Admin, OOC, and Launch Discussion

Whoa! Fucking awesome, Brewer - THANKS!

I haven’t looked at the spreadsheet but look forward to it.

I was thinking the same on Bryn’s series too. Dual draw assumption is correct.

I too have been cautiously hopeful about Thorn’s survival. Still some rolls needed, but at least he’s got a shot now in the hands of a medic and a quick reactor at that!

But still, though I’m a fan, monsters aren’t. Scenario still on KILL setting, so whatever you get will be earned, not charity.

CB, Iasu has Alert Feat!
Can you adjust that into your template build?

CB, checking back over a few things...

I think I may have set a wrong precedence related to counting Movement. On the first iteration of the Hounds, I patterned that a Movement has a free-standing anchor point at 1 Sequence Number after the Action. I think that was the wrong way of looking at things.

The correct vision I have for Movement is that it starts immediately. That you make 5' every round. So in the end it is just a "+ whatever" count to the next Action.

In the end, I know on a couple of my original Hound entries, I was 1 point off (follow on events after Movement were 1 Sequence Number late). I think some of those mistakes might be in your sheet. I also think they might be in your written work on the posts (for Maeriks, Bryn, Iasu), but I'm not sure. Not your fault, but mine because you were following my example.

In any case, I think I have made adjustments on my post box write ups, but can you do a sweep through of everything (my posts, yours, and the sheet) and make sure no one is getting robbed of a Sequence Number here and there?

Thanks, brainiac. I really appreciate the coverage.

The stock market is looking good under the temple today!

@DMJ I've updated the sheet with the minor changes and Jabe's template with Alert feat.

@Jabes - roll a 1 or 2!

Thanks for doing this CB, and thanks for updating my post J.

Yeah, Hyp. I hear and understand.

The bad news is that your dissatisfaction may be amplified soon. Haven't seen the results yet, but Uburatu is going all out trying to kill to live, bringing what might turn out to be the highest threat of the Round to Trece (rather than Thorn, strangely) if he isn't put down quickly early in the Round. The Save Thorn Foundation efforts plus the Akkeen's departure (wisdom? cowardice? manipulation?) leaves Trece standing alone versus the shield bully.

The good news is, we won't be using this Initiative system again after this Round.

Alright, Players' Club. I'm going to Ep 2 now and will try to lay this stuff out. I may be messing around with the layout editing for a while, so Posts might change later if you see them early.
We'll see how it goes. I'll be asking for rolls along the way. At the time of those posts gives you opportunity to write narrative description as desired for those.
Probably going at this in batches to see effects for a group of Actions among several Actors.

Here’s my opinions:

Dark Thrones Initiative (DTI) is realistic, meticulous, accurate, the right kind thrilling and bitter over close calls. But it is also tedious, slow, oppressively complex, and can be moderately frustrating in the wrong way. Good for the exception, but unsustainable as the rule.

Normal Retro Initiative (Top of Round/Bottom of Round, group averages competition) is built for PBP, simple, flexible, straight-forward. But also it is unrealistic at times, is brutally winner-take-all in nature, stifles chaos, and leaves little room for the unexpected. It’s recurring order every round is especially rote, almost dull, almost tempting for meta-gaming. Still, it will remain as the best choice for the routine.

But I’d like to have something in the middle of these as an option in our books.

Plus, there’s no way I’ll be convinced to take Endgame from the intensity and realism of DTI back to a Top of Round blowout fish-in-a-barrel shoot for PCs in six seconds. Everyone needs to decide and perform their own way through Endgame, drinking their own dose of Chaotic Neutral Dice on the rocks.

Intro: House Rule Accelerated Dark Thrones Initiative (ADTI).

This is what we are going to run for Endgame Round 2 (EG R2).

I’ll start posting Announcement examples of bad guys / monsters as examples of Announcements. You guys please follow when you can with your own announcement posts. As explained in the HR, these Announcements are GENERAL, not SPECIFIC. You're just selecting OPTIONS for what you can do when your Turn comes, not EXACTLY WHAT you will do nor any ORDER in which you will do them. They should be a lot easier and faster to finalize than the last.

After those are in, hopefully as fast as possible, let’s press on to ROLL INITIATIVE! and set up a Turn order.

We’ll see how fast this one works. I know it won’t be lightening fast, but hopefully it is better flow and less pain than the heavy lift DTI. And hopefully it still delivers some tension, anticipation, high stakes– plus some reasonable reality and chaos.

Dang. Thorn wrestling with life flashing before him in the mind's eye, right before what was almost THE END. A blend of the oldest emotional memory and one of the newest ones. Both with hottie women. (Sorry, X. Thorn's mom was a MILFy frontier wife. Don't take it the wrong way, bro). I really like this entry though. Thorn is still a guy who is struggling with what to do with his life - no wonder the issue comes up in full color high-def when that life seemed like it was suddenly over.

Dang 2. Thorn came so close to dying. Some day I'm going to write up the series of miracles that made survival and revival possible, so we'll remember it for the record. That was a sight to see (series of postings to read?).

Dang 3. Thorn rolls Disadvantage in ADTI for EG R1. Still have to put in work to make a way. No "Get Well Soon Cards" in the House Rules.

Rolled save: Aquí.

Ahh. I see. Missed that before.
Lo siento, hermano.

Effects for EG R2.

Probably because I did it just this morning.

Ya. I get it now. Groovy.
I mean... I knew that all along. No confusion here of course.

X's post for Thorn here is really good.

If anything though, it provides MORE DETAIL THAN NECESSARY.

Just so that everyone else doesn't think they need to follow the trend exactly, I feel like I need to reiterate it again that this isn't intended to be as specific as the announcement in the EG R1 Announcement. It's fine to be a lot more generalized, and even just a mention of what you want the OPTION to do.

Pretty much all that is necessary is to state out:

I'm going to Attack. I want the Option for Movement if I need it. And I want to use a Bonus Action Attack.

From that we should be able to map out your Modifiers.

And then you set Reaction pick.

And that's it.

X went ahead and made the roll. That's fine. I was thinking we would need another phase after the Announcement to roll, but the more I think about it, it's probably fine to go ahead and throw the dice.

You just can't change/add/subtract Action Options once the roll is in (#DONTCHEAT!).
Temptation to add more orders if you see that the roll is good. Or dump more things off and adjust to just the basics if the roll is bad.
The point is that you make the decision of an intent, then make the roll, and then live with the consequences.
It's supposed to drive a debate about trying your best to get a low Initiative by minimizing Modifiers or to have the most diversity of choice and adjustments by taking on more Modifiers.

I wanted to voice my opinion that having to declare what reaction trigger we are open to is a cost that penalizes the character and player in a weird way. Mechanically, reactions allow a character to act outside their normal turn. In-game, they are honed reflexes trained to allow responses with near zero thought. We already are spending our Bonus action, Movement, and standard Action to predict and act on actions of opponents. Lumping Reactions in with that mix makes it like some other, but weaker and less useful, Bonus action.

Other than that, this simpler system is cool.

Good points that I like a lot.

Still, you are getting something free. No spend for Reactions.

Also I'm exploring the idea that in the heat of a knife fight, for six second intervals, there is one thing above all others that a combatant is looking for opportunities to do. Block. Reposition. Escape. Avoid getting hit. Exploit vulnerabilities. Pursue retreaters. Prepare for a counterstrike on a miss by the opponent. To say that you are ready for EVERYTHING? I get the figurative language, but in reality it's quite a tough thing to do, mentally and physically.

But the idea of reflexivity. Muscle memory. Capability to REACT to small openings, even in variety. That's a good argument.

Nonetheless, no one is dying over Reaction settings or openness. Thorn almost died, but it wasn't because of Kray's or Iasu's lack of adjustability on their Reactions.

And if you haven't figured it out already, you are trapped in a Mini-PlayTest. No opting out. It's got other purposes, but one of them is definitely selfish indulgence on my part. You have to participate as I explore through options to address my near-complete dissatisfaction with D&D's Initiative systems since 2nd Edition. Something that is only amplified by the realities of what is possible/practical in PBP. I can't get over that back in the day when the DM's instruction of "Roll for Initiative" carried the weight of the world in three words! I remember choosing weapons based on Speed Factor. When Initiative was rerolled every round, it started adding up to make the difference between success and failure. So yeah, I'm trying to put more weight on Player Choice, tough decisions on Economy of Actions, downgrade any God Stat commitment to DEX as dominant over all other builds, double dose the thrill of victory and agony of defeat, and maximize the scariness of the d10. Ha!

The dissatisfaction with the rework on Reaction rules is loud and clear. Ez already brought it up once. It was a good point then. Still a good point now.

That's why it is most likely to be dropped or edited in one or both alternative Initiative systems if we ever use them again. I get it. I feel you. I'm hearing that opinion and welcoming it.

But anyway, be sure to SET YOUR FUCKING REACTION for EG R2 when you post up, player.

haha,
DM J

Yo, Jabes.

Just to get ahead on this, I wanted to bring it up now that neither Thorn nor Namtur can get any HP boosts from a medic healer pack treatment in the time span of a Round. The reason why is that they are operating in the House Rules coverage on the Zero Hit Point State.

Once a guy dips in to the ZHPS, he's lost some options for the quick bounce back. Before he can get HP boosts from medical treatment, he has to take at least a Short Rest.

To go a little further, Thorn will be in a similar situation as Maeriks has been facing late in Ep 2: dealing with the lingering effects of a Brush With Death. Because of the 1 Death Mark accumulated, he's also facing a retarded recovery time frame. So even after a Short Rest, there will be a limit of what medical treatment can do.

Namtur was not faced with making Death Saves. He was in that narrow window of tough guy Negative Hit Points before passing on to the Death Save Machine. So he has more options for healing later, though still needs the Short Rest.

Lastly, in related news about recovery for guys who were on the brink or circling the drain, I saw that Kray may soon be sending Temporary Hit Points Thorn's way by the use of Rally Maneuver. To me, Temporary Hit Points seem like something that CAN be received by Thorn. Classic squad leader shouts of "On your feet, soldier! Point your weapon down range! Fire your weapon!" - that's convincing that it could make a difference, even for someone who's really beaten up at the moment.
Just mentioning it here because I think that sort of thing is related but slightly outside of the full RECOVERY rules. I think some day we may have to address the question of just how many Rally Maneuvers you can stack on a guy back to back. ("Alright. We take a Short Rest. Then I do 3 Rallies on him. Another Short Rest. 3 more Rallies. And we keep doing that until he has 99 Temp HPs. BANG!") That's for another day, IF EVER. But generally I think the Rally works really really well in a moment like this one - passes the realism test and kind of operates outside of the HRs that are trying to paint a hardcore picture about the brutality of severe trauma. There's still room for classic gut checks to help you drive on despite the pain.

So, Jabes...if that changes Iasu's need for Action options, just post it and you can modify your Initiative however you need to if you want to adjust.

Moving this from Ep 2...
Yo, Hyp. The answer is right. Slight change in the data - easy to fix.
You don't have to pay for Movement twice. Don't even have to announce how you Move. You just take the +3 once and use it however you want (stand up, move around after that, etc.)
You do have to pay for the Bonus Action though. Happens to be the same value as the double-book of the Movement, a +3. The Speed Factor on the punch is zero though, like you have it, so no extra increase beyond the Bonus Action itself.
So, Modified Initiative 5 looks right to me.

CB, only thing I think is a minor adjustment is that you have to spend the +1 for Natural Weapons for LARGE creatures, Big Bull.

I think that's an 8 as a grand total on Modified Initiative.

I'll record it as that in the list. Check it, and I'll adjust if it's off.