Count-Up & Action Tick Combat Systems

So I posted asking about this before but didn't get much of a response. Reposting in hope that some other helpful souls will notice. Basically I'm attempting to create an RPG with a more realistic, reactive combat system than a traditional turn-based system. After thinking a lot, seeking advice from Veeky Forums, and reading around, I realised my only option was a count-up system wherein combat progresses in a tick by tick manner and each person chooses an action which has a certain tick cost. Then as the tick progresses, actions play out in the order of their action speed. Envision the following scenario.

>Player 1 could begin casting a spell at enemy X on the first tick, which has a tick cost of 4.
>Player 2 chooses to fire his pistol, a tick cost of 2, at an enemy Y.
>After two ticks have passed, P2 shoots Y, assuming Y hasn't used those two ticks to move out of line of sight or something. P1 is still in the process of casting a spell however so they have no "turn"/action yet.
>P2 now chooses their next action, to run, for a tick cost of say 1, over to protect P1 from X who is currently charging towards P1 for a melee strike
>P2 arrives after the tick passes and now chooses to adopt a defensive stance for an indeterminate amount of ticks, they may choose to cancel this at any future tick and take an action if they so wish
>On the next tick P1 finally casts their spell and kills X, hurray.

All very straightforward agreed? What I'm really here to ask though is if any of you have played this type of system before (I believe Hackmaster is one such system). If you have, what was your experience? Did you find it better or worse than other systems? What were the pros/cons? Those who haven't are also welcome to offer opinions. How would you feel about playing such a system? What problems or edge cases can you imagine? Thanks in advance guys, I can't really playtest this yet as I haven't enough of a system behind it and nobody to playtest with anyway.

In the last thread it was suggested than instead of using a count-up system (which could lead to maths headaches) that each individual attack simply be a countdown to 0 without the need to have a global tick to keep track of how long combat has progressed. To me this seemed like a genius suggestion but can any of you see an issue with this? I feel like I'm overlooking some fatal flaw.

Also, to be clear I have already examined a number of other systems in detail so I'd rather you didn't just point me to Exalted/Scion or whatever. I've already looked at Hackmaster, Aces and Eights, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds, Runequest, and Feng Shui to get this idea cobbled together.

I've played Hackmaster a lot, and I really like the count-up system. Helps ameliorate the interminable "waiting-for-my-next-turn" delay.

Oh great. What kind of party size/encounter size did you usually work with. How much real time did combat encounters usually take to resolve? Any negatives you can recall?

Oh and if you've played any other tick based systems how do they compare to hackmaster?

Seems to me that the count-up system is better. "My action resolves on turn 4" feels easier to track than remembering to decrement a counter each turn -- that's the kind of thing people often forget to do.

That said, I've never played a system that uses this kind of system so take my advice with a grain of salt.

>my only option
No, it's the option you chose. Don't limit your imagination by calling it your only option.

Well duh, I mean shit you don't have to take me so literally. I think it was pretty clear from the context that I had gone through a careful and deliberate selection process.

Ahh but with the count up, players need to consider both the global tick and their own actions relative to the global tick. Whereas with individual countdowns they need only pay attention to their own tick. As for keeping track I thought a neat idea would be to have every player keep a die in front of them and then turn it over to the next lowest number each tick. That way everyone has their own individual, physical way of keeping track. I don't reckon that would be an issue as long as the GM is remotely paying attention.

Yeah, we use dice to track conditions or spells in that way at my table, and people forget often. It might be easier to remember when it's a core mechanic though.

It seems quite easy to me to say, "It's tick 3, my action takes 4 ticks, so I go on tick 7". And then you don't worry about the action length any more, you just keep 7 in your mind or on your paper. Also, when players start coordinating their actions, having a universal reference point will be very handy: "Caster McWizard casts on tick 9" is easier than looking over at the guy's die every turn.

bump to post responses

Note: I am mostly familiar with some AD&D initiative variant. I'm not sure if this is standard rules or not, though.

First, I might recommend a fairly simple 10-point initiative "wheel". Having a fairly simple wheel as a physical board and some indicators for each player enemy helps to keep things straight with everyone. Each player can see who is on Initiative 5, what characters are acting next, and so what they can pull off before another particular character acts.

When a character goes over the top (above 10), then simply loop back around to 1. So, when at Initiative 9, performing a 4-point action would put them at Initiative 3.

The reason it is 10-points is to keep the things simple when looping around. You could use a 6-point or 8-point (to make things look nicer) or a 12-point (to look more like a clock) but the 10-point keeps the math simpler. For the above example, starting at Init 9 and moving ahead 4 is just 9+4 = 13 = Init 3. So, you can just keep moving characters around the initiative wheel for their actions. Most actions seemed to be between 3 initiative "points" (for quick attacks, say from a dagger) and 7 initiative points (for large spellcasting). You wouldn't want to use some overly large values, like 12 initiative points, because it would become too easy to forget if a particular initiative round was one you should pass a character or not. Similarly, 1 initiative or 2 initiative is just too little time to allow anything meaningful to happen; a character could just attack far too frequently with 1 init against an 8 init spellcasting. (3-7 gives real benefit for the quicker attacks, while allowing for much quicker non-attack options and not penalizing the slower actions too much.)

(cont.)

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One last thing to note, is that not all turns were "declare action, resolve at new initiative". Spellcasting and movement would resolve at the particular initiative, but weapon attacks resolved when the turn occurred and the new initiative was basically recovering from the swing. Or, perhaps more realistically, positioning for an effective attack. So you might have a dagger-user (init 3 attack) and a sword-user (init 5 attack) along with a spellcaster. The spellcaster could begin casting a spell, which will resolve 7 initiative later. The sword-user would make a movement to protect the spellcaster (say, init 2). The dagger-user might throw their first dagger at the spellcaster, resolving the hit and then waiting 3 init for their next turn. The sword-user resolves their movement, getting in front of the dagger-user, then attacking (and moving their init ahead 5 points). The dagger-user then attacks the sword-user, moving their init ahead another 3 points. Then, the spellcasting resolves.

You'll also note that it isn't always consistent over when the action is declared. Spellcasters would declare what spell they are casting - since that determines the init penalty - but not its targets, until the spell is resolved. Movement would declare that they are moving, but not where they are moving to until that is resolve. Attacking would declare and make the attack during their initiative, though, and the next initiative represents when they can take another action. This system did make spellcasting a bit riskier to use, or course.

I'd also note that characters had the option to "cancel" a planned move if something changed their mind - such as if someone suddenly didn't want to move because of a change in the battlefield. This generally had some sort of init penalty associated with it (something like resetting to the next init number before you could pick a new action) but I don't recall the details.

Yeah of course it seems pretty easy when working with smaller numbers but the rick count can balloon out of proportion over time. But yes I feel that as a core mechanic it will get more of the attention it deserves than something like how long you're paralysed for or whatever. You're right that it could be nice to have the global tick for everyone to coordinate actions on though. Hmm, it's a tricky decision.

Fairly large encounters. Usually 5-6 good guys, half again that many bad.

It still takes a reasonably long time to resolve a large combat encounter like that. Subjectively, I'd say less time than d20, probably because count up feels more "active," as I described earlier. I don't know how much help it would be to tell you objectively how long the fights took, because there's a lot of factors at play here: Hackmaster cares a lot about facing and positioning, which slows things down. Hackmaster's combat is also very lethal, which means fight length is swingy.

One potential negative is that both players and the GM have to pay very close attention. Missing a count can lead to chaos and can be hard to go back and correct because the playstate changes with each tick. That makes it a little more complicated than just rolling back, say, the last "turn" because something was overlooked.

It also means the GM has to keep a lot of plates spinning at once. He has to know when all the monsters have acted and act next, which means he has to keep in mind how long each of their actions are and be ready to switch actions on a dime so that they respond intelligently to changes in the play state. Having players helped by tracking their own action times and being honest about enemy timing helps. So does having an assistant: in my hackmaster game, I would do all the rules look-ups for the GM while he was running the count (" how much damage does a spear do," "what's the defense roll for being attacked from behind," how many ticks does it take to light a torch," etc.)

This sounds like it would somewhat overcomplicate things. I don't see how it helps to have a loop like this. Also it is a little on the small side, 10 segments seems like it wouldn't offer enough granularity. That said I agree that some kind of external record of tick progress and individual actions would help a lot. I have considered developing some companion software to go along with the game just for things like heavy number crunching, character sheet management, and also combat resolution/tracking. It would be fairly straightforward to make a little list which sorts combatants in order of their actions, just have each person input the tick cost of their actions each time they take an action. The Gm would have a different version which could also show enemy actions exact timings as well as the players. Something like that would be relatively straightforward to cook up in Java for people to use on their phones/tablets/laptops.

The only other ones I've played are variants on the Hackmaster system--Aces & Eights, for example. Not enough of a substantive difference to merit separate examination.

Now that's interesting. I plan on having smaller scale combats, I would say 4 players max to a party. And have it be stupid to engage a group more than one or two larger than yourself. My combat system is also going to be pretty lethal and realistic. I'm taking some inspiration from Song of Swords/Riddle of Steel.

Since tick tracking is so critical and needs meticulous detail attention how would you feel about a tech solution like I suggested here ? I feel like more than the players, this really helps take a load off of the GM. And yeah of course player honesty is a factor but I like to think I'm aiming this system at more serious roleplayers. It's a bit complex and crunchy to attract too many "that guys".

Yeah fair enough. You've been quite helpful anyway though so cheers for that.

This is pretty much just Twilight 2013's tick system.

I know you don't want suggestions on things to read but it's eerily similar

Hah well at least your suggestion is something I haven't already read so thanks anyway. I guess I'll give that a look

As I said, it's very similar, but, it probably does have nuances you'd like. Specifically pic related is a pretty good way to handle aiming and such.

Ahh that is something I had in mind actually. Though it seems a bit more developed and refined than what I had already considered. Thought I think I can only justify 2 different speeds for aimed shots as my setting is sort of post-industrial/pre-modern era. Most guns had to be loaded directly before being fired as there were no magazines etc. , so there is no such thing as a hip shot. I could justify a split tick cost between a rushed shot and a carefully aimed one though.

Hipshot is just the general term for an unaimed shot, kind of. It's a shot where you don't use the sights at all, and just sort of point your gun in the general direction.

Hipshot = Unsighted quick shot
Snapshot = Sighted quick shot
Aimed Shot = Sighted calculated shot
If that makes any sense. You can 'hip shot' with muzzleloaded weapons and such (Though I suppose the lack of magazine feeding wouldn't make a risky shot like that all too appealing).

Oh I thought literally aimed from the hip. Still, as you say it seems unlikely. After all if you're already spending time fiddling around with powder and balls, an extra second or two makes little difference. That said, smoothbore firearms tend not to be especially accurate anyway so maybe speed is more important. Though I expect there to be some rifled weapons I plan on making them an extreme rarity due to expense. Maybe I'll keep a three way division just for diversity's sake. It'll just need some fine tuning balance wise to figure out exact penalties.

Still not sure how much you want to go in to it, but T2k13 also has a nice stat called OODA, which not only determines your starting ticks, but also determines things like how long your wait actions have to be. I think it's a neat idea that wait actions aren't necessarily things that let you instantly act whenever you want, but instead moments where you could have just possibly made a great mistake by letting your guard down.

When you say "starting ticks" are you impying that characters have a pool of ticks from which to draw upon and spend? Because that's not a mechanic I'm interested in. The ticks are merey to serve as accurate time measurements for individual actions. I have other stats to cover things like fatigue and speed/reflexes and whatnot. I think it would be good to have something which governs how long wait actions are allowed to last though yeah. You're right that it's a little unrealistic to let them be instantaneously ready to act at any time

So, essentially, you roll OODA (Initiative, more or less) and that determines your starting ticks. It's based on a linear scale, of whatever to 0. So, lets say Tommy gets 25, and Johnny gets 20, that means Tommy acts at the top of the round at 25, and if he say, takes a 3 tick action, he can also act again before Johnny goes at 20.

To try and put it simpler, the person with the higher ticks takes their action, subtracts their tick cost from their level, and then the next highest tick cost goes. If that makes any sense.

Hmmm see that's not the kind of system I want. The whole reason I'm avoiding turn based systems is to avoid that kind of situation where people can do all sorts of actions while the other dudes are just standing there waiting their turn. My system is going to require all intended actions be delcared simultaneously at combat start (things like ambushes and surprise attacks notwithstanding, those would have slightly different rules), and the tick cost/count is what determines the order of action resolution. Of course there will be room for stat based modifiers to tick costs so that the same action by different people doesn't always turn out the same speed. But overall I mean for the nature of the action itself to be the primary factor in determining action speed, not the speed/skill of the player.

To give an example. A disagreement in a tavern has made it clear that a fight is unavoidable now. All involved parties declare their actions simultaneously, with the GM only giving vague and imprecise information about enemy actions as the characters themselves would see things. Then proceed tick by tick with the quickest action being resolved first, say one of the players throws his drink at an aggressor on tick 2. Meanwhile other players are still maneuvering themselves into favourable positions, flipping over tables and crouching down, or diving over the bar etc. Then keep ticking, say on tick 3 an enemy has come up behind player 1 and throttles him or something.

And so on and so forth with slower actions resolving later. It's that whole initiative based order system you described that I despise, turn based systems just have that more commonly than tick based ones.

It's not turn based, per-se. If both people have the same tick thingy, they act at the same time. Though, there's the optional rule in T2k13 to make all actions resolved on the final tick (In other words, if you fire a gun for 3 ticks, the action is only completed on the third tick after; 22 if you had 25, etc) but that seems slightly cumbersome.

I'm not entirely sure I'm explaining it well enough, because it does seem very similar to what you want.

The aforementioned "action happens on final tick" rule seems to be exactly what you are looking for.

Well yeah I mean it doesn't make any sense that you'd resolve things on the tick that you declare them. Then what the fuck is your character doing for the remaining ticks? Like some shitty MMO type ability cooldown nonsense. Definitely an action resolves once that action is actually completed, the whole point of differing tick costs is to represent the time it takes to actually do different things. Throwing a drink that is already in you hand for instance is a very quick thing to do. Drawing, loading, aiming and firing a flintlock pistol is another thing entirely speed-wise. Casting some sort of devastating ritual/spell thing even more so.

Of course I will have some differing rules with regards to continuous actions such as travelling a certain distance, or adopting a defensive posture to guard a chokepoint or something.

You said it seemed cumbersome though? Have you played it like that before? What about it seemed to be the main sticking point?