53 minutes ago, Darzil said:

impatient cartoon eaters

I swear that said carrion before autocorrect clicked in

It's assumed; by large that characters are attempting to fight to the best of their ability unless stated otherwise anyway, hence the entire concept of "readied actions" and "I will only fire when they get into range" a bit silly. Because it's assumed that people will be firing at the targets insight, even if they aren't necessarily within the "best range".

Though to be fair, an encounter usually doesn't start until something dramatic happens. The stormtroopers don't start off outside the room, they start off in the entrance and move in, which would be repersented by a cover bonus, but a player on overwatch could add a boost dice or two to their check due to extra preparation. If they fail? Then the stromtroopers keep their composure under fire and fire the first telling hits.

I have no use for overwatch as it complicates things and makes some talents less useful as was mentioned above, instead I just assume all the movement happens rougly at the same time (as it takes most of the turn). Meanwhile, actions and other maneuvers happen at their initiative slot.

On 4/13/2017 at 3:12 PM, ShadoWarrior said:

It doesn't have to be an ambush for an overwatch situation to be triggered. Two groups begin out of range of each other's weapons. The PCs have the initiative (let's say all of them, hypothetically) and declare that they will shoot at the enemy, from the protection of the cover they have, as soon as the enemy closes. Per RAW, however, during the PCs' init slots there are no enemies that can be shot because they are too far away. If we go by RAW, the PCs can surrender the initiative and then the NPCs get to move and shoot first. Which defeats the point of being ready to shoot the instant an enemy comes into range, and puts the lie to everything happening "simultaneously". The FFG RAW makes no provisions for "interrupts", or triggered (readied) actions. As the OP pointed out, most other RPGs, including d20 Saga SWRPG, have mechanisms for handling overwatch. Without interrupts there is no simultaneity. It's the classic "I go You go" of a simple board game. Being able to say which PCs acts in which PC init slot doesn't resolve the problem.

In games that I GM, and in the games I am playing in, we have house rules permitting readied actions.

solution: don't roll initiative until the enemies get into range, stuff before then happens in "narrative time" even though you're both aware of each other and both intending to attack each other.