The apparent lack of an initiative system in OD&D is
something that I've been thinking about recently.
This might be obvious stuff to seasoned
OD&D players, but my perspective on this has shifted a bit recently.
I think I was looking at the game too firmly
through the lens of what came later--rather than seeing what may be suggested
by the rulebooks themselves.
So here’s
my thoughts on OD&D and Combat.
We can see that various later editions tried to deal with
this issue by instituting various solutions such as tracking initiative by
Dexterity rating (Holmes) or by rolling a d6 (AD&D, Moldvay). Both of these approaches can be extrapolated
from Men & Magic.
However--the whole point of the referee is to adjudicate
these kinds of situations! So with that
in mind:
First, the referee looks at situational factors like
surprise. Does it seem likely that any
of the participants are surprised? Is
there a chance that the PCs may be alerted in some way? How do we determine this? The referee adjudicates the situation FAIRLY
based on situational factors. That is, I
think, the default system implied by the OD&D rulebooks.
Second, assuming that combat has been joined--what happens
next? Who goes first? Well how fast and skilled are the PCs? (this is where Dex becomes a factor as it
indicates in Men & Magic) Are there other
factors that need to be accounted for?
If the PCs are heavily armored Dwarves using heavy axes fighting a group
of Orcs wearing leather armor and armed with lighter short swords and
crossbows--might the Orcs gain initiative?
Or what if one the players is so quickly decisive that she immediately
declares that her PC is charging the Orcs and yelling the ancient battle cry of
the Dwarves? Might this PC gain
initiative before the Orcs even if the other Dwarves do not?
Other factors such as weapon reach etc. can also be factored
in through adjudication.
If it looks like it’s a too close to call--you can always
fall back on the d6 as a "tie-breaker" as Holmes suggests.
Other factors such as additional strikes (ripostes etc.) can
be adjudicated as well. In this regard
I'd use Chainmail as a guideline as to situational factors that might play into
this.
The referee or the players makes attack rolls as usual with
the DM adjudicating the effectiveness of hits etc. Use d6 or variable damage here as you
will. One of the main jobs of the
referee here is to make combat vivid and exciting. Don't just drone on about hit points
lost--give us some real description of what's happening! D&D combat is very abstract, and it is up
to the referee here to make it sing.
Season with whatever level of gore you and your players are comfortable
with. Bad things happen when people hit
each other with sharp pieces of metal!
This approach really comes out of OD&D's wargame roots
but it also veers close to what's today called "freeform." The referee has as many tools as they want
here. Lots of folks might feel like
they're flying without the net of the rules here--to that I say: Welcome to
OD&D!
Lots of folks have obviously seen the advantages to this
approach which was lost to one degree or another in all later iterations of the
game. Indeed, so many people complained
about this to TSR that they felt they needed a more solid rules based edition
that didn’t leave so much to the referee.
Thus Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was born. I love AD&D but there’s something very
freeing in all the open spaces of OD&D.
