1 hour ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I don't think I've done so. I will use setback dice sometimes, usually as a result of a previous roll. Let's say a Bounty Hunter is attempting an ambush, making a Stealth check before attacking the PCs. If he gets Advantage, he may toss some Setback dice at the PCs initiative check. A Triumph would let him upgrade the difficulty (from 0 to 1). Depending on the circumstances, it may be better to boost his own dice or penalize his opponents, but either option can work.

As mentioned above I will skip the ambushing Stealth check, merging it with the initiative check, instead:

12 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

In the case of a sudden attack I'll have Vigilance opposed by the surprising party's lowest Stealth or Survival or Deception, or whatever skill appropriate, for initiative, in fact; lighting and such might come into the equation, too, of course.

Don't roll twice, when one suffices.

On 27.8.2017 at 0:27 AM, jnrschulz said:

I count successes as whole numbers and advantages as decimals so:

2 success and one advantage is 2.1

1 success and 3 advantages is 1.3

Triumphs would grant a extra move or action on the players turn.

You really have a talent to get to the point. FFG needs what? One whole page to explain the same thing in more words, but less clear? And all just because they want to avoid confusion for the rare case that someone reaches 10 or more advantages

I award 5xp to the initiative tracker and 5 xp to the note taker, per session. It can't be the same people every session.

I like the idea of each side opposing each other in the initiative check. The initiation of the battle is important, and since these rounds are abstract and can be very long, how the fight begins can be dramatic. I also think that if you were to have a duel going on between two players you can get the gunfighter/samurai thing going by having that tension extend to the determination of who actually draws and attempts to hit first.

The only question I have now is whether I should do it as an opposed dice roll, or if it should be some difficulty that is purely situational, rather than my speed vs yours. I can see the opposed dice roll for PC vs NPC single combat. But for the team A vs. team B there are going to be other considerations because it is often the reaction to the first actions that determines how it all shakes out.

Initiative is also a military term for a side having momentum. Much like in the chase rules where someone has an advantage, a side could be in the position of initiative until they lose it. Determining the nature of that kind of initiative is difficult though.

The initiative system took a bit of getting used to for me too, but once I really understood the permutations I found that this system works really well. I actually prefer it to a straight contest of randomly generated numbers.

I'm in two groups and one group uses the S.A iteration and the other group (run by a GM who playtested for FFG) uses a S-A iteration. Both work equally well.

And since the purpose of the system is to put together an order of initiative, ties aren't a problem. (Again PC's go first in ties and OpFor goes next).

I think that the difficulty dice should represent the inherent difficulty of the initiative roll, as that is how those dice are described in the rulebook. There is an inherent difficulty to acting BOTH fast and in the right manner. I'm going to set this to Average Difficulty for a conflict in which both sides have no real advantage over each other. In a situation where one side has a clear advantage it starts to sway in degrees. Team A = Average, Team B= Easy. Etc.

This also means that a pure ambush will happen less often, as the conditions for total surprise should be a function of stealth/discipline checks anyway. One person on the hiding team shifts their weight, or is sensed by a force user, and the thing is up. Now its a mater of who capitalizes on the situation best.

21 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I like the idea of each side opposing each other in the initiative check. The initiation of the battle is important, and since these rounds are abstract and can be very long, how the fight begins can be dramatic. I also think that if you were to have a duel going on between two players you can get the gunfighter/samurai thing going by having that tension extend to the determination of who actually draws and attempts to hit first.

The only question I have now is whether I should do it as an opposed dice roll, or if it should be some difficulty that is purely situational, rather than my speed vs yours. I can see the opposed dice roll for PC vs NPC single combat. But for the team A vs. team B there are going to be other considerations because it is often the reaction to the first actions that determines how it all shakes out.

Initiative is also a military term for a side having momentum. Much like in the chase rules where someone has an advantage, a side could be in the position of initiative until they lose it. Determining the nature of that kind of initiative is difficult though.

The military definition of initiative doesnt have anything to do with the combat round initiative. The military definition is all about what actions are taken in the combat. If you go first but just sit behind cover, while I go last but take actions, I have the military initiative while you have the combat round init.

I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Init shouldnt take more then a minute. You say 'Roll (cool or vigilance)...What did you get' They say 'X success and Y advantage, and (use of advantage/triumph here)' You write that down on a piece of scratch paper then write your rolls next to that. Order it highest to lowest and you are done. If someone takes more than a few seconds to decide about advantage, they dont spend any. They should have thought about that before the roll anyway.

3 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I think that the difficulty dice should represent the inherent difficulty of the initiative roll, as that is how those dice are described in the rulebook. There is an inherent difficulty to acting BOTH fast and in the right manner. I'm going to set this to Average Difficulty for a conflict in which both sides have no real advantage over each other. In a situation where one side has a clear advantage it starts to sway in degrees. Team A = Average, Team B= Easy. Etc.

This also means that a pure ambush will happen less often, as the conditions for total surprise should be a function of stealth/discipline checks anyway. One person on the hiding team shifts their weight, or is sensed by a force user, and the thing is up. Now its a mater of who capitalizes on the situation best.

Unless you are making it to where no success means no actions, which would piss most players off, you havent changed anything. All you have done is made the numbers more negative. The game already supports giving one side advantage or setback. They are called advantage and setback dice

I'm a bit confused about how my description of Military Initiative was wrong, and where it was that I had stated that it was the same thing as RPG count off initiative. I'm also speaking in generalities and not trying to calculate OODA loops or anything like that. My definition was fine for the context of the conversation, as I was saying that I would like to add a level of description to the Initiative roll as the game is highly narrative. You could make the case that who goes when, is not as important as what they do, and I would agree that this is the apparent intention of the designers, but I have obviously decided to move away from the RAW initiative system. The initiative system as it is feels like a count off with a layer of interpretation that is there only to determine linear order.

If it's just gonna be a count off, in a narrative game I would rather just do something faster and more story-driven. But if I am going to use the dice, then it should be like the rest of the game and have the possibility for outcomes that are both favorable and not at the same time. That's what makes this system fun and different imo. I feel like they needed t split the baby in the way they designed it for the sake of mass consumption, but this game could really have 3 or four different init systems based on what is going on at the time in game.

15 minutes ago, korjik said:

Unless you are making it to where no success means no actions, which would piss most players off, you havent changed anything. All you have done is made the numbers more negative. The game already supports giving one side advantage or setback. They are called advantage and setback dice

I think that the players have a lot of built-in things to help them, and they could also use a Destiny Point to recover an action in that situation, or do something that is germane to realizing you are in an unfortunate posture. I will agree that mechanically I am simply introducing negatives, but I also find that success without chance of failure is boring. Again I have to go back to the strength of this system which is that it can create complex results, which are sometimes portrayed as that most unnerving situation of ambivalence. I want something that is more like the checks of the rest of the game, or I'm just gonna do a count off with real numbers.

3 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I think that the players have a lot of built-in things to help them, and they could also use a Destiny Point to recover an action in that situation, or do something that is germane to realizing you are in an unfortunate posture. I will agree that mechanically I am simply introducing negatives, but I also find that success without chance of failure is boring. Again I have to go back to the strength of this system which is that it can create complex results, which are sometimes portrayed as that most unnerving situation of ambivalence. I want something that is more like the checks of the rest of the game, or I'm just gonna do a count off with real numbers.

I didnt say your definition of military init was wrong, I said it was inapplicable. Initiative is only supposed to be a way to figure out who does what in what order. That is all it is for. Unless you are saying there is a chance of failing to act at all during the combat, then your changes are not really doing anything.

Changing you numbers from 3 success 1 advantage to 14 doesnt do anything either.

26 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I think that the difficulty dice should represent the inherent difficulty of the initiative roll, as that is how those dice are described in the rulebook. There is an inherent difficulty to acting BOTH fast and in the right manner. I'm going to set this to Average Difficulty for a conflict in which both sides have no real advantage over each other. In a situation where one side has a clear advantage it starts to sway in degrees. Team A = Average, Team B= Easy. Etc.

Have you considered that by adding difficulty to initiative rolls it will be possible that people will be be coming up with Negative numbers? ie more failures and threat which can result in Negative initiative numbers. Now, instead of tracking just successes, advantage and triumph, you are adding in tracking of failures and threats also.

I'm not saying don't use difficulty when appropriate, as I have done it myself a few times. I'm just pointing out that it likely will be slowing down initiative instead of speeding it up if you do this for every initiative roll.

3 minutes ago, korjik said:

I didnt say your definition of military init was wrong, I said it was inapplicable. Initiative is only supposed to be a way to figure out who does what in what order. That is all it is for. Unless you are saying there is a chance of failing to act at all during the combat, then your changes are not really doing anything.

Changing you numbers from 3 success 1 advantage to 14 doesnt do anything either.

Ok cool. I think I'll just give you the Military Initiative thing since you seem to have some super-specific version of that term you picked up somewhere and it's near and dear. I have seen other systems use the term and understand it to be a good way to differentiate between a pure test of speed and the tactical situation. It seems that you don't like anything but the RAW version so that's noted.

1 minute ago, ThreeAM said:

Have you considered that by adding difficulty to initiative rolls it will be possible that people will be be coming up with Negative numbers? ie more failures and threat which can result in Negative initiative numbers. Now, instead of tracking just successes, advantage and triumph, you are adding in tracking of failures and threats also.

I'm not saying don't use difficulty when appropriate, as I have done it myself a few times. I'm just pointing out that it likely will be slowing down initiative instead of speeding it up if you do this for every initiative roll.

Thank you for the response. Yes I did think of that, and I thought that there may be ways to use this. I find that one thing that happens a lot in RPGs is that you get into the situation where everyone is always trying to hit with their highest DPS attack every round, and they do not do other things. One thing that could be used would be to rule out a combat check for a null roll, but allow the character to do some other action.

I notice that in cinematic combat the action sort of drives the camera, whereas the RPG combat norm is simply to give each person their turn. It sucks to be in a bad position or to miss, but those are possibilities that make success that much better, and I am not a dice fudge guy, so I will let the dice kill characters on either side. I have had Bosses get one-shotted and I just move on.

As for the accounting I find that it doesn't take me personally any noticeable time between counting the pure positive results and nullifying them with the negatives. I will admit that that may just be my perception as I haven't timed it, but I find it gives lower numbers, and that is a concern I have...too many simultaneous results. In my first round of testing I found that I got a lot of stacking on low counts. That would mean a lot of I shoot you, you shoot me at the same time type stuff, or in melee our tempo is matched and we both got past each other's defenses. I'm hoping that in further testing this ends up being in alignment with the +/- at the same time results the dice often turn up.

In further testing I realized that the difficulty dice negative results a lot more than I thought they would, which means that I have to admit this idea does not work. Thank you for all of your input. It helped me to test this. I guess I'm stuck with RAW.

42 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:

Have you considered that by adding difficulty to initiative rolls it will be possible that people will be be coming up with Negative numbers? ie more failures and threat which can result in Negative initiative numbers. Now, instead of tracking just successes, advantage and triumph, you are adding in tracking of failures and threats also.

I'm not saying don't use difficulty when appropriate, as I have done it myself a few times. I'm just pointing out that it likely will be slowing down initiative instead of speeding it up if you do this for every initiative roll.

I tested it again with some different pool combos and the negatives are just too high over the spread. Thank you for your input, it was helpful. I didn't take into account the incidence rate of the negatives on the purple dice and they are too frequent to be used in the way I wanted. Thank you once again for the discussion, sometimes it takes a mistake to help me learn something.

17 minutes ago, Archlyte said:

I tested it again with some different pool combos and the negatives are just too high over the spread. Thank you for your input, it was helpful. I didn't take into account the incidence rate of the negatives on the purple dice and they are too frequent to be used in the way I wanted. Thank you once again for the discussion, sometimes it takes a mistake to help me learn something.

No Problem!

On 8/26/2017 at 5:27 PM, jnrschulz said:

I count successes as whole numbers and advantages as decimals so:

2 success and one advantage is 2.1

1 success and 3 advantages is 1.3

Triumphs would grant a extra move or action on the players turn.

I do just as jnrschuz mentions, and I was just remembering the stealth vs vigilance roll where two of my players rolled negatives (-1 with 2adv, and -3 with 1 threat). Aside from feeling very unsatisfactory, I was at initially at a loss on how to assign negatives within that context (-1 and +.2?), it works, its just not as intuitive and it slowed everything way down.

On 8/26/2017 at 3:10 PM, Archlyte said:

It takes a long time to settle, is arcane (Triumphs?)

Takes a long time to settle? How long do you need to process 5 or 6 rolls and put them in some kind of numaric order on your whiteboard. You do have one of these, right?

As for arcane, how much harder is it to read than any other die roll? Just ignore Triumphs (unless you want to use them as a third tie breaker. Not RAW, but not unreasonable either) and you're good.

On 8/26/2017 at 8:30 PM, Archlyte said:

Does anyone know why initiative was a simple check instead of easy, average, etc? That could have been a great way to show a disadvantage for one side because of conditions, and not have surprise be all or nothing. Just spiballing and wondering

Who says you cant change the difficulty? A team of attackers laying in ambush with pretty good cover? 3 blacks on a Vigilance roll seems reasonable to me.

28 minutes ago, ThreeAM said:

No Problem!

I do just as jnrschuz mentions, and I was just remembering the stealth vs vigilance roll where two of my players rolled negatives (-1 with 2adv, and -3 with 1 threat). Aside from feeling very unsatisfactory, I was at initially at a loss on how to assign negatives within that context (-1 and +.2?), it works, its just not as intuitive and it slowed everything way down.

There are no "negative successes" as you don't count degrees of failure. The success count bottoms out at 0, but it is possible to have the second tiebreaking value be in either A or T, with the latter effectively being a "negative value" for initiative purposes.

3 hours ago, Archlyte said:

Ok cool. I think I'll just give you the Military Initiative thing since you seem to have some super-specific version of that term you picked up somewhere and it's near and dear. I have seen other systems use the term and understand it to be a good way to differentiate between a pure test of speed and the tactical situation. It seems that you don't like anything but the RAW version so that's noted.

My definition of military initiative came from the US Army. You still dont see that the init system in the game is just supposed to see who goes first. I havent said a thing about my view of the initiative rules.

All I have done is asked how 3 is different than 14

To put is really clearly, how is 'I have a 14, so I go before your 10' different than 'I have 3 successes and 1 advantage, so I go before your 2 successes and 3 advantage'?

1 hour ago, HappyDaze said:

There are no "negative successes" as you don't count degrees of failure. The success count bottoms out at 0, but it is possible to have the second tiebreaking value be in either A or T, with the latter effectively being a "negative value" for initiative purposes.

Yeah I did get confused by the extra failures and my sense left me. Good call.

26 minutes ago, korjik said:

My definition of military initiative came from the US Army. You still dont see that the init system in the game is just supposed to see who goes first. I havent said a thing about my view of the initiative rules.

All I have done is asked how 3 is different than 14

To put is really clearly, how is 'I have a 14, so I go before your 10' different than 'I have 3 successes and 1 advantage, so I go before your 2 successes and 3 advantage'?

Sigh. Ok I was 11B myself, but I wasn't an officer, so I guess maybe you studied this a lot from Army educational material. But for the purpose of talking about RPGs I have seen that vernacular used before to describe Initiative that has an effect or order based on something that is happening in the battle versus a score that counts off action places on the number line. I think in my OP I stated that this was about whether I should use a simplified linear count off system or a narrative system. The problem is that I can't make the Narrative System work because the purple dice throw way too many negatives out, so I was wrong about the whole thing. Can't get any more wrong than wrong man. I was wrong.

In the core books there is a section on Competitive checks, that's the type of check initiative is. You only need to modify the difficulty or add Setback when one side has an advantage over the other. There's very little point adding the same dice to both sides.

As an example:

You may want to add 4 Setback to one side, 2 for the Darkness and 2 for the fact their opponents are in hiding. Then you consider the other side in the encounter, they should get 2 Setback for the darkness as well. Because both sides have Setback I would just reduce them down until one side has none.

So in this scene the first group have 2 Setback for their opponents hiding while the second group has a standard (simple difficulty) roll.

One of the things we have started to do is allow PCs to spend excess Advantages to do things like apply boosts or alter the scene. They then come off the Advantage tie breaker. Its especially useful for those who roll a low number of successes and a butt-ton of Advantages.

4 hours ago, Desslok said:

As for arcane, how much harder is it to read than any other die roll? Just ignore Triumphs (unless you want to use them as a third tie breaker. Not RAW, but not unreasonable either) and you're good.

Actually, that is RAW Triumphs are used as tie-breakers in Competitive checks. Using them to give out-of-turn maneuvers to characters is a popular house rule.