Erik Smith's take on inititative

[JimmyPlenty]

Just read Erik's take on initiative in GURPS

He writes about initiative could be broken if the initiative order changed every turn.

Is TFT shielded from this since it just does "side vs side" instead of individual turns for each character that GURPS employs?

[Chris Rice]

I don't play GURPS and so the article didn't really mean too much to me. The one thing that stood out for me was the idea that, if initiative changed, one side might get to go twice. That can't happen in TFT.

In TFT combat turns are a combination of movement and action. The initiative roll only applies to the movement portion, not the action portion. Action is governed by DX.

So even if one side goes last one turn and then wins initiative the next turn and opts to go first, it doesn't mean they get to act twice before the opponent can respond. They may get to MOVE twice before the opponent can move, but certainly they don't get to act twice.

To me that's the clever thing about TFT: the turn sequence is simple yet subtle and knowing how to manipulate it to your advantage can make a big difference. If both movement and action were governed by DX the game would be a lot less interesting.

[Skarg]

TFT is "shielded" from the effect he means, not because entire sides move at once in TFT, but because TFT initiative only applies to movement, not (most) actions.

The effect does apply to TFT, but only to the things you can do during movement. Actions is TFT are always done in adjDX order, which doesn't change (except for the new way of deciding who goes first with equal adjDX, which I think is a bad idea for related reasons).

The way it applies to TFT, is that if someone ends up moving last one turn, and then moves first the next turn, their Movement will happen twice in a row. And that can have the effect Erik wrote about, but only as far as movement is concerned.

You could get a similar effect in TFT for actions if your adjDX changes relative to your opponents' adjDX. If you were slower than your opponents, but then something changes so you're faster than them the next turn, you will get to act twice in a row before they get to act. (That can happen in GURPS, too, if the GM alters the sequence.) But the causes would be things like injury, dropping a shield, broken ground, and Aid spell, etc., and would tend only to apply to single figures... unless someone casts Dazzle, or one side can see in the dark and the lights go on or off, etc.

[hcobb]

TFT initiative matters mostly for setting up back to back moves for your side.

Rarely does the DX tie breaking matter.

I'd like to see player ability matter a bit more. Like say:

Each turn each figure indicates if they will be acting on their own or following somebody else's orders. On the turn they change to themselves they add a die to their contest roll.

Then each leader rolls six dice against combined DX added to IQ. Subtract one die for each of Tactics and Strategy. The leader that succeeded by the most (or failed by the least) has the top initiative and decides if their forces move first or last.

Then the next highest score determines if they move first or last WRT the remaining forces and so on down the list.