I was taking some time to relax and clear my head this morning after the craziness of the Kickstarter launch. Forgetting the content creation, Kickstarters require a huge amount of effort and planning, especially when you are a one-man-band/freelancer running the project. Keeping on top of the social media and marketing (all my ‘skills’ in this area are self-taught and based on what I’ve learned doing this before, and I’m no master in this art).

The Kickstarter is doing IMPRESSIVELY well. 56% funded in 24 hours!
Check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monkeyblooddesign/the-city-of-great-lunden?ref=3opafs

Anyway, I digress. My head was a little mashed, so I needed to chill a little, and when i did, it got me listening to podcasts and thinking…

Back to my Initiative thoughts…

Making a player roll to see where they goes in initiative order seems to be a little odd. Think about having a fight with the local bully, I would wait until I see an ‘opportunity’ to strike before attacking. As an attacker, I might try to use feints and moves which open up an opportunity, the more skilled I am, the more successful I might be.

The emphasis is on the defender to NOT let an opportunity arise, and the attacker to create one (an improvable skill).

So, here’s my thought for an equally simple alternative that addresses my issue:

• Instead of Initiative, all players roll 1d6 for Defence. Those who roll 6’s are better prepared to defend and hence are open to being attacked later in the round order.
• The GM starts the round with anyone that rolled a 1 for Defence. Those poorest of defenders are allowed to be attacked by anyone that can make a viable attack against them. The GM then goes to the next Defence roll of 2, and so on up to 6.
• Competent attackers, such as Fighters can influence the Defence rolls of defenders, and cause a -1 penalty against those they come into base contact with at the start of the round. They can-opener them up to attacks with feints and pulled lunges.
• Successful surprise means that those surprised are at Defence rolls of 0.
• Multiple attackers in base contact at the start of the round could create additional -1’s per opponent. It makes it hard to defend on multiple fronts, and increase the chance of an early hit.

Now I need to consider how to deal with movement, other non-combat actions, and non-combatants…

Interested to hear your thoughts,

Glynn