Turn Based/Real Time Bastard Hybrids

[Jed]

However, it succeeds as a RT / TB hybrid game!

Succeeding gloriously at failure!

...and if you like RT/TB hybrids, I've got some delicious peanut butter clams and barbequed lollypops for you!

 

[Uriel]

The thing that annoys me the most is when a developer misrepresents a game as turn based just because the characters basically get to take a turn (duh!), and/or adding some garbage pause to it(ie. the Infinity engine crap games). And newer players will actually fight to the death to prove that this new system is "turn based".

Well, sure, and if I had a friend hit "pause" every few seconds on Doom, that would be turn based now too, eh?

Not only is it a bastardization, they are trying to get the old school players to buy into this new system by hijacking the terminology of the old system. And its just a load of crap. If your going to have a real time game, just dump the damn party system and have it be a single character where you attack in real time, not some quasi-wannabe sorta turn-based hack.

I defenestrated my copy of Bunglers Grate, and I refuse to touch any of the other games based on that engine. It was garbage.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Oh, and just to be a pain, NWN doesn't fail as a Turn-Based game and it doesn't fail as a Real-Time game because it's not trying to be either (i.e. one can't lose if one doesn't play).

However, it succeeds as a RT / TB hybrid game!

One more time for the daft:

TURN BASED COMBAT IS SEQUENTIAL

That means you move, use all your actions during your turn, and then the next person moves and uses his actions. The very fact that everyone can walk around while in combat at the same time means it's not turn based. It's not that hard a concept, boy.

 

[AlanC9]

One more time for the daft:

TURN BASED COMBAT IS SEQUENTIAL

That means you move, use all your actions during your turn, and then the next person moves and uses his actions. The very fact that everyone can walk around while in combat at the same time means it's not turn based. It's not that hard a concept, boy.

What about a system where everybody picks their combat actions at the beginning of the round, but they're executed in initiative order? Does this count as turn-based? What if movement is pro-rated over the course of the round? Still turn-based?

In other words, was AD&D turn-based?

 

[Vault Dweller]

As SP said TB is "you move, use all your actions during your turn, and then the next person moves and uses his actions", it's irrelevant when the actions were chosen as long as they are taken in sequence, one after another.

 

[Psilon]

What about a system where everybody picks their combat actions at the beginning of the round, but they're executed in initiative order?

No, that's phase based combat.

 

[Volourn]

And, that's how pnp dnd is played...

 

[Ares Draxis]

No, PnP DnD is turn based. Always have been turn based. You roll initiative, and generallly take turns accordingly to the roll.

A game needs to be either turn based or real time, not both. Every hybrid I have played has sucked big time. Neverwinter Nights and the IE games are what I consider real time. INot that phase combat bullshit.

ToEE, Fallout, and similar games are what I consider turn based.

Arcanum has crap combat and is what I consider a hybrid system. It tries to be both, failing in both. A good game taken down by crap combat.

 

[Volourn]

Nope, in pnp, players usually call what they plan to do at the beginning of the round. At leats, that's how we always played. It's to make sure people don't change what they do since D&D combat ach round everything is actually at roughly the same time not seperately.

 

[Ares Draxis]

There is time enough for a reacition. Sorry, PnP DnD is turn based, not this phase based buillshit.

 

[Volourn]

No.

 

[Ares Draxis]

Only in your mind.

 

[Volourn]

No, it's how it' sbeen played ror a long while. Actually, I've played it both ways. They both work fine. The choose your action at beginning of round helps people from taking advantage iof the fact they lost initiative for the round. Youa ren't supposed to know what the foe is going to do in that round since your are actually completing your actions at the same time - the one who wins initiave is just quicker on the draw is all.

Besdies, of cours eit's in my mind. Last I checked pnp dnd is ALL about imagination and using one's mind; not your brawn. If you think otherwise; you are silly.

 

[Ares Draxis]

You still take turns.

 

[GreenNight]

When playing rolemaster we (my group) play phase-based, but next month, when we'll be playing GURPS we'll play turn-based. Yes, in both you take turns, but in one everybody says what he'll do at the same time (phase-based) and in the other the turns are sequential (one moves and atacks, then another,...). Probably turn-based is easier to translate with presition to CRPGs, the other has to take many things in consideration (intercepts, reactions, change desitions in turn).

 

[Volourn]

I never said we didn't Ares.

Greenlight, yup, both ways work fine.

 

[AlanC9]

When playing rolemaster we (my group) play phase-based, but next month, when we'll be playing GURPS we'll play turn-based. Yes, in both you take turns, but in one everybody says what he'll do at the same time (phase-based) and in the other the turns are sequential (one moves and atacks, then another,...). Probably turn-based is easier to translate with presition to CRPGs, the other has to take many things in consideration (intercepts, reactions, change desitions in turn).

I thought the IE did a pretty good job with phase-based. About the only thing I couldn't do in the IE that I could do in AD&D was choose a spell's target at the end of casting, or change the target if the situation had changed. But not all DMs would let me do that anyway.

And I'm pretty sure the original DMG combat example showed players calling actions at the beginning of the round. Can someone confirm this? (Edit: we called actions first, whatever the DMG said.)

Either way works in PnP unless you want the system to give big differences in the amount of actions players can undertake. I wouldn't go phase-based with a superhero game, where some characters are a lot faster than others.