I just do not agree. Background experience plays a huge difference. Someone who was trained and experienced in combat tactics and to keep their head "on a swivel" will 9 out of 10 times react to a threat quicker than someone that has never been in a combat scenario. As someone with 20 years in this area, I can tell you I am constantly watching people around me, no matter where I am or who I am with. Not only watch, though. I will also listen. Not with the intention to eavesdrop, but with the intent to ensure the person near me is not a threat, or if there is something in the distance that I may need to be react to. At this point in my life, it's instinctual. My wife on the other hand wouldn't notice a green alien standing right in front of her even if it said hello. Two entirely different backgrounds and response conditioning.
[Traveller Battlefield Dev] New Combat Rules to Try!
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
To Me this should be a function of the Recon skill. If you can't notice things, you can't react. The faster you notice things, the faster you can react. So it seems you Me, that maybe Initiative should just be a Recon Check. DEX or INT depending how the character would do it. Is it just fast reactions or is it that the PC noticed the threat before others and that helps him react quicker. DEX or INT
We're saying the same thing. I've got 30+ years in "this area" and I agree completely that background experience is a huge determinant. But that's not how initiative is set-up under the current rules and, as you'll see in my original post, Chadwick's take on initiative parsed it down to who was a combat arms MOS vice a service and support MOS in Twilight 2000: "To determine initiative, regulars roll 1D6, reservists roll 1D6/2 (round down, but reroll results of zero). Add one to this roll for rangers, airborne, SF, force recon, snipers, and equivalents. Subtract one from this roll for support, air force enlisted, aviation enlisted, and military intelligence (but never reduce Initiative below 1)." That's just an example, not a recommendation for what a Traveller initiative rating would look like.
BTW, "Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness." -- Stephen King. ;-)
But how do you resolve initiative when neither side achieves surprise or both blow a recon roll--what's typically called a "meeting engagement"? An example is the "Wall Battle" in Saving Private Ryan where both sides are surprised. Another good example is this one from "Tears of the Sun"--the SEALs are surprised but they seize the initiative due to individual experience and training, and experience working as a team. The tactics ability of Bruce Willis' character isn't a factor because reacting to an ambush is a standard battle drill for the team.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I resolve it through accurate roleplay. Regardless of the Initiative number, a player should play their character. A combat vet and a person who have never seen violence in real life will react very differently. In a case where initiative is unclear, I always default to roleplay. If I am playing the non-combatant and I win Initiative, I am likely spending My first round panicking. Maybe My second round running for cover or some such. By round 3 someone might have reminded Me that I have a weapon and to shoot back. I play like this no matter the Initiative roll, so maybe this won't help you mechanically. Initiative is only reaction time, nothing else. If you freeze in combat, that isn't usually a function of initiative, unless you rolled really, really badly, it is a function of lack of experience. Both parties may react at the same time, but their actions will be vastly different. This is something that isn't covered by the rules and I am not sure that determining player actions should be covered by the rules. Trained combatants will engage the enemy or fall back to cover or both or a number of other smart, effective things. The non-combatants, well, they won't. This is less of a mechanical thing than a roleplay thing in My games. That is why in My games, using the Recon skill as an Initiative roll works well for Us. Recon tells you how quickly you notice the problem, then it is up to the player to roleplay if their character takes effective action or ineffective "panic" actions. Granted this requires you to have gamers at your table that will act against their character's best interests in the interest of roleplay instead of roll play.
For example, I tend to "power game" My stats and skills, but I use them in ways that often counterbalance them. He will take actions that make sense for the character but do not use his abilities in a smart way from an OOC perspective. For example. Perhaps a combat vet with PTSD. Great stats. Great abilities. The choices I make for the character are not always great from a succeeding or surviving point of view. When it is needed to save the party from multiple character deaths, sure, I may use My stats and abilities intelligently, but mostly I just play the character.
Or an amusing example is Fizban from Weis and Hickman's books. Very powerful, but not very useful, or of limited use anyhow.
Apologies for misunderstanding. I read it to be you were wanting it to be everyone had a flat stat regardless of background. It's been a while since I've watched SPR and I don't remember that scene. As far as Tears of the Sun, I think this is where there is an important distinction between what happens to a highly trained combat unit versus what happens to a rag-tag bunch of Travellers. As they travel together, they may learn that level of teamwork, but without running drills and practicing regularly, they're just a group of like-minded individuals. As such, an ambush is going to hurt even if the group leader is Sun Tzu.
Some skills such as Recon and Tactics are prevalent in the warrior backgrounds. Using those as a bonus to the INIT roll is a good way to give them that "trained" edge over the others in the group. I'm not in favor of the idea of a single roll for the whole group, as that implies one side will always have the advantage which just isn't how combat devolves. Once surprise is lost (if it existed to begin with), it usually devolves into a free-for-all unless it is a highly trained tactical unit. Travellers are not and wouldn't be even if every one of them served in the military. Roleplaying that is what Mercenary is for
That works for you and your group. But what about the group of 15-year olds (or group of adults) with no experience in anything resembling a firefight, bar fight, or a dog fight (the fighter v fighter aircraft/spacecraft kind). Or in other words, as a Ranger Captain put it to me when I was walking slack for our point man: "When the bullets are flyin' and the blood's a-flowin." Accurate play of characters is hard because many people cannot empathize with their character in that type of situation. So, while you've got the experience to work around that, others (I'll venture on out and say "many others") do not. So, that means we need a system to guide them or that they can discard--as you seem to do (and that's fine). Which gets back to the need for something that rewards the right kind of experience and works consistently--as opposed to the crap shoot we currently have.
R/JCL
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
We do still use the initiative rules. Our non-combatants just usually make their first action or so something not smart. It was hilarious the first time a non-combatant panic fired at the enemy and actually killed several of them. The look of shock on the player's face was priceless. He totally meant to be ineffective. lol
The Recon Skill implies some kind of training, so could be used as a modifier to Initiative if need be.
This is probably the best work on reactions under fire
