The Tavern

[yxanthymir]

I agree. A big turn is also very messy, so I think it is a little more organized this way. Just a little more post frequency would be great, but real life sometimes imposes some banes.

[Neopopulas]

Yeah we just have to make sure people are posting at least once a day in combat to make sure that they don't need to take a turn. Also i think it might help if, at the beginning of the turn, we mention what sort of action we'll take, that way we know who to wait for.

[TheShadyRaven]

That would be a good idea - I'm buying a house in these days so I'm kinda swamped, still I could have posted earlier but it wasn't the slow turn yet.

[Neopopulas]

Maybe in the beginning of a new turn our Illustrious DM just states here "This is the start of a new turn" and then we can basically update everyone on if we plan to make a fast turn or not, then we know if we can skip because we could theoretically have everyone doing slow turns instead of fast turns.

I'd ALMOST suggest merging the fast and slow turns for PbP but i have no idea what other problems that would cause, since i'm not familiar with the system. If you did that then everyone just does everything in one big turn. But i THINK the game sort of relies on the split so that people can move one turn and allow allies to move or act afterwards. However i took another look and i can't tell.

Basically i'm wondering if there is any need for the split turns that i'm missing. If you act in the fast turn you get to go before people doing both, but mechanically it doesn't make a huge difference.

From what i understand, Fast turns just mean you can act - say attack - before another character who is trying to move AND attack, so you would get to attack someone before they moved away and attacked an ally, for example.

But in PbP, does that make a difference? Since all the PCs sort of act at the same time because the GM resolves in one big block at the end, would it cause any huge problems that i'm unaware of it we just assumed everyone was taking Slow Turns and they just move/act in their single post instead of waiting.

I was looking at examples and it seems that the split really just allows the GM to act between the different turns.

Example: Player 1 attacks a zombie standing in front of them, all the other players take Slow Turns so do nothing. The GM then takes THEIR fast turn and has the zombie attack Player one, and some other zombies move closer to the players. Then the slow turn happens and the other players choose to both move to the zombies and attack.

However, if we just merged the turns and sort of did away with the split, the outcome is basically the same in PbP.

Example: Player 1 attacks a zombie, and players 2 and 3 move up and attack the zombies as well. The GM then takes their turn and has all the zombies move closer to player 1 and attacks them.

Because the players and GM act in blocks more often than not in PbP, the outcome is more or less the same. The difference i sort of see is that in Example 1, the Gm could get the zombie to attack player 1 before the other players move and attack it, theoretically meaning the zombie would survive longer to attack player 1.

This would require a slightly more narrative play style because its less tactical - players moving before slow-turn zombies to get out of their range or players moving in the fast turn to be in position so that players in the slow turn can move and act around them

Example: A player and a zombie stand off against each other. The player chooses the Fast turn and moves away from the zombie - but since we're not really using a hex grid map or anything the tactics are a little more handwavy anyway.

I'm fine either way but i just was digging in the books and thought it might solve the speed issue.

Either way we need to essentially poll the group and get updates on if they are using fast or slow turns or we need to compress the fast and slow turns, both would speed up the game a bit. The only problem with the first option is that it still relies on players posting once a day so they can update on which sort of turn they are using and if that isn't happening you'd still end up waiting for actions for the full 24 hours before you moved on to the slow turns anyway.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Neopopulas (see edit history)

[yxanthymir]

Very busy last day, and a little today also.

 

@fabulist @VolsungaSaga We are waiting for you.

[VolsungaSaga]

I apologize, I seem to be consistently slow on the draw here. I do feel that the current pace is somewhat outstripping my ability to keep up, personally. I'll try to be faster.

@Neopopulas The slow/fast turn dynamic is a bit confusing to me, since I'm used to DnD's turn mechanics. Frankly, that confusion is why I've remained content with taking slow turns only. I'd be in favor of merging the two into a single solid turn, should that be the group's consensus, since it simplifies the mechanics a bit. I'm not sure if that would help my posting rate, though.

[yxanthymir]

The reason for fast or slow turns are because there is no initiative and players always act first unless surprised. Instead of being a rolled dice, it is a choice made at every turn. It is easier to think it that way.

[yxanthymir]

Moving to forth turn tomorrow.

[yxanthymir]

Fast Turn open until Tuesday, unless everyone wants to skip it.

[Neopopulas]

I'll be using the slow turn to move up to attack so i'll be waiting.

[fabulist]

Sorry guys, things got thick IRL and I haven't noticed how much time passed.

[TheShadyRaven]

I'll also be using the slow turn to keep pressuring the undead leader.

As for turn organization - can we perhaps write our posts at the beginning of the turn stating what our characters do and if they take a slow / fast turn, and then let the DM reconstruct the flow at the end? At times it would cause some problems (like a player targeting an enemy that dies before they get to act), but we could work around that by either making a second pass for the turn (if needed) or by stating a fallback plan in our post using OOC.

[yxanthymir]

Definitively not opposed to that. I just move the post to slow turn or blend it someway like last Fabulist's action.

[yxanthymir]

Ending forth turn At Friday.

[Neopopulas]

Fast turn done!