Topic: Activity 100% = 10 Seconds of time?

[Icefield]

I'm wondering if I am getting this right.
A round is 10 seconds in RMC, and so it would seem that everyone is moving in that slice of time, but some are going at the faster (lower %) times, others are doing things that last longer than 10 seconds (100+%).

Is 80% activity then 8 seconds?

[jdale]

I think often it's better to think of 80% as being 80% of your attention. Some actions have to be sequential (e.g. move to enemy, then attack), but not all of them, and the round will make less sense if you interpret 10% strictly as 1 second.

[Cory Magel]

Yep, as jdale said, the best way to look at it is not that 1 second = 10%, but rather that that is how much of your focus is required for that action.

For example (in which I'll fall back on RMSS action percentages), if you want to use adrenal strength, move 10 feet, then attack a foe in one round...
You do not...
   A) Stand there with a scrunched up face for 2 seconds. B) Move exactly ten feet in 1 second. C) Stand in one spot and swing at your target for 7 seconds.
Rather you...
   A) Move towards your enemy in a rage while bring your weapon down on/at him.

Trying to define actions as being exactly equal to a number of seconds only creates a more confused notion of what the round represents.  Both will result in a -10 attack that will deal double hits, but the second one obviously makes more sense from a roleplaying standpoint.  The first version seems more like a stop motion movie clip.  Other versions rounds work differently than RMSS however.

In RMSS you could make your pick lock action a "Snap" action and take a -20 penalty in order to, hopefully, do it before someone has a chance to stop you.  You spend 100% action in the snap phase, but take a -20 penalty for doing so.  Did it take exactly 10 seconds to pick that lock?  Every time?  Of course not.  Sometimes it will be quicker and sometimes it will take longer.  But you put all your focus on doing that one thing quickly.  This is why you do it at the start of the round, but at a penalty.

Now, we could come up with a more complex solution... maybe a sliding scale of overall activity needed based on difficulty, but do we really want to go there?  Most of us will give an emphatic "NO!" as an answer.  Difficulty is determined by your roll, and if it's a really hard roll you might have to try more than once, which effectively results in it having taken longer to accomplish.

[Icefield]

So I see what you are saying about simultaneous Actions where a thought process is involved, but I don't think that standing there for 2 seconds is actually an eternity. Could it be considered a long pause in some situations, yes, but it could also be the case that other incidental movements and observations are occurring.

The whole 10 seconds is occurring for everyone in the fight in the same sequence 1001, 1002, 1003, etc.
But what they do in those ten seconds is evidently sequential. If the thought process is charged 20% but you allow it to occur during a 50% movement then that is effectively reducing the overall cost of both actions (or one to zero).

Walking and chewing gum does happen, so it would seem ok to allow for certain actions to be allowed to coincide in the narrative, but if you have a narrative that doesn't match the events then to me it's inferior. Might as well just play Fate or D&D because the rule is just as abstract and is unnecessarily clunky.

I guess I'm going to be doing a lot of house rules to adjust the Activity/Initiative/Sequence of Round to work the way I want it to work.

Thank you for the input though, I appreciate the help. 

[Icefield]

Yep, as jdale said, the best way to look at it is not that 1 second = 10%, but rather that that is how much of your focus is required for that action.

For example (in which I'll fall back on RMSS action percentages), if you want to use adrenal strength, move 10 feet, then attack a foe in one round...
You do not...
   A) Stand there with a scrunched up face for 2 seconds. B) Move exactly ten feet in 1 second. C) Stand in one spot and swing at your target for 7 seconds.
Rather you...
   A) Move towards your enemy in a rage while bring your weapon down on/at him.

Trying to define actions as being exactly equal to a number of seconds only creates a more confused notion of what the round represents.  Both will result in a -10 attack that will deal double hits, but the second one obviously makes more sense from a roleplaying standpoint.  The first version seems more like a stop motion movie clip.  Other versions rounds work differently than RMSS however.

In RMSS you could make your pick lock action a "Snap" action and take a -20 penalty in order to, hopefully, do it before someone has a chance to stop you.  You spend 100% action in the snap phase, but take a -20 penalty for doing so.  Did it take exactly 10 seconds to pick that lock?  Every time?  Of course not.  Sometimes it will be quicker and sometimes it will take longer.  But you put all your focus on doing that one thing quickly.  This is why you do it at the start of the round, but at a penalty.

Now, we could come up with a more complex solution... maybe a sliding scale of overall activity needed based on difficulty, but do we really want to go there?  Most of us will give an emphatic "NO!" as an answer.  Difficulty is determined by your roll, and if it's a really hard roll you might have to try more than once, which effectively results in it having taken longer to accomplish.


I see what you are saying, but why then do you have a percentage assigned to a task like 235% instead of just saying 2 rounds of attention? It seems clear that there was supposed to be a micro-management of time with 10 second intervals being only a marker. Did the designers get carried away and later realize they messed up? Or is the system supposed to meter out actions in linear time with decision of adjudication being achieved by the Initiative scores (Effectively near simultaneous but photo finish goes to highest roller)?

[jdale]

If you want to micromanage time, there are existing optional rules like CEATS.

It's certainly true that combat includes pauses, e.g. both combatants circling or waiting for the other to make a move. That's more true if both combatants are on the defensive (i.e. parrying) than if they have a more offensive stance.

But within the normal round, if you try to interpret time strictly, you get oddities. For example, make your attack in the snap phase in one round and deliberate phase in the next. The apparent time between your two actions may look like 15-18 seconds. I think this fits quite well with the chaos of combat. It's the strict time interpretation taken by models like CEATS that make no sense to me, where every second is planned and efficiently used. That is not something that really happens in battle...

[Hurin]

I proposed a simplified system based on Dungeons and Dragons' system of Standard/Move/Minor actions, but converted to conform roughly with Rolemaster's system, and with a (relatively) purely sequential system. In the same thread, other posters have suggested similar systems or some fine tuning to mine, and it seems to be a workable houserule alternative. I've also developed my own system to use action points (kind of like in the old Fallout games), each conforming to a 20% action (characters normally get 5 points to spend per turn, and do so sequentially). You can check it out here:

http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=12469.0

[Cory Magel]

We've used a system based on CEATS, slightly modified, and a good portion of our group prefer that method, but we are a very tactical group.  It's really not difficult and does not take much longer once you get used to it.  I'd say it also depends on players paying attention and making sure they move things along, but that's true with any of the various rounds.  RM2's round was just plain silly... way too many phases.  RMC and RMU are better, but I still like the RMSS one best for a good mix.  You can use the phases (that determine how hastily you are doing something, not how long it actually takes) in order to try and overcome a poor initiative.

Still, these days I prefer an almost "all or nothing" approach.  Either go with CEATS or equivalent (everything is a unique individual action carried out over a continuous 'round') or go with the BattleTech round (i.e. movement worst to best, then actions best to worst).  None of us can bring ourselves to use the D&D round however (everyone takes their whole rounds worth of actions in initiative order).

[Icefield]

We've used a system based on CEATS, slightly modified, and a good portion of our group prefer that method, but we are a very tactical group.  It's really not difficult and does not take much longer once you get used to it.  I'd say it also depends on players paying attention and making sure they move things along, but that's true with any of the various rounds.  RM2's round was just plain silly... way too many phases.  RMC and RMU are better, but I still like the RMSS one best for a good mix.  You can use the phases (that determine how hastily you are doing something, not how long it actually takes) in order to try and overcome a poor initiative.

Still, these days I prefer an almost "all or nothing" approach.  Either go with CEATS or equivalent (everything is a unique individual action carried out over a continuous 'round') or go with the BattleTech round (i.e. movement worst to best, then actions best to worst).  None of us can bring ourselves to use the D&D round however (everyone takes their whole rounds worth of actions in initiative order).

This helped me in my search for what to do. I looked at CEATS but I don't think it's going to be right for what I want. I did like the way it shows Feet/Second for Movement Rates though. I may be misunderstanding it, but it looks like it assigns times for Activity %, and I don't want to be messing with Activity % much at all if I can help it.

I would like to do something like:

1) Declare Actions with GM starting first (a le Dungeon World) with movement and actions Described in Seconds. Everything rounded to 10% increments in Activity Cost.
2) Roll Initiative
3) Resolve Actions at Each Second Mark where something needs resolving. Initiative is essentially a tie breaker for actions that conflict at same Second Mark. Going faster in the round means a higher penalty to attacks.
4) Repeat

[Cory Magel]

You've really just described the core of what we used to do based on tweaking CEATS to our liking.  For the most part we just took the action % needed from RMSS and translated that into seconds in most cases.  But there were bits that I would lengthen or shorten those default times.

Over the years I've been playing with (creating) a second-by-second system that actually takes into account weapon size, facing and amount of space available to fight in... but the audience for such a detailed setup (even if it's fairly simple once you get the hang of it) is pretty small.  Weapon attack times translate into Damage Per Second (DPS) with smaller quicker weapons making more attacks, and therefore possibly more criticals, but inflicting less damage to the point that they would almost balance out.  However larger weapons had a pure damage (DPS) advantage overall due to other restrictions (for example, you won't be swinging around a greatsword in a hallway all that effectively).

[Icefield]

You've really just described the core of what we used to do based on tweaking CEATS to our liking.  For the most part we just took the action % needed from RMSS and translated that into seconds in most cases.  But there were bits that I would lengthen or shorten those default times.

Over the years I've been playing with (creating) a second-by-second system that actually takes into account weapon size, facing and amount of space available to fight in... but the audience for such a detailed setup (even if it's fairly simple once you get the hang of it) is pretty small.  Weapon attack times translate into Damage Per Second (DPS) with smaller quicker weapons making more attacks, and therefore possibly more criticals, but inflicting less damage to the point that they would almost balance out.  However larger weapons had a pure damage (DPS) advantage overall due to other restrictions (for example, you won't be swinging around a greatsword in a hallway all that effectively).

In the other thread I posted someone told me that an attack is 50% minimum (5 seconds in 1 for 1 rounds). This tells me that the Activity system is indeed intended to be some abstract % of attention that somehow relates to real time (230% attention to reloading a crossbow also somehow takes 23 seconds or some approximation that equals 30% attention after 2 rounds). I'm disappointed in the nonsense approach they took. I may be misunderstanding the rules but it seems like they just couldn't make it work and muddled the solution

[Icefield]

Having given up on the real time dissection of events, I now am trying to figure out how I will handle events that happen in a simultaneous fashion. Throwing away any attempt to meter out rounds, I guess it's just a matter of description. 

[Cory Magel]

The problem is you will never create a fully realistic, fun, and balanced round.  As the saying often goes, pick two.  If you treat combat the way you should, realistically, you'd never be able to perform other actions during the round and if you could realistically perform some of the actions we expect to be able to then you should be making multiple attacks in that same round.  It doesn't matter if you say the round is completely abstract, or completely metered by time... there will always be holes in either one.

[gog]

I see what you are saying, but why then do you have a percentage assigned to a task like 235% instead of just saying 2 rounds of attention? It seems clear that there was supposed to be a micro-management of time with 10 second intervals being only a marker. Did the designers get carried away and later realize they messed up? Or is the system supposed to meter out actions in linear time with decision of adjudication being achieved by the Initiative scores (Effectively near simultaneous but photo finish goes to highest roller)?

One bit about the % of actions, is for some activites a high open ended roll can result in the action been achived quicker (lowering the % of activity needed), thus the 235% may come down below 200% leaving a chance to do something else quickly.

[Cory Magel]

60%-100% is the minimum for a melee attack in, I believe, all the versions before RMU.   RMU drops that to 50%-100%, which doesn't sound like much, but mechanics/balance wise it is a bigger factor that it would appear on paper.  Missile attacks run 30%-60% pre-RMU, can't remember if that's different in it.

The one item I can think of that has over a 200% activity is reloading a Heavy Crossbow.  So the amount of activity is requires means you're loading for two rounds, part of the third, but can still fire it in the third round.  The reason you'd assign a percentage to that (and anything really) is because things like the skill Adrenal Speed and speeds Speed and Haste will give you more activity, sometimes even different amounts of activity, so it's easier just to do it in percentages.  If you only ever performed one action per round then I could see just labeling time factors in rounds.

[Icefield]

60%-100% is the minimum for a melee attack in, I believe, all the versions before RMU.   RMU drops that to 50%-100%, which doesn't sound like much, but mechanics/balance wise it is a bigger factor that it would appear on paper.  Missile attacks run 30%-60% pre-RMU, can't remember if that's different in it.

The one item I can think of that has over a 200% activity is reloading a Heavy Crossbow.  So the amount of activity is requires means you're loading for two rounds, part of the third, but can still fire it in the third round.  The reason you'd assign a percentage to that (and anything really) is because things like the skill Adrenal Speed and speeds Speed and Haste will give you more activity, sometimes even different amounts of activity, so it's easier just to do it in percentages.  If you only ever performed one action per round then I could see just labeling time factors in rounds.

Thanks for the explanations Cory In the end I decided that the activity system is just not helpful so I killed it. I didn't use CEATS either because my players couldn't get into the idea of breaking down their actions by time, and I don't blame them as the tendency then just becomes doing as many simultaneous actions as you can get away with (I run up to the brigand while drawing my sword and grabbing my henchman up off the ground with my off hand) which means constant common sense adjudication.

So I think I will just do Common Sense Initiative for the most part, and solve disputes with a single Init roll per combatants. I like the idea of Military Initiative too: the idea that whoever is winning at that moment has the initiative, they have the momentum in the fight and the struggle is to regain that momentum. When you look at it that way the artificial mechanic of an Init order can be chucked and it becomes more about who hit versus when they attacked. I absolutely hate Initiative order description:
"Ok next is Rognor (after Orc A who hit him square in the head with a sword)."
Rognor Player: "I'm going to attack Orc A."
GM: "Ok roll your attack"
Orc A survives
GM: "Ok now its time for Blatno the Mage"
etc.

I dislike this because you get a wait your turn feel that to me is extremely boring and hard to mesh with what is essentially a simultaneous calamity. It also encourages wargaming, as you are now a piece in a line, and players will act accordingly.

There is a game called Dungeon World that has no initiative, there is a description that can result in combat and if so, one roll determines:
low roll) Player fails and is hit.
mid roll) Player and Opponent both take some damage.
high roll) Player hits opponent does not.

I have thought about trying to apply this idea to Rolemaster, but I don't know how it could work. I love the OB/DB and the hit tables in RM so much that I won't use a different system, but old school linear initiative systems no longer entertain me.

[Icefield]

Ah I see how I'm going to do it.

a) Move to contact with Opponent(s) (Ranged/Spells can skip)
b) Both roll attacks. Best result essentially Wins intiative, but if both hit then both are resolved.
c) Resolve next combatants cluster (which I call a frame, like a camera frame in a movie)

The whole thing is going on at once, so it is resolved and described in the context of the scene.

[Cory Magel]

There's the "BattleTech" round.

You have everyone move, worst initiative to best.  Then you have everyone take their actions, best initiative to worst.  Although you do allow those with better initiatives to interrupt those with worse initiatives if they want to.  This allows those with better initiative to react to those with worse ones for movement, but then let them take their actions first unless they want to delay on someone else.

[Warl]

I also use a modified ceats system and My group very much prefers it over rounds and phases.

[Cory Magel]

I really like the second by second systems.  I've been working on one for a few years here and there that take things like Speed Factors into consideration.  I've broken weapons down to a "Damage Per Second" rating and then tweak them slightly from there.  So, while a Dagger might only take 5 seconds to attack with and a 2H Sword might take 10, the 2H Sword does more potential damage per second while the dagger gets more potential criticals.