Re: Good initiative mechanics?

Just back from a long trip and catching up.

gleichman wrote:

> Nor am I a fan of Action Points and other similar mechanics, or
> limited defensive options common to these systems.as they produce very
> counter-productive play due to their very nature. For example,
> requiring the spending of an Action for each use of the game's primary
> defensive options results in the tradition MMORPGs style of combat
> when each side focuses all their fire upon a single target- something
> not seen in reality or fiction outside those games when use such
> mechanics.

My current BESM based game one of my (many) fixes to the combat
mechanics was to allow the characters to by default to defend at full
value vs. all attacks. Most attacks are ranged and you don't dodge the
single blaster shot, you dodge all the time (unless surprised or
taking deliberate aim or on a disabled vehicle or...).

Dodging all the time is equivalent to rolling full defense vs. every
single attack, it just seems to work MUCH better.

And this game's combat does often involve the 100+ guys (or star****ps
or whatever) shoot at you who can only hit if they roll a ~8 or more
points higher than you do on 2d6. I can have a computer roll the 100+
guys or just use the statistical expected number of rolls of 10-12 and
have the PC roll only that number of defenses.

I find that the 100+ guys are mildly dangerous but not nearly so much
so any heroic types on the other side and that this is pretty much
what I want.

200 storm troopers should worry Luke, but 9 shouldn't be able to
trivially take him down by having the first 8 force out all his
defensive actions.

There's still too much concentration of fire. The force-field and HP
rules both encourage it too much to avoid it. If I ever bother with
another major revision to the house rules I'll worry about that.

Back on the subject, BESM uses random roll every round, which works
for what I'm doing but isn't really needed IMAO, fixed initiative
values would work about as well and run a bit faster.

DougL