Actions before Initiative is rolled.

[Crake]

I think it depends - if keeps the gun in its concealed position and shoots from there (at a penalty to hit) then I might offer a last chance perception roll or they might just need to wait until the shot is fired, depending on how generous I was feeling. OTOH, if he pulls the gun out in full view and aims it normally, with the PCs at the next table, that would probably go straight to initiative (if I thought the PCs were particularly distracted, or they specifically said they were ignoring the stranger, then I'd call for a perception check but it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one).

I think the way dnd (or probably more accurately to this example, d20 modern) would handle this is almost perfectly that the "surprise round" action would be the partial action of drawing the weapon, which is a move action, so initiative would be rolled with the instigator having the benefit of having their gun drawn for the first round, while the PCs scramble to mount a response (someone could still potentially beat them in initiative, draw and fire in the same round, but they would just get the one shot off). This could escalate if the instigator had quick draw however, allowing them to draw and fire in the surprise round.

That is, of course, assuming that the party failed any insight/spot/sense motive/whatever checks to notice something is off and have enough focus on the instigator to warrant them either being a part of the surprise round, or there not being a surprise round at all.

[Talakeal]

I'll have time to respond to some of the longer posts tomorrow.

I really like this take, as it illustrates well how bizarre it is to be given a turn but be expected to skip it

Nobody is giving a PC a turn and then expecting them to skip it. The closest we would come in this situation is asking the players what they are doing before the ambush occurs (which may create some timing or positioning complications for the ambusher).

As I have said a thousand times, if one side is wholly hidden, initiative is merely a formality to see if the attacker gets a bonus turn, and if it is an NPC ambusher, this roll is going to be made in secret by the GM.

In Gbaji's examples, the players are only expected to skip their turn because that is the plan they have agreed to with their comrades, the "expectation" is not being forced on them by either the system or the GM. And yes, even then, I agree, in the vast majority of cases even the peer-imposed expectation it is a very bad expectation because it is tactically disadvantageous to do so and almost impossible to pull off.

ETA: I will state for the record that my way of handling things is deliberately and unrealistically generous to interrupters, as is the RAW of D&D (and most other games I am familiar with). I just think HoD takes that generosity way too far, and that leads to problems.

Out of curiosity, what specifically are you referring to here that goes "way too far"?

AFAICT Heart of Darkness would at least give the attacker a bonus to initiative, whereas D&D by RAW would offer no bonuses at all and resolve it with a flat initiative roll. (Keep in mind, the qualifications for a surprise round are that you have to be entirely unaware of the attacker, not just unaware of his murderous intent), and even if the GM did give him surprise, he still wouldn't be able to draw the gun in the surprise round without the quick-draw feat.

[glass]

Nobody is giving a PC a turn and then expecting them to skip it. The closest we would come in this situation is asking the players what they are doing before the ambush occurs (which may create some timing or positioning complications for the ambusher).

As I have said a thousand times, if one side is wholly hidden, initiative is merely a formality to see if the attacker gets a bonus turn, and if it is an NPC ambusher, this roll is going to be made in secret by the GM.

Yes, you have said this a lot, but you have also said that the mechanism by which this is achieved is by ambushed enemies getting turns but having to skip them for lack of targets. But you have also denied that this turn skipping actually happens (including in the immediately previous sentence), leading back to the situation where the ambushers can after the people they are ambushing.

Out of curiosity, what specifically are you referring to here that goes "way too far"?

By allowing the mechanical possibility of an ambusher not only losing initiative, but if they crit fail potentially giving two turns to the ambushees before they get a go. Which again, is something you say wouldn't happen, but then turn around (sometimes in the same post) and say that what you just claimed would prevent that occurrence also would not happen. It is all very confusing!

AFAICT Heart of Darkness would at least give the attacker a bonus to initiative, whereas D&D by RAW would offer no bonuses at all and resolve it with a flat initiative roll.

Automatically going first is better than a measly +4.

(Keep in mind, the qualifications for a surprise round are that you have to be entirely unaware of the attacker, not just unaware of his murderous intent), and even if the GM did give him surprise, he still wouldn't be able to draw the gun in the surprise round without the quick-draw feat.

You keep saying that, but it's not like D&D (any version) is the platonic ideal of initiative systems. But in the specific case of attacking from surprise it works better than HoD appears to.

Also, why would he be drawing the gun in the surprise round? There's plenty of time before!

[Talakeal]

@Gbaji: I am still planning on responding to you more fully, but I have a question for you:

Does D&D not suffer the same problems that Heart of Darkness does in the scenarios you are presenting if someone has the ability to always act in the surprise round?

For example, AD&D elves and 3.5 Dire Tortoises are described as having extraordinary fast reflexes and can act normally in the surprise round*. If you replaced Alice and Joe and Bob's other impatient allies with AD&D elves or 3.5 Dire Tortoises, would not the exact same issues arise? There are also plenty of spells and magic items that do this, but I assume those can be dismissed as "it's magic" and therefore be exempt from logic.

*Some creatures do this 100% of the time, others need to roll a dice first.

Yes, you have said this a lot, but you have also said that the mechanism by which this is achieved is by ambushed enemies getting turns but having to skip them for lack of targets. But you have also denied that this turn skipping actually happens (including in the immediately previous sentence), leading back to the situation where the ambushers can after the people they are ambushing.

Ok. Let's take this one step at a time. I will try and be as precise as possible to avoid confusion.

If you are unaware of your opponents, you may not target them or react to their presence.
In this case, characters will continue to act normally as the rogue approaches.
If the rogue loses initiative, which is possible, though unlikely with all the bonuses they get, the opponents will continue to act normally for one turn before the rogue strikes.
Again, they act normally in this turn, and if they are PCs, I likely won't even tell them that anything is out of the ordinary or roll the initiative dice in the open.
This acting normally COULD matter if they are doing something which the ambusher is trying to interrupt, for example, flee the scene, execute a hostage, sound an alarm, etc.
If this action would not matter, which is the vast majority of cases, then the initiative roll is merely a formality to see if they ambusher rolls well enough to get a bonus turn for a critical success.



And yeah, turn-based systems are always going to be a little awkward because real life isn't turn-based. But I still think the idea of allowing people to act normally when there is an ambusher about makes a lot more sense than the entire world freezing in place for six seconds because someone somewhere thought about a sneak attack like it would in D&D.

By allowing the mechanical possibility of an ambusher not only losing initiative, but if they crit fail potentially giving two turns to the ambushees before they get a go. Which again, is something you say wouldn't happen, but then turn around (sometimes in the same post) and say that what you just claimed would prevent that occurrence also would not happen.

Now, it is technically possible to fumble an initiative roll, although again, with all of the bonuses an ambusher can stack, it is astronomically rare, and you likely would not see it a single time even if you played a solo rogue for an entire campaign.

But, let's say it did happen. First, the initiative fumbles listed in the book are only examples. If you used the listed examples, you would either let the enemies have *two* turns of acting normally (which is generally meaningless and shouldn't be used) or waste your ambush on the wrong target (which might make sense if there are bystanders or even inanimate objects you could mistake for your target). Personally, I would probably play out a fumble as the ambusher waiting too long to take their shot and missing their opportunity, likely because the target moved out of their area or was joined by reinforcements for whatever reason. But again, this is going to be so rare it's really just a thought experiment.

It is all very confusing!

I agree, it is very confusing.

Mostly because people keep talking past each other and responding to a different situation than was originally posited.

For example:

Automatically going first is better than a measly +4.

You keep saying that, but it's not like D&D (any version) is the platonic ideal of initiative systems. But in the specific case of attacking from surprise it works better than HoD appears to.

Also, why would he be drawing the gun in the surprise round? There's plenty of time before!

The scenario we were discussing did not involve stealth or hiding.

It was someone walking into a bar, drawing a gun, and shooting the bartender.

No stealth. No larceny. No bluffing.

Just people initiating combat in the open.

D&D would not, by RAW, provide any sort of a surprise round or bonus action or initiative modifier here, it would just be a straightforward initiative roll.

Automatically going first is better than a measly +4.

If you are assuming an unaware combatant (which the scenario posited did not), then yes, D&D would give you a surprise round. But that is still a bit different than "automatically going first."

And there are still situations where I would take a +4 over a surprise round.

For example, if I am a high-level rogue, I think I would prefer an additional 20% chance to get a full attack against a flat-footed opponent in the standard round rather than a single standard action in the surprise round.

Add in situations where there are opponents who are able to act in the surprise round either because they have an ability that allows them to or because they detected some of the rogue's allies, and the +4 starts to look really tempting.

[gbaji]

Actually, this may be why I seem to call for less perception check than you do - unless there is some confounding factor (stealth or slight of hand on the part of the observee, magical distraction from the bard, unusually poor lighting conditions) I tend to err on the side of just telling the players without a roll. In the coaching inn version, I'd just tell the players that someone walked in (although I might call for a roll for more info). Similarly, circling back to the original bar example, where the guy ran in brandishing a gun and apparently making no effort to hide it, I would not call for a roll - I would just tell the PCs that. And assuming their reaction was something other than "we mind our own business and stare very intently at our plates" or "we teleport away", I'd follow up with "he seems to be taking aim at the barkeep, do you want to intervene?"

Yeah. I moved away from the "Bob charges the bartender" example, precisely because it was a somewhat extreme case favoring folks knowing about and taking action to intervene. Although, again, I would still just tell them the "stages" of the action, and give the players the opportunity to make declarations of actions in response. So I don't just say "Bob charges into the bar, pulls out his pistol and runs towards the bartender, and shoots him in the face". I would have them notice Bob loudly entering the bar. Check for reactions. Then tell them that Bob is looking at the bartender (perhaps yelling something as well) and pulling out a pistol. Check for reactions. Then tell them Bob is charging towards the bartender. Check for reactions. And if we get through all of these steps, whether there was a perception roll or not, and the PCs have not actually taken any actions to stop Bob, then "Bob shoots the bartender" just happens. There is no initiative roll, because the PCs have declined to engage in combat to oppose Bob's action. Note that, the moment one or more people declare a combat action in opposition to Bob, then we roll initiative and start combat. But if they don't, then I don't force an initiative roll at the moment of "Bob fires at the bartender". If they didn't noodle out that they needed to do sometihng before that point, then it's too late to act. In fact, if no one declares a combat action after that shot goes off, we still don't roll for initiative and enter combat. Bob shoots the bartetnder. If no one does anything, then Bob just walks back out of the bar. (or maybe continues filling the bartender with lead, just to make sure he's dead or something). Why have a combat if there are no people fighting? I'll handle this as a fully out of combat scene if no one choose to oppose anyone else's actions.

The perception rolls, or lack of perception rolls are really irrelevant. It's the concept of presenting action by action events to the players and allowing them to decide what they do in response. My assumption being that, if I have presented the players with the choice to take an action to engage with someone prior to them attacking, and they did not take it, then that was their choice. They do not get an additional option to act because we rolled initiative. They've already decided not to act. This goes with the assumption that initiative is only rolled when people decide to act in opposition to eachother *and* only by those who have made that choice. No one else gets to roll, becaues they have already decided not to act. We roll initiative in resposne to a decision to enter combat. We don't enter combat because we have rolled initiative.

Now, we apply the same scenario, but with perception rolls added in. It's the same logic though. If the players do not declare "I'm going to run over and stop Bob" (or something similar to interferre with Bob's attack), then they do not do this. Period. Bob's shot goes off. Where perception comes in, is that the PCs may simply not notice the sequences of events leading up to the shot, and thus are never given the option to declare an action in opposition. This is where the Bob runs at the bartender scenario fails, but we can replace with the "mystery man walks up with a pistol under his cloak, and shoots someone in the head at that table 25 feet away across the bar". If none of the PCs noticed the pistol when it was handed to him, and none of them noticed him pulling it out from under his cloak, then none of them can act before the pistol is fired.

The "quantum object" is designed to highlight this by making a distinction between combat (where an inititiave may be rolled) and non-combat (where it is not). If the object is a package and not a pistol, and the players either didn't notice it, or took no actions in response, once reaching the "man pulls the package out from under his cloak and hands it to another man 1 foot away from him" point in the sequence, would you allow a player to now say "I'm going to grab the package before the man can hand it over"? Probably not. Baring the PC having some kind of superhuman speed, or time stop ability, there's just no way to travel 25 feet across the bar to the table and grab the package before it's handed over.

I'm also assuming that in HoD, you would not be able to intervene in that scenario either. Yet, if it's a pistol instead of a package, and the man is firing the pistol instead of handing it over, there's some strange metagame process where "combat starts". So we stop everything, roll for initiative, and if the PCs win, they can take full round actions between "man pulls the pistol out from under his cloak" and "man pulls the trigger" happens. Which could absoslutely include somehow traversing the 25 foot disatnce (not sure what the movement rules are in HoD), and grabbing the mans arm. Or just shooting the man. Or casting a spell against him. Or any of a number of things that can be done in a single combat round.

Worse. This happens even if the PCs fail to spot the pistol before it's fired. In the case of the package handover, if the PCs never spot the package being picked up, and never spot it being handed over, then they failed to even know anything was happening at all. There is zero change of stopping the package from changing hands, right? But wait! If it's a pistol being fired, we still stop the action, roll for initiative, and provide a chance for the PCs to win initiative to intervene. There's this strange metainformation going on, where even though the PCs have no way to know that a shot is going to be fired at all, they still somehow get dropped into a combat scene, and given the opportunity to react.

This was in direct response to the examples off Alice being able to roll initiative to stop Bob's sneak attack on the Baron previously. In all of those cases, there was no check to see if Alice ever saw Bob, or knew that he was pulling his pistol out and firing it at all. The very act of Bob declaring "I shoot the Baron" prompted an initiaive roll, allowing Alice to intervene. So... the very act of the mystery man declaring "I shoot the man at the table" does the same thing, right?

Or does it? If not, why is this scenario different than the Alice and Bob scenarios mentioned previously? Arbitrary GM determination/choice? My point is that you should use perception rolls to determine who is aware of something, and thus whether they can actually act at all to intevene in something. And this should appy the same whether that "something" is a non-combat situation or a combat one. The idea that combat creates this special initiative roll situation, and thus an addiional opportunity to notice and react to something that was not previously noticed nor reacted to, just seems... wrong to me.

My group is pretty mature too (well, we're all old, anyway), and for my table the "shouting over each other" comment was hyperbolic (although I feel like would end up being literal for some table (quite possibly including Talakael's). But, I their is a noticeable hierarchy amongst my players between those who will speak up and be proactive, and those that just go with the flow. And I do not want the latter former to go first in every combat.

This should not be an issue if you break things up into discret event/response bits. Something happens. You determine who knows what about it, and then ask them what they want to do. Continue the process. There should never be a case where someone says "I pull out my pistol and shoot at the mystery man", and no other player at the table is allowed to declare an action as well. I do not do a "first person to say something wins" thing here. It's "man picked up a pistol and put it under his cloak, what do you guys want to do" (everyone gets to say what, if anything they are doing). Then "man with concealed pistol is walking towards another table, what do you want to do" (everyone gets to say what, if anything, they are doing). Finally, "man pulls pistol out from under his cloak and fires at a man at the table". At this point, unless someone has previously said something like "I'm sneaking up behind the man and waiting to see if he pulls out his pistol", or "I'm secretly pulling my pistol out, hiding it under my napkin and aiming at the man in case he does something", or some other equally predictive and proactive thing, I'm probably not going to allow anyone to act before the shot goes off. It's just too late at this point.

The point is that there is no rush, and no reason to rush here. And yeah, I agree that some players are far more... um... outgoing, than others. But you just allow each player (who has knowledge of what's going on) to say what they are doing. And that could absolutely mean two or more players all declaring "My character is doing <something that constitutes a combat action>". Now we move into combat. This may actually result in those characters getting a surprise action. Or it may not. Depends. But I would never ever stop after the first person says "I'm shooting at the Baron", and declare combat has started and no one else can make any statements. If there are other characters there, and they have the same information and ability to react, they also get to decide that they too will shoot the Baron, or try to stop the guy shooting the Baron (but, as mentioned before, only if they made the right out of combat checks to know this is coming).

The point is that the event/reaction sequence only involves events that characters are aware of. If a character isn't aware of something, then they don't get to react to it. That's the same whether it's a character reacting to the mystery man shooting someone (or handing a package off) or it's Alice trying to stop Bob from shooting the Baron. In all cases, I determine who is able to act based on some sort of perception and statements made previously. I just believe that any other method of doing this can result in way too much scripting/narrating of the flow of the encounter by the GM.

I think it depends - if keeps the gun in its concealed position and shoots from there (at a penalty to hit) then I might offer a last chance perception roll or they might just need to wait until the shot is fired, depending on how generous I was feeling. OTOH, if he pulls the gun out in full view and aims it normally, with the PCs at the next table, that would probably go straight to initiative (if I thought the PCs were particularly distracted, or they specifically said they were ignoring the stranger, then I'd call for a perception check but it wouldn't be a particularly difficult one).

Right. But in all cases, if the PCs never actually made any perception rolls to notice the man with the pistol at all, you would not call for initiative at all, right? The first thing they notice is "a shot rings out", right? Then they look over and see the mystery man with the pistol, and probably only for a moment, as he's already turning and running for the door by the time they turn and look.

Again. My issue with the HoD initiative system is that the PCs get to roll to see if they go before the shot rings out, no matter what conditions occcured prior to that point. Basicaly, it's up to the GM to decide if this is a combat. And if it is, then initiative is rolled, and the PCs have a chance to both notice and react to the shot before it's actually fired, even if they never made any sort of perception roll to notice the man, or the pistol, prior to the shot. I have a problem with that.

I'd just rather determine "did you notice the bad guy early enough to do something before he shoots someone" using perception rolls (cause that's kinda what they are for), and not initiative rolls. An intiative roll should be about how quickly you react to something you already know about. It should never be about determining if you know about something in the first place.

It also opens up some really odd corner cases. I mean, technically, based on Talakael's earlier comments about sneak attacks against opponents who don't know the attack has happened yet, if the PCs didn't previously make a perception roll, they should not actually be able to act first. They should be forced to skip their round, since they don't know what's going on yet. Then, once the man fires, they are aware of the shot, and can act. This was essentially how he said to handle the "Bob sneak attacking someone in the room" scenario, but the answer seems to change based on whether it's a PC or NPC doing the sneak attack. Well, or if the other PCs are working with or against the person doing the sneak attack, because in the "Bob shots the Baron" scenario, he had Alice and Bob roll for intiiative at the same time, but never said that "Alice can't actually stop Bob because she doesn't know he's about to shoot the Baron yet". Well, wait! How is it that Alice can act before Bob's attack, purely because there was an initiative roll involved, but the NPCs in the room can't act before Bob's attack, because they don't know about it yet?

There's a really weird set of inconsistent outcomes that occur, and I think a lot of it arises from the odd method of "roll for initiative the moment an attack is declared" rather than "roll for initiative, only among aware parties, once two or more of those parties choose to engage in combat actions against each other".

I think the way dnd (or probably more accurately to this example, d20 modern) would handle this is almost perfectly that the "surprise round" action would be the partial action of drawing the weapon, which is a move action, so initiative would be rolled with the instigator having the benefit of having their gun drawn for the first round, while the PCs scramble to mount a response (someone could still potentially beat them in initiative, draw and fire in the same round, but they would just get the one shot off). This could escalate if the instigator had quick draw however, allowing them to draw and fire in the surprise round.

Depends on how we break this down. And kinda depends on how strictly we're appying "draw a weapon". Assuming this man (assassin?) is decently competent, he can do this as a free action while moving up to the table in the first place. If he's using sleight of hand to conceal this (let's assume he is), then this puts it squarely back into the "did someone make a perception roll to spot this?" territory. If no one did, or they didn't state an action to intervene, then they simply don't get to act in the ensuing surprise round. If they did, it's possible that they could get a single standard action first. Again though, if they haven't drawn a weapon yet, they can't actually fire first. So this may actually be dependent on previous perception rolls, and previously stated preparatory actions made by the PCs if they want to actually have a chance to do anything to stop the shot from being fired.

And again, this is vastly different from "everyone roll initiative and if you succeed you get a full round of actions to take before the shot goes off". Which just seems... extreme.

That is, of course, assuming that the party failed any insight/spot/sense motive/whatever checks to notice something is off and have enough focus on the instigator to warrant them either being a part of the surprise round, or there not being a surprise round at all.

If we assume they failed those rolls, then they don't get to act at all. As I stated earlier, they would have to have made those rolls at some point prior to the "fire the pistol" point, *and* have taken at least some action to put them in a positioin to do sometihng. Even just "I'll keep an eye on that guy and see what he does", still leaves the D&D character with very few actions available to them that might stop the shot from being fired. Draw occurs during move action, and you only get one action. So if you move, you can't fire. So if you haven't already drawn a weapon, you can't attack. If you move to the man, you can't attack. This leaves us with maybe some fast casting spell actions, maybe? And if they made zero perception rolls ahead of time, then not only did they not notice the man drawing his pistol, they also don't get to act at all in the surprise round (they fall into the "unaware combatants" category, right?).

And that's the point of how I manage this. By giving opportunities to make these perception rolls ahead of time, I'm giving my players the opportunity to decide to take actions in preparation for something like this happening. Thus, when it does, they can take whatever actions are available to them, and they flow naturaly from what they have previously done. The HoD system kinda shortcuts all of the pre-action/decision stuff and just jumps right into the action. Which, it appears, is by design. Which is fine. But I would still recommend some clean up and/or clarification of some of those odd edge cases, since, at least from what has been posted in this thead, the outcome seems to more or less be "what the GM is thinking should happen at the moment".

And this is not at all a knock on Talakael. All GMs will have a tendency to do this. We're all guilty of it. And that's precisely why it's really important to have absolutely clear and unambiguous rules to guide you. The more clarity and guidance the rules give us, the less susceptible we are to our own thoughts and feelings in the moment. And the less likely we are to make mistakes and rule one way in one encounter and the opposite way in another, leading to players being confused or upset about things. At the very least, when there is a case where a player reports what they see as an inconsistent ruling, that should always be taken as an opportunity to clean up the rules. Resist the temptation to just arbitrate in favor of your most recent ruling (that's usually a mistake, and is defensive rather than proactive). Stop and think about the rules at hand. Ask your players what they think makes sense. Then write down an actual rule to handle that situation (or clarify/change existing rules so that they include that situation).

This is how we make games better over time.

[glass]

Sorry to keep harping on this, but initiative systems are a critical bit of many systems which are almost never explained well. And that often causes problems with GMs calling for initiative rolls at the wrong time!

I have actually been on the receiving end of "GM calls for initiative and then has the enemy arrive on their initiative, so anyone who beats them gets to react to nothing." Worse, it was in a system that didn't have delay or ready. And this was with the GM is who is the best GM in my current local group IMO and in the top five GMs I have ever played with.

(Fortunately, he's much better with initiative these days, largely I suspect due to my badgering him about it. While still being excellent in other respects.)

Ok. Let's take this one step at a time. I will try and be as precise as possible to avoid confusion.

If you are unaware of your opponents, you may not target them or react to their presence.
In this case, characters will continue to act normally as the rogue approaches.
If the rogue loses initiative, which is possible, though unlikely with all the bonuses they get, the opponents will continue to act normally for one turn before the rogue strikes.
Again, they act normally in this turn, and if they are PCs, I likely won't even tell them that anything is out of the ordinary or roll the initiative dice in the open.

Don't players roll initiative? Obviously, you can reserve the right to roll on their behalf in this instance, but I kinda makes it hard to "stack up modifiers".

This acting normally COULD matter if they are doing something which the ambusher is trying to interrupt, for example, flee the scene, execute a hostage, sound an alarm, etc.
If this action would not matter, which is the vast majority of cases, then the initiative roll is merely a formality to see if they ambusher rolls well enough to get a bonus turn for a critical success.

This still seems like this is priveledging the six seconds immediately following the initiative roll. It is theoretically possible that after a minute or so of sneaking into position, timing suddenly ends up mattering to the fraction of a round. But in practice I would say it is below the resolution granularity of the the system (any system) and if it happened to me I'd call shenanigans!

And yeah, turn-based systems are always going to be a little awkward because real life isn't turn-based.

This much is definitely true...

But I still think the idea of allowing people to act normally when there is an ambusher about makes a lot more sense than the entire world freezing in place for six seconds because someone somewhere thought about a sneak attack like it would in D&D.

...but this again is not respecting the abstraction IMNSHO. People do not freeze in place for six seconds, because until after you have actually rolled initiative and started counting in rounds you are not tracking time to the six seconds.

But, let's say [crit fail on init roll] did happen. First, the initiative fumbles listed in the book are only examples.

OK, but that potentially introduces a different problem - that is a pretty fundamental thing to leave to GM adjudication. Critical failures are also something that need to be introduced with extreme care if at all, and a GM making them up on the fly seems to be the opposite of that.

The scenario we were discussing did not involve stealth or hiding.

Yes it did. There have been various scenarios discussed, but my comments about being too generous to interrupters were specifically about the surprise case.

If you are assuming an unaware combatant (which the scenario posited did not), then yes, D&D would give you a surprise round. But that is still a bit different than "automatically going first."

It literally isn't. If you get to act in the surprise round and your opponent doesn't, you automatically go first by definition.

And there are still situations where I would take a +4 over a surprise round.

In D&D maybe, where the surprise round only gives you a partial action. If you've got an FRA you really want to get off before the opposition acts, a 20% improvement in getting that might occasionally be preferable to a guaranteed standard action. But I thought that was a non-factor in your system. Did I get the WEOTS again?

Add in situations where there are opponents who are able to act in the surprise round either because they have an ability that allows them to or because they detected some of the rogue's allies, and the +4 starts to look really tempting.

Well yeah, in that circumstance the +4 looks better. And in the circumstance where one character would have got a surprise round except that his allies gave him away, the +4 seems like a reasonable recompense. I just don't think it is adequate in circumstances where allies have not given the game away.

-stuff-

I see what you're getting at now. There is always a balancing act between keeping the game flowing and checking in with the players to make sure they realise they can act, and if I'm being honest with myself I probably lean too far towards the former. I will try to watch out for that in my upcoming GM sessions (starting tomorrow night ).

Right. But in all cases, if the PCs never actually made any perception rolls to notice the man with the pistol at all, you would not call for initiative at all, right?

Maybe? As I said in my previous post, if the PCs are literally next table and the guy pulls out the in a way that they cannot really miss I'd probably let them roll initiative. After all, the guy may want to shoot quickly and be out the door before anyone can react. But he presumably also doesn't want to miss, so he's going to take some time to aim and he might hesitate just a fraction too long (he might not, but that's what the initiative roll is for).

OTOH, if he just walks past doing the "gun in a rolled-up newspaper" trick he'll be taking a potentially-significant penalty to hit but there's no reacting to that without a Perception check until the gun actually goes off (maybe not even then if it is suppressed).

Again. My issue with the HoD initiative system is that the PCs get to roll to see if they go before the shot rings out, no matter what conditions occcured prior to that point.

Ditto. There is something about initiative which makes even excellent GMs fluff their lines, and this feels very much like one of those occasions.

[Talakeal]

snip.

Apologies if I am ignoring you or misinterpreting what you are saying.

I have read your post carefully, and if you want to further discuss any of the issues in it I will do my best to listen.

For my part, I was enjoying our discussion before the thread got locked due to unpleasantness.

Yes. But this is the exact action you said that Alice and Joe must do in the case where they are waiting for Bob's sneak attack before attacking, but they win initiative and Bob does not. You even went further and said that if they did *not* do this, then it would be their fault for "not following the plan". My solution is "don't call for initiative until after Bob attacks", in which case Alice and Joe can never go before Bob, and the problem is averted. Your solution is "Alice and Joe should delay until after the NPCs turn, so all of them can attack first".

But your solution still leaves the potential for either Alice or Joe to forget and go first anyway. Or the potential that the NPCs are aware of Alice and Joe, so now that initiative is rolled, and the NPCs get to take an action, they will actually take combat actions (that's the quantum NPC delay I mentioned earlier).

Again. All of this is 100% avoided if you just have Bob's attack go first. Period. I've proposed a few different ways of handling this. But your method is a problem and does not work in this situation.

I think maybe the problem is that I just don't see why Bob deserves to go first.

Normally, the dice decide who goes first, that is what initiative is for, and if all the players are hidden, I don't know why the other players should be denied a roll just because Bob is in the room.

The scenario you presented is one where the players are only waiting for Bob because they agreed to wait for him. But, IMO, it really feels like railroading to hold players to the plan and not allow them the opportunity to change their mind.*

AFAICT, your issue is metagaming, that the other players shouldn't be able to react to what Bob is doing behind closes doors, and I actually agree with this. But, again, the issue is one of metagaming, not one of the stealth or initiative rules IMO.


*Whether or not you should remind them if they are legitimately making a mistake or forgetting is another discussion. I tend to say yes, but a lot of players get hot under the collar if you give them advice, either as a GM or another player, as they feel like it is controlling and / or condescending.

Incorrect. This does not happen with D&D, due to the way surprise rounds work. And in a game with no dice or rules at all, any reasonable GM would simply rule that Bob's sneak attack goes first and we'd move on.

If anything, the problem is with players *not* metagaming. The GM calling for them to roll initiative is providing them with metagame information that they should not have (Bob is going to attack this round, even though he hasn't actually done so, nor given any signal/yell/whatever to indicate this). The GM (that's you) is then stating that the "fix" for this is yet more metagaming. That since Alice and Joe know that they really shouldn't go before Bob, even though their die roll for initiative says they do, they should ignore the roll and use a delay action instead. A delay action which itself is dependent on the metadata that "Bob is going to attack this turn, so if we wait X more seconds we can all attack together". It's really absurd, and they can only "fix the problem" by engaging in yet more metagaming.

Or.... We call for initiative at a more reasonable point in the encounter, and none of thise comes up in the first place.

Well, it absolutely will happen in D&D if the enemy was allowed to act during the surprise round, and there are many abilities in D&D that allow a character to do precisely that.

Again though, why do backstabs automatically go first? Why is that the only "Reasonable" thing for the GM to do?

Like, if we are playing a free form game and Alice says "I want to kick in the door and charge in" and Bob says "I want to sneak up behind the enemy and backstab them" WHY does the latter deserve to automatically go first?

So many of the things you and Bob and others have said about stealth hinge on this assumption, and frankly I have no idea what the logic is behind this assumption is in the first place, and I Really don't think the conversation will make progress until someone can actually explain the underlying assumption to me.

I can't speak to what your players do or don't do. I can only respond to what you post on this forum. And that is not remotely what you posted previously. You said they cast a divination to find the "nearest treasure". You then stated that you were not sure if they meant "nearest as the crow flies", or "nearest via a path they can traverse", so you guessed and gave them the latter. This is more or less exactly what you just said. This has nothing to do with them being overly litteral or not trusting your answer. This is about you, knowing there was an ambuquity in the question asked, and instead of just asking the player which method to use to determine the correct answer, you just picked one yourself.

Correct. This was not the case in this specific instance. This has been an ongoing issue with divination spells in my game.

And... you picked wrong. If your objective was to avoid having your players think you were playing word games and trying to trick them, you literally just did the exact opposite of that. You found the one bit of their divination question which could be interpreted multiple ways, and interpreted it in a way different than they intended. Whether you did that intentionally to mess them up or not, is not relevant. If this is something you do regularly, I can totally see why your players may have this perception. And yeah, combined with your examples of how you interpret their instructions to dominated NPCs, or illusions they cast, that perception will only increase.

I get that you think you are being fair and reasonable and trying to do the right thing. But just... don't. Don't try to guess what your players want. I'll say it again. And perhaps this is the most important GMing lesson anyone can and should learn:

If there is every a question as to what a player means when they say something, ask them.

Ok, so here is the thing, you say I "picked wrong" but, afaict, this is a no-win situation.

My options are AFAICT:

A: Go with the letter of the request. Give my players a less useful, and perhaps even harmful outcome. When this comes to light, they feel like I have tricked them and lose trust in me and cause a fight.

B: Go with the spirit of their request. They feel that I am trying to trick them by ignoring the wording of their request, lose trust in me, and cause a fight.

C: Ask them what they mean. They then go into analysis paralysis mode and either spend hours coming up with a perfectly worded instruction (which is more than likely to backfire anyway) or give up on the divination entirely and get stuck. Then we waste several hours and get bored to tears. As a bonus, Brian will likely think I am calling them stupid and cause a fight as well.

D: Actually break character and explain the full ramifications of all possible ways the instruction is worded. This is probably the best from preserving trust and preventing a fight, but it kind of ruins the initial scenario on both a narrative and game mechanical level, rendering it the RPG equivalent of a dissected frog.

I'm baffled at how on earth you asking this question could possibly result in them getting two answers for the price of one. Even if they answer with the latter, and they speculate that you only asked because there must be another treasure closer to that one, hidden behind a wall or something, that's still not terribly useful. If the nearest treasure by travel time is 100 feet down a hallway, and to the left, and then through a door, that means that a closer treasure "as the crow flies" could be several levels down through solid rock, or through multiple walls, or any combination of the two.

If you say "as the crow flies or by travel time" and then they pick the latter. You give them the answer. If the treasure is X feet away, they now know there is at least one other treasure within X-1 feet of them.

So to avoid an incredibly tiny bit of potential advantage for them, you are willing to destroy any trust they have in you by messing up their divination result? That's just not a great GMing choice IMO.

I agree, its not a huge bit of information. It alone is not enough to influence my decision, but it is a factor.

There is no messing up their divination. I am giving them the most useful answer that fulfills the spirit of their question.


As for destroying trust, I feel like maybe you are fortunate enough not to have to deal with paranoid people in your life. Lack of trust is a self-reinforcing phenomenon; in this case if I answer the spirit of their question, they don't trust me for not following the letter, if I answer the letter of their question, they don't trust me for ignoring the spirit. Its a no-win situation.

Its like if your wife suspects you of cheating on her; if you don't buy her a fancy anniversary gift she will take that as evidence of the affair because it is obvious that you don't care about her anymore, if you do buy her a fancy anniversary gift, she will take that as evidence of your affair because you are obviously feeling guilty about something.

You mentioned this twice, about things being "out in the open". Have you ever actually been in a bar, or a party, or well any social gathering with a decent number of people in a large room, with perhaps multiple groups arranged in different areas of said room, all engaged in various communication or interaction? I'm assuming you have. How aware are you of something said or done, by someone in another group, even just 15 feet away from you? Not at all, right?

The thing is that we can just use initiative for this all the time, but then that really overloads the value and weight of this one ability. The same person who is really great at barging into rooms and rushing up on NPCs is also going to be really good at picking up on some random guy walking up to someone else in a crowded room and pulling a pistol. And the same person will be first to charge at a dragon. And first to duck out of the way of an ambush. Etc, etc, etc.

When you have skills in your game that apply to a situation, why not use them?

In Heart of Darkness, perception is an attribute, the equivalent of a D&D ability score.

Perception determines the following things:

Alertness
Initiative
Insight
Range

A large part of initiative is situational awareness; perception influences initiative because a person with good perception will be more alert and always scanning the area around them for potential danger.

Initiative IS the skill you use for this.

Although it is certainly possible to modify your initiative roll with other skills, stealth, larceny, and expression being the most common.

(This is a bit of a tangent, but way back in 1998 when I first wrote Heart of Darkness, it was a hack of the SPECIAL system used in the Fallout games. In SPECIAL, initiative is solely determined by Perception. I have often found a problem with Perception in games, that it is too good for a skill but too bad for an Ability score, and so I try and keep it is useful as possible and add to it rather than taking away. I have, however, made it so your dexterity also affects your initiative, as it certainly makes sense from a fiction level for it to be influenced by reaction times and reflexes, and on a mechanical level it gives the more book smart type characters a reason to invest in dexterity. One of the reasons Bob wants to bypass initiative is he tends to play mages, and wants to be free to dump Dexterity (and his other physical stats) as low as they will go and doesn't want repercussions for doing so. I believe some editions of D&D have gone in the opposite direction, in that they don't want mages reliant on Dexterity, and, lacking a "perception" ability score, have made it so intelligence modifies initiative instead.)

And that's exactly the point. It's meaningless unless is translates into a bonus round. Hence why I said that your players likely aren't pursuing skills and actions to do scouting and stealth because, based on how your rules work, it's very rarely likely to actually result in a bonus surprise round. As I said, it's self creating.

Um, that was meant to be a rhetorical question.

If you really can't see how having perfect knowledge of the enemy can provide any sort of tactical advantage without giving a bonus round, I don't know what to say.

And no, D&D is absolutely different. The D&D surprise round is 100% the result of PC choices and actions (and almost always skill rolls). You don't get a surprise round for "rolling well on initiative". You only ever get a surprise round because you did some series of out of combat actions, and succeeded at some out of combat skills, which resulted in your getting surprise on your enemies.

You are absolutely incorrect to say it wouldn't matter in D&D. It's the only thing that affects this in D&D.

Disagree.

D&D surprise, at least in 3E and 5E is wholly the result of GM fiat.

The GM *may* take player choices or skill rolls into account, but ultimately there are no rules that govern it, just GM vibes.

But the rules are clear that you may act normally in the surprise round if you are aware of *any* of your opponents, so no, having the rogue sneak in does not guarantee him a surprise round unless he is alone and unsupported by his teammates. Please don't say things like "absolutely wrong" unless you can cite the rules in question.

Spoiler: Surprise 3E SRD

Show

Surprise

When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you’re surprised.
Determining Awareness

Sometimes all the combatants on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few combatants on each side are aware and the other combatants on each side are unaware.

Determining awareness may call for Listen checks, Spot checks, or other checks.
The Surprise Round

If some but not all of the combatants are aware of their opponents, a surprise round happens before regular rounds begin. Any combatants aware of the opponents can act in the surprise round, so they roll for initiative. In initiative order (highest to lowest), combatants who started the battle aware of their opponents each take a standard action during the surprise round. You can also take free actions during the surprise round. If no one or everyone is surprised, no surprise round occurs.
Unaware Combatants

Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don’t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

And yeah, I suppose you could read that to be saying that you count as unaware if you can't detect *any* of your opponents, but that is a frankly ridiculous interpretation, grammatically, mechanically, and on the fiction layer. I mean, imagine a battalion clanking knights in shining armor charging into battle and all demanding a surprise round because they have included a tiny halfling rogue in their ranks who does nothing but hide in the back.

Sure. Useful in terms of spell prep and whatnot. And maybe picking and avoiding combats. But, how much benefit do you give to them, when it's actually time to fight? I get that you are intentionally going for a specific initiative methodology, and that's fine.

Again, if you don't see the value of knowledge of the enemies when it comes to tactics and planning, I really don't know what to say.

But then own those differences and make them work in your game. You seem to be trying to deny that these are actual differences at all, and that your system works just like D&D, and there are no issues at all, so no changes are needed.

The surprise rules in my game are very different than the (imo terrible) one's in D&D.

However, as I said, 90% of the times, it works out exactly the same at the table as playing D&D by RAW would.

In this case, you don't get a surprise round unless your entire party manages to sneak in, and generally, you are only going to have one dedicated stealth character, and at least one big loud clanky guy in heavy armor. And both D&D and HoD are team games, and so you aren't going to be sending in a lone rogue to try and defeat an entire encounter by their lonesome.

Therefore the difference doesn't matter as surprise won't come up. Hence, working the same as D&D.

Heck. I'd be fine if your response was "yeah. Those skills don't benefit you when starting combat. That's intentional, and working as intended".

But that's not true.

Stealth still provides a +4 to initiative, a +2 to hit, protection from being targeted, and the ability to move behind enemy lines and strike at their vulnerable back lines, and the ability to slip away safely if you get in over your head.

It is only 20% likely to give you a bonus action. Not 100%. This is also working as intended.

I'd accept that, but then point out that when you complain that your players don't invest so much in stealth or scouting, that this is also your game "working as intended".

That's a weird logical disconnect.

Its like saying "no wonder players don't take fireball, it doesn't heal anything!".

Stealth does plenty of good things. It just doesn't do this one particular thing that you think it should.


My complaint isn't specifically about the stealth skill, its that my players undervalue knowledge and information in favor of mechanical bonuses. This applies to lore skills, divination, scrying, and investigation just as much as it does stealth and scouting. Although they still, apparently, value these things far more than you do.

Right. Because, as you say, those don't really create a problem. Myself, and several other posters, have discussed this and dismissed it as very relevant. We talked about this in the D&D surprise round when discussing whether rolling for initiative actually matters in that round. If only Bob, Alice, and Joe are going in the surprise round, and they've all picked their targets ahead of time, it actually doesn't matter at all. Which is why we argued that actually rolling initiative at that point in time doesn't matter, so there's no reason to even bother with it.

The problem is that, in HoD, it's possible for one of those three (like Bob) to lose initiative, which, unlike in D&D where they all go in the surprise round anyway, can result in Bob not going at all until after the NPCs have gone. Now, it's a problem, because if the other two do act in that first round, then the NPCs are aware of them, and will respond and act before Bob. So while it's kind of an academic exercise in the D&D surprise round whether Bob's sniper shot is resolved before Alice and Joe's actions, it's not merely academic in HoD.

In HoD, because of the way you things, there *is* a timetable, and it does matter. So now we have to care about something we didn't care about in D&D.

This specific scenario you have presented could cause problems for Bob in HoD but not in D&D.

I am not sure if that is a bad thing.

On a fiction layer, one person jumping the gun and charging in early could very well spoil an ambush. Heck, what if you have a double agent or naive pacifist on your side who actively tries warning the enemy? What if you have an ambusher joining in on a battle already in progress?


Of course, D&D can also have other very similar issues.

What if you have the exact same scenario, but the enemy has one of the plethora of abilities that allow them to act in the surprise round? Does that not cause all of the same issues you claim are problems with the HoD rules?

What if, before initiative is rolled, Bob declares he is moving in for a backstab, but Alice declares she is charging in loudly with no attempt to be stealthy? Who goes first? How do you determine surprise?

What if you play out the exact same scenario in D&D, Alice out rolls Bob and kills his target, but leaves other targets alive that Bob doesn't have a clean shot at or lie out of his range? Or does something else to spoil Bob's shot? Doesn't it matter then that she was allowed an initiative roll in the surprise round and beat Bob despite waiting for his shot?


In short, trying to map real time actions into discrete turns is impossible, and no matter how you right the rules, you are going to have some pain points that you need to either ignore as mechanical abstractions or let the GM house rule on the spot, there is just no other way.

No. We are all still waiting on Bob to initiate combat. The difference is that D&D's surprise round better simulates this than HoD's initiative system.

HARD disagree.

One of the really stupid things about D&D surprise rounds is that the world freezes in place for six seconds*.

If I am in the middle of performing a task, I am not going to suddenly stop because I failed to notice a potential attacker.

If I am going to sound an alarm, or complete a ritual, or leave an area, or execute a hostage, or whatever, you are not going to automatically interrupt me just because you happened to be hiding in the bushes nearby rather than standing out in the open nearby.

Like, imagine we are running side by side full out in D&D when some orcs jump out of the bushes and throw javelins at us. I don't even notice the orcs, I am so intent on the race. You, however, do notice the orcs. We both continue running full out, and the orcs miss by a mile. By RAW though, you will suddenly gain 30'* on me because you got to move in the surprise round and I didn't.

This. Is. Dumb.

*: It also kind of weird that surprise rounds take the same six seconds as every other round does, yet everyone is limited to partial actions. So, for some reason, even though I am standing still for six seconds in this place despite my declaration of running full out, but you also slow down significantly for those six seconds as you can only do a standard move rather than a run / double move.

That's not how you described this earlier, nor how you have stated that your game works. It's actually like this:

Bob: I sneak up behind the Baron (rolls dice to do this)
Bob: I surreptitiously pull out my pistol (rolls dice to do this)
Bob: I shoot the Baron in the back of the head
GM: Ok. Everyone stop. Combat has now started. Everyone roll initiative (Bob and Alice roll; Alice beats Bob)
Alice: Ok. Since I won initiative, I will stop Bob


Yeah. I don't think that's a great way to do that. Bob succeeded in all of his stealth rolls right up to the moment of shooting the Baron in the head, but one initiative roll can cancel all of that out.

STOP.

This is why this conversation keeps going in circles. People keep positing scenarios, and then rather than responding to the scenario that was posited, people respond to a slightly different scenario.

By adding in stealth rolls you are drastically changing the scenario, making any answer you give to my question meaningless.


My whole point in both the Bob vs. Baron scenario A and Bob shoots the bartender it that Bob didn't use stealth or guile, he is openly and blatantly attacking in plain sight. I am trying to draw out how you handle initiative and action order on the baseline before factoring in hidden characters. In essence, we need a control group.


AFAICT, you would still require a perception check to even notice Bob preparing the attack, and then an initiative test to stop him in time, whereas I would combine situational awareness and reaction times into a single initiative roll. AFAICT, these play out exactly the same at the table, but your way of doing it requires two redundant dice roles and favors the attacker as those attempting to stop them need to beat him twice in a row rather than just once.

And here's the point. If Alice never notices Bob sneaking up behind the Baron. And if she never notices Bob pulling out his pistol. Then Alice does not get to roll any sort of initiative at any point at all. Bob just fires his weapon, with no one intervening. No one knows about what he's doing until he fires so why on earth should they get an additional magical roll to prevent everything that we've already determined previously? This puts a heck of a lot of resolution weight into a single die roll, and allows that one die roll to effectively nullify everything a character has previously done.

I agree. IF Bob is successfully sneaking, initiative is irrelevant in this scenario.

I will say, however, that you can say the opposite, by allowing the final dice roll to nullify everything Alice or the Baron have done, are you not doing the exact same, just in the other direction? IMO this is why you want to get this done in as few dice as possible, because requiring a long sequence of dice rolls will invariably favor either the actor or the reactor, depending on who needs to keep the streak going to win. I suppose you could have a more interesting mixed success mechanic or best out of X scenario rather than winner take all, something akin to a social combat or a skill challenge, but that is a whole other kettle of fish.



As an aside, I really wish people would stop asserting that dice mechanics they don't like are "magical".

You are trying to take the words of players at a table, and translate them into a narrative description of a fictional world using an interface of rules, dice, miniatures, and combat turns. These are mechanics that just don't exist in the fiction, and in the translation, you are inevitably going to have to take some liberties and accept the mechanics and rules are just a medium, and yes, some ret-conning and meta-gaming are going to be inevitable when going from disorganized player statements to a real time narrative using discreet turns and actions as the in-between.

Its not magic, its just the nature of the medium.

Stop mistaking the map for the territory.

It's not just about stealth though. It's everything. And I think you are focusing on "one roll versus another type of roll". That's not really the point I'm trying to make. I'm trying to say that initiative should only be rolled when two or more opposed parties declare combat actions which are in opposition/conflict with each other. You are having everyone in the area roll initiative the moment any one person does this, which allows everyone else to automatically react based on the initiative roll. I'm saying you don't have to change a single thing in your initiative system. Just change when you call for the roll, and who gets to roll.

Also, how characters get to the point of "I'm attacking X" as a statement doesn't matter here. At some point, this will happen. And it's either going to be in a situation where it's obviously not a mutual combat situation (Bob sneaks into the sleeping persons bedroom and stabs him with a poisoned blade), or it's going to be in a more multi-person scenario: Bob is striding across the barroom, towards the bartender, pulling out his pistol, so we roll for folks to see this, and allow anyone who does to make a statement in resopnse. These are all things happening right at the same time, with folks seeing Bob, seeing what he's doing, and stating what they are doing in response. And the moment anyone says something which conflicts with Bobs statement, we then roll initiative for Bob and that person/people.

I've literally been running games like this for 40 years, and have never had any problem with it. It's very natural. You just have to trust the process. Allow your players to make rolls to notice things. Then ask them what they want to do in response. And then just let them do those things.

Again. I've never had a problem with this. The key is to use perception and stealth rolls, and then provide information based on those things. Then allow people to make decisions based on that information. I'm just not sure why this should be difficult. You do effectively the same thing every time you GM any sort of encounter in a game. PCs talk to a merchant, you are having one side do something, the other side sees/hears it, and responds, and we go back and forth. Why is "two stealth teams sneaking around" any different? It's fundamentally not.

Its different than talking to a merchant because it requires precise timing and coordination on the part of everyone involved. If you take a few seconds to stop and think about what you say to a merchant, nothing much happens, if you take a few seconds to stop and think about joining in on the ambush, it could very well mean the difference between life and death.


So you have been doing this for 40 years (for the record, I have also been doing it my way nearly as long with none of the problems you are saying I should be having). During those forty years, how many times have you posted a rant on a forum about how stupid D&D (or damn near any other published RPG is) for stating that at the start of a battle all participants roll initiative? Because every published game I have ever played has some variant of that rule; DM declares combat starts, players all roll initiative, players all take turns. This is hardly a problem specific to Heart of Darkness, its just how D&D chose to do it, and how the vast majority of RPGs have done it by default.


Also, when you wait for someone to declare they are opposing, do you actually go around the table and ask everyone what they are doing at every step? I mean, this sounds incredibly time consuming, but its the only fair way, right? Like, you said giving a combat turn to someone who should wait is bad because what if they forget, but what about the opposite? What if a player is slow, or self conscious, or shy, or distracted, or doesn't understand what is happening, do you punish them with character inaction because they don't have the force of presence to jump into the scene and interrupt the scene unprompted?


Or heck, you already said I was being ridiculous for not breaking down the sequence the same way you would, but surely you acknowledge that there are many possible ways to do so? Like, say one of the players is waiting for Bob to actually **** his pistol before intervening, but you jump straight from asking anyone if they react to him pointing his gun at the bartender to declaring he shoots the bartender without ever specifically mentioning him cocking the gun, let alone asking the players to respond to said cocking. What do you do if a player reacts to it? Do you "magically" ret-con the scene? Or do you "destroy his trust" and just tell him too bad and keep going?

I think that your fear of your players knowing things they should not is causing you to hide things from your players, or prevent them from making decisions in the first place (based on your statements about NPCs and illusions). I think that is far far far more harmful to a game than the occasional slip of metainfo to your players.

I've found that a simple reminder of "Your character doesn't actually know what the other character on the other side of town learned yet" is more than sufficient. And yeah, players will occasionally take actions that just happen to put their characters in a slightly more advantageous position when something they shouldn't yet know about happens. So what? In the grand scheme of things, it's not really that big of a deal. If they are blatant about it, call them out on it (kindly, gently, perhaps making a joke like "huh... So you just happened to equip your acid immunity amulet to go to the bread shop? What a coincidence!"). The players get the message, and the game moves on.

If you're really concerned, then pull players aside and have private conversations with them, or pass notes. This is not some new thing that gamers just never encountered before. But the absolute worst way to handle this is to just not tell players any information at all, and then you just decide what they would do, and how they should react, and then plow forward with those assumptions. Always let the players play their characters. yes. Even if they are taking advantage of metainfo. It's just not that big a deal.

I think you are getting my point backwards.

I am saying that *you* seem to be far too concerned about meta gaming, what with your statements about not allowing people to take turns when their characters aren't in the room / knowing what the other players are about to do, and requiring perception checks to notice things happening in plain sight around them.*

I am not generally concerned about such things, and yeah, reminding the player is normally more than sufficient.


Which statement about illusions? You mean when I said I don't generally allow players to control minions when the actual PCs aren't around? Because the meta-info there is secondary, the bigger issue is boring the other players by giving the summoner extra spotlight time.

Generally, I find it easier to keep information the players shouldn't have out of the ears as they don't have the conflict (either internal or external) over whether or not to meta-game**, and that means not playing out scenes where the PCs aren't present (or, perhaps, if only one PC is present going into another room). But I am not going to do this when everyone is sitting around the table. And yeah, I might tell them no if their action is based on information their character couldn't have, but I am not going to deny them the ability to act at all because I am afraid it might tempt them to metagame.



*How do you actually keep track of who knows what? If you require hundreds of perception checks a session, do you actually remember which PCs made which checks, or just assume group knowledge if anyone made them? Taken to the extreme, do you require people to make tests to notice if other characters notice things? Pretty soon, this starts to sound like one of those logic puzzles about asymmetrical information such as the Green Eyed Dragon problem.

**Having to play dumb because you know something your character doesn't is terrible. Especially if its the solution to a "puzzle", because there is no fair way to determine if you would have figured it out organically if you didn't already know the answer.

So what? It's part of the same theme here. You are deciding what the PC should want to do, and making that decision for him. If the player decides that this is what he wants his rogue character to do... let him.

At the very least, your rules should not artificially penalize him for this, just because you don't think it's the best decision. Objectively, there should be situations where sneaking in ahead of the group and backstabing someone, or doing some other sneaky thing would be worth the loss of other combat benefits later on. Again. Let the player make that assessment and determination. You seem to want to determine ahead of time how your players should be playing their characters, and then manipulating the rules to force them to play that exact same way. Your rules should be open and balanced and allow for a wide assortment of different play styles and tactics.

Again, you are getting my point entirely backward.

I am not changing the rules because I don't like the tactic.

I am saying, the rules as they are make the tactic ineffective, hence it has never come up at the table.

Likewise, the rules don't "artificially" penalize anyone. The rules state that you take a -20 to sneak tests while observed, and can take an action to hide once observed. Bob wants me to waive one or both of those rules so that he can be hidden 100% of the time regardless of timing or positioning. IE changing the rules to artificially benefit someone.

Again, this whole section of your post kind of reads like a ridiculous straw man. Its not like I am saying "I like swords better than axes, and have manipulated the rules to enforce that, play a swordsman or suck!" I am saying that a lone person attempting to solo an encounter designed for a 4 person party is in for a rough time and that sneaking is easier when you have a distraction rather than being the center of attention.

I mean, at this point that is about as sensible as if you had told me that an assassin wearing a jester's bells and fighting with rusty spoons should be just as effective as one wearing camouflage clothing and wielding combat knives because to do otherwise is constraining player creativity and tactical flexibility.

And yet. For some reason, he wants to do this anyway. So... let him. Lay out the negatives and risks, and then let him make a decision.

I do lay out the negatives and let him make the decision. What ever gave you the idea that I didn't?

The issue is that he wants to have his cake and eat it to; he wants to always go first *and* be undetectable, and will bitch at me that the rules are stupid hoping that I will back down and change them so that characters can hide as a free action (or at the very least an action you can take once in the morning and hold all day regardless of circumstance) and don't suffer a penalty for being observed.

I'm not sure how this is overpowered though. We're literally talking about getting at most, one additional combat action during a combat, in return for making a number of out of combat skill checks.

Ok, first off, you said that more people would play stealth characters if I made it more powerful. I agreed, but IMO doing so would make it overpowered. And yes, people will flock to overpowered options, this is not a good thing as it stifles player diversity and freedom (the same things you were saying were good things a few paragraphs ago).


I am pretty sure I have already explained why D&D style sneak attacks would break the game several times. But again:

Heart of Darkness does not have D&D style HP bloat.
Heart of Darkness does not have full vs. partial attacks.
Heart of Darkness does not require a level 17 ranger to hide in plain sight, anyone can do it with high scores.

So if you allowed D&D style sneak attacks, you would have PCs and major villains die routinely to an ambush before they ever got a chance to react, as two attacks against a vulnerable flat footed character can easily be fatal. This is anticlimactic and not really fun for anyone but the rogue.

It would also be possible to make a stealth and initiative focused character who would reliably get two turns every time. Then you would simply alternating, attacking one turn, hiding the next, and repeating indefinitely, with no one ever being able to do anything to oppose you. This would be both broken and boring beyond belief.

Literally, if Bob just always wanted to go first, he could dump all the stealth stuff, and just focus on reflexes and other initiative increasing things, and be much more capable of winning initiative, all without actually taking any risks ahead of the battle. He can literally just walk into a room and go first.

It pretty much determines everything. Bob attempting to find some method other than just cranking up initiative bonuses to give an advantage in combat is a good thing IMO. Good games should have multiple paths to power. Finding other ways to "go first in combat" is one aspect of that concept.

This is actually by design.

If you want to be good at something, a high score in that something is your best bet.

Its kind of the reverse of D&D's "Ivory Tower Design" where you need to master obscure combinations to be effective.

Initiative determines going first. While there are absolutely supplements and synergies, pumping your initiative score is the best way to do this.

Good games should have multiple paths to power. Finding other ways to "go first in combat" is one aspect of that concept.

I would agree with that statement on face value, but not in the way you are using it.

Multiple ways to do something are great.
Having multiple character archetypes all able to succeed at the same challenges in their own way is great.
But having one character outperform another character in that other character's niche is a hallmark of bad design.

For example, in 3E D&D it is a very bad thing that clerics and druids outperform fighters in exactly the sort of things that you would think a fighter would excel at. This is not good.

Likewise, in Heart of Darkness both stealth characters and initiative characters are good characters that excel in many things and can solve many of the same problems in their own way, but a stealth focused character is not going to beat an initiative focused character at initiative outside of very niche circumstances.

If anything is overpowered and unblanced in your game, it's the initiative stuff.

I assume you don't actually mean this, and are just saying it for rhetorical effect? Because I seriously doubt you have enough system mastery to actually make that determination*, nor do I believe anyone who actually did study my game in that much detail would come away with the conclusion.

That being said, its kind of weird how in one paragraph you are saying that stealth characters always getting a bonus turn wouldn't break the game, and then in the next paragraph claiming that an initiative focused character being able to do that some of the time does break the game.


*: And if you actually have read my rules in that much detail, can we please have a less inane discussion about them? Because there are so many things worthy of more discussion and in need of feedback than initiative rolls by hidden characters.

Without sitting at Talakeal's table, we cannot be sure exactly how bad "Bob" is, but if he is even one tenth as toxic as he come's across in Talakeal's posts he needs to be shown the door immediately (or better still, weeks/months/years ago, but we are where we are). Without his bad influence, and with concrete proof that you take bad behaviour seriously, the rest of the group will probably improve. And anyone who does not should follow him!

Bob is borderline.

He genuinely cares about the game and is a great play tester.

He is also improving, he is much better now than he was in the past.

That being said, he is not the most toxic player we have had. I can think of at least thee people who were worse and have all been shown the door.

Maybe it would be enlightening to turn it around: An NPC Rogue sneaks up on a PC and is wanting to attack from hiding. If I have just rolled initiative and my turn comes up with no apparent enemies in sight, I am going to ask to delay or ready, not just skip. And if I am told I have to skip, I am going to ask why you gave me a turn in the first place if I cannot do anything with it. And if I am allowed to delay or ready, then presumably so are the monsters so we're back to the ambusher going last if they don't roll well enough, which isn't supposed to be able to happen.

How can delaying result in you going first?

That's literally a contradiction, if you delay, you are waiting to go until after someone else.

There is no way you can beat a rogue in initiative, delay, and then somehow go before the rogue. AFAICT that is literally impossible.

ETA: I don't want the OP to feel like I am picking on him! Even though I disagree with him on a couple of points, and it sounds like certain aspects of HoD would not be to my taste, it also contains some intriguing ideas. And even if it didn't I'd respect the obviously large amount of thought and effort it represents!

I don't think you are picking on me at all.

This is probably the most reasonable post in the thread from my point of view, and I agree with just about every word of it.



Ok, that's enough for now.

[Cactus]

Apologies for jumping ahead and not (yet) reading your entire post Talakeal but I want to respond to this:

"Normally, the dice decide who goes first, that is what initiative is for."

I strongly disagree. As others have said previously initiative is for deciding who goes first if multiple people are attempting opposing actions at the same time. In the case of a prepared ambush, which most of the discussion has been about, the ambusher goes first. That is what planning and strategy are for.

Other players naturally have the freedom to say "screw this, I'm not waiting" and Leroy Jenkins the whole thing if they want to but that's entirely on them. That's what teamwork is for.

[Keltest]

Apologies for jumping ahead and not (yet) reading your entire post Talakeal but I want to respond to this:

"Normally, the dice decide who goes first, that is what initiative is for."

I strongly disagree. As others have said previously initiative is for deciding who goes first if multiple people are attempting opposing actions at the same time. In the case of a prepared ambush, which most of the discussion has been about, the ambusher goes first. That is what planning and strategy are for.

Other players naturally have the freedom to say "screw this, I'm not waiting" and Leroy Jenkins the whole thing if they want to but that's entirely on them. That's what teamwork is for.

Seconding this. Initiative should not come into play unless there is ambiguity about the order of events. Assuming Bob passes his rolls to be undetected, there is no ambiguity, he just goes first, and everybody reacts to it after the fact. Whether that means he gets a free attack before initiative is rolled, or you go with the D&D 5e rule of everybody who doesn't know he's there is surprised and doesn't get a turn on the first round of combat.

[Talakeal]

I strongly disagree. As others have said previously initiative is for deciding who goes first if multiple people are attempting opposing actions at the same time. In the case of a prepared ambush, which most of the discussion has been about, the ambusher goes first. That is what planning and strategy are for.

I don't disagree in principal, but there are so many edge cases.

Like, the initial discussion was about someone kicking in a defended doorway. The idea that an entire squad can move through the same door, find a target, and attack before any of the defenders can open fire on the doorway is not realistic.

Likewise, a group of people jumping out of the bushes and and charging across a hundred yards of open ground are not likely to all get off an attack before their enemies can respond.

And then, if you have large groups acting in coordination, there is a good chance that atleast one ambusher screws up the timing and, as you put it, goes Leeroy Jenkins, or atleast one defender happens to spot atleast one attacker and warn their comrades.

And, of course, if you are already in the process of doing something, someone being hidden doesn't mean that you stop dead and let them ambush you before you finish your task.



But yeah, if all of the attackers have successfully snuck into position, then there is no chance of the defenders attacking or responding to the ambushers before the ambushers strike.

Other players naturally have the freedom to say "screw this, I'm not waiting" and Leroy Jenkins the whole thing if they want to but that's entirely on them. That's what teamwork is for.

Whether they do or not seems to be the crux of what most of the argument has been about.

[MonochromeTiger]

Apologies if I am ignoring you or misinterpreting what you are saying.

I have read your post carefully, and if you want to further discuss any of the issues in it I will do my best to listen.

For my part, I was enjoying our discussion before the thread got locked due to unpleasantness.

It happens, my apologies for the reaction but it's very hard to read tone into text and very easy to get frustrated when it feels like people are getting the wrong conclusion from your words. Something that I'm sure wasn't just on one side of the conversation and I do apologize for any points where I may have been inadvertently talking past you.

Most of my issues on the original point I was making have been addressed a few times in different ways in the thread but if I had to summarize it does feel like there's a disconnect between us on where to draw the line of player knowledge and influence. It's a difficult topic that will inevitably run into disagreement, after all every group is different and everybody has their own GMing style, but it does seem like the negative qualities of your group inform your decisions on general treatment and trust level toward players in a way that can cause bigger issues.

For the Specter/sentient illusion issue that showed in how we disagreed over player input on its behavior after being made. The spell in general appears to have a slight push toward situations where, short of sticking exclusively to the pre-programmed limited version or the version where the player can exert full control at any time, there's too much room for it to lead to "gotcha" moments for it to be a worthwhile choice compared to a similar spell that doesn't have "create a self aware creature able to make its own decisions" as an effect. That's not saying your intent is anything along those lines but throughout the discussion while talking about how you'd treat it fairly you did keep coming back to the scenarios where it would hurt more than help if the players weren't very exact and highly detailed in what they want from it; the illusion of a guard alerting the real guard's bosses example being an obvious one. There's some possibility that as you said a player might be planning for that but the only way that really makes sense to me as an assumption is if the player in question directly states that's their plan.

Your group may be poisoning you against the idea of open disclosure and collaboration slightly, in no small part due to the antics of Bob and the mutual attempts to predict and work around what the other side might be thinking instead of just engage in an ongoing dialogue about it.

Really the fact that I can so easily reach the conclusion that your players are seeing it as a "sides" issue and that you're having to try to compensate is worrying. Proper testing of your system is hindered if you don't have people willing to actually discuss their issues with the game and having situations like Bob throwing a fit over not getting his way will quickly erode any common ground for that discussion. Attempts to compensate for lack of open discussion by trying to read into what the players "really" mean in the hopes of preventing them feeling cheated is just a self fulfilling prophecy at that point. They've already decided to draw lines and make the situation hostile, that not only closes the door to quite a bit of real input from them but also risks overcompensating on how to handle the rules due to your sample group not behaving how a, and I apologize if this sounds harsh, actual functioning group would.

I think maybe the problem is that I just don't see why Bob deserves to go first.

Normally, the dice decide who goes first, that is what initiative is for, and if all the players are hidden, I don't know why the other players should be denied a roll just because Bob is in the room.

Because Bob would've gone to the extra effort to actually get into position and launch the attack and, it can be assumed, the rest of the group would have already agreed to the plan. Turning it into an initiative roll after they've already decided on their plan and taken the steps needed to carry it out just adds a layer of complication that can be seen as inviting a disruption of their plan. To use Gbaji's example, if the action would just go as planned rolling initiative before it does adds a sense of pressure to take their actions or have them be "wasted."

The scenario you presented is one where the players are only waiting for Bob because they agreed to wait for him. But, IMO, it really feels like railroading to hold players to the plan and not allow them the opportunity to change their mind.*

AFAICT, your issue is metagaming, that the other players shouldn't be able to react to what Bob is doing behind closes doors, and I actually agree with this. But, again, the issue is one of metagaming, not one of the stealth or initiative rules IMO.

It's an issue of metagaming that is exacerbated by the stealth and initiative rules. Yes, the players could decide "actually no I'm not sticking to the plan" but in that case they need to actually state their intention. Initiative having already been rolled introduces an implied "you're on the clock, do something" that wouldn't have been there in the case of them acting freely until the shot is actually fired; in one case a player is free to speak up at any point before the attack is made to say they're actually doing something else, in the other the order of operations and action economy is looming over their decision making and the potential for someone to just think "oh that means go now" and abandon the plan they actually wanted to follow is thrown in.

*Whether or not you should remind them if they are legitimately making a mistake or forgetting is another discussion. I tend to say yes, but a lot of players get hot under the collar if you give them advice, either as a GM or another player, as they feel like it is controlling and / or condescending.

People rarely react well to being told they're wrong or their ideas are bad, even if it's actually true and you have something to back it up. It may be even worse in cases where the person saying it dictates the rules that make the idea bad because it can then feel like their own logic and reasoning is the source of the dispute and the "mistake" is just in disagreeing with someone.

In your group's case you've got no real good options. You take them literally and they can say they had some nuance to what they meant, you try to predict their actual intent and they can say you read your own meaning into what they said. Technically neither case is truly wrong but the fact that communications breakdown is so prominent turns every judgement call you make into a minefield and every opportunity to hear out what they actually meant into a question of whether or not they think you'll listen.

Correct. This was not the case in this specific instance. This has been an ongoing issue with divination spells in my game.

In the case of ambiguity, ask. If nothing else it gives players more of a sense that they're being listened to and their intent matters. In the case of a divination spell to locate some treasure it's also not opening up much problematic metagaming, the players are almost certain to expect multiple sources of treasure. There can still be cut offs, moments where you say "the divination spell doesn't get that specific" or "remember that it gives a location but not detail on how to get there" or any other issues. Asking what they mean specifically doesn't change how it works but as far as the details of what they cast they can confirm with you what they meant and you can get rid of the uncertainty over trying to predict some hidden meaning.

Even asking after the fact like with the Specter would have some of this. If they dictated its personality you've got a very complex issue figuring out all the minor points, especially when they make something as nebulous and open to interpretation as "based on me" when they as players can have their characters act unpredictably at any time or behave differently depending on their situation and personal knowledge. Incidentally that's also why creating a creature with self determination has so many problematic points of debate, as soon as it comes into existence and starts experiencing life it gradually departs from the "premade personality" that the spell grants it and turns it from "the players cast this spell and made sure to take steps to get the result they want" to "the GM can at any point decide some minor aspect of the personality undermines the rest of the preset the players had in mind."

Ok, so here is the thing, you say I "picked wrong" but, afaict, this is a no-win situation.

I fully agree it's a no win situation, but that conclusion is entirely down to the group dynamic you have rather than being a possibility under normal circumstances.

My options are AFAICT:

A: Go with the letter of the request. Give my players a less useful, and perhaps even harmful outcome. When this comes to light, they feel like I have tricked them and lose trust in me and cause a fight.

B: Go with the spirit of their request. They feel that I am trying to trick them by ignoring the wording of their request, lose trust in me, and cause a fight.

C: Ask them what they mean. They then go into analysis paralysis mode and either spend hours coming up with a perfectly worded instruction (which is more than likely to backfire anyway) or give up on the divination entirely and get stuck. Then we waste several hours and get bored to tears. As a bonus, Brian will likely think I am calling them stupid and cause a fight as well.

To drive the point home, your players' trust in you, and by extent your trust in them to act reasonably, is already compromised. They're willing to turn almost anything into a fight or a thinly veiled slight against them. Trying to predict and work around that just turns every option into an attempt at damage control that will still upset someone making the attempt to mitigate problems moot before you even decide on a method.

D: Actually break character and explain the full ramifications of all possible ways the instruction is worded. This is probably the best from preserving trust and preventing a fight, but it kind of ruins the initial scenario on both a narrative and game mechanical level, rendering it the RPG equivalent of a dissected frog.

Some "warning text" in a spell isn't really a new concept. Just something along the lines of "while this can determine the location of what's requested it doesn't give details on how to reach it or guarantee a quick and safe path." When that's instead dropped on the players after it's cast, especially if it's done in a way that implies it's obvious and the players should have noticed already, it's very easy to take it as GM vs player interpretations.

If you say "as the crow flies or by travel time" and then they pick the latter. You give them the answer. If the treasure is X feet away, they now know there is at least one other treasure within X-1 feet of them.

Paraphrasing what I said earlier. They're already likely to expect that there's more than just one specific source of treasure in the place, similarly they're likely to expect there's more than just one monster in a dungeon or bandit in a camp. The only times it really becomes a major issue to acknowledge that there may be more than one of something is when plot relevance comes up.

For example "we want to scry where the super special lost gateway our entire mission is to find is located" "which one?" Or "we want to scry the location of the Dragon whose lair this is" "do you mean the older Dragon or its kid?" In both cases there's still means by which you could circumvent the problem, the gate likely has something preventing it being located by scrying or it wouldn't exactly have stayed lost for so long while the Dragon's lair is specifically held by the adult Dragon and its kid is just staying there.

Asking player intent doesn't prevent keeping things they shouldn't reasonable be able to learn from the spell obscured.

As for destroying trust, I feel like maybe you are fortunate enough not to have to deal with paranoid people in your life. Lack of trust is a self-reinforcing phenomenon; in this case if I answer the spirit of their question, they don't trust me for not following the letter, if I answer the letter of their question, they don't trust me for ignoring the spirit. Its a no-win situation.

Its like if your wife suspects you of cheating on her; if you don't buy her a fancy anniversary gift she will take that as evidence of the affair because it is obvious that you don't care about her anymore, if you do buy her a fancy anniversary gift, she will take that as evidence of your affair because you are obviously feeling guilty about something.

I could make a point on paranoia in the sense of just being untrusting versus paranoia in the sense of the actual diagnosis but in this exact situation the resolution is really the same. If your players are completely incapable of trust then you shouldn't be putting yourself in a situation that requires that trust. It doesn't help you to do what you're trying to do, test your system, if the group doing it has a default viewpoint hostile to you. It doesn't help them to be in a game where every possible conclusion only reinforces their feeling that the hostility is justified.

Short of them suddenly coming around you're in a situation where the only possible result is good will degrading even further as your points against them and their points against you add up. As I mentioned before, planning the game and system with your playgroup in mind, when that playgroup is so prone to hostility, may be leading to some negative assumptions of mutual trust between player and GM in general.

[Keltest]

I don't disagree in principal, but there are so many edge cases.

Like, the initial discussion was about someone kicking in a defended doorway. The idea that an entire squad can move through the same door, find a target, and attack before any of the defenders can open fire on the doorway is not realistic.

Likewise, a group of people jumping out of the bushes and and charging across a hundred yards of open ground are not likely to all get off an attack before their enemies can respond.

Why not? If theyre able to move that fast in their allotted time, what stops them? A hundred yards is rather implausible without magic or something, but a half dozen people moving through a door isn't that unrealistic, especially if the people on the other side weren't prepared for someone to come through the door.

And then, if you have large groups acting in coordination, there is a good chance that atleast one ambusher screws up the timing and, as you put it, goes Leeroy Jenkins, or atleast one defender happens to spot atleast one attacker and warn their comrades.

Well thats what the various stealth determining rolls are for.

And, of course, if you are already in the process of doing something, someone being hidden doesn't mean that you stop dead and let them ambush you before you finish your task.

Its an ambush. "Let" shouldn't enter into it.

But yeah, if all of the attackers have successfully snuck into position, then there is no chance of the defenders attacking or responding to the ambushers before the ambushers strike.

From the way you have described the rules and your various resolutions of situations, that is not the way your game seems to play out in practice.

Whether they do or not seems to be the crux of what most of the argument has been about.

Presumably, the players all know what the other players are doing. Its the DM's responsibility to be referee if one player wants to Be Sneaky(tm) and the others don't want that to happen. Maybe you resolve it with the rules and they can't catch him, or maybe you say "Stop antagonizing the party and get with the program Bob." out of character.

[ciopo]

I think maybe the problem is that I just don't see why Bob deserves to go first.

For the same reason an npc/enemy ambushing the party goes first, as you said it would, a couple posts ago.

Unless your system is asymmetrical in this regard, I guess, with the npc going first period, by gm fiat, because they are ambushing, but a pc rogue/ambusher does not, because you are fine with declaring the pc carry on doing whatever they where doing if the ambusher is not one of them, but you don't do the same if the ambusher is one of them.

The bizarro solution to me appears to be that Bob should start passing you little paper notes to let you know he intends to ambush something, that way the other players don't know he's doing that, therefore are unaware, therefore you feel safer in skipping their turns the same way you'd do if they are unaware of a npc ambusher? If it's the unawareness that matters, that's what I'd do as Bob if I knew that for an ambush to be an ambush I mustnt tellmy allies, that way their initiative is rolled in secret by you, and in the case they win it you fiat it to be skipped/doing whatever they were already doing.

Yes, I'm being a bit facetious with this last paragraph, and yet that seems what would need to happen? Why do you skip the players turn (and/or roll initiative in secret) if you are doing an ambush, but don't skip (and/or roll initiative in secret) the nonambushing players turn when a player is ambushing something? Why does a monster get to act first when ambushing, always, in your own words, but not Bob?

[Talakeal]

For the same reason an npc/enemy ambushing the party goes first, as you said it would, a couple posts ago.

Ok. Let me try and clarify this, as I think imprecise language is causing some confusion.

By "go first" are we talking about reactions to the ambush, or are we talking about actions that we would have taken whether or not the enemy was there?

If the former, then yes, both Bob and the ambushing monster "go first."

If by the latter, then no, both Bob and the ambushing monster need to roll initiative to determine turn order.

For example, if the hidden character is scouting, trying to find the location of the prisoners. They find the prisoners, but as they watch, a guard is moving down the line shooting them one by one, and he sees that his friend is next in line. In this case, if the rogue wants to stop the execution in time, they need to beat the executioner in initiative, even though they are hidden.

If there are no prisoners, and instead of scouting the hidden character is sniping guards one at a time, there is no chance of the guard reacting to being shot before the assassin pulls the trigger, so there is no need to roll initiative to determine action order.

It does not matter if it is PC or NPC.

Why not? If they're able to move that fast in their allotted time, what stops them?

What is their "allotted time"?

D&D has very precise cut offs, 6 seconds or 30 feet (for a normal human) whichever comes first. Heart of Darkness does not.

Personally, I feel like realistically the longer the charge takes (in both time and distance) the less likely the ambush is to catch the enemy by surprise, but is never really a guarantee.

but a half dozen people moving through a door isn't that unrealistic, especially if the people on the other side weren't prepared for someone to come through the door.

In Heart of Darkness I assume that the invaders know the precise moment of their attack, but not the enemies precise location, while the defenders know the precise location of their attackers, but not the precise moment, and these two factors basically cancel out for a straight initiative roll.

But, to my understanding, this is actually pretty generous to the attackers, in real life breaching a defended doorway is basically Russian roulette, and the defenders have a huge advantage.

If one side manages to be completely undetected, then they are going to get at least a +4 bonus to said initiative, but this is pretty tough for most groups to pull off.

Its an ambush. "Let" shouldn't enter into it.

Exactly.

So why is it that people should be "surprised" by their attacker (whom they haven't even seen yet!) and stop what they are doing to stand motionless for six seconds? And yeah, you can handwave it away as an abstraction or narrate it in a way that makes sense, but this is absolutely what is happening in D&D and similar games (WHFRP actually says you can do nothing but stand there "gawping" at your opponent for an entire turn when surprised).

Again, going back to the executioner example above, why shouldn't initiative be rolled here to see who gets their shot off first?

From the way you have described the rules and your various resolutions of situations, that is not the way your game seems to play out in practice.

This scenario has never come up at my table. It is a hypothetical Gbaji came up with. Mostly because my players have never been inclined to play an all-stealth party, and that they aren't dumb enough to send a lone rogue into combat unsupported.

What actually happened is that Bob was upset because I ruled that if the party kicked in the door and that he was the first person through said door, he would take a -20 stealth penalty for being observed even though he had declared a "hide" action that morning and never broken it. During his rant, he said that the whole concept of a hidden character having to roll initiative at all was stupid. He then gave me the silent treatment, and I was left to wonder what he meant.

Gbaji said that it was likely that he was mad because of the above hypothetical, and coming up with all these absurd rants to draw my attention to it rather than just stating it plainly.

Once Bob started talking to me again, he told me it was because he would prefer something more like D&D where a hidden character (and remember his rogues are hidden 24/7) automatically gets a bonus turn before combat begins on top of automatically getting the first turn in the normal initiative order.

[Keltest]

Ok, your mistake was applying the penalty. What Bob did was come out of hiding, full stop. Of course you get nonsense results by trying to continue to run it as stealth.

[glass]

Likewise, a group of people jumping out of the bushes and and charging across a hundred yards of open ground are not likely to all get off an attack before their enemies can respond.

This an a subsequent response seem to imply that you can charge an unlimited distance as an action in HoD, which seems unlikely. I must be misunderstanding what you meant, right?

If you could, I agree that that it would be inappropriate in a surprise round, but I do not think the issue would be in the initiative/surprise rules!

And then, if you have large groups acting in coordination, there is a good chance that atleast one ambusher screws up the timing and, as you put it, goes Leeroy Jenkins, or atleast one defender happens to spot atleast one attacker and warn their comrades.

While this is true, that is something that should be handled by the Stealth rolls or equivalent IMO. If for no other reason than because better numbers on the attackers side should make it less likely not more.

And, of course, if you are already in the process of doing something, someone being hidden doesn't mean that you stop dead and let them ambush you before you finish your task.

Most of the time, the target isn't going to be doing anything where six seconds makes a meaningful difference (whether they have 30 minutes of their 8 hour guard shift remaining or 29 minutes and 54 seconds just does not matter!) There will be the odd edge case where it does matter (your foot race being a good example), which I don't believe any system addresses well without some GM fiat.

Whether they do or not [have the right to not wait for the ambush] seems to be the crux of what most of the argument has been about.

Not quite. The question from my POV is whether, having already agreed to wait, they need to specifically asked if they want to change their mind about waiting and take an action six seconds before the ambush kicks off (not 12, or 18, just six).

Plus, more fundamentally, how an why they are roll initiative to react to something that has not happened yet.

...gotta go! I think there was more I wanted to respond to, but it will have to wait for later.... ETA: Found it:

Well, it absolutely will happen in D&D if the enemy was allowed to act during the surprise round, and there are many abilities in D&D that allow a character to do precisely that.

I am not sure there are "many", but there are definitely a few. And that's OK - there is a different IMNSHO between a particular special ability allowing something in exceptional circumstances the basic rules allowing something as a matter of course.

Again though, why do backstabs automatically go first?

Because, given the granularity of any practically playable system, the options (barring special abilities like Jedi or PF1 Diviners) are "always" and "not nearly often enough".

Like, if we are playing a free form game and Alice says "I want to kick in the door and charge in" and Bob says "I want to sneak up behind the enemy and backstab them" WHY does the latter deserve to automatically go first?

It doesn't, and in fact if they both tried to carry out their plan as announced Alice would attack first because charging is generally quicker than sneaking.

If you say "as the crow flies or by travel time" and then they pick the latter. You give them the answer. If the treasure is X feet away, they now know there is at least one other treasure within X-1 feet of them.

Not necessarily - I certainly would not EDIT: assume that the GM has worked out the distances to any and all possible treasures before asking for clarifications. It might be obvious to the GM, but it might not and I as a player do not know which.

In Heart of Darkness, perception is an attribute, the equivalent of a D&D ability score.

Interesting - I do something similar with my own, perpetually unfinished, homebrew system.

Bob is borderline. He genuinely cares about the game and is a great play tester.

That's good to hear, and really hasn't come across in anything I have read previously!

How can delaying result in you going first?

That's literally a contradiction, if you delay, you are waiting to go until after someone else.

I don't know, I was mostly basing that on your earlier comment about "the monsters can delay to" - it sorta implied there was some advantange to their doing so. I guess I thought the delaying monsters could jump in after any of the ambushers had gone. So not literally "first", but earlier than if they just skipped.

[Talakeal]

Ok, your mistake was applying the penalty. What Bob did was come out of hiding, full stop. Of course you get nonsense results by trying to continue to run it as stealth.

I tend to agree, although if you go back and read the early posts in this thread before the conversation drifted, a lot of people seem to say that hiding in plain sight like this is perfectly reasonable and can be explained by exploiting human psychology and knowing exactly where to stand, or picking a route that "keeps to the shadows" while charging in.


One of the things in Heart of Darkness is I prefer modifier's over penalties. D&D would say you can never hide in such a situation, unless you are invisible or a 17th level ranger, in which case you are always hidden regardless of the environment.

Rather than such binaries, I prefer modifiers, so that Bob's plan is possible if he has mitigating factors such as darkness, distance, or magical assistance, but isn't garunteed unless he is just that damn good at stealth.

This an a subsequent response seem to imply that you can charge an unlimited distance as an action in HoD, which seems unlikely. I must be misunderstanding what you meant, right?

Unlimited? No. But there are no "partial actions" so you could charge just as far in the surprise round as you could in other round, which could be a few hundred feet if you were a particularly fast sprinter.

While this is true, that is something that should be handled by the Stealth rolls or equivalent IMO. If for no other reason than because better numbers on the attackers side should make it less likely not more.

Its less about stealth than coordination, a few people are going to get edgy and jump the gun, and a few people are going to be distracted and miss their mark. I think getting a larger group of people to do anything at the same time is really tough, and I don't see why them being hidden would suddenly change that.

If anything, stealth would make it harder to do as any signal they have to tell them when it is time to go must be perceptible to the entire group but can't give away their position to the enemy, which is really tough even with modern technology.

I am not sure if it should be modeled by game rules at all, although I imagine that's a perfectly good explanation for the why some people will fumble their initiative rolls if the group is big enough, I just don't think that you should give stealth an exemption from the normal rules either.

Most of the time, the target isn't going to be doing anything where six seconds makes a meaningful difference (whether they have 30 minutes of their 8 hour guard shift remaining or 29 minutes and 54 seconds just does not matter!) There will be the odd edge case where it does matter (your foot race being a good example), which I don't believe any system addresses well without some GM fiat.

Yep. Which is what I have been saying all along.

Ordinarily, there is no penalty for failing stealth when ambushing an enemy, and the roll is merely a formality to see if you get a bonus turn from a critical success.

But, if they are already doing something important and the ambusher needs to stop them in time, then initiative is rolled normally to determine action order.

This is something that Heart of Darkness can handle without GM FIAT but D&D cannot.

Not quite. The question from my POV is whether, having already agreed to wait, they need to specifically asked if they want to change their mind about waiting and take an action six seconds before the ambush kicks off (not 12, or 18, just six)

I don't disagree.

I just don't think it is a big enough issue to warrant writing a whole alternate initiative system over. Or to dominate this thread for months on end for that matter, but that's as much my fault as anybodies so...

Plus, more fundamentally, how an why they are roll initiative to react to something that has not happened yet.

Initiative is always rolled before something happens; its a measure of readiness to see who can act first.

And yeah, it is a meta-game mechanic, the fiction involves characters acting in real time, but the game interface involves players taking turns resolving said characters actions with dice.

It doesn't, and in fact if they both tried to carry out their plan as announced Alice would attack first because charging is generally quicker than sneaking.

Ok then.

So then why is it a problem to prompt Alice to ask if she wants to charge first?

The goal here is not to punish players who are quieter or more passive at the table while their more boisterous comrades get rewarded with additional actions for interrupting and talking over people.

Not necessarily - I certainly would not

Why not?

If the same treasure was closest in both absolute distance and travel time, then they are the same treasure, and there is no need to ask, and the one as the crow flies is always going to closer than the treasure that is closest in travel time.

So unless I am just asking this question to mess with the players (which would also erode trust if they found out) there is no reason to make that distinction.

I don't know, I was mostly basing that on your earlier comment about "the monsters can delay to" - it sorta implied there was some advantange to their doing so. I guess I though the delaying monsters could jump in after any of the ambushers had gone. So not literally "first", but earlier than if they just skipped.

If you delay, you can jump in at any time after the ambushers have gone.

Nobody gets their turn skipped completely, which was, I think, Bob's initial complaint that triggered this thread, if he is hidden, he thinks his enemies' turns should be skipped entirely rather than merely delayed until he reveals himself.


Now, if two people both have delayed actions and both wish to act at the same time, they roll an opposed initiative test to determine action order (with ties being truly simultaneous). So, in the case of the party waiting outside of a door until their turn, we are more or less back to a straight initiative roll, meaning that all the players have accomplished here is giving up opening the door and piling in as free actions.

For the Specter/sentient illusion issue that showed in how we disagreed over player input on its behavior after being made. The spell in general appears to have a slight push toward situations where, short of sticking exclusively to the pre-programmed limited version or the version where the player can exert full control at any time, there's too much room for it to lead to "gotcha" moments for it to be a worthwhile choice compared to a similar spell that doesn't have "create a self aware creature able to make its own decisions" as an effect. That's not saying your intent is anything along those lines but throughout the discussion while talking about how you'd treat it fairly you did keep coming back to the scenarios where it would hurt more than help if the players weren't very exact and highly detailed in what they want from it; the illusion of a guard alerting the real guard's bosses example being an obvious one. There's some possibility that as you said a player might be planning for that but the only way that really makes sense to me as an assumption is if the player in question directly states that's their plan.

The idea behind the spell is you make an illusionary person, not a puppet or a slave, and that illusion will try and fulfill its roll and hide its illusionary nature.

You decide the illusion's affiliation; if it is your guard, it will alert you if someone tries to sneak up on you. But, if you make an illusion of the enemy's guard (likely as a coverup after having dealt with the real guard) it will alert its master just like a real enemy guard would.

Now, I had never considered the possibility that the illusion would act on the knowledge that it was an illusion. That was the point of contention, that Bob said that even though the real him that the illusion was pretending to be would never willingly take a hit for their companions, that the illusion would because it knows it cannot be killed.

As this relates to a guard, well, if you kill the real guard and then create an illusionary duplicate of him behind you to cover up your crimes and lull the other guards into a false sense of security, that is a pretty good plan. Right? Sure, its possible you could double back and have the illusionary guard spot you and call for help, but unlikely (especially because you can just dispel him if he becomes an inconvenience).

But, if he suddenly acts not like the real guard, but a version of the real guard who knows he is an illusionary duplicate, why wouldn't he simply walk straight to his master (likely going through wall to do so!) and then announce that he has been replaced by an illusion? Again, that is not the intent of the spell as I wrote it, but rather the logical outcome of Bob's interpretation of the spell that the illusionary duplicates will act as if they know they are illusionary duplicates rather than trying to imitate the real thing.


Is that any clearer? Or am I just repeating myself?

Because Bob would've gone to the extra effort to actually get into position and launch the attack and, it can be assumed, the rest of the group would have already agreed to the plan. Turning it into an initiative roll after they've already decided on their plan and taken the steps needed to carry it out just adds a layer of complication that can be seen as inviting a disruption of their plan. To use Gbaji's example, if the action would just go as planned rolling initiative before it does adds a sense of pressure to take their actions or have them be "wasted."

Maybe it does add a sense of pressure. Maybe that's not a bad thing, it is after all tense situation where people are likely to panic and jump the gun.

Really, the reason they are rolling initiative at all is too see if they can react to Bob's signal before the enemy does, not to see if they can react before Bob himself gives the signal.

And yeah, I could write an alternate set of initiative rules that better handles this, but its such an obscure situation that I don't feel it is worth the page count, or the potential of giving people the impression that the enemy's turn is skipped entirely and the rogue gets a bonus turn like Bob thinks he should.

Don't players roll initiative? Obviously, you can reserve the right to roll on their behalf in this instance, but I kinda makes it hard to "stack up modifiers".

Players normally roll the dice, yes, but the GM is allowed to make rolls on their behalf in secret when it comes to things they don't know about, like a hidden monster sneaking up on them.

The modifiers represent advantages in the fiction, like having your weapons drawn or having a longer reach, and the GM can apply them just as easily as the player can.

This still seems like this is priveledging the six seconds immediately following the initiative roll. It is theoretically possible that after a minute or so of sneaking into position, timing suddenly ends up mattering to the fraction of a round. But in practice I would say it is below the resolution granularity of the the system (any system) and if it happened to me I'd call shenanigans!

One one hand, coincidental timing is what stories are about.

Most plot hooks in fiction, and in RPG modules, have some element of just happening to be in the right place at the right time.

I don't think its particularly unusual to have the PCs show up right in the nick of time, and I don't think its worthy of calling shenanigans.

That being said, its not really what I was thinking about when I said it, I was more thinking about someone who was scouting out for a prolonged period of time wanting to be able to drop out of hiding at a moments notice to automatically interrupt whatever the enemy was doing.

...but this again is not respecting the abstraction IMNSHO. People do not freeze in place for six seconds, because until after you have actually rolled initiative and started counting in rounds you are not tracking time to the six seconds.

I agree that it is an abstraction, it is just one that happens to result in silly scenarios, like the one I presented up-thread where the orcs threw javelins at racers.

You can try and rationalize it however you like (maybe seeing the enemies gave the guy a panicked burst of adrenalin?) but however you explain it, by D&D RAW surprising someone means they lose an action, even if you never actually interact with them.

OK, but that potentially introduces a different problem - that is a pretty fundamental thing to leave to GM adjudication. Critical failures are also something that need to be introduced with extreme care if at all, and a GM making them up on the fly seems to be the opposite of that.

Its impossible for the book to list every possible situation. There just isn't any way around it. Adhering to them dogmatically gives ridiculous and problematic situations, just like the ones we are discussing here.

It literally isn't. If you get to act in the surprise round and your opponent doesn't, you automatically go first by definition.

The surprise round is not a normal round.

Yes, the surprise round does occur before the normal round and so acting in it is technically "going first", but that is a very different ability to one which allows you to act first in the normal initiative order.

This may come across as splitting hairs, but surprise and always act first in the initiative have very different effects at the table.

Well yeah, in that circumstance the +4 looks better. And in the circumstance where one character would have got a surprise round except that his allies gave him away, the +4 seems like a reasonable recompense. I just don't think it is adequate in circumstances where allies have not given the game away.

You may not consider it adequate, but a guaranteed bonus turn would be ludicrously broken.

D&D minimizes this by only allowing a single attackin the surprise round, even though I high level rogue might be getting 8 or more attacks in a normal round.

Heart of Darkness doesn't have full attacks or HP bloat like D&D does, so a 20% chance at a bonus attack will have to do.



On the other hand, someone who plays another game might consider D&D's surprise round inadequate, for example in WHFRP you always get a full bonus turn, even if you ambush someone mid combat, and all the opponent can do in response is gawp.

Talakael's methodology seems to be "just narrate the events right up to the point the guy's about to fire, then have everyone roll initiative and see if they can intervene".
That's basically the only way you can do this without following some kind of "perception roll; action statement in response" method (which is how I do it). You'll note that in his previous examples, he didn't roll percption for Alice and give her opportunities to declare actions against Bob at all. He just waited until Bob said "I shoot the Baron", and called for an initiative roll. Same deal here.

To me, allowing PCs to make perception rolls though the process, and then choose to take actions (or not) based on those results, maximizes player agency. I'm informing them of relevant things going on around them (if they notice them), and giving them opportunities to choose when to react to them. Talakael's method basically has the GM deciding when it's possible for the PCs to react, and then having them all react at the same time, and then based purely on the results of the initiative roll. There's very little player agency there, and very little impact on the scene based on character skills and abilities. They're literally not given a choice to do anything until Talakael anounces that combat has started and has them roll for initiative.

What ever gave you that idea?

Players are free to get involved or react at any time. (Although I might get annoyed if they interrupt me mid-sentence, especially if the second half of the sentence would answer their question / invalidate their action).

Likewise, even if I do call for a groupwide initiative roll, players are free to sit it out.


Also, this reads as kind of odd to me. A while back, weren't you arguing close to the opposite of this? Saying that initiative was only for the start of combat, not for determining action order in other situations? If anything, I thought you would be arguing the opposite point based on that conversation.

Allow the players to play their characters. That can only happen if you are providing them with information and then asking/inviting them to act on that. The whole "make perception rolls" bit isn't really the issue here. Even if you're going with "you can always see things that happen in front of you" so you require no rolls for this, then does that mean that you are actually telling the players each step of that sequence, one at a time, and giving them time to take actions if they want? Or are you just narrating the event and only letting them take actions at the end? We're still left with the same problem though. In the examples written earlier Talakael did not tell Alice "You see Bob sneaking up behind he Baron. What do you want to do?". He also didn't say "You see Bob pulling out his pistol and aiming it at the Baron. What do you do". He basically allowed Bob to state "I sneak up behind the Baron, draw my pistol and shoot him" as one action, and then had Alice and Bob roll initiative. This provides Alice no actual decision in the process along the way. Alice isn't acting proactively in response to Bob's actions leading up to the shot fired, she'd acting reactively to Bob's shot being fired, but then allowed to roll back time and act earlier if she rolls well on the initiative roll. Which... yeah. I think is strange.

I thought Bob and Alice are both PCs. Why do I need to announce to the other players what the other is doing, when they are both sitting at the table overhearing it.

This provides Alice no actual decision in the process along the way. Alice isn't acting proactively in response to Bob's actions leading up to the shot fired, she'd acting reactively to Bob's shot being fired, but then allowed to roll back time and act earlier if she rolls well on the initiative roll. Which... yeah. I think is strange.

You most have the most polite and attentive players in the world.

I can't imagine a gaming group (and this isn't just my dysfunctional group here, its any one that I have ever been in or seen) actually pausing at every step of their action to see if anyone else wants to react.

You say people don't interrupt and talk over people, but if you have a strict policy about not rewinding other people's actions, then I can't imagine any other way to get involved.

On the flip side, players are often distracted (especially in the age of smart phones) and need to be prompted to take action at all.

I personally would say that players declare their intentions, not their actions, and nothing is actually finalized until the dice have been rolled and the GM has interpreted the results (and even then sometimes ret-cons happen, I would point you to my last thread about this exact thing, but it was kind of a crap-show).

Some ret-conning and reshuffling of events is, IMO, inevitable in translating realtime conversation around the table into discrete turn-based actions on the board, and then back into a fictional narrative.

And yeah. I get the objective here. Let's just get into combat and get things moving. And that's fine. But you are sacrificing some out of combat playability in the process. Doubly so if you are regularly using this method in place of pre-combat decisions and actions. And yeah. As I've observed before, it puts a heck of a lot of weight in HoD on that one inititive roll. If I'm given zero opportunity to notice events occuring *before* combat starts and may only act before a combat action happens if I roll well on initiative, then I'm going to heavily invest in initiative and not so much on out of combat stuff. Which is still a workable system, but IMO leaves like half the game play on the cutting room floor.

I am curious what skills you are talking about here. Most of the out of combat skills have little or nothing to do with initiative or turn order, and even those that do tend to have plenty of other uses.

Also, you talk about forty years of experience, and I am curious in what system. because D&D didn't have anything like Perception until 3E in 2000.

I was contrasting that to the argument that perception rolls should not be used to allow PCs to realize when some sequence of events is heading up to a combat, and take actions (or even just declare actions) ahead of time. I specifically created a scneario that somewhat mirroed the "Bob walks up to the bartender and shoots him" example, but with a second, otherwise identical case, in which the action isn't "shot someone" but "hand someone a package". I'm specifically curious as to whether or why a GM would handle these two differently. If you would require perception rolls to notice or act in response to the package handling scenario, but rely entirely on an initiative roll at the moment the shot is fired in the second, I'm kinda curious why.

Yes. Important stuff is handled differently than unimportant stuff.

That's kind of RPGs 101.

I don't roll out a combat because two drunks get into a fist fight or a barmaid slaps a handsy patron, and I don't call for perception rolls for things that happen out in the open, even if it is technically possible to miss them.


Perception is already arguably the strongest skill in the game, I don't need to overload it even further by requiring perception tests every time a priest, a lawyer, and a doctor walk into a bar.

[gbaji]

I think maybe the problem is that I just don't see why Bob deserves to go first.

Normally, the dice decide who goes first, that is what initiative is for, and if all the players are hidden, I don't know why the other players should be denied a roll just because Bob is in the room.

The scenario you presented is one where the players are only waiting for Bob because they agreed to wait for him. But, IMO, it really feels like railroading to hold players to the plan and not allow them the opportunity to change their mind.*

It's not about what Bob "deserves". It's simply the order of events/actions in this case. He made the stealth rolls. He planned the attack. His fellow PCs are waiting for his attack. Thus, as long as he doesn't mess up the stealth rolls, he goes first.

I'm not sure how this is railroading, if that's the actual stated plan the players came up with. What is a bit like railroading, is the GM calling for them to roll initiative though, since that creates pressure on the players to act in the order of the dice instead of the order they already agreed upon.

AFAICT, your issue is metagaming, that the other players shouldn't be able to react to what Bob is doing behind closes doors, and I actually agree with this. But, again, the issue is one of metagaming, not one of the stealth or initiative rules IMO.

Except that your initiative rules (or at least your implementation of it) creates the metagaming aspects of this. If Alice and Joe are waiting (likely for several minutes or longer) for Bob to sneak into position to attack, they should have no reason to know "Bob is attacking this round", and thus no reason to just randomly, out of the blue, declare "I'm kicking in the door/charging around the corner" and have that just happen to occur within the same 6 second time period when Bob is about to make his attack.

But when you call for initiative once Bob is in position, and the moment he says "ok, I stab/shoot the NPC", you provide that metainfo to the players. And that may lead them to acting before Bob does.

Well, it absolutely will happen in D&D if the enemy was allowed to act during the surprise round, and there are many abilities in D&D that allow a character to do precisely that.

I'm not sure that "it can happen if someone has special abilities that allow it to happen" is a great argument to use here. I'm looking at how the two rules systems handle this by default. When there are no special abilities in play, but just one group has surprise and the other group is surprised.

Again though, why do backstabs automatically go first? Why is that the only "Reasonable" thing for the GM to do?

Like, if we are playing a free form game and Alice says "I want to kick in the door and charge in" and Bob says "I want to sneak up behind the enemy and backstab them" WHY does the latter deserve to automatically go first?

It's not that backstabs always go before other things. It's that the action that triggers the other actions should always go first. You present a case where two players declare actions for their characters at the same time (Alice kicks in the door and charges in; Bob sneak attacks). Why are those happening at the same time? What are the odds that, randomly, Alice and Bob's declarations should occur in the same 6 second time frame? Again, we're assuming there is no combat going on yet. We are not tracking things in 6 second segments. The odds that Alice just happens to decide to kick in the door, after waiting several minutes for Bob to sneak into position, and just at the exact same 6 second period when Bob says "I'm going to backstab" is astronomically unlikely.

This should be resolved thusly: Alice either waits until Bob attacks, and thus goes after Bob. Or, Alice gets bored and attacks before Bob, in which case Bob could be at any position in his process of sneaking up into the room and behind an NPC you want. Roll dice for this. Ask Alice how long she waits, whatever. In practice though, this never comes up because Alice declares she's waiting for Bob, then we switch to Bob, who makes his stealth roll(s), and then we skip right to Bob's attack.

But, by making them all roll initiative, you are creating circumstances in which this can happen.

My options are AFAICT:

A: Go with the letter of the request. Give my players a less useful, and perhaps even harmful outcome. When this comes to light, they feel like I have tricked them and lose trust in me and cause a fight.

B: Go with the spirit of their request. They feel that I am trying to trick them by ignoring the wording of their request, lose trust in me, and cause a fight.

C: Ask them what they mean. They then go into analysis paralysis mode and either spend hours coming up with a perfectly worded instruction (which is more than likely to backfire anyway) or give up on the divination entirely and get stuck. Then we waste several hours and get bored to tears. As a bonus, Brian will likely think I am calling them stupid and cause a fight as well.

D: Actually break character and explain the full ramifications of all possible ways the instruction is worded. This is probably the best from preserving trust and preventing a fight, but it kind of ruins the initial scenario on both a narrative and game mechanical level, rendering it the RPG equivalent of a dissected frog.

You are spending way too much time spinning around trying to figure out what your players will do.

Why on earth would your players go into analysis paralysis mode? You've given them a pretty straightforward question. And it's likely something they've already thought about prior to deciding to cast the divination in the first place. If they think there might be treasure mortared up in a wall nearby, they'll be looking for "as the crow flies". If they want to know which direction to travel in the dungeon they are in, they'll want "based on our travel". You are imagining a pretty absurd set of things on the part of your players to justify not asking them a simple question IMO.

If you say "as the crow flies or by travel time" and then they pick the latter. You give them the answer. If the treasure is X feet away, they now know there is at least one other treasure within X-1 feet of them.

No, they don't. You look at your map. You note that there is a treasure X distance away as the crow flies, and Y distance away by travel time. You ask which one they want, and you tell them the appropriate distance. That answer does not in any way tell your players if X or Y is the longer distance.

In your example, assuming the same map and distances for both, if they picked the former instead, would that mean that the other treasure is also within X-1 feet of them? No. It's not. You are providing them no additional information at all here.

I think maybe you are getting too much inside your own head here.

Disagree.

D&D surprise, at least in 3E and 5E is wholly the result of GM fiat.

The GM *may* take player choices or skill rolls into account, but ultimately there are no rules that govern it, just GM vibes.

But the rules are clear that you may act normally in the surprise round if you are aware of *any* of your opponents, so no, having the rogue sneak in does not guarantee him a surprise round unless he is alone and unsupported by his teammates. Please don't say things like "absolutely wrong" unless you can cite the rules in question.

To be fair, the rules are a bit vague about what "aware" means. What I (and I'm assuming most GMs) use is "aware of and prepared for the ensuing combat actions". It's not enough to merely be aware that a character exists, or is nearby, but that this character is about to do something violent. And yes, there is an element of GM fiat to this (there always is though). But usually, the GM determines this via a combination of situational effects and skill rolls. So a group of people sneaking up under cover of darkness, having made the appropriate stealth rolls, will likely always get a surprise round. Also, someone who is in "plain sight", but who has made sufficient sleight of hand rolls, may be able to take a surprise round action, if no one spotted what he was doing until he does it.

I think there is also a bit of a disconnect between reality and game rules here. And yes, game rules are never perfect, but we should strive to make them simulate reality as best as possible, whenever possible. It's why I tend to implement a short "mini-round" in games I run (even in systems that don't have them) just to allow for this. It's a way to ease into combat, without overloading things with full round actions. I do this even in RQ, where rounds are run simultaneously (kinda have a short round to set things up, then start a new full round). In games with full round action methodolgies, it is (IMO) even more important to have some sort of method to do this. Otherwise, you get some really "wobbly" initial round results.

I'll also say, that while initiative systems like in HoD are great for the samurai/gunslinger stand off scenario, it's not great for the "I'm going to do something sneakily first" situations. I can say that, barring some kind of super human reaction times, there is generally zero chance of actually stopping someone from doing something unless you have previously moved into position to do so, and have previously stated "I'm ready to do <whatever> if that person does <something>'.

I have gone shooting a lot. I can tell you that if someone is standing there and picks up a gun and starts firing, no one, no matter how fast their reflexes, can stop them. Not unless they made a point of standing right next to them, and are actively watching that person and being prepared to step in in case that person reaches for a gun. It's why we see videos with cops, standing next to someone, then that someone makes a minor move, and suddenly the cop grabs that person and throws them to the ground. And we're all like "Hey. That guy didn't do anything, why did the cop slam him to the ground?" (btw, not at all talking about right or wrong here, just analyzing the action). Because if the cop waits until the person actually takes the equivalent of a move action to run away, or a grapple action to grab a weapon, or an attack action, then it's too late. The cop has (in game terms) stated "I'm standing right next to his person, and am waiting to see if he even moves in a way that makes me thing he's about to run, or grab for something, or try to do something I don't want him to do" (prepared action).

This is not the result of some roll on an initiative die. This is the result of pre-stated prepared actions. So yeah, this is how I prefer to simulate things in RPGs I'm running as well. If you say: "I'm pointing my crossbow at him, and will fire if he tries to move", then if the other guy declares "I'm running for the <whatever>", the prepared action goes first. But if you didn't do this? You will always go after the other guy takes his action, because you don't know to do anything until after that action occurs. It's only in situations where both are equally aware of the other, and both are taking conflicting/opposed actions that we may roll initiative to see "who goes first". If just one guy has made the pre-statement? That person goes first.

I can also tell you, from personal experience, that this applies to melee weapon situations as well. If I'm standing around with a group of fencers, wearing our gear, and holding our weapons, and I just randomly decide to poke someone with my weapon, there is zero chance that the other person can prevent this. Not "could react and block me if fast enough"... ZERO. The best/fastest olympic level fencer will be hit in this situation. Every single time. Why? Because he's not ready. He isn't expecting an attack. This is simulated in games by requring statements to this effect.

Which is why, if you don't make those perception rolls *and* you don't state some action in preparation for something which you suspect might happen, you can't act before the action that occurs. It's just not realistic (again, barring some superhuman abilties that an RPG character may have, of course). The default is always "that person takes their action first, cause no one was expecting or prepared for it until it happened).

That's what a surprise round is supposed to simulate.

On a fiction layer, one person jumping the gun and charging in early could very well spoil an ambush. Heck, what if you have a double agent or naive pacifist on your side who actively tries warning the enemy? What if you have an ambusher joining in on a battle already in progress?

Again though, the act of "jumping the gun" only happens in most games because the player just arbitrarily decides to do so, all on their own, and out of the blue, and with no actual reason to do so (so, really not something that happens).

If you have them roll initiative at the same time as the action they are waiting for? It's going to happen a lot more often.

What if, before initiative is rolled, Bob declares he is moving in for a backstab, but Alice declares she is charging in loudly with no attempt to be stealthy? Who goes first? How do you determine surprise?

Again. How does this happen? Bob is off, on his own, in the room or up on a rooftop, or wherever. Why is there even a situation where the GM is asking Alice "do you kick in the door this round?". Why is the GM asking Alice to make a decision or statement? She's already made one. It was "I'm waiting until I hear Bob's signal/shot/whatever and then kicking in the door". So this can't actually happen unless the GM manipulates things to make it happen.

Which is what you are doing by having Alice roll initiative with Bob.

What if you play out the exact same scenario in D&D, Alice out rolls Bob and kills his target, but leaves other targets alive that Bob doesn't have a clean shot at or lie out of his range? Or does something else to spoil Bob's shot? Doesn't it matter then that she was allowed an initiative roll in the surprise round and beat Bob despite waiting for his shot?

Again, this is only a problem if you have Alice and Bob both roll initiative at the same time. If you simply allow the stated actions to occur in the order previously declared by the players, then Bob's attack goes first, then Alice's. And you avoid the entire issue.

In short, trying to map real time actions into discrete turns is impossible, and no matter how you right the rules, you are going to have some pain points that you need to either ignore as mechanical abstractions or let the GM house rule on the spot, there is just no other way.

I just explained exactly how to manage this without running into any problems. You resolve Bob's attack as a single out of combat action first. Then you have the entire group roll initiative and move from there. Or, you allow Alice and Joe to also act with Bob, but still resolve their attacks after Bob's. Or you have all three roll initiative, with the potential of getting 1 or 2 rounds before the PCS, but with Bob always getting at least a "success" (in the HoD rules).

That's three different methods to use, all of which resolve this situation, and none of which create any problems.

One of the really stupid things about D&D surprise rounds is that the world freezes in place for six seconds*.

That's not true. You keep saying this, and maybe this is how you (would?) run things, but that's not how things actually work. The surprise round doesn't "freeze time". It simply means that no one else may react to the actions in the surprise round. Everyone else is still doing whatever they were doing prior to the surprise round during the surprise round

If I am in the middle of performing a task, I am not going to suddenly stop because I failed to notice a potential attacker.

If I am going to sound an alarm, or complete a ritual, or leave an area, or execute a hostage, or whatever, you are not going to automatically interrupt me just because you happened to be hiding in the bushes nearby rather than standing out in the open nearby.

Correct. The only thing a surprise round means is that those who are surprised don't get to take any actions in response to the surprise round actions by others. That's it. So if you are a guard walking your beat, you are still walking your beat. If you are doing a ritual, you continue doing the ritual (presumably, you aren't going to complete it in the few seconds that a surprise round actually represents though, and presumably "stop the ritual" is likely what the other folks are trying to do anyway). It's important to note that a surprise round assumes that the surprised folks don't know that the people surprising them are even present. So it would take a real jerk GM to decide that a guard just happens to decide to sound an alarm during that short time period, or the target (who presumably was hanging around in the area for some time previous to this point) just out sheer coincidence decides to leave the target area, or some bad guy just happens to decide to execute a prisoner right when you just showed up to free them. That falls into the same "why on earth would someone who has no clue anything is about to happen decide to do something at that exact moment?

I'm not even sure why you keep bringing up these very odd counter examples as though they are realistic things that should be happening.

Like, imagine we are running side by side full out in D&D when some orcs jump out of the bushes and throw javelins at us. I don't even notice the orcs, I am so intent on the race. You, however, do notice the orcs. We both continue running full out, and the orcs miss by a mile. By RAW though, you will suddenly gain 30'* on me because you got to move in the surprise round and I didn't.

No. You both continue moving normally and at the same speed. The difference is that you have no choice, and just continue running along (unless you are hit by a javelin and stop, of course). I, because I detected the orcs, may choose to either continue running along side you *or* I may stop and take a defensive action (or maybe stop and throw something back at them if I happen to have something in hand and available).

Again. You are interpreting this as freezing time somehow. That's your own incorrect interpretation, and not how anyone else views this, nor how it should be managed.

*: It also kind of weird that surprise rounds take the same six seconds as every other round does, yet everyone is limited to partial actions. So, for some reason, even though I am standing still for six seconds in this place despite my declaration of running full out, but you also slow down significantly for those six seconds as you can only do a standard move rather than a run / double move.

I'm not sure they do. My understaning it that it could be as little as just one second (volley of arrows, for example). In D&D, it's a half round. So.... 3 seconds? Usually, we just don't worry about it, becuase it really doesn't matter.

My whole point in both the Bob vs. Baron scenario A and Bob shoots the bartender it that Bob didn't use stealth or guile, he is openly and blatantly attacking in plain sight. I am trying to draw out how you handle initiative and action order on the baseline before factoring in hidden characters. In essence, we need a control group.

In one of the scenarios you literally said that Bob was sneaking up behind the Baron and shooting him.

Also, all of your examples were in response to other people's examples, all of which were examining cases where some people are acting sudddenly or via stealth, while others are reacting to those things.

Also, see my point earlier about how impossible it actually is to intervene in someone else's actions if you are not already actively watching that person and prepared to do something in response to them. This is why I tend to lean towards PCs making rolls and declaring actions and intentions ahead of time. It better simulates what we are doing, and avoids these odd edge cases. And yeah. Gives players some options and choices ahead of time, if they chose to take them.

AFAICT, you would still require a perception check to even notice Bob preparing the attack, and then an initiative test to stop him in time, whereas I would combine situational awareness and reaction times into a single initiative roll. AFAICT, these play out exactly the same at the table, but your way of doing it requires two redundant dice roles and favors the attacker as those attempting to stop them need to beat him twice in a row rather than just once.

Yes. And in the case of "Does Alice notice Bob puling his weapon out and is able to do something about it" situation, your initiative method can work just fine. But, it has a bit more difficulty when Bob is trying at all to be sneaky. And it really has problems in cases where Alice can't actually see Bob at all (he's in another room, for example).

Also, when you wait for someone to declare they are opposing, do you actually go around the table and ask everyone what they are doing at every step? I mean, this sounds incredibly time consuming, but its the only fair way, right? Like, you said giving a combat turn to someone who should wait is bad because what if they forget, but what about the opposite? What if a player is slow, or self conscious, or shy, or distracted, or doesn't understand what is happening, do you punish them with character inaction because they don't have the force of presence to jump into the scene and interrupt the scene unprompted?

This does not take that long at all. Also, this is something you should be doing during any secene whether it results in a combat breaking out or not. How exactly do you allow for "slow, or self conscious, or shy, or distracted" players to interact with any encounter/scene in the game normally? You draw them out. You include them in the conversation and the actions. It's funny because right now, we have a new player (and a young player at that) who just joined one of my gaming groups. And yeah, he's a bit hesitant to jump into things. The rest of the table are old veterans of my games. They know how the in-game social interactions go, and are in tune with the "beats" I put out there and know that that's their cue to make decisions or declare actions. The new player does not, and may feel a little intimidated. So... yeah. I actually directly address him and ask him what he wants to do in response to whatever is going on. This includes the player, makes them feel like they are a part of the table and not just an observer watching the other's make decisions and play. It's just not that difficult to do.

I'm not sure how you can manage any sort of scene in a game if you don't do something like this. Otherwise, it will devolve into "loudest/fastest player wins". Which is not great. I actuallly developed these techniques long ago by running tourney tables. One of the things that tends to happen is that the really kinda agressive players like to place themselves right near the GM, and often will physically lean over, blocking the rest of the table and very animatedly (often with gesticulations, and I've even seen some actually step up on the table itself) declare what they are doing, and otherwise try to monopolize the table decision making time. You learn to go "Ok. Great. Now slide back", and then address the rest of the table and ask what they want to do as well. And yes, if you notice a player kinda being quiet off at the far end of the table, you actually direct your query to that player with something like "Ok. I know what most of you are doing, what is <character name> doing now?".

It kinda falls with some of the stuff I've previously talked about. When in doubt about what a PC wants to do... ask. Don't just assume "nothing", or "just going along with the crowd", and absolutely don't specualte what you think they should do based on the situation. Just ask them. And no, before anyone goes there, I have never once had a player become upset because I "put them on the spot" or some such nonsense. Universally, the response has been appreciation for me taking the time to make sure they were included and heard over the louder players. Heck. One time, I had so much trouble with a few players at my end of the table, that I actually picked up all of the GMing materials, and moved to the other end of the table, just to get them out of my face. So yeah, I'm well accustomed with how to handle the "I'm doing this right now! Resolve it right now!" kind of players (funny point in that particular case, is that one of the guys actually kept getting out of his seat and walking to stand next to me so he could continue to try to monopolize my time. That didn't actualy end well for him).

Or heck, you already said I was being ridiculous for not breaking down the sequence the same way you would, but surely you acknowledge that there are many possible ways to do so? Like, say one of the players is waiting for Bob to actually **** his pistol before intervening, but you jump straight from asking anyone if they react to him pointing his gun at the bartender to declaring he shoots the bartender without ever specifically mentioning him cocking the gun, let alone asking the players to respond to said cocking. What do you do if a player reacts to it? Do you "magically" ret-con the scene? Or do you "destroy his trust" and just tell him too bad and keep going?

Sure. You can break this down into smaller pieces anyway. But I think, in this scenario, there are basically three time periods to concern yourself with:

1. Time period before it's obvious Bob is going to shoot the bartender. He's just entered the bar. You might notice he's angry. Maybe he's shouting at the bartender. Whatever. A character might not make any specific action in response to this other than "I'll keep an eye on this Bob guy". But they could decide to do something like "I'm activating my cloak of invisibility and walking over to him so I can intervene if he does something crazy". Or even "I'm going to stealthily pull out my weapon and be hide it under the table, ready to shoot Bob if he does something violent". Note, that at this point, someone could absolutely say "Ah. It's just Bob blowing off steam. I ignore him and go back to my drink". Any actions at this point can be assumed to happen before Bob has any chance to shoot the bartender.

2. Time period when it becomes obvious that Bob is going to shoot the bartender. He's already entered, angry, and shouting at the bartender. Now, if you have previously made any sort of statement that you are paying attention to Bob you will certainly see him pull out his pistol and point it at the bartender at this point. If you didn't, you could make some kind of perception roll to notice this. Those who intentionally choose to ignore Bob are... well... ignoring him. Those who see Bob pull out the pistol (which in this case will be a lot of people), may declare an action to do something about it. Which could vary from "hide under the table", to "shoot him with my previously prepared pistol under the table", or "Jump up and rush at Bob", or "Grapple him, since I'm standing right next to him invisible now". At this point, we should roll an initiative roll to determine if your actions occur before Bob shoots. Note, that if you didn't previously prep a weapon, you may not be able to both draw one and take action before Bob's action comes around. This will be game system dependent.

3. Time period after Bob shoots the bartender. Bob shoots the bartender. You are now reacting to this. If you didn't previously do anything at the first two steps, you can't do anything at all except take actions in response. Done.


Those are very broad time slots, but they should work for just about any sort of "thing that happens" in front of a group of people. Note, we're also using your example, where Bob is making no effort to conceal both his anger/dislike towards the bartender and (shortly thereafter) his act of drawing and aiming his pistol. So yeah, in this case, there are plenty of opportunities for just about anyone to intervene. But they have to say they are doing so. If you just sit back and watch someone walk into the room, screaming at the bartender, then stride towards the bartender while pulling out a pistol, and do nothing, saying "I want to act to stop Bob" after the GM says "Bob shoots the bartender" is too late.

Of course, this is also dependent on the GM actually ordering things and providing those opportunities to the table. If Bob simply declares "I'm going to enter the bar, scream the the bartender, and then run up to the bar, draw my pistol and shoot him", and the GM decides that this is a single statement, which results in a combat action, so you're going to have Bob and everyone else roll initiative immediately to resolve who goes first, the GM is removing the ability of the players to actually roleplay out the actions of their characters. You are assuming that there is a combat, that everyone wants to take part in it, and that all of the characters know that Bob's action ends with "shooting the bartender" and get to act on that knowledge immediately. I just think that it works better to break things up a bit more in the non-combat scene leading up to this.

And I do get that in HoD, you actually want the initiative roll to be both your ability to percieve the theat *and* act on it. But the problem with that, which I was trying to highlight in my "man with package/pistol" examples, is that you are using different mechanisms for these two otherwise identical cases. If the man is handing over a package, do you have people roll initiative to see if they notice the hand off? Or do you use perception rolls? So why is it a perception roll to see if someone notices him pulling a package out from under his coat and handing it to someone, but an initiative roll if he's pulling out a pistol and firing it?

I think you are getting my point backwards.

I am saying that *you* seem to be far too concerned about meta gaming, what with your statements about not allowing people to take turns when their characters aren't in the room / knowing what the other players are about to do, and requiring perception checks to notice things happening in plain sight around them.*

I am not generally concerned about such things, and yeah, reminding the player is normally more than sufficient.

I think I'm at the appropriate level of concern about metagaming. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to decide that if a player is in another room and unaware of what is going on in that room, that they should not be allowed to react to something happening in that room, until *after* something happens that makes them aware of that something. That "something" should not be an initiative roll. You seem to be completely ok with a pretty large amount of metgame info, in a circumstance where the only possible effect of that metagame info could be to possibly mess up the party's planned ambush.

Which statement about illusions? You mean when I said I don't generally allow players to control minions when the actual PCs aren't around? Because the meta-info there is secondary, the bigger issue is boring the other players by giving the summoner extra spotlight time.

And in this case, you seem overwhelmingly concerned about a relatively tiny amount of metagame info (the player may noodle out from the question, what sorts of things might be going on with the controlled minion). And in the pursuit of preventing that small amount of metagame information, you then make a ruling about how the NPC should act, which is (may be?) counter to what the player would have decided if they'd been allowed to make the decision themselves.

And, since it's not mentioned here, but is relevant, you also seem to shut down even the most absurdly tiny amount of potential metagame info in the divination example above, and again, made a decision on behalf of the player, which happened to also result in a choice that they would not have made if they'd been allowed to make it themselves.


This is a troubling pattern. I don't think at all you are doing this maliciously. But the effect is that the players will percieve it this way. Which is why I keep saying that it's really important to be very very consistent with this. The amount of metagame info should be kept to a minimum, but the need to allow for player agency trumps this. Always.

Generally, I find it easier to keep information the players shouldn't have out of the ears as they don't have the conflict (either internal or external) over whether or not to meta-game**, and that means not playing out scenes where the PCs aren't present (or, perhaps, if only one PC is present going into another room). But I am not going to do this when everyone is sitting around the table. And yeah, I might tell them no if their action is based on information their character couldn't have, but I am not going to deny them the ability to act at all because I am afraid it might tempt them to metagame.

Well, wait a second here. There's two different types of metagame info. There's the stuff the players shouldn't know, because it would affect future decisions they have their characters make. But there's also stuff the characters shouldn't know. The first can be a bit soft. You can say things that the player should maybe not know (if it's necessary to make a ruling on something going on in the game), but then rely on the players not actually having their characters act on that information.

The second part is a much more hard rule. If a character has no way to know something, I wont let them act on it. Period. If the player knows about something via metagaming, I still wont allow it (and yeah, sometimes players will weasel their way around this). But in the examples we've been talking about, regardless of the fact that the players are sitting at the same table while Bob is getting into position and preparing his sneak attack, and regardless of the fact that they just heard Bob say "Ok. I attack the NPC", this does not at all mean that their characters know this.

The GM should be enforcing this and *not* allowing the characters who are outside to react to Bob's declaration. And I think that's what I find so strange about how you do this. In my game, if a player, upon hearing that statement from Bob, actually said "ok. I'm kicking in the door now", my response would be to not allow them to do this. They don't know the attack is happening, so they can't possibly kick in the door at the same time (much less before) Bob attacks. Period. Not allowed. Your system actually hands them that metagame information and then actively encourages them to act on it. Which, yeah, I find to be absolutely backwards.

Again. The players can (and will) sometimes be able to obtain metagaming information. But their characters should not be allowed to act on this info.

*How do you actually keep track of who knows what? If you require hundreds of perception checks a session, do you actually remember which PCs made which checks, or just assume group knowledge if anyone made them? Taken to the extreme, do you require people to make tests to notice if other characters notice things? Pretty soon, this starts to sound like one of those logic puzzles about asymmetrical information such as the Green Eyed Dragon problem.

I'm not sure what you are asking here. You resolve things as they happen. It's not that difficult. And yes, the players are pretty good at remembeing that they made the first perception roll, and that they stated "I'm watching the mystery man to see what he does with the package/pistol", and when it comes time to respond to future events, they will tell you this. I've never had any issues using this system. It really does flow very naturally with the actual scene and description of whatever is happening. And when players get used to using a system like this, they actually appreciate it a lot, because it massively increases their agency (and well, gives then a tangible bonus to having good perception skills). They get to declare actions, and those declarations actually have a significant effect on the resolution of future things.

The alternative has them sitting there as passive observers while the GM narrates the scene, and then just roll for initiative when he calls for it. And yeah, this can absolutely get us into "fast action/combat", which is fine if that's what you're going for. I've played in games that just handwave intevening stuff away in order to "get to the action". Nothing wrong with that. Except that this will result in dramatically different character build/focus in that game. You will see less focus on investigation, stealth, and perception skills in that sort of game, because the GM is not really giving the players much opportunity to use those things, nor to allow those things to provide much benefit once combat starts. And if most things in the game are resolved via some sort of combat (which is common in such games), then that's going to really push them to focus on combat related things.

**Having to play dumb because you know something your character doesn't is terrible. Especially if its the solution to a "puzzle", because there is no fair way to determine if you would have figured it out organically if you didn't already know the answer.

I disagree. Roleplaying your character based on what they know (or think, or believe, or well anything else about a character that is different than the player) is part of Roleplaying. It's what every person playing an RPG should be trying to do. We're also not talking about puzzles here. We're talking about metagame information. Specifically information about whether Bob is about to attack when your character doesn't know this yet. Or whether your controlled minion is going to run into a situation where it may need to choose between maintaining a disquise or taking some other action you want it to do. Or whether there might be treasure located behind walls if you ask them how their devination should interprest "nearest treasure".

Tossing in more "whatabout" scenarios doesn't change the existing ones. How about we stick to those instead?

Likewise, the rules don't "artificially" penalize anyone. The rules state that you take a -20 to sneak tests while observed, and can take an action to hide once observed. Bob wants me to waive one or both of those rules so that he can be hidden 100% of the time regardless of timing or positioning. IE changing the rules to artificially benefit someone.

Which is irrelevant to the question of when initiative should be rolled for characters who are not yet aware of some other action being taken that triggers combat.

Again, this whole section of your post kind of reads like a ridiculous straw man. Its not like I am saying "I like swords better than axes, and have manipulated the rules to enforce that, play a swordsman or suck!" I am saying that a lone person attempting to solo an encounter designed for a 4 person party is in for a rough time and that sneaking is easier when you have a distraction rather than being the center of attention.

Except you are dismissing the problem I'm raising by saying "well, the players really wouldn't want to do that anyway" (or, "there could be charcters with special abilities anyway). I can think of a number of reasons why a rogue might want to do this, even though it may put them at a combat disadvantage afterwards.

There could be a couple of guards on the other side of the door, alert and with crossbows pointed at said door, just waiting for someone to enter. The party knows this, so they send Bob in via stealth. His objective is to sneak up to someone, stab them, and yell to create a distraction so the rest of the party can enter. Yes, it puts him in a dangerous position, but if he succeeds, he maybe takes out one target right off the bat, then the sound of that and him yelling, causes the two guards to turn to see what the ruckus is, allowing the PCs waiting outside for the signal to burst in the door and get the drop on the guards (rather than the other way around).

And in that situation, it's entirely possible that, once the rest of the party bursts in the door, the folks in the room (and the two guards), now shift their attention back to the door, giving Bob a bit of a respite from immediate response. The folks in the room are in a momentary state of confusion, having one of their member die suddenly, then seeing more people bursting through the door. It may take them a few seconds more to decide what to do in this situation, and those few seconds may give both the folks entering time to rush in and engage/attack the guards (and maybe others depending on numbers), and Bob to skedaddle to a less exposed position.

And that's just right off the top of my head. What's interesting is this is the exact sort of "plan of attack" that players at my table might engage in. It's the kind of thing I would give them some bonuses on pulling off (again if they make the appropriate rolls). It also benefits heavily from the exact sort of scouting and planning that you say you want your players to engage in. I'm merely suggesting that perhaps if you allow your players to actually have these sorts of plans work, they may just do them more often. If every combat starts with "you walk X feet into the room and then we rolll initiative", with the only benefit to any sort of prep done ahead of time being some (possibly minor) modifications to that intiative roll, you really aren't encouraging them to do this.

Which, again, is fine if that's the "look and feel" you want for the game. But then, as I've said previously, don't be upset or surprised when your players don't engage in information gathering or scouting.

Heart of Darkness does not have D&D style HP bloat.
Heart of Darkness does not have full vs. partial attacks.
Heart of Darkness does not require a level 17 ranger to hide in plain sight, anyone can do it with high scores.

RuneQuest (one of the games I play a lot), also has none of those things. Well, it doesn't have full rounds or half rounds, so that ones a bit moot.

And, even though that game system has strike rank rules, I still tend to open up combats with a "mini round", where I basically have one or both sides take a "short action (usually like 3-6 strike ranks in the game) to get into position, or take a single attack from position, with others being able to act (or not) based on surprise rolls. And then I start the first formal round. I do this just to "set the stage" of the combat (actual ambushes are different and have their own rules). It's a way to get the combat going, but without giving everyone a full round of actions, so that we can do some basic "something happens, what do you do right away" sort of things (giving players the choice of what they have their characters do in this short time period). Then we start a new round, call for statements, and act normally from that point on.

I do this, not because that's actually even in the rules, but because I've learned that it just works well. So it's part of my own houserules. I also do something similar in most games, even when there isn't a formal surprise mechanism, just as an easy way to "set the stage", And yeah, as I stated previously, this is even more important to do in games that allow full actions (or full rounds) taken in turns. Because the shift in terms of combat result depending on the order can be absolutely massive in those sorts of games. So I've always used this method in those games, and then kinda ported the concept into the strike ranked based rules of RuneQuest.

So if you allowed D&D style sneak attacks, you would have PCs and major villains die routinely to an ambush before they ever got a chance to react, as two attacks against a vulnerable flat footed character can easily be fatal. This is anticlimactic and not really fun for anyone but the rogue.

If your PCs and major villains are subjected to an assassin who can successfully sneak up to them and attack without being detected, and the game system allows for this to be nearly always fatal, then yes, that should be the result. The solution is to proivide some means to defend against this other than just manipulating the game rules so that it wont work. There's nothing worse than showing the player a set of stealth skills and damage rules, but then saying "yeah, but I won't allow you to actually use these things in a way that would allow you to kill an enemy with them".

I play regularly in a game where a succesful sneak attack from stealth will almost always result in death for the target. I don't have any problems with this. The answer is more roleplaying/social. PCs need to avoid doing things that would result in an assassin skilled enough to do that to target them in the first place (which is a very real thing to consider in this game, since there is litearlly a cult that focuses on assassination and has a combination of spells and skills that make it nearly impossible to surivive if a contract is put out on you). For NPCs, it's a matter of having guards or magic to protect you from these things. If a "major villian" could be taken out by any random person with good stealth skills and a sharp weapon, they would not have surivied long enough to become a major villian.

So really powerful bad guys are often not good targets for this.

It would also be possible to make a stealth and initiative focused character who would reliably get two turns every time. Then you would simply alternating, attacking one turn, hiding the next, and repeating indefinitely, with no one ever being able to do anything to oppose you. This would be both broken and boring beyond belief.

But they could do that regardless of whether you allowed them to get a free attack before initiative was rolled or not, right? I mean, you are describing a sequence of actions taken round after round, after combat is already started.

Or are you saying, that in your rules, if someone "hides" in combat, they are no longer in combat and they get to re-enter it and roll initiative again? Yeah. I agree, that's a problem, but not one having anything to do with the "take a free attack" argument I'm making. That is only allowed when that action from position of stealth is the "initiating action of the combat". Once the opponents are in combat mode (aware that enemies are about), that wont work anymore.

If you are allowing it to work that way, then that's another problem IMO. But I'm not familiar enough with the details to know how exactly that works in HoD. I do have some rules in my game to manage characters who are able to hide in the middle of a combat (usually using some sort of magic, but possible using skills). Um... But they don't get extra attacks or rounds as a result. They just get to take sneak attacks on people later on, if they are able to sneak up on them, and not be noticed. And all that actually does is make it so they can't defend themselves against the attack (in most games this would be reflected as a reduction to AC, or a bonus to attack). I would never say that this person gets to re-enter combat as though for the first time, and get a new surprise round or something. That's not how that works.

[glass]

More comprehensive reply later, but for now I just wanted to deal with this little bit:

Why not?

Sorry, I kinda stopped in mid sentence there! I think it was supposed to say something along the lines of "Not necessarily - I certainly would not assume that the GM has worked out the distances to any and all possible treasures before asking for clarifications. It might be obvious to the GM, but it might not and I as a player do not know which." I've edited my above post!

[gbaji]

More comprehensive reply later, but for now I just wanted to deal with this little bit:
Sorry, I kinda stopped in mid sentence there! I think it was supposed to say something along the lines of "Not necessarily - I certainly would not assume that the GM has worked out the distances to any and all possible treasures before asking for clarifications. It might be obvious to the GM, but it might not and I as a player do not know which." I've edited my above post!

I think the point Talakael is making is that if the closest treasure can be reached via walking, then it's also going to be the closest treasure measured in absolute straight line distance, ignoring all obstacles. And Talakael is afraid that by asking the question, he's cluing in the party that there must be a treasure in absolute distance that is closer than the closest one that can be reached via walking.

But I think that Talakael is over thinking things, and getting inside his own head a bit. He believes this, only because he knows that he's only asking because there are two different treasures to be found depending on which exact type of search they using. But the players dont know this (or should not know this). They can't read his mind. They don't know that he looked at the map, and realized that there's one treasure X feet away via walking along dungeon corridors, and one that's closer than that if they dig through walls, and he's asking for clarification because of this.

The players are looking at this from the opposite direction. When casting the spell, they are either looking for the closest location they can walk through in the dungeon to find treasure, so that they have an idea which direction maybe to go (it's not clear what information the divination actually provides) *or* they are thinking there might be some treasure nearby that is maybe bricked up in a wall or something, and they want to know if this is the case. So, Talakeal asking which they actually want doesn't tell them which is closer, it just allows them to clarify which type of thing they are actually looking for, and what kind of answer they want.


And honestly? Even if the players did noodle out that Talakael would never ask this question unless there was a closer treasure that was in a direct line, is that actually useful? I mean, if the closest treasure is 50' away, thorugh solid rock, down on another level of the dungeon, how exactly does this information help them? Even if the divination gives them distance/direction or some other useful information, so what? They use the divination, Talakael asks the question, they realize this means there's a closer treasure somewhere through walls and floors, so they... say that's what they're looking for? And they get an answer and then what? They start digging?


I guess I'm also just struggling to see how this would come up in the first place. Long before I actually went through the trouble of looking at my maps, looking to see where the treasures were, and then started doing math to see which is closest, realizing that they could mean "nearest" in two different methods, so I then do the math twice to determine both, I'd ask them which deffinition of "nearest" they want. That way, I don't even bother trying to look at other levels in my dungeon, or determining if there is some treasure that is reached via a more circuitous route, but is closer by absolute distance, and see how they match up, or whatever. I just ask the question first and then save myself a ton of time.

So yeah. I'd ask the question long before *I* know which method would result in a "nearer" treasure. So I'm kinda baffled how this could provide the players with information if I don't even know it myself. I didn't freaking look. I immediately realize that there are two different ways to calculate this, then ask them which method they want me to use, then I go and look at my maps and see where the "nearest" treasure is. Done. If the players actually want to change from "nearest by walking" to "nearest as the crow flies", and that method actually reveals something that will take a heck of a lot of effort, time, magic, whatever to reach, then they are free to do this. Who cares?

That seems like a whole lot of nothing to worry about, to justify not asking the question, and just assuming which one they want instead.

[glass]

One of the things in Heart of Darkness is I prefer modifier's over penalties.

Assuming "penalties" was a typo and you meant something like "prohibitions": That's not a bad thing in principle, but I am a bit ambivalent about it in practice. There comes a point where sufficiently severe penalties are tantamount to prohibition anyway, and sometimes it is better to cut to the chase.

To take a rather old example, the AD&D 2e DMG has rules for player characters creating magic items, in theory. In practice, they use an awful lot of words to say "don't!" In that case it is simpler to just be up front about the "don't."

Unlimited? No. But there are no "partial actions" so you could charge just as far in the surprise round as you could in other round, which could be a few hundred feet if you were a particularly fast sprinter.

Ah, OK, that makes more sense. In which case, all I will say is that the fast characters are covering more ground but they are doing it in the same amount of time as the slower characters. So if it is reasonable for the slower characters to cover the shorter distance before the targets can react, it is equally reasonable for the faster characters to cover the longer difference (even if it doesn't feel like it).

Now, "equally reasonable" does not necessarily mean all that reasonable, but that one of the problems with turn-based combat that no initiative or surprise system can solve IMNSHO.

Its less about stealth than coordination

But unless you have a specific coordination skill (which most games don't, I assume including yours) the most relevant skill for coordinating stealthily is pretty much always going to be stealth (or equivalent). At the very least, better that than using initiative for coordination (and especially better than using initiative for coordination but inverting the roll for some players).

This is something that Heart of Darkness can handle without GM FIAT but D&D cannot.

Not true. Heart of Darkness has the same issues, it just moves them around a little. Your comment about the D&D character who sees the orks trying to interrupt his race and getting a speed boost could equally be applied to a Heart if Darkness character who crits his init and gets too actions' worth of running to the others' one, except he doesn't even need to have spotted the orks to get his boost!

So then why is it a problem to prompt Alice to ask if she wants to charge first?

No problem whatsoever. But the scenarios we have been discussing start when Bob is in position to strike, which is well after that question - for Bob to have had time to sneak into position, she must already have agreed to wait!

So unless I am just asking this question to mess with the players (which would also erode trust if they found out) there is no reason to make that distinction.

As mentioned above, I would probably not work out where the closest treasure was in most circumstances until after seeking clarification, and would not assume the GM had done so as a player.

But I will certainly occasionally ask a question where the answer is not particularly significant, just so as they cannot derive too much meta-information from the questions I ask. And I will tell the players that I do this! I don't consider that "messing with them" and I am pretty sure my players don't either.

If you delay, you can jump in at any time after the ambushers have gone.

All the ambushers, or any of the ambushers? And if the former, how is that different from skipping, given it would presumably be their go again anyway at that point?

But, if he suddenly acts not like the real guard, but a version of the real guard who knows he is an illusionary duplicate, why wouldn't he simply walk straight to his master (likely going through wall to do so!) and then announce that he has been replaced by an illusion? Again, that is not the intent of the spell as I wrote it, but rather the logical outcome of Bob's interpretation of the spell that the illusionary duplicates will act as if they know they are illusionary duplicates rather than trying to imitate the real thing.

I think the illusory guard shopping the caster its its boss is an unreasonable result of the caster spending resources to cast a spell, even if there is a logic train to get there where the individual steps are reasonable. Whatever the players was wanting when he cast the spell, it obviously was not that. If that would be the result of the spell, the caster would know that, so the spell would never be cast in that way! The caster knows better than the player does how his magic works, even if the player does not.

So in that circumstance that the player cast the spell that is immediately going to catastrophically fail, the GM tells the player that, and they presumably do something else.

The modifiers represent advantages in the fiction, like having your weapons drawn or having a longer reach, and the GM can apply them just as easily as the player can.

The GM can obviously apply which ever modifiers happen to apply, but by "stack up" I really meant deliberately seek out beneficial modifier for important rolls (and/or minimise negative ones I guess).

One one hand, coincidental timing is what stories are about.

Most plot hooks in fiction, and in RPG modules, have some element of just happening to be in the right place at the right time.

True, but there is a difference between "you happen to be in the right place at the right time" and "you happen to be in the wrong place exactly six seconds too late"! The former comes under what TV Tropes calls "Acceptable Breaks from Reality", and the latter very much does not.

Its impossible for the book to list every possible situation. There just isn't any way around it. Adhering to them dogmatically gives ridiculous and problematic situations, just like the ones we are discussing here.

True, but that is why you have to be extremely careful with crit fail mechanics IMO! Although that is outside the scope of this already wide-ranging thread so I'll leave it there.

The surprise round is not a normal round.

Indeed it is not. But if you act in it and your opponent does not, you have definitely acted before them!

Yes, the surprise round does occur before the normal round and so acting in it is technically "going first", but that is a very different ability to one which allows you to act first in the normal initiative order.

In D&D there is a fairly significant difference, but not in HoD because as you keep telling us you do not have partial actions!

You may not consider it adequate, but a guaranteed bonus turn would be ludicrously broken.

If two actions in a row is that deadly that earning it with with stealth rolls is broken, then it is deadly enough that getting it just for rolling well on initiative is even more broken!

On the other hand, someone who plays another game might consider D&D's surprise round inadequate, for example in WHFRP you always get a full bonus turn, even if you ambush someone mid combat, and all the opponent can do in response is gawp.

I have played WFRP but it was probably around 35 years ago, so I will have to take your word for how surprise works. I do remember initiative rolls (as opposed to comparing static initiative values) was an optional rule from a supplement, so it is fairly different from anything we have been discussing here.

ETA:

I think the point Talakael is making is that if the closest treasure can be reached via walking, then it's also going to be the closest treasure measured in absolute straight line distance, ignoring all obstacles. And Talakael is afraid that by asking the question, he's cluing in the party that there must be a treasure in absolute distance that is closer than the closest one that can be reached via walking.

I feel like I might still be misunderstanding the point of the question, maybe. It is possible for treasure A to be closer by straight line and treasure B to be closer in terms of walked distance, even if both treasure A and treasure B can be walked to.

I guess I'm also just struggling to see how this would come up in the first place. Long before I actually went through the trouble of looking at my maps, looking to see where the treasures were, and then started doing math to see which is closest, realizing that they could mean "nearest" in two different methods, so I then do the math twice to determine both, I'd ask them which deffinition of "nearest" they want. That way, I don't even bother trying to look at other levels in my dungeon, or determining if there is some treasure that is reached via a more circuitous route, but is closer by absolute distance, and see how they match up, or whatever. I just ask the question first and then save myself a ton of time.

Exactly the point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make!

Again. How does this happen? Bob is off, on his own, in the room or up on a rooftop, or wherever. Why is there even a situation where the GM is asking Alice "do you kick in the door this round?". Why is the GM asking Alice to make a decision or statement? She's already made one. It was "I'm waiting until I hear Bob's signal/shot/whatever and then kicking in the door". So this can't actually happen unless the GM manipulates things to make it happen.

I think that Talakael was assuming in that particular sub-example that both Bob and Alice were together and became aware of the enemy together at the start, and the question was whether Alice would wait for Bob to sneak into position or charge immediately. At least, that is what I was assuming.

[MonochromeTiger]

The idea behind the spell is you make an illusionary person, not a puppet or a slave, and that illusion will try and fulfill its roll and hide its illusionary nature.

You decide the illusion's affiliation; if it is your guard, it will alert you if someone tries to sneak up on you. But, if you make an illusion of the enemy's guard (likely as a coverup after having dealt with the real guard) it will alert its master just like a real enemy guard would.

This is one of the two real points of contention. I understand your idea for the spell is that it's a full on person that makes its own decisions but you've set it up in a way where all possible uses of the spell have a massive chance of backfiring even if you do notice the loyalty issue. It's a spell where the risks that come with it are a high barrier for entry and the only way to lower those risks is using it while the GM running the game has an absolutely benevolent approach to the players.

Anyone looking at the spell with the, normally perfectly reasonable, assumption that a utility spell designed for player use doesn't have a built in "and if you didn't think of absolutely every scenario and word this absolutely perfectly this can screw you in thousands of ways" is in trouble from the moment they cast it. Even being aware of that and trying to account for it, any GM even approaching your style, which from how you've explained things in the thread I'd have to summarize as "everything the players do will have consequences, mostly for them", has dozens of ways to just ruin the players' day just taking what they said literally and at face value or using the simple approach of "a guard guards for its side."

That in itself does make the spell more of a risk than anything. There are places where I could absolutely see it being amazing, but the way you've talked about it in the thread it comes across more like something best used when you've been planning it all out for the past week, triple checked your wording with multiple sources, and bribed the GM to ensure good will.

To use your most repeated example. If they don't realize that "illusion of enemy guard" defaults to hostile to them and will sell them out immediately they're screwed. If they account for that but keep its behavior the same they instead open the door for "the illusion alerts you that there are enemies because you're literally in the enemy base" or "the illusion gives away your position to tell you about something you could've noticed yourself or report they saw something outside that doesn't even concern you but that the real guard would've alerted their bosses over." Players would need to either pare down the personality of the illusion to something so simple and monotask that they'd be better off just using a static illusion or spend every second it's active hoping the GM doesn't seize on some random internal conflict.

Now, I had never considered the possibility that the illusion would act on the knowledge that it was an illusion. That was the point of contention, that Bob said that even though the real him that the illusion was pretending to be would never willingly take a hit for their companions, that the illusion would because it knows it cannot be killed.

As this relates to a guard, well, if you kill the real guard and then create an illusionary duplicate of him behind you to cover up your crimes and lull the other guards into a false sense of security, that is a pretty good plan. Right? Sure, its possible you could double back and have the illusionary guard spot you and call for help, but unlikely (especially because you can just dispel him if he becomes an inconvenience).

But, if he suddenly acts not like the real guard, but a version of the real guard who knows he is an illusionary duplicate, why wouldn't he simply walk straight to his master (likely going through wall to do so!) and then announce that he has been replaced by an illusion? Again, that is not the intent of the spell as I wrote it, but rather the logical outcome of Bob's interpretation of the spell that the illusionary duplicates will act as if they know they are illusionary duplicates rather than trying to imitate the real thing.

Except that's not the logical outcome unless you're actively taking an approach that will punish players for not accounting for every variable. Your stance on the spell is operating in such a way where any possible use has dozens of ways of coming back to bite the players but only one or two actual ideal helpful scenarios. The leap in logic needed for the situation you describe here, in itself, requires multiple default assumptions that could be considered negative to the players just to happen.

1: the default stance of the guard illusion is hostile to the players and friendly to their enemies. Outside of some very strange niche plans there's no logical reason for the players to want this to be the case. Even if the players are using a plan that for some reason includes "have the illusion of the guard we just knocked out/killed alert the enemies to us or capture us when we could've had the actual guard do that with minimal difference" the only logical reason to assume they'd want that is for them to actually tell you that's what they're doing. It's an assumption that serves no real purpose except being a massive hurdle for the players to trip over and leave a bad feeling toward the spell or a somewhat justified wariness of anything that's open to slight interpretation.

2: illusion that knows it's an illusion will act on behavior that should logically get it dispelled/canceled instead of in a way that acknowledges the intent of the illusion. Your illusory guard scenario where it bee-lines for the real guard's boss? Yeah that's pretty firmly in "dispel/cancel the moment you realize it" territory. That begs the question for why a living illusion, something for whom its dispelling would be equivalent to death, is so fiercely loyal to someone that the person it knows it's just a copy of worked for that it would intentionally upset the one person it knows is capable of "killing" it, the person who made it in the first place. If it knows it's an illusion it also knows a few other things, it's likely immune to physical harm, its loyalties and memory are not its own and in fact are those of a completely different person it just happened to be modeled after, and its truest means of "death" is in the hands of the person who created it and acting against them is the surest way to cause that death. Switching to the "illusion Bob" example for a moment, if it knows it's an illusion then Bob's point of "I'd be brave if I knew I couldn't be hurt" wouldn't even really matter, it could be as cowardly as Bob's character usually acts but still know that letting the monster waste a swing or two on it is a good move because its "life" literally depends on Bob's approval of its actions.

3: illusion that knows it's an illusion, or even that doesn't, somehow has access to knowledge of the world or of the personality of the thing it's a copy of that the caster could not have reasonably had. It's default hostile and bee-lines to the boss? Cool, how does it know where the boss is if all the players know is "they're in the base somewhere"? How does it know who the boss is if the players haven't actively seen the boss elsewhere and identified them as the exact person in charge? How does it know "I am extremely loyal to this specific person" when the players have no actual information on the personal relationships of the guard before knocking out/killing them and making the illusion? How does it even know it cares about its job if the only real experience the players had with the original was "it was on guard duty and it maybe fought back when a bunch of armed strangers attacked it out of nowhere"? Can the players assume that all of this miraculous knowledge of things they didn't know is present when they carefully word everything so that same illusion isn't hostile and wants to tell them absolutely all the secrets and vulnerabilities of the base and the people in it? Cause if not the idea that the illusory guard has not only the motive but means to ruin their plans in the worst way possible isn't "logical outcome" it's "my first thought was something negative for the players."

Is that any clearer? Or am I just repeating myself?

My issues weren't anything to do with clarity. As I mentioned earlier I have a fundamental disagreement on the logic behind some of this and where you seem to draw the line on accounting for or accepting player intent.

You mention a few times in the thread that things get overcomplicated if done the way others describe but from my perspective reaching the same conclusions as you have for this spell requires much more complication. It requires you to actively seek out ways it can backfire instead of taking the path of least resistance, that the players would not intentionally make something that undermines their efforts without stating that to be their intention.

Maybe it does add a sense of pressure. Maybe that's not a bad thing, it is after all tense situation where people are likely to panic and jump the gun.

This is kind of along the same lines. I'm not trying to read into your intentions here but the tone I keep getting from the conclusions you reach in the thread is that doubling down on negative consequences and chances to screw up for the player is an active design goal for how these rules are handled. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because if the system literally has that as a stated point then I don't see anything wrong with it, that's just a stylistic choice and knowing it up front can mean the players have bought in. But if it's not the intention it does bring it back to what I keep mentioning where perhaps the hostility of your player group and your attempts to account for them are leading you to some less than friendly places on player/gm interaction.

Really, the reason they are rolling initiative at all is too see if they can react to Bob's signal before the enemy does, not to see if they can react before Bob himself gives the signal.

To see if the rest of the party, who know well ahead of time what Bob is doing and why and are actively prepared and waiting for the signal as opposed to the enemies who for this to even happen have to be unaware of bob's presence and/or that he's going to fire a shot at them, can react to the signal they specifically prepared to react to before the people who didn't expect a surprise attack do?

How exactly is "this well coordinated and prepared attack where all the circumstances needed to make it happen went perfectly works as intended" more complicated or confusing than "well all of that went great but the four guys in the room who had no idea this was going to happen and need to take a moment just to process that it did are just so on the ball that they drop their card game, draw their weapons, and react to an unseen shooter and a group of people they still aren't aware are behind the door"?

Never mind that this is completely at odds with the earlier reasoning of "but what if one of them decides they want to do something else instead of stick to Bob's plan?"

Edit: for the illusion part, there are plenty of narrative routes you can go with the spell that would be challenging or even devastating to some players without touching things that just burn them for no other reason than they can be burned. There's a reason spells that create actual life, let alone intelligent and free willed life, are a minefield. I'd be happy to discuss those if you want but I really just cannot agree with your conclusions on what the default actions for the Specter should be.

[Talakeal]

This is one of the two real points of contention. I understand your idea for the spell is that it's a full on person that makes its own decisions but you've set it up in a way where all possible uses of the spell have a massive chance of backfiring even if you do notice the loyalty issue. It's a spell where the risks that come with it are a high barrier for entry and the only way to lower those risks is using it while the GM running the game has an absolutely benevolent approach to the players.

Anyone looking at the spell with the, normally perfectly reasonable, assumption that a utility spell designed for player use doesn't have a built in "and if you didn't think of absolutely every scenario and word this absolutely perfectly this can screw you in thousands of ways" is in trouble from the moment they cast it. Even being aware of that and trying to account for it, any GM even approaching your style, which from how you've explained things in the thread I'd have to summarize as "everything the players do will have consequences, mostly for them", has dozens of ways to just ruin the players' day just taking what they said literally and at face value or using the simple approach of "a guard guards for its side."

That in itself does make the spell more of a risk than anything. There are places where I could absolutely see it being amazing, but the way you've talked about it in the thread it comes across more like something best used when you've been planning it all out for the past week, triple checked your wording with multiple sources, and bribed the GM to ensure good will.

To use your most repeated example. If they don't realize that "illusion of enemy guard" defaults to hostile to them and will sell them out immediately they're screwed. If they account for that but keep its behavior the same they instead open the door for "the illusion alerts you that there are enemies because you're literally in the enemy base" or "the illusion gives away your position to tell you about something you could've noticed yourself or report they saw something outside that doesn't even concern you but that the real guard would've alerted their bosses over." Players would need to either pare down the personality of the illusion to something so simple and monotask that they'd be better off just using a static illusion or spend every second it's active hoping the GM doesn't seize on some random internal conflict.

How is this any different than any other NPC? Say I summon one, or bribe one, or charm one (either firuatively or literally), or animate a corpse of one, in all of these cases, I have an NPC who is free to act as they will. In all of these cases, the GM could decide to have them screw over the PCs, but has no reason to.

Likewise, specifically choosing an enemy NPC of any of the above is a bit riskier, but could still be useful in certain situations.

I don't get why the NPC happening to be an illusion changes this.

Like, D&D has a spell called "shadow conjuration" that literally does the exact same thing, and I have never heard up any of these concerns in regards to it. (Although again, that may be because most people don't know the limitations on summoning spells by RAW because their DM simply allows them to run them as a second PC).

the only logical reason to assume they'd want that is for them to actually tell you that's what they're doing.[/I] It's an assumption that serves no real purpose except being a massive hurdle for the players to trip over and leave a bad feeling toward the spell or a somewhat justified wariness of anything that's open to slight interpretation.

Yes, creating an illusion of an enemy is slightly risky.

But you don't need some weird obscure plan for it to make sense.

Example 1:

I am storming a palace and kill all the guards at the front door. I hide their bodies and create illusionary copies of the guards behind me. Now, if anyone, for example some patrols or the next guard shift, comes by, they will not have their suspicions raised by the front door being completely unguarded.

Example 2:

Baron von Badass and The Invincible Overlord are both villains, but they are also at war with one another. To distract Baron Von Badass, I create an illusion of The Invincible Overlord assaulting his tower. Now, the Baron is much less likely to notice me and my parties of heroes sneaking in the back door and stealing the Mcguffin from his vaults while he does battle with his rival.


These are both fine plans that don't require some meticulous months of planning. The could potentially backfire, sure, but so can almost any spell. I mean, in example A, the same could be said of casting Seal Portal on the front door; sure it will keep reinforcements out, but it can also be an impediment to my party if I need to make a hasty retreat.

2: illusion that knows it's an illusion will act on behavior that should logically get it dispelled/canceled instead of in a way that acknowledges the intent of the illusion. Your illusory guard scenario where it bee-lines for the real guard's boss? Yeah that's pretty firmly in "dispel/cancel the moment you realize it" territory. That begs the question for why a living illusion, something for whom its dispelling would be equivalent to death, is so fiercely loyal to someone that the person it knows it's just a copy of worked for that it would intentionally upset the one person it knows is capable of "killing" it, the person who made it in the first place. If it knows it's an illusion it also knows a few other things, it's likely immune to physical harm, its loyalties and memory are not its own and in fact are those of a completely different person it just happened to be modeled after, and its truest means of "death" is in the hands of the person who created it and acting against them is the surest way to cause that death. Switching to the "illusion Bob" example for a moment, if it knows it's an illusion then Bob's point of "I'd be brave if I knew I couldn't be hurt" wouldn't even really matter, it could be as cowardly as Bob's character usually acts but still know that letting the monster waste a swing or two on it is a good move because its "life" literally depends on Bob's approval of its actions.

3: illusion that knows it's an illusion, or even that doesn't, somehow has access to knowledge of the world or of the personality of the thing it's a copy of that the caster could not have reasonably had. It's default hostile and bee-lines to the boss? Cool, how does it know where the boss is if all the players know is "they're in the base somewhere"? How does it know who the boss is if the players haven't actively seen the boss elsewhere and identified them as the exact person in charge? How does it know "I am extremely loyal to this specific person" when the players have no actual information on the personal relationships of the guard before knocking out/killing them and making the illusion? How does it even know it cares about its job if the only real experience the players had with the original was "it was on guard duty and it maybe fought back when a bunch of armed strangers attacked it out of nowhere"? Can the players assume that all of this miraculous knowledge of things they didn't know is present when they carefully word everything so that same illusion isn't hostile and wants to tell them absolutely all the secrets and vulnerabilities of the base and the people in it? Cause if not the idea that the illusory guard has not only the motive but means to ruin their plans in the worst way possible isn't "logical outcome" it's "my first thought was something negative for the players."

Do we really want to be playing all of these machievellian mind games for an illusion which knows its an illusion? Isn't it much simpler to just say that the illusion does its best to impersonate the thing it is an illusion of and be done with it?

This is kind of along the same lines. I'm not trying to read into your intentions here but the tone I keep getting from the conclusions you reach in the thread is that doubling down on negative consequences and chances to screw up for the player is an active design goal for how these rules are handled. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because if the system literally has that as a stated point then I don't see anything wrong with it, that's just a stylistic choice and knowing it up front can mean the players have bought in. But if it's not the intention it does bring it back to what I keep mentioning where perhaps the hostility of your player group and your attempts to account for them are leading you to some less than friendly places on player/gm interaction.

This is true, but really its more about ethical choices than it is about tactics.

Keep in mind, these "backfires" don't actually occur at my table.

What happened was the player asked for a buff-bot, got a buff-but, and it worked great. Incredibly helpful. One of the most effective buffs ever cast.

Then the player demanded that is *also* take hits for him like a super-charged mirror image because an illusion should act on the knowledge that it is an illusion, and I said "No. Although that is an interesting question, I feel that this line of thinking opens up a whole new level of complexity and the potential for the spell to backfire that I don't want to have to deal with".

Then the player said they would suicide their character if I didn't rule in his favor, and I stopped the game and compromised, saying he could retroactively upcast the spell to allow him direct control over it.

There was never a "backfire", but was always in atleast as good (and in most cases much better) position than if he hadn't cast the spell. I just said no when he wanted "even more" because it could potentially lead to a backfire I didn't want to have to deal with every time he cast the spell.

To see if the rest of the party, who know well ahead of time what Bob is doing and why and are actively prepared and waiting for the signal as opposed to the enemies who for this to even happen have to be unaware of bob's presence and/or that he's going to fire a shot at them, can react to the signal they specifically prepared to react to before the people who didn't expect a surprise attack do?

How exactly is "this well coordinated and prepared attack where all the circumstances needed to make it happen went perfectly works as intended" more complicated or confusing than "well all of that went great but the four guys in the room who had no idea this was going to happen and need to take a moment just to process that it did are just so on the ball that they drop their card game, draw their weapons, and react to an unseen shooter and a group of people they still aren't aware are behind the door"?

Right. And in that situation there are so many modifiers that it is impossible* for the ambushes to fail initiative if their opponents are on their same level.

But, what if the person they are ambushing is The Flash or Anakin Skywalker the the vampire Lestat? Then it is possible, right?

And I prefer to go with unified mechanics and modifiers rather than doing what D&D does and just writing a bunch of exception based rules, because it gives you more possibilities. For me, it is much more interesting to say "You can potentially get the drop on the flash, but you are going to need to stack modifiers" than to say "No, enemies never get to act when surprised, even if they have superhuman speed and or precognition" or "The Flash is never surprised. No matter what. Even if you are almost as fast as he is and catch him in his most vulnerable moment".

*Well, it is theoretically possible with exploding dice, but very unlikely. In the game, just like in real life, freak occurrences do sometimes happen.

Edit: for the illusion part, there are plenty of narrative routes you can go with the spell that would be challenging or even devastating to some players without touching things that just burn them for no other reason than they can be burned. There's a reason spells that create actual life, let alone intelligent and free willed life, are a minefield. I'd be happy to discuss those if you want but I really just cannot agree with your conclusions on what the default actions for the Specter should be.

So "It does whatever it is an illusion of would ordinarily do, while at the same time doing its best to blend in and not draw attention to the fact that it is an illusion" is really so objectionable?

And yes, I agree that creating life is a mine field, but fiction is so full of great stories involving these sorts of conflict that it really seems a shame to shut them down, which is why I reject Gbaji's "all summoned / conjured creatures lack free will and are the caster's mind-slaves".

I think maybe the issue is that some people enjoy RPGs as storytelling systems for creating drama, some people enjoy them as tabletop skirmish games, and some people enjoy both. And as I fall into the third group, sometimes there are conflicts when writing a rule that will please one group but piss off the other, and I need to try and thread the needle between them.

Edit: I think what I am trying to say in both the initiative case and the illusion case is that I prefer a rule system that is open enough for wide variety of possibilities rather than one's with strict always / never limitations that ensure things will always play out according to a short list of predetermined possibilities. Which is not that I am saying the GM (or one of the players) should just be a jerk and screw people over for no reason, but I feel like the fictional world is a lot richer if people have the potential to break the mold and do the unexpected.

[MonochromeTiger]

How is this any different than any other NPC? Say I summon one, or bribe one, or charm one (either firuatively or literally), or animate a corpse of one, in all of these cases, I have an NPC who is free to act as they will. In all of these cases, the GM could decide to have them screw over the PCs, but has no reason to.

The problem isn't simply "the GM could do this" it's that so many of your hypothetical scenarios for it begin and end in "and here's the list of ways that it will do what they don't want it to unless they walk a tightrope."

Likewise, specifically choosing an enemy NPC of any of the above is a bit riskier, but could still be useful in certain situations.

I don't get why the NPC happening to be an illusion changes this.

Like, D&D has a spell called "shadow conjuration" that literally does the exact same thing, and I have never heard up any of these concerns in regards to it. (Although again, that may be because most people don't know the limitations on summoning spells by RAW because their DM simply allows them to run them as a second PC).

Generally speaking there aren't many summon/creation spells that add in an entity with an indefinite lifespan that can cause so many problems. Exceptions exist, if you're using something to summon an Outsider that has its own motives you're already playing with fire, but the spell usually spells this out for you and makes a point of it. They also don't usually involve the person who made the system directly stating that, yes, things going wrong isn't just a possibility but a narrative intention.

Yes, creating an illusion of an enemy is slightly risky.

But you don't need some weird obscure plan for it to make sense.

It's not "create an illusion of the enemy" that doesn't make sense as an intention. It's "create an illusion of the enemy and then have it immediately turn on you because it's the enemy."

Example 1:

I am storming a palace and kill all the guards at the front door. I hide their bodies and create illusionary copies of the guards behind me. Now, if anyone, for example some patrols or the next guard shift, comes by, they will not have their suspicions raised by the front door being completely unguarded.

Which partially runs into a point I didn't make before but that came to mind a few times. Unless the spell has changed since the last time the wording was posted and discussed you've got the three tiers. The limited prescripted one, cons: can't adapt, pros: does what you want it to do, can't and doesn't actively seek out ways to complicate your plan; those last two points more than make up for the con, especially if your only goal for the illusion is the appearance of a place still being guarded. The middle tier which is full uncontrolled life creation, pros: can adapt and potentially see use beyond the actual plan you made it for, cons: can do anything from betray you over forgetting to specify something to wander off out of boredom, has the potential to make the situation much worse than it would be if you hadn't even used an illusion in the first place, only recourse against either is dispelling it. Final tier, just tier 2 but it's on a leash so you can override its free will when needed, pros: tier 2 but with a protection clause, cons: depends on how you control it and your stance on effectively stealing the free will from a living creature you made.

Out of those three options tier 2, the one we're discussing, is the one with the most potential for disaster. If it's actually better than tier 1 or not is entirely down to how risk averse you are and how dependent you are on, as Bob used it, a buff bot that can potentially just up and leave because "to heck with this I want to live my own life" or any number of other reasons.

Example 2:

Baron von Badass and The Invincible Overlord are both villains, but they are also at war with one another. To distract Baron Von Badass, I create an illusion of The Invincible Overlord assaulting his tower. Now, the Baron is much less likely to notice me and my parties of heroes sneaking in the back door and stealing the Mcguffin from his vaults while he does battle with his rival.

And the Baron swiftly realizes his rival is an illusion and is practically harmless when the "attack" doesn't involve said rival actually using any of their real power to breeze past the guards or be true threat. Likely long before the news even reaches him.

These are both fine plans that don't require some meticulous months of planning. The could potentially backfire, sure, but so can almost any spell. I mean, in example A, the same could be said of casting Seal Portal on the front door; sure it will keep reinforcements out, but it can also be an impediment to my party if I need to make a hasty retreat.

Yes, it can. In that case however it's "I used a spell and it did what it was supposed to do but now I need the opposite effect." In the cases I mentioned it's "I used a spell and it also has the built in potential to completely ignore what I used it for and the system creator actually intended this for storytelling purposes.

Do we really want to be playing all of these machievellian mind games for an illusion which knows its an illusion? Isn't it much simpler to just say that the illusion does its best to impersonate the thing it is an illusion of and be done with it?

Machiavellian these are not.

Simplification as follows:
1: Illusion is aware it's an illusion.
2: Illusion tries to fulfill the purpose it was made for, its literal reason for existence, and probably avoid angering its creator who has their finger on the kill switch.
3: Hijinks do not ensue. They never had reason to ensue. Hijinks ensuing is objectively a self destructive choice for the illusion most likely to result in its destruction.

Second point there is just "why does it suddenly have all this information in the hypothetical when it's convenient to messing with the players?" Followed shortly by "does it also have this knowledge when it's actually trying to be helpful?"

The first is just going off what it would need for your "bee-line to the boss" hypothetical to make sense, alongside completely ignoring the previous point. The latter is the, and excuse me for using your term here, logical conclusion of the Specter having that kind of knowledge your hypothetical suggests if it isn't one sided.

If it's one sided then the spell is inconsistent in its effects, that's not giving it narrative potential that's just being intentionally unfair to the players. If it's not one sided and it has that information then illusionists just became the objective best information gatherers in existence since they can just make a Specter of someone whose personality configuration includes "wants to tell us all the secrets." If it's not one sided and the Specter doesn't have that knowledge then that disaster scenario which is your go to for "what if a guard illusion knew it was an illusion" makes no sense.

This is true, but really its more about ethical choices than it is about tactics.

There's plenty of ethical choices to be had in this spell without pulling a Frankenstein. Especially since it's important to keep in mind that Frankenstein went as badly as it did because "the monster" was neglected and shunned by its creator immediately and said creator didn't have any real solution to reigning it in. This spell can certainly touch on that first part but I'm assuming someone with enough magical power to literally create a living illusion also has enough to make it crash and burn which removes that whole lack of kill switch situation.

That said, that opens up a bunch of those other points I said I'd be happy to talk about. I'll mention a few at the end of the post, it's likely you've thought of them already but I still feel like they're interesting story elements to have. Cruel to drop on players who aren't thinking in terms of those possibilities, but interesting.

Keep in mind, these "backfires" don't actually occur at my table.

What happened was the player asked for a buff-bot, got a buff-but, and it worked great. Incredibly helpful. One of the most effective buffs ever cast.

Then the player demanded that is *also* take hits for him like a super-charged mirror image because an illusion should act on the knowledge that it is an illusion, and I said "No. Although that is an interesting question, I feel that this line of thinking opens up a whole new level of complexity and the potential for the spell to backfire that I don't want to have to deal with".

I remember, you have clarified this a few times. Much like the Initiative issue however the introduction of hypotheticals allowed some reframing of the spell's logic. In essence, my objections aren't purely a matter of "the player should control it because otherwise that's mean", they're a matter of "the way the hypotheticals you bring up on the matter are phrased the Specter's default state is weighted toward being arbitrarily unhelpful to the players who are also the most likely people to kill it when it undermines them."

Divorced of Bob's problematic behavior in that situation your descriptions of what the Specter would do while unaware of its own nature and what it would do if it was aware of its own nature both feel like their purpose is purely to lead to more conflict. That makes the second tier not only a massive risk mechanically but also from a story perspective, the kind of risk that would likely become pretty common knowledge among illusionists able to use it after the first "illusion of an enemy guard" situation and earn the spell a pretty bad rep.

Right. And in that situation there are so many modifiers that it is impossible* for the ambushes to fail initiative if their opponents are on their same level.

Then in that situation rolling initiative preemptively is basically a formality. Your previous comment stated that it was to "see if they can react to Bob's signal before the enemy does" implying that, despite these modifiers, there is a genuine possibility that the enemy can react before the team. If there isn't then there's no real harm done in saying "we roll after the ambush since you would go first anyway, then that's the initiative we go with."

But, what if the person they are ambushing is The Flash or Anakin Skywalker the the vampire Lestat? Then it is possible, right?

And I prefer to go with unified mechanics and modifiers rather than doing what D&D does and just writing a bunch of exception based rules, because it gives you more possibilities. For me, it is much more interesting to say "You can potentially get the drop on the flash, but you are going to need to stack modifiers" than to say "No, enemies never get to act when surprised, even if they have superhuman speed and or precognition" or "The Flash is never surprised. No matter what. Even if you are almost as fast as he is and catch him in his most vulnerable moment".

*Well, it is theoretically possible with exploding dice, but very unlikely. In the game, just like in real life, freak occurrences do sometimes happen.

The dislike of "exception based rules" is, in this case, leading to a situation where a situation that actually makes sense for it is thrown into unnecessary chaos.

The players already have to jump through hoops just to get that far. Your stated preference for what compromises group diversity implies that the group probably doesn't have many people who could pull off the whole sneak up and set a surprise attack plan regularly. Now the situation where their payoff for that work is at hand is turned into a scenario confusing enough to cause this initiative debate for the possibility of "The Flash or Anakin Skywalker or the Vampire Lestat."

The exceptions are in the system already, every rule system has to account for them somehow. The "never surprised" situation is one way, and it's an acknowledgement that, yes, these people are special. That they've got some built in danger sense that puts them on alert before a surprise attack or an ambush, that they've got eyes in every possible direction so they see everything that's happening, that they're so impossibly fast that they were probably moving before the bullet left the gun. Heart of Darkness isn't avoiding those exceptions, it's saying "because of these exceptions we're applying this to all situations even when it just raises questions."

So "It does whatever it is an illusion of would ordinarily do, while at the same time doing its best to blend in and not draw attention to the fact that it is an illusion" is really so objectionable?

"It has a built in clause that players need to actively clarify just to make a wide swathe of illusions not be more trouble than they're worth" is objectionable.

Trying to blend in is a bonus, it helps the illusion stay undetected. That bonus swiftly becomes a malicious flaw when it's also shown to be "and by the way if you didn't describe the personality to the GM's satisfaction the illusion trying to attack you/turn you in/raise the alarm on you is a literal example of the spell working as intended by the creator."

And yes, I agree that creating life is a mine field, but fiction is so full of great stories involving these sorts of conflict that it really seems a shame to shut them down, which is why I reject Gbaji's "all summoned / conjured creatures lack free will and are the caster's mind-slaves".

I'm not saying shut them down. There's plenty of narrative potential, including the disaster, tragedy, and moral dilemmas that I'm getting the impression you favor, that makes perfect sense with the spell. "Creation escapes its creator's control and comes back to haunt them" however has a very limited use when the creation in question can be wiped out by the caster canceling the spell or dispelling it. The moment that happens the solution becomes end it, the potential for emotional weight or questions of morality are already resolved because it chose to be the players' enemy and that reduces it down to a threat to be resolved. After that they've been burnt once and are less likely to use that version of the spell, or possibly the spell in general, and it's hard to do anything with a story element that's just "spell they tried once that didn't work out."

Throwing the "is it aware it's an illusion" question on top of that adds to the potential narrative points and value of the spell, but makes "creation vs creator" make even less sense because the kill switch is hanging over its head the whole time and it knows that. That in itself can lead to some of the points I'm going to go into at the end of this post.

I think maybe the issue is that some people enjoy RPGs as storytelling systems for creating drama, some people enjoy them as tabletop skirmish games, and some people enjoy both. And as I fall into the third group, sometimes there are conflicts when writing a rule that will please one group but piss off the other, and I need to try and thread the needle between them.

Except I enjoy both. This isn't a "well he just doesn't get the storytelling potential, he's focused on mechanical advantage" issue, I still object to how this spell is set up on both sides. From a storytelling perspective it feels like it wants to rush to a certain type of story but doesn't put in the effort to justify it, just "well it's free willed" then hop skip and jump to "and things go wrong because they can." Frankenstein's Monster was a victim of neglect and ostracizing during its formative moments. various genocidal AIs either "learned hatred from Humanity" or were force fed pure violence until it's all they could recognize or completely lacked the emotional sense to look at the world without thinking "if humans = 0 then wars = 0." Multiple Clones active at a time in some D&D stories go mad because the spell wasn't meant for more than one to be up at any given time not just because the spell was cast.

From a combat and mechanics perspective it'd be pretty high on a list of spells not to touch, at least the second tier, because it's a bigger risk than benefit in so many scenarios.

First tier is basically just a standard illusion, from both storytelling and combat focused perspectives there's literally no reason to object to "I make a scripted illusion." Then the third tier is something I'd avoid casting personally just because the story elements that would touch on are in my personal zone of "this is gross and I don't want to do it", but they're still interesting from a story/drama perspective and worthwhile from a combat perspective.

Second tier has the potential for appealing to both, but your examples really push for the scenario that, to me, makes the least sense for it.

There are so many other ways it could go. Some are admittedly a bit common at this point but then part of the reason that an effect including "you literally make intelligent life" has so many narrative outcomes is because the concept is so popular, pretty much all of them are common now and it's down to how you execute. That in turn is down to the GM and players doing the execution and is why I personally avoid trying to put narrative weighting on something as open ended as a spell but then the reasoning of "there's always someone who will do it different" doesn't matter much when you're literally making the rules.

Still, for any of it to have impact you need some buy in from the players. I personally see flaws in the slant you're taking this, not least of all being the fact that if it's so easy to get a result of arbitrary hostility there's no actual build up or narrative weight and also no reason to hesitate before frying the Specter and moving on with life. As questionable as my perspective on things can sometimes be I know I'm not the only person who can look at this thread and reach the same conclusion on the spell from a storytelling perspective.

Even if that one potential storytelling thread was ignored you have so many more to pull on.

First and most obvious, you're literally made an intelligent living creature. As its literal creator and the figurative parent of this newly made life you are effectively the closest thing it has to family; unless it's a copy of someone and you take the perspective that a clone is a twin, but that not only runs into issues of both "how would they even know the family the caster is unaware of" and "would that person and their family even accept that connection to what is basically a visual copy." You've specified these Specters are literal living things, true life even if they are illusions, play that up. It can be more than just "they make their own decisions and they're likely to decide things you won't like", they can have emotions, they can form opinions, they can have desires, and the caster is responsible for what they've made.

Second, also pretty obvious, the moment it's created it will diverge from whatever it's an illusion of. We're built on our experiences and as much as the Specter may have a prebuilt personality packed in it hasn't truly experienced anything until the spell was cast; there's only so much knowledge and memory the caster could reasonably have given it, if they bothered doing more than the minimum, the world is going to be new to it to some degree especially outside of the narrow field of the job it was made for and that can quickly build up to overwhelm the "preset." You basically have an endless printer of new NPCs who start generic then branch however you want, and yes that can include "turn against creator" but in this case it would likely take time to get there in a way that makes sense and have more emotional impact than "oops I didn't say they like us, delete."

Third, and this is especially true in the case that it knows it's an illusion and in relation to the first, is mortality and value of life. Does it actually die when the spell is canceled? If so is the spell indefinite in a way that it can just keep going forever without something interrupting it (but hopefully in a way that prevents "I make an army of Specters" situations)? Does the caster have to cancel it to do other things? If the Specter is aware of this possibility how exactly are they handling the knowledge their life is literally dependent on the caster deciding they're more worthwhile than whatever the spell could be ended for? They're alive, they can think, they can feel, they can make the caster aware of this situation, how does the caster deal with the fact that they not only made this life but that if they intended it to just be some temporary thing they made it just to kill it shortly after? Do they try to preserve the life they made? Do they feel indifference or justify its destruction to themself? Do they end it out of necessity or need and try to make amends for the sacrifice in some way? Are they the kind of character who takes joy in the knowledge they've consigned something to a brief futile life of service to them only to snuff that life out before it can find its own place in the world?

There's plenty more ways to take it that are all much easier to access by just not making it so easy to get a bad experience right off the bat. Issue is if I kept typing I'd not only run the risk of rambling endlessly on what I've got no way of knowing you're interested in or not, but also my fingers will strongly object, so I'm ending this post here.

[Talakeal]

It's not about what Bob "deserves". It's simply the order of events/actions in this case. He made the stealth rolls. He planned the attack. His fellow PCs are waiting for his attack. Thus, as long as he doesn't mess up the stealth rolls, he goes first.

I'm not sure how this is railroading, if that's the actual stated plan the players came up with. What is a bit like railroading, is the GM calling for them to roll initiative though, since that creates pressure on the players to act in the order of the dice instead of the order they already agreed upon.

It is railroading because you are forcing the players to agree to the plan and not providing them the option to back out at the last minute for whatever reason.

I really have no idea how giving someone the option to back out of a pre-arranged plan could ever be perceived as railroading, and your assertion that it does kind of reads to me like the rhetorical version of Peewee Herman saying "I know you are but what am I!".

It's not about what Bob "deserves". It's simply the order of events/actions in this case. He made the stealth rolls. He planned the attack. His fellow PCs are waiting for his attack. Thus, as long as he doesn't mess up the stealth rolls, he goes first.

If the enemy is just sitting around doing nothing, then yes, as I have said approximately five million times at this point.

But if the enemy is already in the middle of performing some time sensitive plan, then no, Bob does not deserve to bypass initiative and drop in at his leisure.

Except that your initiative rules (or at least your implementation of it) creates the metagaming aspects of this. If Alice and Joe are waiting (likely for several minutes or longer) for Bob to sneak into position to attack, they should have no reason to know "Bob is attacking this round", and thus no reason to just randomly, out of the blue, declare "I'm kicking in the door/charging around the corner" and have that just happen to occur within the same 6 second time period when Bob is about to make his attack.

But when you call for initiative once Bob is in position, and the moment he says "ok, I stab/shoot the NPC", you provide that metainfo to the players. And that may lead them to acting before Bob does.

I think maybe the issue is that you are much stricter with game time than I am.

So you are looking at it from the side of "How could Alice possibly know Bob was striking in the next six second!" whereas I am looking at it from the perspective of "For whatever reason, Alice did not wait for Bob, and burst into the door before the signal". The precise timing is fluid, and more or less irrelevant.*

For the record, Heart of Darkness doesn't actually tie round / turns / acts / missions to real units of time except in the loosest sense. Whereas in D&D a round is exactly six seconds, in Heart of Darkness it might be less than one second and it might be several minutes when all is said and done in the narrative. This makes a lot more sense to me, as in both fiction and real life, fights often have a sort of ebb and flow to them, where brief flurries of frenzied action are broken up by moments of hiding behind cover, catching one's breath, and / or trading witty banter.

So from my perspective, it doesn't really matter that Bob was "in position and about to strike" when Alice decided to jump the gun, the fact of the matter is that she decided to jump the gun in the first place.


*And again, if precise timing is super important, Alice doesn't need to be acting based on meta-knowledge of Bob, merely of the clock and realizing that if they don't act soon they might miss their opportunity together, and decide to jump the gun completely organically.

I'm not sure that "it can happen if someone has special abilities that allow it to happen" is a great argument to use here. I'm looking at how the two rules systems handle this by default. When there are no special abilities in play, but just one group has surprise and the other group is surprised.

Ok.

But you are already proposing a long string of improbably events already. Why is adding a single further improbably event to the chain the straw that breaks the camel's back?

Like, imagine an identical scenario in D&D, but the enemy Alice and Bob are trying to ambush happens to have the alert feat.

Now, it works out the exact same way. The DM calls for initiative, Alice wins and decides to abandon the agreed upon plan, takes a shot which alerts the enemy, and now the enemy, who would have normally stood still and allowed Bob to backstab him despite his feat, now charges after Alice, and poor old Bob, who botched his infinitive roll, is now out of range to strike.

But this is A-OK? Because a feat is involved? Not even a supernatural power or spell or anything, and not even a spell that Alice herself has.


Because I don't know about you, but I personally think the odds of someone having the alert feat are a heck of a lot higher than a group agreeing to let Bob attack first, all sneaking into position, Bob failing his initiative roll, Alice passing her initiative roll, Alice deciding to ignore the plan, and the monster reacting to Alice by moving out of Bob's reach.

It's not that backstabs always go before other things. It's that the action that triggers the other actions should always go first. You present a case where two players declare actions for their characters at the same time (Alice kicks in the door and charges in; Bob sneak attacks). Why are those happening at the same time? What are the odds that, randomly, Alice and Bob's declarations should occur in the same 6 second time frame? Again, we're assuming there is no combat going on yet. We are not tracking things in 6 second segments. The odds that Alice just happens to decide to kick in the door, after waiting several minutes for Bob to sneak into position, and just at the exact same 6 second period when Bob says "I'm going to backstab" is astronomically unlikely.

This should be resolved thusly: Alice either waits until Bob attacks, and thus goes after Bob. Or, Alice gets bored and attacks before Bob, in which case Bob could be at any position in his process of sneaking up into the room and behind an NPC you want. Roll dice for this. Ask Alice how long she waits, whatever. In practice though, this never comes up because Alice declares she's waiting for Bob, then we switch to Bob, who makes his stealth roll(s), and then we skip right to Bob's attack.

But, by making them all roll initiative, you are creating circumstances in which this can happen.

I don't disagree in principal.

In most of your examples, this wasn't an issue, as you had said the party had perfect coordination and communication.

I still think it is a bit heavy handed to not let Alice react at all though.

Now, the million GP question here, would you allow this to work the other way around? If Bob was sneaking into position, then the spotlight focused on Alice, and she declared she was kicking down the door? Would Bob now be prevented from rolling initiative and forced to be reactive to Alice's bonus round?

You are spending way too much time spinning around trying to figure out what your players will do.

Why on earth would your players go into analysis paralysis mode? You've given them a pretty straightforward question. And it's likely something they've already thought about prior to deciding to cast the divination in the first place. If they think there might be treasure mortared up in a wall nearby, they'll be looking for "as the crow flies". If they want to know which direction to travel in the dungeon they are in, they'll want "based on our travel". You are imagining a pretty absurd set of things on the part of your players to justify not asking them a simple question IMO.

Analysis paralysis happens all the time at my table, especially in regards to divination spells.

If I ask the players for clarification, they go into alert mode, and will then double down trying to come up with a perfectly worded statement that can't possibly backfire if taken literally. This is, of course, impossible, as anything can potentially be misinterpreted (either willfully or accidentally) or at the very least backfire when some hitherto unforeseen X factor comes into play. So they keep coming up with wordings, then seeing a potential flaw, and then shooting them down. Eventually they get frustrated, give up, and then proclaim that I have put them into an impossible no win situation.

This has happened numerous times at my table, and always results in hours of wasted playtime and everyone being cranky and on edge afterward.


The Angry GM actually wrote a whole article about this phenomenon recently, about how players tend to come up with over complicated plans, toss them out when they see a potential flaw, repeat until they are frustrated and bored, and then charge in with no plan whatsoever.

In your example, assuming the same map and distances for both, if they picked the former instead, would that mean that the other treasure is also within X-1 feet of them? No. It's not. You are providing them no additional information at all here.

No, of course not. That's not how space works.

By definition, the shortest route to a destination is always a straight line.

If someone asks me whether I mean closest in absolute distance, or closest in travel time, I know that these are two separate destinations*.

Therefore, if the question needed to be asked, I know that there is a destination that is closer in absolute distance than the one that is closer by travel time.


*: If they are the same destination, I would not need to ask the question as the answers would be the same. I could ask anyway, but again, if the goal is to not erode my players trust, asking pointless questions for no reason but to obfuscate their attempts to metagame does not seem the way to do this.

To be fair, the rules are a bit vague about what "aware" means. What I (and I'm assuming most GMs) use is "aware of and prepared for the ensuing combat actions". It's not enough to merely be aware that a character exists, or is nearby, but that this character is about to do something violent. And yes, there is an element of GM fiat to this (there always is though). But usually, the GM determines this via a combination of situational effects and skill rolls. So a group of people sneaking up under cover of darkness, having made the appropriate stealth rolls, will likely always get a surprise round. Also, someone who is in "plain sight", but who has made sufficient sleight of hand rolls, may be able to take a surprise round action, if no one spotted what he was doing until he does it.

That isn't RAW though; by RAW there is no provision for prepared for the ensuing combat.

Reading it that way makes for a very different game, where people are always on edge and prone to shooting first and asking questions later. I have played in games like this, it isn't fun, and it inventively ends with hurt feelings and people leaving the game after one session.


Now, this probably would make Bob much happier, as he absolutely hates dialogue in RPGs and would be more than happy to respond to anyone and everyone he meets with "kill them before they kill me" but for the rest of us, no, it isn't helping anything.

I'll also say, that while initiative systems like in HoD are great for the samurai/gunslinger stand off scenario, it's not great for the "I'm going to do something sneakily first" situations.

Can you actually explain why?

Aside from a few super obscure edge cases, what is it about the initiative system that is bad for doing something first sneakily?

By RAW, I would much rather be playing a quick-draw artist or huckster trying to get the drop on my enemy using larceny and sleight of hand in HoD than I would in D&D.

Heck, I would also prefer to be playing an ambusher in HoD than D&D, as I am going to be doing a lot more damage with my ambush in Heart of Darkness than I would in a surprise round in D&D.

I have gone shooting a lot. I can tell you that if someone is standing there and picks up a gun and starts firing, no one, no matter how fast their reflexes, can stop them. Not unless they made a point of standing right next to them, and are actively watching that person and being prepared to step in in case that person reaches for a gun. It's why we see videos with cops, standing next to someone, then that someone makes a minor move, and suddenly the cop grabs that person and throws them to the ground. And we're all like "Hey. That guy didn't do anything, why did the cop slam him to the ground?" (btw, not at all talking about right or wrong here, just analyzing the action). Because if the cop waits until the person actually takes the equivalent of a move action to run away, or a grapple action to grab a weapon, or an attack action, then it's too late. The cop has (in game terms) stated "I'm standing right next to his person, and am waiting to see if he even moves in a way that makes me thing he's about to run, or grab for something, or try to do something I don't want him to do" (prepared action).

This is not the result of some roll on an initiative die. This is the result of pre-stated prepared actions. So yeah, this is how I prefer to simulate things in RPGs I'm running as well. If you say: "I'm pointing my crossbow at him, and will fire if he tries to move", then if the other guy declares "I'm running for the <whatever>", the prepared action goes first. But if you didn't do this? You will always go after the other guy takes his action, because you don't know to do anything until after that action occurs. It's only in situations where both are equally aware of the other, and both are taking conflicting/opposed actions that we may roll initiative to see "who goes first". If just one guy has made the pre-statement? That person goes first.

It seems to me like you are against the whole concept of initiative rolls rather than any specific implementation of them. I can't think off the top of my head about any game system whose initiative rules which wouldn't run afoul of these criteria.

I personally much prefer the abstraction of an initiative roll to this level of detail. Personally, I would much rather leave all of the little micro-movements and body language to the dice than to try and actually play it out at the table.


Again though, you have repeatedly told me that you were only talking about hidden characters in this thread, and that I was straw-manning you when I brought up situations like the above, so I am not sure if this is a conversation you actually want to have or not.

I can also tell you, from personal experience, that this applies to melee weapon situations as well. If I'm standing around with a group of fencers, wearing our gear, and holding our weapons, and I just randomly decide to poke someone with my weapon, there is zero chance that the other person can prevent this. Not "could react and block me if fast enough"... ZERO. The best/fastest olympic level fencer will be hit in this situation. Every single time. Why? Because he's not ready. He isn't expecting an attack. This is simulated in games by requring statements to this effect.

Your personal experience is different than mine.

I remember one time as teenagers Brian and I were taking a walk, and as a game I kept trying to tackle him totally unprompted at random times. He was able to react and block me every single time, because he has much faster reflexes than I do.

If you want to go for a fictional example, in Injustice Robin continually attacks Nightwing from behind during training out of frustration, and Nightwing blocks every time.

But yeah, everyone on your fencing team is probably about on the same level. But Heart of Darkness isn't supposed to be a mundane reality simulator. Its supposed to be a game of larger than life heroes confronting supernatural threats and having grand adventures.

Superhuman and even supernatural reflexes are part of the game, as are legendary gunslingers and zen masters who have skills far beyond anything anyone in the real world has ever had.


Personally, I think the d20 is more to blame than anything else, as it produces really swingy results by design. If you don't like it, the game has optional rules for gritty realism, and one of those is to use 3d6 instead; this makes unlikely outcomes far rarer, and the modifiers to surprise will, assuming roughly equally footing of the combatants, render the ability to go first despite surprise practically zero.

This is simulated in games by requring statements to this effect.

Not in any game I can recall ever having read it isn't. Example please?

I can also tell you, from personal experience, that this applies to melee weapon situations as well. If I'm standing around with a group of fencers, wearing our gear, and holding our weapons, and I just randomly decide to poke someone with my weapon, there is zero chance that the other person can prevent this. Not "could react and block me if fast enough"... ZERO. The best/fastest olympic level fencer will be hit in this situation. Every single time. Why? Because he's not ready. He isn't expecting an attack. This is simulated in games by requring statements to this effect.

Which is why, if you don't make those perception rolls *and* you don't state some action in preparation for something which you suspect might happen, you can't act before the action that occurs. It's just not realistic (again, barring some superhuman abilties that an RPG character may have, of course). The default is always "that person takes their action first, cause no one was expecting or prepared for it until it happened).

You do it by stating intents, not results.

Bob's player states "I am attempting to draw my gun and shoot"
Alice's player states "I am attempting to stop him".

Then you roll initiative to see whose action actually resolves first. Initiative is a perception based skill precisely because while Alice's is sitting across the table from Bob and can clearly hear him announcing the actions, her character might not be fast and or perceptive enough to realize what Bob is about to do.

Its really simple. I have never seen anyone struggle with this concept in a dozen tables in three times as many years.

I hate to quote the Angry GM twice in one post, but he has a very simple mantra that covers this "Players choose; characters act".

That's not true. You keep saying this, and maybe this is how you (would?) run things, but that's not how things actually work. The surprise round doesn't "freeze time". It simply means that no one else may react to the actions in the surprise round. Everyone else is still doing whatever they were doing prior to the surprise round during the surprise round

I keep saying this because AFAICT that is how it works in every single edition of D&D.

Spoiler: 3E SRD

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Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don’t get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

Spoiler: 5E Wiki

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If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

AD&D is a bit less clear, simply reading:

"The surprising group receives one round of attacks, missiles, or magic items. They cannot use these moments of surprise to cast spells." But I would certainly say that any reasonable interpretation of this text that this is a bonus round that automatically occurs before the normal combat starts and that enemies cannot act during this round.

Correct. The only thing a surprise round means is that those who are surprised don't get to take any actions in response to the surprise round actions by others. That's it. So if you are a guard walking your beat, you are still walking your beat. If you are doing a ritual, you continue doing the ritual (presumably, you aren't going to complete it in the few seconds that a surprise round actually represents though, and presumably "stop the ritual" is likely what the other folks are trying to do anyway).

It's important to note that a surprise round assumes that the surprised folks don't know that the people surprising them are even present. So it would take a real jerk GM to decide that a guard just happens to decide to sound an alarm during that short time period, or the target (who presumably was hanging around in the area for some time previous to this point) just out sheer coincidence decides to leave the target area, or some bad guy just happens to decide to execute a prisoner right when you just showed up to free them. That falls into the same "why on earth would someone who has no clue anything is about to happen decide to do something at that exact moment?

I'm not even sure why you keep bringing up these very odd counter examples as though they are realistic things that should be happening.

This entire thread was started by Bob saying "Hidden characters shouldn't have to roll initiative as all." Which he then later clarified by saying surprise rounds should work like D&D; i.e. where your opponent cannot act at all and the ambusher is guaranteed at least one bonus action.

These are exactly the sort of scenarios for which Heart of Darkness intentionally diverges from D&D and which would require a rogue to roll initiative.*


And yeah, it is meta-game and jackass GMing for them to decide that the enemy does something in response to a hidden rogue that they aren't aware of.

It is a bit more questionable for the GM to have you "arrive just in the nick of time" by coincidence, and though it generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth, some level of coincidence is required for drama, and some groups really get off on this stuff as they think it makes for a more "cinematic" experiance.

I, however, wasn't really thinking of either of these. I was imagining a rogue who is doing reconnaissance over an extended period of time noticing something urgent happening, and deciding he needs to intervene right now without taking the time to alert the rest of the group.



*: So, a few pages back you were very adamant that people unaware could not roll initiative in the surprise round. Now you are saying they still get actions in the surprise round. If they aren't allowed to roll initiative, when do these actions get resolved? If its at the end of the surprise round, isn't that the same thing as saying that the hidden character automatically interrupts whomever they like?

No. You both continue moving normally and at the same speed. The difference is that you have no choice, and just continue running along (unless you are hit by a javelin and stop, of course). I, because I detected the orcs, may choose to either continue running along side you *or* I may stop and take a defensive action (or maybe stop and throw something back at them if I happen to have something in hand and available).

Again. You are interpreting this as freezing time somehow. That's your own incorrect interpretation, and not how anyone else views this, nor how it should be managed.

D&D raw explicitly says unaware characters may not move in the surprise round. See my citations above.

I agree it is dumb, and the GM shouldn't run it this way, but this is D&D RAW, and one of the reasons I changed how things work in Heart of Darkness.

And again, please, I am trying to have a civil conversation here. Please stop just telling me I am "wrong" without any sort of evidence or citations, especially when I have the book open in front of me and can see for myself what it says.

In one of the scenarios you literally said that Bob was sneaking up behind the Baron and shooting him.

Also, all of your examples were in response to other people's examples, all of which were examining cases where some people are acting suddenly or via stealth, while others are reacting to those things.

Also, see my point earlier about how impossible it actually is to intervene in someone else's actions if you are not already actively watching that person and prepared to do something in response to them. This is why I tend to lean towards PCs making rolls and declaring actions and intentions ahead of time. It better simulates what we are doing, and avoids these odd edge cases. And yeah. Gives players some options and choices ahead of time, if they chose to take them.

Ok, let me restate it more plainly:

Scenario A: Bob does not use stealth. Both Alice and the Baron are aware of him.
Scenario B: Bob uses stealth. Alice sees him, but the baron does not.
Scenario C: Bob uses stealth. Neither Alice nor the Baron see him.

What is the difference between each of those three scenarios at your table?

And it really has problems in cases where Alice can't actually see Bob at all (he's in another room, for example).

Can you actually give me an example of this that doesn't involve flagrant meta-gaming on Alice's part?

And I do get that in HoD, you actually want the initiative roll to be both your ability to percieve the theat *and* act on it. But the problem with that, which I was trying to highlight in my "man with package/pistol" examples, is that you are using different mechanisms for these two otherwise identical cases. If the man is handing over a package, do you have people roll initiative to see if they notice the hand off? Or do you use perception rolls? So why is it a perception roll to see if someone notices him pulling a package out from under his coat and handing it to someone, but an initiative roll if he's pulling out a pistol and firing it?

It is alertness if you are just trying to notice something, and initiative if you are actually trying to interrupt someone with an action of your own.

I think I'm at the appropriate level of concern about metagaming. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to decide that if a player is in another room and unaware of what is going on in that room, that they should not be allowed to react to something happening in that room, until *after* something happens that makes them aware of that something. That "something" should not be an initiative roll. You seem to be completely ok with a pretty large amount of metgame info, in a circumstance where the only possible effect of that metagame info could be to possibly mess up the party's planned ambush.

Ok, I think maybe I see the problem here.

I personally have trouble playing dumb, it always feels forced an artificial. So I prefer not to have information my character doesn't have, it makes the RP much smoother.

You seem to not care about how much people know, just about what the act on.

In both cases though, you can't tell why someone else did something.

If Brian accidentally reads my notes and learns that Baron Von Badass has a deadly peanut allergy, and then declares that he is going to poison the Baron with peanuts, he can claim that he came about this information organically, and even lay out his train of logic, but nobody, not even Brian himself, can honestly say whether or not he would have thought of that plan without having read my notes first.

And yeah, your Alice examples do sort of involve meta-gaming, but not really. She already knows Bob is in the next room, and is already planning to break down the door and charge in. Rolling the dice doesn't actually give her any new information. So at that point, she is just jumping the gun, it doesn't really come across as meta-gaming to me. Know, if something had happened in the other room, like Bob had been captured or something, and she chose that moment to charge in, to me that's a meta-gaming issue, but just deciding to go into the room before the signal instead of after doesn't really trigger that instinct for me.*

*And again, you can claim that my instinct is to "screw the players" by default, but allowing Alice to charge in early is, in most any scenario not specifically contrived to win a forum debate, going to help the party out and put them in a much better situation.

And in this case, you seem overwhelmingly concerned about a relatively tiny amount of metagame info (the player may noodle out from the question, what sorts of things might be going on with the controlled minion). And in the pursuit of preventing that small amount of meta-game information, you then make a ruling about how the NPC should act, which is (may be?) counter to what the player would have decided if they'd been allowed to make the decision themselves.

I don't (typically) allow players to control NPCs when they aren't there.

There are a multitude of reasons for this:

1: It gives one player an inordinate amount of spotlight time.
2: The player may take advantage of the NPC and do things that benefit the PC but are out of character for the NPC.
3: It gives the player knowledge that their character doesn't have, which creates the temptation to metagame in the future.

Note how there are three issues here?

Yet for some reason, you make this all about number three and claim its the "overwhelming reason" why?

And in the pursuit of preventing that small amount of meta-game information, you then make a ruling about how the NPC should act, which is (may be?) counter to what the player would have decided if they'd been allowed to make the decision themselves.

Its an NPC; a NON. PLAYER. CHARACTER.

Metagaming or no metagaming, I am under no obligation whatsoever to allow a player to tell me how an NPC should act. Its literally how the game is meant to be played. This is a ludicrous statement, it would be like if I said "And just because you think the players are such munchkins they can't be trusted to simply declare whether or not their attacks hit, you have gone so far as to make them roll twenty-sided dice? How could you!"

And, since it's not mentioned here, but is relevant, you also seem to shut down even the most absurdly tiny amount of potential metagame info in the divination example above, and again, made a decision on behalf of the player, which happened to also result in a choice that they would not have made if they'd been allowed to make it themselves.

Go back and actually read what I initially said. The conflict is that I go with the spirit of the rules, and my players go with the letter of the rules. Either choice leads to them thinking I tricked them, and actually asking them leads to analysis paralysis (and thinking I tried to trick them).

I then added as a foot note that I suppose the lack of trust does go two ways, and maybe one of the reasons I don't just ask them is that I am afraid on giving them too much information which they could use to meta-game.

Meta-gaming was not the primary, or even secondary, or even tertiary reason why I did what I did, I just mentioned it as a footnote to try and give my players the benefit of the doubt and say that sometimes the lack of trust goes both ways.

Which is irrelevant to the question of when initiative should be rolled for characters who are not yet aware of some other action being taken that triggers combat.

Ok....? And....?

We were discussing this subject long before you ever brought up the tangent about Alice jumping the gun that has since dominated the thread.


If you need a refresher about why I am bringing it up now, I said the scenario never comes up because tactically, the rogue wants to move in after their party, not before, to take advantage of distractions, flanking, and picking off wounded opponents, and avoiding the scenario where they botch a stealth roll (or their party botches an initiative roll) and they are trapped behind enemy lines with no other targets to take the heat off them.

You then told me that I was "artificially changing my games rules to force the players to play how I wanted them to" and I responded by pointing out that this is a natural outcome of the rules which has existed long before out current tangent was brought up.

Which, again, is fine if that's the "look and feel" you want for the game. But then, as I've said previously, don't be upset or surprised when your players don't engage in information gathering or scouting.

That plan might work. Or it might not.

I am sure we could go back and forth all day coming up with scenarios and modifying them; but the fact of the matter is that this is a very risky plan, and the only thing you are objecting to AFAICT is that I am "tempting" Bob's allies to ignore the plan by allowing them roll initiative immediately before, rather than immediately after, Bob's sneak attack.


Out of curiosity, let's take stealth out of the equation entirely. Does your opinion change?

Say Bob has a poisoned blade that can 1 shot the enemy if they fail their save. So Bob tells his allies to not attack the enemy leader until after he has had a chance to use the poison, as if the save is failed, all damage previously done to him will go to waste. Should I also disallow Bob's allies initiative rolls in this situation as doing so would "tempt them" to abandon their plan?

What if, unbeknownst to anyone but Alice, Alice never intended to go along with the plan, and was just humoring Bob at the moment. Am I still supporting her agency and reverse-railroading her by not allowing her to roll initiative and forcing her to delay?

Which, again, is fine if that's the "look and feel" you want for the game. But then, as I've said previously, don't be upset or surprised when your players don't engage in information gathering or scouting.

Again, if you really can't see how intelligence that doesn't translate into a bonus turn has any value, I don't think I can have a meaningful discussion of strategy or tactics with you.

If your PCs and major villains are subjected to an assassin who can successfully sneak up to them and attack without being detected, and the game system allows for this to be nearly always fatal, then yes, that should be the result. The solution is to proivide some means to defend against this other than just manipulating the game rules so that it wont work. There's nothing worse than showing the player a set of stealth skills and damage rules, but then saying "yeah, but I won't allow you to actually use these things in a way that would allow you to kill an enemy with them".

I can't follow your meaning here.

What does "manipulating the game rules" even mean?

Currently, ambushes are very good. If I doubled their effectiveness, they would be too good, so I don't double their effectiveness. That just seems to be common sense?

There are a ton of things in the game that I could make OP by doubling their effectiveness, and a ton of things that I could make underpowered by halving their effectiveness. Why would I do this?

What's manipulative there?

But they could do that regardless of whether you allowed them to get a free attack before initiative was rolled or not, right? I mean, you are describing a sequence of actions taken round after round, after combat is already started.

Or are you saying, that in your rules, if someone "hides" in combat, they are no longer in combat and they get to re-enter it and roll initiative again? Yeah. I agree, that's a problem, but not one having anything to do with the "take a free attack" argument I'm making. That is only allowed when that action from position of stealth is the "initiating action of the combat". Once the opponents are in combat mode (aware that enemies are about), that wont work anymore.

If you are allowing it to work that way, then that's another problem IMO. But I'm not familiar enough with the details to know how exactly that works in HoD. I do have some rules in my game to manage characters who are able to hide in the middle of a combat (usually using some sort of magic, but possible using skills). Um... But they don't get extra attacks or rounds as a result. They just get to take sneak attacks on people later on, if they are able to sneak up on them, and not be noticed. And all that actually does is make it so they can't defend themselves against the attack (in most games this would be reflected as a reduction to AC, or a bonus to attack). I would never say that this person gets to re-enter combat as though for the first time, and get a new surprise round or something. That's not how that works.

If they reliably get two turns in a row, they attack one, and then hide again before the enemy can respond.

At this point, the fight is over. They then wait however long you require them to wait to "come out of combat mode" and then you attack again. And then hide again.

Repeat until all enemies are dead.

Easy. Zero risk.


Although yeah, if I told Bob that he has hidden and combat is over, but the enemies are still in "combat mode" and thus it becomes more difficulty for him to to initiate combat over again, that's a whole other kettle of worms that I hadn't even considered.

[Dasick]

I think that it's fair to say that your system can be described as a fork of 3.5 DnD, which is a double edged sword. On one hand, you start off with a functioning rule system that you have experience with, and so do your players. They have less things to learn before they can jump in, you have experience with the holes and problems the system has so you can attempt to avoid or patch them.

The problem is that your players see the resemblance to 3.5 and just go in expecting 3.5 with different spells/abilities/monsters, while expecting to be able to play like it's 3.5 for the most part. Whereas you want them to have a completely different play experience, use different tactics etc.

(on the grasping hand - DnD from a game design perspective has no right being the default pnp rpg aside from being first. imo when "forking" a dnd edition, you're mostly forking the deep seated issues of the game)

I think it would be a good idea to consider how you envision the game to be played, and consider why its not happening. As the game designer, the point of leverage for you is always going to be changing the game rules to encourage desired behaviour, as opposed to convincing someone the rules work well and they need to play differently. There's a lot of different ways to rephrase rules. The infamous World of Warcraft fatigue/rest xp thing comes to mind - when they first started penalizing players for playing too much, there was massive uproar. But they literally just changed the names around so that you got a bonus for playing the first few hours, but the numbers stayed the same, but everyone loves getting free xp bonus. I think I mentioned this before in the accuracy penalty thread? You might want to go over the rules and think about, how can you rephrase that to make penalties into bonuses without changing the math, or changing how rules work in a way that encourage a certain playstyle.

Just cause you're changing rules doesnt mean you have to change the rules to what the players want obviously. But consider their incentives and what they want. How can you change your rules in a way that they feel satisfied and are encouraged to play in accordance to your vision? For example, some of the suggestions as to why your players cant just declare hide at the start of the game was because its just exhausting to be in a state of constant combat alertness and we kinda call that paranoia out in the real world. Ok, so the obvious rule is "yeah you can just use hide all day. roll for exhaustion and resist against mental disorder" which is a penalty. I would try something along the lines of adding a "adrenaline rush" or even "well rested", or "sink or swim" "under pressure" etc rule, where the first time you take an action during a day or encounter, you just get a decent bonus for it. So if you want the rogue to have to roll initiative for sneaky-stabby action, give extra damage if he wins the initiative. Or like, if a player pre-casts a spell, they use basic dice. If a player casts a spell during an encounter, they get a bonus to either succeeding, or to the effects. To further make the player feel like they want to do, allow them to do pre-initiative actions at a penalty, or just make the bonuses so good they never really want to do so unless its a special tactical edge case.

[glass]

Trying to be a bit more selective in quoting/responding to avoid massive walls of text. Success was...mixed!

But if the enemy is already in the middle of performing some time sensitive plan, then no, Bob does not deserve to bypass initiative and drop in at his leisure.

You keep saying that, as if "the enemy is in the middle of performing some time sensitive plan" like that is something that could just happen, but it can't. It only occurs if the GM fiats that it does (and if they are doing that, it will be obvious to Bob as he sneaks into position. And possibly to Alice too if she is waiting for the signal to charge).

But this is A-OK? Because a feat is involved? Not even a supernatural power or spell or anything, and not even a spell that Alice herself has.

Once again, D&D is not the platonic ideal of initiative systems. I cannot be bothered to look up exactly what Alert does (that's a 5e feat, right?) does, but as a general principle special abilities that mess with initiative tend to be even less well thought out and/or spelled out than the core initiative rules.

So for me at least, if its operation is problematic, then the fact that it is a feat does not make it "A-OK". I obviously cannot speak for gbagi, but I doubt it does for them either.

Analysis paralysis happens all the time at my table, especially in regards to divination spells.

Whereas it rarely happens at mine (and when it does. it is usually as a result of of the situation changing immediately before someone's turn, invalidating their previous plan). But, it would never occur to me or my fellow GMs to have an illusory guard immediately turn the caster in because "that is what a guard would do". These two differences may not be a coincidence.

By definition, the shortest route to a destination is always a straight line.

If someone asks me whether I mean closest in absolute distance, or closest in travel time, I know that these are two separate destinations*.

Again, no you do not know that. You know that the GM doesn't want to waste time working out the answer to two different questions when you are only asking one of them, and wants to make sure he is answering the question you are actually asking. That's all.

What if, unbeknownst to anyone but Alice, Alice never intended to go along with the plan, and was just humoring Bob at the moment.

Not possible. Alice can keep secrets from Bob if she wants, but not from you (the GM). If she doesn't tell you about her plan, it does not exist.

If they reliably get two turns in a row, they attack one, and then hide again before the enemy can respond.

At this point, the fight is over. They then wait however long you require them to wait to "come out of combat mode" and then you attack again. And then hide again.

Firstly, hiding from the enemy does not make those enemies forget he is there. The NPCs are going to be looking for him and even if they never succeed, they are not "out of combat" until they give up looking (which may be a while the first time, and is going to be a lot longer the second and subsequent times.

Secondly, your "Easy, zero risk" win seems to rely on the attacker having no chance of ever losing initiative or blowing a stealth roll (with the latter being opposed and both being open-ended rolls). Hardly "zero risk" - sounds pretty damn hard to me!

I think that it's fair to say that your system can be described as a fork of 3.5 DnD.

I might have got the WEOTS somewhere, but my impression is that Heart if Darkness is about as far from a D&D 3.5 fork as it is possible for a TTRPG with magic and monsters to be.

Like, D&D has a spell called "shadow conjuration" that literally does the exact same thing, and I have never heard up any of these concerns in regards to it. (Although again, that may be because most people don't know the limitations on summoning spells by RAW because their DM simply allows them to run them as a second PC).

Shadow Conjuration just duplicates other conjuration spells with a couple of modifications to reflect its "quasi-real" nature, and so inherits the behavior and limitations of the spells it copies. So a Shadow Summon Monster X acts like Summon Monster X (attacks your enemies to the best of its abilities unless you communicate to it otherwise). Very little scope there for it to shop you to the enemy boss!

[Talakeal]

The problem isn't simply "the GM could do this" it's that so many of your hypothetical scenarios for it begin and end in "and here's the list of ways that it will do what they don't want it to unless they walk a tightrope."

Unless your conclusion is that I am creative and spend too much time thinking about RPGs, I think you might be reading a bit too much into the specific ebb and flow of the conversation. I can come up with tons of examples of how any given spell could be helpful, harmful, both, or neither given the situation, all of which I might list out on the forum in response to a given prompt.

Keep in mind, the idea of intentionally using Spectre to copy someone who is known to be hostile was a scenario that was presented to me to arbitrate, not something I came up with on my own as the default use of the spell.

Heck, the entire idea of that a spectre should ignore its programming because it knows its an illusion was Bob's idea, and one that I reject.

Generally speaking there aren't many summon/creation spells that add in an entity with an indefinite lifespan that can cause so many problems. Exceptions exist, if you're using something to summon an Outsider that has its own motives you're already playing with fire, but the spell usually spells this out for you and makes a point of it. They also don't usually involve the person who made the system directly stating that, yes, things going wrong isn't just a possibility but a narrative intention.

I actually sincerely doubt that most game designers would deny that the possibility that making a literal deal with the devil turning out poorly for the wizard is in fact an intention of the system. I know the White Wolf games are very clear about what happens to people who deal with demons.

That being said, the narrative intention is merely the possibility of the illusion growing beyond its initial programming, and this isn't necessarily a negative. Generally if you are going to be doing Frankenstein or M3gan or I have no mouth and I must scream it is going to be a scenario where the (potential) villain is someone else's creation gone rogue rather than your own. If you are the caster and aren't RPing an utter arse, it is far more likely to play out like Bicentennial Man or the Doctor in Star Trek Voyager, or Terminator 2 (specifically 2, the one that ends with the line "If this machine, this terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can to").

Of course, these all assume you are going to the trouble of creating a permanent companion. Most of the time, you are just going to cast a short term spell to serve as a messenger, scout, distraction, or buff bot which dissapears after an hour with no opportunity to do anything but mimic the person it was designed to replicate.

And yes, if the caster explicitly goes out of their way to create a copy of something that would be hostile to them, then the copy will be hostile to them, and needs to be treated with a bit more care. IMO this is no different than casting a fireball in an enclosed space, summoning a demon, or animating a free-willed undead, and if the players are doing it by mistake, the GM can and should remind them of this risk.

It's not "create an illusion of the enemy" that doesn't make sense as an intention. It's "create an illusion of the enemy and then have it immediately turn on you because it's the enemy."

The illusions created by the spell behave exactly as if they were the thing they are an illusion of.*

If you are going to do this, just take some reasonable precautions. For example, in my above example of replacing a killed guard, cast it once you have already past the checkpoint it is supposed to be guarding and you will have no issues.

Its no different than if you cast 3E create undead and expect the wights to not attack you because "you're the caster", that's just not how the spell works or how wights behave.


*Within the limits of the casters knowledge, and of course they will not intentionally take actions that will reveal their illusory nature.

Which partially runs into a point I didn't make before but that came to mind a few times. Unless the spell has changed since the last time the wording was posted and discussed you've got the three tiers. The limited prescripted one, cons: can't adapt, pros: does what you want it to do, can't and doesn't actively seek out ways to complicate your plan; those last two points more than make up for the con, especially if your only goal for the illusion is the appearance of a place still being guarded. The middle tier which is full uncontrolled life creation, pros: can adapt and potentially see use beyond the actual plan you made it for, cons: can do anything from betray you over forgetting to specify something to wander off out of boredom, has the potential to make the situation much worse than it would be if you hadn't even used an illusion in the first place, only recourse against either is dispelling it. Final tier, just tier 2 but it's on a leash so you can override its free will when needed, pros: tier 2 but with a protection clause, cons: depends on how you control it and your stance on effectively stealing the free will from a living creature you made.

Out of those three options tier 2, the one we're discussing, is the one with the most potential for disaster. If it's actually better than tier 1 or not is entirely down to how risk averse you are and how dependent you are on, as Bob used it, a buff bot that can potentially just up and leave because "to heck with this I want to live my own life" or any number of other reasons.

Correct.

We are discussing "tier 2".

Although those aren't the actually terms I use in the game, just forum shorthand.

And the Baron swiftly realizes his rival is an illusion and is practically harmless when the "attack" doesn't involve said rival actually using any of their real power to breeze past the guards or be true threat. Likely long before the news even reaches him.

I am assuming everyone here is reasonably competent.

The caster doesn't create the illusion in a situation where it is unlikely to hold up to scrutiny long enough for them to pull of their heist.
The baron doesn't dismiss threats just because they don't use their maximum level of power out the door.
The overlord doesn't actually just blow all of his power because he can, and instead acts with a modicum of restraint OR is smart enough to realize that the Baron won't take him seriously if he doesn't.

Yes, it can. In that case however it's "I used a spell and it did what it was supposed to do but now I need the opposite effect." In the cases I mentioned it's "I used a spell and it also has the built in potential to completely ignore what I used it for and the system creator actually intended this for storytelling purposes.

Ok. So can we acknowledge we are talking about a hypothetical rather than an actual case of GM malice?

The idea is that the spell creates a sapient being that can eventually grow beyond its original role. There is zero provision in the spell for the GM to actually ignore the player just to screw them over in the short term. The GM has the ability to do so (just like they can for any NPC*) but that is not a built in part of the spell, or even implied by the spell.

*Heck, one time I pissed off the GM (by reacting to another PCs potentially lethal assault on my PC with an actually lethal response) and he had Elminster teleport in and cast power word kill on me. I don't use this story as proof that teleport, Elminster, or Power Word Kill are problematic game elements, merely that a vindictive GM can ruin any game regardless of the rules.

Machiavellian these are not.

Simplification as follows:
1: Illusion is aware it's an illusion.
2: Illusion tries to fulfill the purpose it was made for, its literal reason for existence, and probably avoid angering its creator who has their finger on the kill switch.
3: Hijinks do not ensue. They never had reason to ensue. Hijinks ensuing is objectively a self destructive choice for the illusion most likely to result in its destruction.

Second point there is just "why does it suddenly have all this information in the hypothetical when it's convenient to messing with the players?" Followed shortly by "does it also have this knowledge when it's actually trying to be helpful?"

The first is just going off what it would need for your "bee-line to the boss" hypothetical to make sense, alongside completely ignoring the previous point. The latter is the, and excuse me for using your term here, logical conclusion of the Specter having that kind of knowledge your hypothetical suggests if it isn't one sided.

If it's one sided then the spell is inconsistent in its effects, that's not giving it narrative potential that's just being intentionally unfair to the players. If it's not one sided and it has that information then illusionists just became the objective best information gatherers in existence since they can just make a Specter of someone whose personality configuration includes "wants to tell us all the secrets." If it's not one sided and the Specter doesn't have that knowledge then that disaster scenario which is your go to for "what if a guard illusion knew it was an illusion" makes no sense.

Would you really be loyal to someone who created you only to be their slave and threatens to kill you if you don't please them?

I sure wouldn't. I would do everything in my power to subtly free myself from the caster's control, up to and including with subtly colluding with my master's enemies to arrange an "Accident" for my master. And in Bob's particular case, where the illusion has all of his knowledge and memories, its not too hard at all.

Again though, this isn't the sort of scenario I want to worry about every time someone casts the spell, so I rule that the illusion doesn't act on the knowledge that it is an illusion and instead fulfills whatever role is assigned to it.

If the caster wants to have a long term companion, and RP that relationship as one based around threats and power dynamics, then we might start getting into the above, but that certainly isn't the spell's default assumption.

There's plenty of ethical choices to be had in this spell without pulling a Frankenstein. Especially since it's important to keep in mind that Frankenstein went as badly as it did because "the monster" was neglected and shunned by its creator immediately and said creator didn't have any real solution to reigning it in. This spell can certainly touch on that first part but I'm assuming someone with enough magical power to literally create a living illusion also has enough to make it crash and burn which removes that whole lack of kill switch situation.

That said, that opens up a bunch of those other points I said I'd be happy to talk about. I'll mention a few at the end of the post, it's likely you've thought of them already but I still feel like they're interesting story elements to have. Cruel to drop on players who aren't thinking in terms of those possibilities, but interesting.

I agree with all of this.

But this isn't something you need to deal with every time you cast the spell.

I mentioned the EMH in Star Trek Voyager above, and there were a lot of beautiful episodes about that show about him discovering his humanity; but that would have been very out of place in First Contact when Beverly activates the EMH to stall the Borg while she evacuates sickbay.

I remember, you have clarified this a few times. Much like the Initiative issue however the introduction of hypotheticals allowed some reframing of the spell's logic. In essence, my objections aren't purely a matter of "the player should control it because otherwise that's mean", they're a matter of "the way the hypotheticals you bring up on the matter are phrased the Specter's default state is weighted toward being arbitrarily unhelpful to the players who are also the most likely people to kill it when it undermines them."

The spell is, by default "unhelpful" to the caster.

The caster chooses what the illusion is of, and then it acts out that role.

If the role is one that would be helpful, it is helpful, if it is one that is hostile, it is hostile.

If the illusion was of an enemy guard, its going to be an enemy, if its an illusion of their bodyguard, its going to be a loyal henchman.

Just like, if you use planar binding to summon an archon, its going to be lawful good, and if you use planar binding to summon a demon, its going to be chaotic evil.

Divorced of Bob's problematic behavior in that situation your descriptions of what the Specter would do while unaware of its own nature and what it would do if it was aware of its own nature both feel like their purpose is purely to lead to more conflict. That makes the second tier not only a massive risk mechanically but also from a story perspective, the kind of risk that would likely become pretty common knowledge among illusionists able to use it after the first "illusion of an enemy guard" situation and earn the spell a pretty bad rep.

In my opinion, an illusion that is aware of and acts upon its illusionary nature is going to cause far more problems than it solves.

By default, the spell only lasts about an hour. Barring anything else, why would an illusion waste its only hour in the world participating in some weird charade it has no stake in, when it could be out their living every one of its very few moments of life to the fullest? And yeah, the caster could then track down and dispel the illusion as punishment for going off script, but at that point the damage has been done, and the caster is going to be wasting time, effort, and mana out of spite.

So would the illusion "play nice" in the hopes of not getting dispelled, or would it go out and do its own thing and assume that the caster will either not find out in time, or will choose not to chase good mana after bad and just let it go?

This is starting to read like Roko's Basilisk.

That bonus swiftly becomes a malicious flaw when it's also shown to be "and by the way if you didn't describe the personality to the GM's satisfaction the illusion trying to attack you/turn you in/raise the alarm on you is a literal example of the spell working as intended by the creator."

I am not following here. I think maybe there are a few typos or missing words that are making it hard for me to parse this sentence?

I think you are saying a spell shouldn't allow the caster to choose to conjure something which would naturally be hostile toward them?

If so, how is this any different than casting fireball in close quarters or using Gate to call an arch-devil?

I'm not saying shut them down. There's plenty of narrative potential, including the disaster, tragedy, and moral dilemmas that I'm getting the impression you favor, that makes perfect sense with the spell. "Creation escapes its creator's control and comes back to haunt them" however has a very limited use when the creation in question can be wiped out by the caster canceling the spell or dispelling it. The moment that happens the solution becomes end it, the potential for emotional weight or questions of morality are already resolved because it chose to be the players' enemy and that reduces it down to a threat to be resolved. After that they've been burnt once and are less likely to use that version of the spell, or possibly the spell in general, and it's hard to do anything with a story element that's just "spell they tried once that didn't work out."

Throwing the "is it aware it's an illusion" question on top of that adds to the potential narrative points and value of the spell, but makes "creation vs creator" make even less sense because the kill switch is hanging over its head the whole time and it knows that. That in itself can lead to some of the points I'm going to go into at the end of this post.

I don't know about that. Having to make the choice to kill a sentient being (whom you potentially have a history with) for the greater good seems pretty darn dramatic to me.

As is an illusionist who refuses to use his magic because he is afraid of having to make that tough choice again.

I can think of a lot of stories about haunted war veterans / peace officers who retired or hung up their guns after having to make the tough choice to kill someone, usually a kid, I don't know why this would be any different.


Also, most illusions won't actually know how dispel magic works. In Bob's case it was literally a copy of himself, a master illusionist, but that won't usually be the case. And if it is, well, there are ways that the illusion could get around that. And as a wider issue, there are plenty of other creation spells that create more permanent creatures that cannot be dispelled such as golems, simulacrums, clones, or just flesh and blood creatures whose origins are magical but are now wholly alive and independent.

Except I enjoy both. This isn't a "well he just doesn't get the storytelling potential, he's focused on mechanical advantage" issue, I still object to how this spell is set up on both sides. From a storytelling perspective it feels like it wants to rush to a certain type of story but doesn't put in the effort to justify it, just "well it's free willed" then hop skip and jump to "and things go wrong because they can." Frankenstein's Monster was a victim of neglect and ostracizing during its formative moments. various genocidal AIs either "learned hatred from Humanity" or were force fed pure violence until it's all they could recognize or completely lacked the emotional sense to look at the world without thinking "if humans = 0 then wars = 0." Multiple Clones active at a time in some D&D stories go mad because the spell wasn't meant for more than one to be up at any given time not just because the spell was cast.

Absolutely not.

The spell says that the creature will do its best to fulfill the role the caster has given it, although over time it may grow beyond its initial programing as a response to its experiences.

If you are jumping straight to Ultron, well, then you must have chosen to given it an unstable personality to begin with and then immediately subjected it to some really messed up crap, and even then it isn't really following the RAW.

From a combat and mechanics perspective it'd be pretty high on a list of spells not to touch, at least the second tier, because it's a bigger risk than benefit in so many scenarios.

I don't see it.

Yes, intentionally creating an illusion that is hostile to you is potentially dangerous and should only be done sparingly.

But when used normally? There is no risk.

I mean, yes, you could come up with some super specific scenario where they are a disadvantage, but as a general rule what is the risk of:

I create an illusion of my personal herald and ask him to deliver a message for me.
I create an illusion of Sherlock Holmes and ask him to look over the crime scene and see if he can help me piece together the sequence of events that led to the murder.
I create an illusion of a minstrel whom I have hired to sing a song and soothe my companions.
I create an illusion of a gallant knight and place him between the damsels in distress (us) and the ogres.
I create an illusion of my pet bloodhound and have it track down the fleeing enemies.
I create an illusion of my personal bodyguard and see if he can't intimidate the street thugs into letting me pass by unmolested.
I create an illusion of a helpless (and very wealthy) noblewomen in front of the bandits and slip by while the stick her up.

And yeah, as they are NPCs, it is within the GM's prerogative to decide they choose to screw you over for absolutely no reason, but if you are playing with jackass GM, they can also choose to have Hades strike you dead for no reason from across the multiverse; they already control ALL the NPCs, one more isn't a big deal.

The dislike of "exception based rules" is, in this case, leading to a situation where a situation that actually makes sense for it is thrown into unnecessary chaos.

The players already have to jump through hoops just to get that far. Your stated preference for what compromises group diversity implies that the group probably doesn't have many people who could pull off the whole sneak up and set a surprise attack plan regularly. Now the situation where their payoff for that work is at hand is turned into a scenario confusing enough to cause this initiative debate for the possibility of "The Flash or Anakin Skywalker or the Vampire Lestat."

The exceptions are in the system already, every rule system has to account for them somehow. The "never surprised" situation is one way, and it's an acknowledgement that, yes, these people are special. That they've got some built in danger sense that puts them on alert before a surprise attack or an ambush, that they've got eyes in every possible direction so they see everything that's happening, that they're so impossibly fast that they were probably moving before the bullet left the gun. Heart of Darkness isn't avoiding those exceptions, it's saying "because of these exceptions we're applying this to all situations even when it just raises questions."

Take this same logic, and apply it to combat.

You could say "in real life, no man could ever defeat a grizzly bear in melee combat" and thus have the rules for "grizzly bear = auto-win".

But what if a tiger is fighting the grizzly bear?

So, now we write "Grizzly bear auto-win, unless fighting a tiger."

And the, this is a fantasy game, surely Hercules can out wrestle a grizzle bear!

So then we write "Grizzly bear auto-win, unless fighting a tiger, or Hercules."

But what if you trap the grizzle bear and have several guys attacking it with spears like cavemen did?

So then we write "Grizzly bears auto-win, unless trapped and outnumbered, or in a cage, or fighting hercules, or fighting a tiger..."

And this keeps on getting more and more complicated.

Isn't it much simpler to just give everything combat stats and situational modifiers, and actually play out said combats?


If so, why is it so different to say that people have a range of initiative scores, and modifiers can bump these scores up, and people on the same level dice for it?

That's exactly what you would do in combat.

Why is saying "We couldn't normally fight a bear, but maybe if we flank it and have spears we can pull it off" so different from "We couldn't normally get the drop on a vampire with superhuman senses and reflexes, but maybe if we wait until he is distracted and then jump out of hiding, we can pull it off"?

Even if that one potential storytelling thread was ignored you have so many more to pull on.
*snip*.

I agree with all of this.

I am not actually sure what the issue is here? Are we debating something?

Again, the original conflict was about whether or not the illusion acted on the knowledge that it was an illusion. Bob said yes, I said no, but I could see pros and cons to both sides.

Then Gbaji said (AFAICT) that we should bypass this conflict by simply removing its free will, giving Bob's PC total control, and then letting Bob play it is a second PC.

I said that I don't want to do this as free-willed and sapient magical constructs have so many rich storytelling and RP possibilities, of which you have illustrated many in this very post.


And people seem to have read that as "Bwa-ha-ha, I want to have the illusion instantly turn on the PCs because I am a jackass GM!" which I have time and again said will only happen if the PC consciously chooses to create an illusion which is hostile to them or copies an existing person who is already hostile to them, which they have the option to do, but is by no means the default expectation.

Even if that one potential storytelling thread was ignored you have so many more to pull on.
*snip*.

I agree with all of this.

I am not actually sure what the issue is here? Are we debating something?

Again, the original conflict was about whether or not the illusion acted on the knowledge that it was an illusion. Bob said yes, I said no, but I could see pros and cons to both sides.

Then Gbaji said (AFAICT) that we should bypass this conflict by simply removing its free will, giving Bob's PC total control, and then letting Bob play it is a second PC.

I said that I don't want to do this as free-willed and sapient magical constructs have so many rich storytelling and RP possibilities, of which you have illustrated many in this very post.


And people seem to have read that as "Bwa-ha-ha, I want to have the illusion instantly turn on the PCs because I am a jackass GM!" which I have time and again said will only happen if the PC consciously chooses to create an illusion which is hostile to them or copies an existing person who is already hostile to them, which they have the option to do, but is by no means the default expectation.

Assuming "penalties" was a typo and you meant something like "prohibitions": That's not a bad thing in principle, but I am a bit ambivalent about it in practice. There comes a point where sufficiently severe penalties are tantamount to prohibition anyway, and sometimes it is better to cut to the chase.

No single penalty in Heart of Darkness is insurmountable.

For an average rogue, a -20 is impossible. But for a legendary master, it is routine.

And even the average rogue can still get lucky or, more likely, stack bonuses in his favor to negate the -20 such as cover, distance, or concealment.

Whereas it rarely happens at mine (and when it does. it is usually as a result of of the situation changing immediately before someone's turn, invalidating their previous plan). But, it would never occur to me or my fellow GMs to have an illusory guard immediately turn the caster in because "that is what a guard would do". These two differences may not be a coincidence.

Would a living guard sound the alarm in the same situation? If not, why not?

If yes, why would an illusory guard not, when the spell description explicitly says the illusion acts exactly like the living creature it is a copy of?

The first reason that would come to my mind as to why you might say no to either of these is that when you GM you ignore the game rules and setting consistency to "let the players win".

And yeah, if I had a GM who always had things go my way, I don't think I would bother putting much thought into things either. I also don't think I would enjoy the game at all, but that's another thread.

Ah, OK, that makes more sense. In which case, all I will say is that the fast characters are covering more ground but they are doing it in the same amount of time as the slower characters. So if it is reasonable for the slower characters to cover the shorter distance before the targets can react, it is equally reasonable for the faster characters to cover the longer difference (even if it doesn't feel like it).

That's a very good point.

Although I feel like, as a rule, the faster something is moving, the more noise it is making, and the more likely it is to be noticed.

But unless you have a specific coordination skill (which most games don't, I assume including yours) the most relevant skill for coordinating stealthily is pretty much always going to be stealth (or equivalent). At the very least, better that than using initiative for coordination (and especially better than using initiative for coordination but inverting the roll for some players).

I disagree.

I think initiative, which is a matter of reflexes and situational awareness, is very much the appropriate skill to use for "acting quickly in response to a signal."

If, for example, there was no sneaking involved, and it was merely a quick-draw competition where someone rang a bell and the first person to fire upon a target won, I would absolutely use initiative and would never even think to use stealth.

The fact that they happen to be hidden while they are doing this is irrelevant, anymore than say, I wouldn't let them use stealth in place of medicine to treat a wound suffered just because both the doctor and patient are in hiding at the time.

Not true. Heart of Darkness has the same issues, it just moves them around a little. Your comment about the D&D character who sees the orks trying to interrupt his race and getting a speed boost could equally be applied to a Heart if Darkness character who crits his init and gets too actions' worth of running to the others' one, except he doesn't even need to have spotted the orks to get his boost!

Another very good point.

But critical success in HoD is relatively rare, and as I said above, the example results are just suggestions.

But I will certainly occasionally ask a question where the answer is not particularly significant, just so as they cannot derive too much meta-information from the questions I ask. And I will tell the players that I do this! I don't consider that "messing with them" and I am pretty sure my players don't either.

I am pretty sure my players would consider asking questions for no purpose other than to hinder their ability to meta-game would be seen as messing with them, and I would probably consider it needlessly condescending in their shoes.

All the ambushers, or any of the ambushers? And if the former, how is that different from skipping, given it would presumably be their go again anyway at that point?

All of them who didn't already do something else with their turn.

It is different from skipping because if they are skipped Bob would get two turns in a row before the enemies could react. As is, regardless of order, they both get a single turn before anyone gets a second (barring a critical success on initiative).

I think the illusory guard shopping the caster its its boss is an unreasonable result of the caster spending resources to cast a spell, even if there is a logic train to get there where the individual steps are reasonable. Whatever the players was wanting when he cast the spell, it obviously was not that. If that would be the result of the spell, the caster would know that, so the spell would never be cast in that way! The caster knows better than the player does how his magic works, even if the player does not.

I fully agree.*

Which is why I don't think the spell is innately problematic just because the caster could potentially use it in a way that would bite them in the butt.

*Although I suppose they might want to be captured for whatever reason, something like the first act of Return of the Jedi or Black Widow in the Avengers.

The GM can obviously apply which ever modifiers happen to apply, but by "stack up" I really meant deliberately seek out beneficial modifier for important rolls (and/or minimise negative ones I guess).

Right. But if they are on the receiving end of the ambush, they are unlikely to be the one's stacking modifiers.

If I don't know something is preparing to ambush me, I have no reason to draw my weapons, assume defensive positions, and start scanning the room for access points.

True, but there is a difference between "you happen to be in the right place at the right time" and "you happen to be in the wrong place exactly six seconds too late"! The former comes under what TV Tropes calls "Acceptable Breaks from Reality", and the latter very much does not.

In general, I don't disagree. Having someone show up precisely too late is pretty much kicking them when they were down. Which of course doesn't mean they should always be on time!

But yeah, the idea is that if they get their in the nick of time, they should have a chance to affect the outcome. It should not be a foregone conclusion one way or the other.

In D&D there is a fairly significant difference, but not in HoD because as you keep telling us you do not have partial actions!

There is a huge difference between going first and getting two turns.

Bob wants the latter, but keeps dressing it up as the former by citing the very rare situations where he doesn't automatically go first when hidden.

If two actions in a row is that deadly that earning it with with stealth rolls is broken, then it is deadly enough that getting it just for rolling well on initiative is even more broken!

I don't see the connection.

Lucky dice are rare and random. Succeeding on a stealth roll is not.

Like, D&D has attacks that deal double damage on a natural 20. Does that mean that if I introduced a feat that let you make a DC 10 healing check before every attack to make it automatically crit, that feat wouldn't be broken because you "earned it"?

I feel like I might still be misunderstanding the point of the question, maybe. It is possible for treasure A to be closer by straight line and treasure B to be closer in terms of walked distance, even if both treasure A and treasure B can be walked to.

Correct.

But the treasure that is further by absolute distance can never be closer by walked distance, that is literally impossible.

You keep saying that, as if "the enemy is in the middle of performing some time sensitive plan" like that is something that could just happen, but it can't. It only occurs if the GM fiats that it does (and if they are doing that, it will be obvious to Bob as he sneaks into position. And possibly to Alice too if she is waiting for the signal to charge).

Technically everything is GM FIAT.

But, if you want a realistic world, the bad guys do stuff, right? If Bob is shadowing them all day, they aren't just sitting around picking their noses and watching the paint dry. And, if they are villains, presumably some of the things they do are things that the heroes would object to and try and stop.

If you pick up just about any adventure module, I guarantee that you will find at least a few examples of enemies doing stuff regardless of the PCs presence. And, I also imagine, more than a few instances of PCs arriving "just in the nick of time", although again the later is more common in more cinematic campaigns.


Again though, the idea is not that the enemy will do something because they know Bob is about to strike. Quite the opposite, the idea is that they will do stuff on their own, and if Bob happens to be watching at the time, he will likely want to intervene. And I see no reason why such intervention should automatically be successful like it would in a D&D style surprise round where the enemies are literally prevented from moving or taking any actions for six seconds by the rules of the game.

Again, this whole conversation started because Bob was complaining that "Hidden characters shouldn't have to roll initiative at all, just like in D&D" which I can only take to mean he thinks that he should get a bonus surprise round where he makes an additional attack and during which the enemies are prevented from moving or acting at all.

Once again, D&D is not the platonic ideal of initiative systems. I cannot be bothered to look up exactly what Alert does (that's a 5e feat, right?) does, but as a general principle special abilities that mess with initiative tend to be even less well thought out and/or spelled out than the core initiative rules.

So for me at least, if its operation is problematic, then the fact that it is a feat does not make it "A-OK". I obviously cannot speak for gbagi, but I doubt it does for them either.

I don't think D&D initiative is great at all. I just find it weird when people object to my system for things that exist in other systems and which I haven't heard anyone make a peep over in decades of online discussion.

Again, no you do not know that. You know that the GM doesn't want to waste time working out the answer to two different questions when you are only asking one of them, and wants to make sure he is answering the question you are actually asking. That's all.

I suppose it is possible that the GM just doesn't know. I hadn't considered that as it wasn't the case at the time.

Not possible. Alice can keep secrets from Bob if she wants, but not from you (the GM). If she doesn't tell you about her plan, it does not exist.

That's.... quite a take.

Do you really think if I posted a new thread saying "The other day, one of my PCs lied in character and made a promise she claimed that she had no intention of keeping, but because she didn't tell me (the GM) that she was lying out of character, I forced her to go through with the promise." that I would get a lot of support for that position? Or do you think I would (imo rightfully) be called a railroading tyrant?

Firstly, hiding from the enemy does not make those enemies forget he is there. The NPCs are going to be looking for him and even if they never succeed, they are not "out of combat" until they give up looking (which may be a while the first time, and is going to be a lot longer the second and subsequent times.

I don't think I have ever played an RPG that worked like this.

I am pretty sure if I did, Bob's complaints would only be amplified ten-fold.

Secondly, your "Easy, zero risk" win seems to rely on the attacker having no chance of ever losing initiative or blowing a stealth roll (with the latter being opposed and both being open-ended rolls). Hardly "zero risk" - sounds pretty damn hard to me!

If I wanted to build for it, I can pretty easily make a character who can beat appropriate leveled enemies at stealth and initiative 100%* of the time. Heck, Bob was playing such a character in my last campaign (he might have needed a few tweaks for the initiative).

*Well, exploding dice do exist, so not literally one hundred, but will in excess of 95%.

Shadow Conjuration just duplicates other conjuration spells with a couple of modifications to reflect its "quasi-real" nature, and so inherits the behavior and limitations of the spells it copies. So a Shadow Summon Monster X acts like Summon Monster X (attacks your enemies to the best of its abilities unless you communicate to it otherwise). Very little scope there for it to shop you to the enemy boss!

My point is that the spell being an illusion does not remove and of the limitations of summon monster X.

The monster still acts "to the best of its abilities" rather than precisely how the caster wants it to act, which leaves room for the jackass GM to have it take actions the caster feels suboptimal.
Likewise, if you can't verbally command it (due to a lack of common language or maybe a silence effect or being underwater or w/e) you can't even get it to stop attacking one target or to change targets (for example, if you want to ignore surrendered enemies or focus fire on a specific enemy).
Heck, by RAW, if its most effective method of attacking the enemy happens to be an area effect that also hits you and / or your allies, it will do so! You can verbally order it not to, but you may not get the chance.
And, if for some reason you command it to betray you, it will!*

*Keep in mind that most of the problematic elements we were discussing with the caster specifically choosing to conjure a being that was hostile to them for whatever reason. Which, although probably not possible with shadow conjuration (depending on how you interpret stuff like protection from evil) is certainly a possibility with spells like Gate or Create Undead.

I think that it's fair to say that your system can be described as a fork of 3.5 DnD, which is a double edged sword. On one hand, you start off with a functioning rule system that you have experience with, and so do your players. They have less things to learn before they can jump in, you have experience with the holes and problems the system has so you can attempt to avoid or patch them.

The problem is that your players see the resemblance to 3.5 and just go in expecting 3.5 with different spells/abilities/monsters, while expecting to be able to play like it's 3.5 for the most part. Whereas you want them to have a completely different play experience, use different tactics etc.

(on the grasping hand - DnD from a game design perspective has no right being the default pnp rpg aside from being first. imo when "forking" a dnd edition, you're mostly forking the deep seated issues of the game).

I don't agree.

Its still a fantasy adventure game, and some things work like D&D, but overall the games are pretty different. I merely use 3.5 as a comparison because it is the common language that most posters on this forum speak.

There are absolutely elements that play out like 3.5, but a lot of them are things that are universal to RPGs as a whole, having all spun off of OD&D in the 70s.

Although I have taken influences from D&D 3.5 (and many other games) over the years, the chassis of the system actually predates 3E by several years. It was originally developed in 1998 as a fork of the SPECIAL system used in the original Fallout games, and although it has changed many times since them, I still bears some of that DNA (for example, Initiative being based on Perception) and in its current form I would say it plays like a cross between WHFRP and Exalted.

I think it would be a good idea to consider how you envision the game to be played, and consider why its not happening. As the game designer, the point of leverage for you is always going to be changing the game rules to encourage desired behaviour, as opposed to convincing someone the rules work well and they need to play differently. There's a lot of different ways to rephrase rules. The infamous World of Warcraft fatigue/rest xp thing comes to mind - when they first started penalizing players for playing too much, there was massive uproar. But they literally just changed the names around so that you got a bonus for playing the first few hours, but the numbers stayed the same, but everyone loves getting free xp bonus. I think I mentioned this before in the accuracy penalty thread? You might want to go over the rules and think about, how can you rephrase that to make penalties into bonuses without changing the math, or changing how rules work in a way that encourage a certain playstyle.

Just cause you're changing rules doesnt mean you have to change the rules to what the players want obviously. But consider their incentives and what they want. How can you change your rules in a way that they feel satisfied and are encouraged to play in accordance to your vision? For example, some of the suggestions as to why your players cant just declare hide at the start of the game was because its just exhausting to be in a state of constant combat alertness and we kinda call that paranoia out in the real world. Ok, so the obvious rule is "yeah you can just use hide all day. roll for exhaustion and resist against mental disorder" which is a penalty. I would try something along the lines of adding a "adrenaline rush" or even "well rested", or "sink or swim" "under pressure" etc rule, where the first time you take an action during a day or encounter, you just get a decent bonus for it. So if you want the rogue to have to roll initiative for sneaky-stabby action, give extra damage if he wins the initiative. Or like, if a player pre-casts a spell, they use basic dice. If a player casts a spell during an encounter, they get a bonus to either succeeding, or to the effects. To further make the player feel like they want to do, allow them to do pre-initiative actions at a penalty, or just make the bonuses so good they never really want to do so unless its a special tactical edge case.

Maybe this will come across as arrogant, but the system plays more or less how I want it to. And my players play more or less as I want them to. The problem is, they often whine and bitch and moan and demand I change things that don't go their way.

My group has problems with indecision, trust, and communication. And a definite bias towards power and violence over knowledge and dialogue.

But these are not system issues. We have these problems regardless of what rule-set we use or who is behind the screen. The are player problems, not game problems.

[Dasick]

I don't agree.

Its still a fantasy adventure game, and some things work like D&D, but overall the games are pretty different. I merely use 3.5 as a comparison because it is the common language that most posters on this forum speak.

There are absolutely elements that play out like 3.5, but a lot of them are things that are universal to RPGs as a whole, having all spun off of OD&D in the 70s.

Although I have taken influences from D&D 3.5 (and many other games) over the years, the chassis of the system actually predates 3E by several years. It was originally developed in 1998 as a fork of the SPECIAL system used in the original Fallout games, and although it has changed many times since them, I still bears some of that DNA (for example, Initiative being based on Perception) and in its current form I would say it plays like a cross between WHFRP and Exalted.

Oh ok, that makes sense yeah.

Actually it seems like most of the 11 page thread is you describing a situation in 3.5 terms, and people going into super focused rule mode to a point where it seems broken, and then you say "yeah well, its actually quite different" XD

Maybe this will come across as arrogant, but the system plays more or less how I want it to. And my players play more or less as I want them to. The problem is, they often whine and bitch and moan and demand I change things that don't go their way.

My group has problems with indecision, trust, and communication. And a definite bias towards power and violence over knowledge and dialogue.

But these are not system issues. We have these problems regardless of what rule-set we use or who is behind the screen. The are player problems, not game problems.

That doesn't seem arrogant. Just, I guess you're venting and double checking your calls and rules for potential exploits here?

If your players are playing how you want the game to be played, sounds awesome then. You can still try the "changing fatigue xp penalty to rested xp boost" trick, but if your players will bitch and moan, they might just bitch and moan that you're just changing the wording around and holding them in contempt xD

[glass]

Would you really be loyal to someone who created you only to be their slave and threatens to kill you if you don't please them?

I wouldn't, but you are I are people. The more I think of it, the root of the problem is that you are treating a temporary construct that it literally not real as a person.

The alternative, that it creates a full sapient (in intangible) human being that only lives for an hour seems to me to be 1) a bit much for what seems to be a relatively low level spell and, 2) so monstrously evil than nobody but the blackest-hearted villain should ever cast it!

I think you are saying a spell shouldn't allow the caster to choose to conjure something which would naturally be hostile toward them?

I'm not them, but I think the spell should not be able to accidentally summon something hostile to them. Like in your gate example; you could theoretically be high-enough level to cast gate or planar binding, but bad enough at Knowledge (The Planes) to not know demons are typically chaotic evil, but in practice you're always going to know what you're getting yourself into.

As is an illusionist who refuses to use his magic because he is afraid of having to make that tough choice again.

Great idea for a novel character. Decent idea for an NPC. Terrible idea for an illusion focused PC! (All IMNSHO, of course).

Would a living guard sound the alarm in the same situation? If not, why not?

A living guard is unlikely ever to be in this situation (conjured to replace the murdered previous guards, and given the knowledge the caster determines). But if it was, probably not and for the same reasons.

If yes, why would an illusory guard not, when the spell description explicitly says the illusion acts exactly like the living creature it is a copy of?

Because it is not a direct copy of the guard it physically resembles - it cannot be, because the caster does not know what the recently-deceased guard knew. The knew guard knows what the caster decides it knows, so it knows that the party are allowed to be there. Because that is obviously what the caster who did not want to get caught would have it know - sufficiently obvious that I would not need it spelled out or even bother to query it).

(And if the caster did want to get caught, he could just have let the real guards catch him...).

The first reason that would come to my mind as to why you might say no to either of these is that when you GM you ignore the game rules and setting consistency to "let the players win".

I do want the players to win, but not to the extent I will fudge to make that happen (just like I want to win as a player, but not the the extent that I will cheat to make that happen).

I disagree.

I think initiative, which is a matter of reflexes and situational awareness, is very much the appropriate skill to use for "acting quickly in response to a signal."

But the questions was not about responding quickly, it was about coordinating stealth - typically a very slow and deliberate activity!

If, for example, there was no sneaking involved, and it was merely a quick-draw competition where someone rang a bell and the first person to fire upon a target won, I would absolutely use initiative and would never even think to use stealth.

Obviously, if you remove both stealth and coordination from the equation, coordinating stealthily becomes a non-factor, but I'm not sure I get what you were trying to illustrate with that example.

I am pretty sure my players would consider asking questions for no purpose other than to hinder their ability to meta-game would be seen as messing with them, and I would probably consider it needlessly condescending in their shoes.

Your players might well, I am pretty confident mine would not!

It is different from skipping because if they are skipped Bob would get two turns in a row before the enemies could react. As is, regardless of order, they both get a single turn before anyone gets a second (barring a critical success on initiative).

Sorry still not following. AFAICT it plays out like this:

Bob sneaks into position.
Bob rolls initiative but flunks it even with the +4.
Enemies get a go, but have no targets. They either continue what they are doing (which for simplicity we will assume is standing guard or something, so no combat relevant action), or they delay.
Bob finally gets his sneak attack.
The enemies now have a target, so get to act, whether they delayed or not. Unless they get to take their delayed turn and their regular turn?

Like, D&D has attacks that deal double damage on a natural 20. Does that mean that if I introduced a feat that let you make a DC 10 healing check before every attack to make it automatically crit, that feat wouldn't be broken because you "earned it"?

Are you really trying to equate multiple stealth checks with significant chance and consequences of failure that might get you double damage if you succeed on two attacks, once, with a (presumably free action) skill check that you cannot fail after a couple of levels and bypasses literally all other concerns (and is doing triple or quadruple damage, not double). Cause to me they are massively different!

That's.... quite a take.

Do you really think if I posted a new thread saying "The other day, one of my PCs lied in character and made a promise she claimed that she had no intention of keeping, but because she didn't tell me (the GM) that she was lying out of character, I forced her to go through with the promise." that I would get a lot of support for that position? Or do you think I would (imo rightfully) be called a railroading tyrant?

That's quite a take, and not at all what I said. I said that unless she tells me, the GM, that she is jumping the gun she doesn't. Because telling the GM is how you do things in a TTRPG!

That said, I will make the PCs keep a promise if they told me at the time they were making it that they intended to keep it. Because if they had not intended to keep it they would have been rolling Bluff rather than (or in addition to) Diplomacy (or equivalents). They can lie to NPCs, they can lie to each other, but they cannot lie to me because if I do not know the real situation I cannot adjudicate it correctly.

*Keep in mind that most of the problematic elements we were discussing with the caster specifically choosing to conjure a being that was hostile to them for whatever reason.

No they are not. They are about conjuring a creature which the players and their PCs obviously intend to be non-hostile, but forget to specify non-hostility, so you (hypothetically) decide to ignore their obvious intention.