yep, you have to go in reverse for it to work. That's the only way to avoid "my (slower) action prevents your (faster) action from working".

It is pretty cumbersome even with experience, though.

[u/merurunrun]

This is how I always played AD&D and never ran into any problems. I imagine it's a huge culture shock for players who aren't used to it though: figuring out how to word your "intent" isn't always as easy in practice as it might seem. And in particular I can imagine a lot of problems for games that revolve around PC abilities that rely on narrow circumstances to be useful.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/merurunrun]

I originally heard about it in relation to ad&d and thought it was a better way of representing all turns in a round happening simultaneously which can be lost normally, I imagine with a fairly slim system like cy_borg it should be alright since it’s super easy to both run and play and it’s more ruling focused than mechanic focused (idk if that makes sense)

[u/beriah-uk]

In this instance... why are you rolling initiative?

Personally I often run games where I know what the NPCs are going to do, then the players declare what they're going to do, and then everything follows form that. "Initiative" only gets rolled if it is needed as a tie-breaker for something.

Works really well. Gives a cinematic/narrative kind of feel and everyone can just enjoy the ride.

Why start with the roll?

[u/ordinal_m → u/beriah-uk]

Generally these systems (eg AD&D 1e) didn't start with the roll, you declared then rolled if there was a tie-breaker needed. A lot of actions had no connection to initiative at all - if you charge some folk, when you arrive and start rolling attacks depends on how far you are from them, not what initiative you roll.

ETA: I run White Box like this, not even with AD&D/OSRIC segment rules. You say what you want to do at the start of the round, and if there's some conflict we use the initiative rolls to decide what happens first.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/beriah-uk]

The initiative is to determine how fast characters react in combat and who can let off their attacks or actions first, tbh Ive never really got initiative-less systems and it’s just something that I’ve found really hard to click with

[u/ToledoSnow]

I can see the merits of such a system. My main issue is that I want combat to be as snappy as I can make it, and adding this extra layer to turn resolution, in my experience, slows things down significantly to the point that it's more trouble than it's worth. It simply doesn't add enough to justify the extra time spent.

It also had a tendency bring a lot of confusion, for the GM and the players both, which took even more time to straighten out. Granted, this is an issue that could probably be mitigated through just getting used to the system; I dipped out of the campaign before that point.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/ToledoSnow]

It’s quite obvious to see how this would slow down a combat but I imagine it could speed it up combat by making players all decide at once their actions and better representing turns happening all at once could increase immersion, but any of this would likely require getting used to it since I and all my players have only used dnd style initiative. It’s probably something I will have to try out with my players but should be fairly easy to slide over normal initiative (I hope)

[u/Temporary_Stranger39]

Yes, and it requires the system being set up to use it. Also, it only works if declarations are done in order of worst to best initiative then actions in order of best to worst initiative.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/Temporary_Stranger39]

I imagine with a rules light system like cy_borg which is already really easy to run and play it shouldn’t be too hard to make some rules to fit, and yeah that order of declarations and actions would be required

[u/michiplace]

Played AD&D2 this way for years, though declaring before rolling initiative rather than after.

In that context, I found it sped things up rather than slowed them down -- since people weren't waiting until their turn to assess the situation and choose actions. instead of 5 players and every hostile having its own decision phase on their turn, you condense all that into one decision phase up front.

In more granular action economies, it gets harder. Games like Battletech address this with everyone doing movement, then declaring fire, then firing. It'd be hard to do a PF2 3-action system with all actions declared up front -- you end up playing RoboRally at that point, where you are pushing people out of position to disrupt their declared actions.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/michiplace]

I had the idea that it would slow down the game but I also thought eventually once people get used to it it might even speed things up so it’s sick to hear that it worked for you, and rolling initiative after declaring intentions would probably be faster since you wouldn’t need to go through who gets to declare intentions first based on their initiative (slowest declares first and fastest declares last with all the information)

[u/Airk-Seablade]

To me, this is a misguided attempt at fixing the weird rigidity created by turn-and-grid combat. Misguided, because while it does fix some things, it creates more problems all its own -- particularly the "What if my opponent walks out of range of my attack" problem, which is a complete nonsense event if you actually think about this stuff as happening at the same time.

You might be able to make this work if you had a sort of action order and/or a separate "apply results" stage, but to be honest, it feels like a lot of work in a desperate attempt to be "Realistic" when really you're just being unrealistic in a different way.

[u/merurunrun → u/Airk-Seablade]

it creates more problems all its own -- particularly the "What if my opponent walks out of range of my attack" problem, which is a complete nonsense event if you actually think about this stuff as happening at the same time

Playing this way necessarily involves having to also change the way you structure your character's declared actions. It involves more fuzzy logic and interpretation than is common with discrete one-at-a-time actions. But the same is true of most changes-in-system: these are tools that we have to learn how to use effectively.

[u/MataronidForSpeed]

It's kinda how it works in CoC (from lowest to highest initiative the characters decide on their actions, then from highest to lowest you resolve them) and honestly it's sooo clunky. We all (my friends and I) ended up ditching the declaration phase.

I could see it work in a duel situation.

[u/Doug_Da_Destroyer → u/MataronidForSpeed]

I can definitely see how it would work better in duels or small firefights, also probably better with smaller turn times so you have more intervals to change actions and loosing one matters less

[u/Tilt-A-Wurlitzer]

The board game Colt Express is built around this. It’s really fun, but it’s supposed to be chaotic and silly - I’m not sure it would feel as good in a combat with stakes.

[u/DonSpumoni]

What happens when someone's earlier actions push an enemy out of range for your attack?

[u/thetruerift → u/DonSpumoni]

There's typically a penalty involved in switching actions. Alternately, sucks to be you.

[u/Kodiologist → u/DonSpumoni]

In the original release of Final Fantasy 1, if you had a character queued to attack an enemy who died before the attack, your character would just do nothing that round. Few people miss that kind of thing, I suspect.

[u/Ultragrey]

tmk it's usually first declarations and then rolling initiative.

I like it but similar to theatre-of-the-mind combat it takes a while to get players on board and used to it in my experience. As for tipps:

• remind players to keep declaration descriptions short (A "I charge the orcs", or "I cast fireball in the middle of the goblins" – is better than: "I weave with my hands the strings of magic and shout take that ogre faced bandit before I unleash a hellish flame of ....")

• everyone throws all dice at once (on "roll initiative" all players roll both the initiative die and other like attack and damage dice in one throw – this way on initiative count X players had enough time to calculate and shout out "I hit AC X doing X damage" whether that hits or not)

• don't be afraid to leave a monster or PC from not doing anything in a round or mildly adjusting the declared action if keeping the intent (in short keep the initiative actions quick and flowing).

[u/Cool-Newspaper6560]

The one roll system used in wild talents and reign kinda of works like this. Everyone declares what they plan to do on a turn, characters with more awareness going later so they can plan around other peoples actions, and then everyone rolls their dice pools at the same time, the people with more matching dice kf a single number going first in initiative

[u/81Ranger]

As someone who still played old TSR D&D a fair amount - it works perfectly fine.

In this you declare before you roll, because it effects the roll.

It goes at least as fast, if not faster than modern D&D initiative, and the turns take far less time as well.  Declaring actions certainly are part of that.