Re: Good initiative mechanics?

Doug Lampert posts, in part:

  With bullets or similar ranged attacks the
  character realistically doesn't actually KNOW
  that he's being attacked, everyone is already
  dodging, so there's no excuse for anyone to
  take a penalty just because someone 'actually'
  shot at him rather than just scattering fire
  over the area.

Realistically, each character would need to decide whether they were
staying defensive before they got shot at.  A simultaneous decision
system would encourage people not to focus fire too much because then
the opponents could risk not staying defensive.

I'm not sure exactly what we're looking for, though.  Focused fire is
a reasonable tactic for situations where ac***ulation of damage
matters.  That's not generally the case in infantry battles.  At some
points in history, it was for naval battles, and there you did see
focused fire used.  If you don't want focused fire to be effective, I
think you should stay away from ***ulative damage systems.

Warren J. Dew