Real-Time/Turn Based, Split From Henchman Discussion Options

[Tenjac]

I don't understand where people get that NWN is a real time game. It's turn based. BG, IWD, PS:T, NWN, TOEE, and every other d&d game is turn based; it just doesn't pause at the end of the turn like Civiliztion III does. These games have to be turn based because of the mechanics of D&D.

Another thing people are overlooking is that just because there is full control does not mean you have to control your companions. BG had AI for companions, so if you didn't want to control them you didn't have to. Only moving them was required, but that could be left intact also from the NWN henchmen, so if you did nothing with them they would act just they did before. So arguments that you don't want to have to micromanage them aren't really an issue, as they would be exactly the same as they were for you.

[Rand1]

To all NWN "rael tie" would bes...
NWN is not a real time game. It may look like one, but so does BGII.
When your character's Base Attack Bonus is +15/+10/+5, that means he gets 3 attacks per turn! Sure, they can call it 3 attacks per 6 seconds, but 6 seconds is a turn (or 10, what ever). Even if the turns are not called turn or doesn't look like turns, it's still turns. Any game that is based on D&D rules must work on turns, since all the magics/attacks/movement rate are turn based. So call it whatever you like, it's still going to be turn based no matter what...

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I don't understand where people get that NWN is a real time game.  It's turn based.  BG, IWD, PS:T, NWN, TOEE, and every other d&d game is turn based

By contrast, I don't understand where people get the idea that a game where everything is happening simultaneously, and where they have the ability to pause the game whenever they want, is turnbased.

it just doesn't pause at the end of the turn like Civiliztion III does.

And that is already an element which indicates its not turnbased. What those games do is simply to have all individual turns happen all at once, which again, is not the same as turnbased. Turnbased follows the same scheme as Fallout or ToEE: everyone rolls for initiative, the sequence is determined, and characters carry out their individual turns one by one, one after the other.

This is the official description of the system in the IE games (found here:

Combat System
Q: Is Baldur's Gate real time or turn based?
A: The Baldur's Gate engine (The BioWare Infinity Engine) is real time but the game is pauseable and actions may be assigned to characters in your party at that time. This is just an option that a player may use if the action gets a little "out of hand." In general the AI scripting will permit easy control over the 6 character party with minimal need to resort to the turn-based mode. For those of you that recall the excellent Microprose game, Darklands, the combat real-time and pausing system can be considered to be similar. X-Com 3 uses a similar pause feature as well.

Q: How does the combat system actually work?
A: The combat system is based on the rules set out by the Player's Handbook. Baldur's Gate uses these rules and adapts them to the real-time format used in the game. In the game manual there will be a complete rundown explaining all that is needed to know how to play the game. Your characters have a sophisticated AI system (using a scripting language) that will allow them to independently and simultaneously execute your orders. If you wish, you can turn their AI's off and control all of them one by one, in a turn-based mode. This is achieved by pausing the game and then giving orders to each of the PC's you wish. We want the game to be enjoyed by both real-time and turn-based RPG fans.

Q: How does initiative work?
A: Each character on the field is on a "personal initiative round." This personal initiative round will be on the order of 3-6 seconds long (you probably can adjust it) - and it corresponds roughly to one 60 second round in AD&D. The rounds are equal in length but are non-simultaneous; that is they do not have exactly the same start and end points for all characters and monsters. Within the personal initiative round the weapons and spells fire off at the same proportionate time that they would get released in an AD&D round. That is, a dagger is used quicker in a round than a two-handed sword. A magic missile gets released sooner after spellcasting starts than a fireball, etc. Initiative is determined each round and modifies the timing of swings and spell casts slightly every round, so each round will be slightly different from preceding and following rounds. If a mage is hit between the time he or she starts to cast and the time that the spell is due to get released, the spell is disrupted. Thus shorter cast-time spells are a definite advantage, exactly as in AD&D. We have been careful to adapt the AD&D ruleset to a realtime system maintaining the exact weapon weightings, spell weightings, and the same proportionate timing occurs in Baldur's Gate as in the original ruleset. All in all we hope the net result is a real-time adaptation of the rules, maintaining the original flavor and balance.

You can do a search for the respective combat system description of KoTOR and NWN. Bluntly put, they're realtime (or a wierd hybrid thereof, which is not turnbased anyway).

These games have to be turn based because of the mechanics of D&D.

Someone better tell Bioware that?

[Rand1]

By contrast, I don't understand where people get the idea that a game where everything is happening simultaneously, and where they have the ability to pause the game whenever they want, is turnbased.

A: The Baldur's Gate engine (The BioWare Infinity Engine) is real time

I don't know what the engine is, but the game is turn based, even if you don't call it turns, and even if the engine doesn't see it as turns. Whenever using the official D&D rules, you have X hits per turn, in both baldur's gate and NWN. These are D&D rules. So maybe the engine doesn't see it as different turns, and just colculate your attacks per second, but it's still turn based, even if you name it differently and if the engine is real time. The game is turn based, as are the rules of D&D.

The only question I have about this is do we generate our own party members or pick from a list or maybe wonder around and let 'em join up?

I belive that the system of finding NPC's in game will remain. This is not the Mights and Magic games that your create a whole new 4 character party and play with it. You create 1 character and get more NPC's on the way.

The only time I would find it acceptable to have full party control, is if an AI controlled party was just as effective in combat as a fully player controlled one. Anything else would create serious balance issues...
This is the question I would like to see addressed by the full party control crowd.

I don't recall that being a problem in the BG series. It was differcult enough. Further more, if you want a more direct answer, even if what you described is true, a full party control will still be more realistic, then having to count only on AI, without any real chance to control your NPC's, because it lacks the basic stratigic planing needed. Characters in a game can talk to each other during games, make real and full stratigis. No matter how good is the AI, you won't be able to make full tactical scanario without full control. For that you need to talk to them befor the battle or riddle, and explain the details, get prepared. With henchmen based system, the best you can do is tell your henchmen things as they happen.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

By contrast, I don't understand where people get the idea that a game where everything is happening simultaneously, and where they have the ability to pause the game whenever they want, is turnbased.

A: The Baldur's Gate engine (The BioWare Infinity Engine) is real time

I don't know what the engine is, but the game is turn based, even if you don't call it turns, and even if the engine doesn't see it as turns. Whenever using the official D&D rules, you have X hits per turn, in both baldur's gate and NWN. These are D&D rules. So maybe the engine doesn't see it as different turns, and just colculate your attacks per second, but it's still turn based, even if you name it differently and if the engine is real time. The game is turn based, as are the rules of D&D.

I'm guessing I didn't explain myself properly.

The traditional mechanics of turnbased, including the one used in D&D (in its pen and paper format), basically boil down to this: at the beginning of a combat round, everyone rolls for Initiative. Initiative serves to determine who gets to act when in the Sequence of events that will follow. The one that rolled the highest initiative goes first in combat, followed by the second, then third, and so on, thus ending the sequence of events that make up the round. Every turn is executed one after the other. There are no simultaneous actions. It's MyTurn, YourTurn, exactly like chess, but for all those involved in combat. No character will move at the same time in the sequence, their turns will follow each other one after the other.

That is turnabased, at least the principle of it. Its clear (and if its not, than it should be) that Baldur's Gate and NWN are different from this. They remove the sequence of turns, and instead make it so all turns are happening simultaneously in realtime. Instead of having one character move at a time, or perform its action on its own individual turn, all turns happen at the same time. As I said before, the very fact everything is happening at the same time, in real time, shows that the structure of turnabased is gone. Simply because there is a time period which loosely corresponds to a a character's turn doesn't mean its turnbased. That's like saying Diablo is turnbased because everything on screen has its own turn, or that Quake 3 is turnbased since everyone on the server is making their own action on their own individual turn.

If it's not executed and played like turnbased, bluntly put, it simply isn't turnbased. Not that hard to grasp, I think. But feel free to disregard the concept of turnbased itself, and the official explanation of how the games' combat models work.

[Rand1]

The traditional mechanics of turnbased, including the one used in D&D (in its pen and paper format), basically boil down to this: at the beginning of a combat round, everyone rolls for Initiative. Initiative serves to determine who gets to act when in the Sequence of events that will follow. The one that rolled the highest initiative goes first in combat, followed by the second, then third, and so on, thus ending the sequence of events that make up the round. Every turn is executed one after the other. There are no simultaneous actions. It's MyTurn, YourTurn, exactly like chess, but for all those involved in combat. No character will move at the same time in the sequence, their turns will follow each other one after the other.

That is a big mistake. D&D is turn based, but the turns are all at the same time. Allow me to explain. A full D&D combat round lasts 10 seconds in 3rd ed. during those 10 seconds, each player gets a 10 seconds turn. While the turns are one after the other to make battles easier to manage, in game time they are realtime based, like in BG and NWN. Any good paper D&D DM knows how do handle such things. That is how combat is managed. The engine for the computer games is ment to give that type of battle, without making it look like turn based actions, while it is turn based indeed. You can't make a game that follows the D&D rule set without making the battles turnbased, even if it doesn't look like it.

[Tenjac]

That would be a rather dull and unrealistic depiction of combat in a game, don't you think? Actually, it would be like Final Fantasy VII. Blech.

If you're doing PnP, it works great. It's necessary, actually, because it would be chaos if you didn't each do things one at a time. However, a visually depicted game of D&D has to do each entities "turn" at the same time in order to make it look like reality. You know, I think I actually like that better than PnP.

[Tenjac]

The traditional mechanics of turnbased, including the one used in D&D (in its pen and paper format), basically boil down to this: at the beginning of a combat round, everyone rolls for Initiative. Initiative serves to determine who gets to act when in the Sequence of events that will follow. The one that rolled the highest initiative goes first in combat, followed by the second, then third, and so on, thus ending the sequence of events that make up the round. Every turn is executed one after the other. There are no simultaneous actions. It's MyTurn, YourTurn, exactly like chess, but for all those involved in combat. No character will move at the same time in the sequence, their turns will follow each other one after the other.

That is a big mistake. D&D is turn based, but the turns are all at the same time. Allow me to explain. A full D&D combat round lasts 10 seconds in 3rd ed. during those 10 seconds, each player gets a 10 seconds turn. While the turns are one after the other to make battles easier to manage, in game time they are realtime based, like in BG and NWN. Any good paper D&D DM knows how do handle such things. That is how combat is managed. The engine for the computer games is ment to give that type of battle, without making it look like turn based actions, while it is turn based indeed. You can't make a game that follows the D&D rule set without making the battles turnbased, even if it doesn't look like it.

Exactly.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

That is a big mistake. D&D is turn based, but the turns are all at the same time.

Yet, they're played individually, one after the other in the sequence. Just like any other turnbased combat models.

Allow me to explain. A full D&D combat round lasts 10 seconds in 3rd ed. during those 10 seconds, each player gets a 10 seconds turn. While the turns are one after the other to make battles easier to manage, in game time they are realtime based, like in BG and NWN.

Define "realtime based". Actual mechanics, visual presentation, or something else? Because there are differences.

Also, turnbased doesn't exclude depicting a realtime situation already, only on a step by step basis. It doesn't need to be changed into an actual realtime visualization of events. Simply because there are sequenced turns, as opposed to simultaneous turns, doesn't mean the combat situation you're playing is not meant to be happening in real time. A combat situation in turnbased basically breaks down to pausing the situation presented to you in order to expand on each character's individual actions. All character actions, ie, turns, are individually played, yet, they are meant to be considered as having been played simultaneous by the end of the round.

Again, I can give you the example of chess. Its happening in realtime as you can probably tell, but the mechanics actually involve the players in it to play in turns (and its turnbased); if you were to play it using simultaneous turns (ie, moving and acting at the same time as your opponent does with no pauses), it would not only disregard the rules, but it would be something else entirely.

Any good paper D&D DM knows how do handle such things. That is how combat is managed. The engine for the computer games is ment to give that type of battle, without making it look like turn based actions, while it is turn based indeed.

Maybe its just me, and if that is the case than I'm an exception to the rule, but when someone speaks to me of an object or concept I know of, I immediately recognize it by associating that object or concept with a set of clearly defined features that are meant to represent it. Hence, when someone speaks to me of turnbased combat, the combat seen in IE games or in NWN is the last thing to come to mind, because they do not look nor play like turnbased. Turnbased is primarily focused on sequenced, individual turns; not on simultaneous turns executed in actual realtime like Baldur's Gate and NWN are.

You can't make a game that follows the D&D rule set without making the battles turnbased, even if it doesn't look like it.

Except the differences are not only those related to aesthetics, it also plays differently. Compare, for instance, the number of actions you can perform in one character turn in turnbased PnP with the number of actions you can perform in one character turn in the realtime model of Baldur's Gate 2. But as I said before, feel free to contradict or disregard the agreed upon description of the combat models present in IE games, and in NWN. Its not like Bioware would know what they did, anyway.

That would be a rather dull and unrealistic depiction of combat in a game, don't you think?

If you're addressing the definiton of turnbased I provided (and that coincides with several turnbased systems), then 'dull' and 'unrealistic' can easily apply to any given combat model, depending on who you ask. Personally, I don't find there is a need for games, or game elements, to be realistic, so implying or saying turnbased is not realistic is irrelevant to me. I've seen fairly unrealistic and erratic things happening in realtime games, and they're supposed to magically represent reality.

Actually, it would be like Final Fantasy VII.  Blech.

Actually, not really (if, again, you're addressing my above explanation of turnbased), since Final Fantasy VII had two different combat modes, and some different mechanics altogether when compared to turnbased.

If you're doing PnP, it works great.  It's necessary, actually, because it would be chaos if you didn't each do things one at a time.  However, a visually depicted game of D&D has to do each entities "turn" at the same time in order to make it look like reality. You know, I think I actually like that better than PnP.

The bolded part is my doing.

No, it doesn't need to resort to a realtime visual presentation to make it look like reality. Not only is the type of visual presentation left to the discretion of who is handling the presentation (as Temple of Elemental Evil or the old Gold Box games would indicate), D&D isn't modelled after reality nor does it need to present itself as if it was. In fact, implying a D&D game which handles combat situations in realtime would need to be similar to reality is interesting, because it seems willfully ignorant of the fact that you have cases which are very different from it - such as combatants swinging at each other with swords until one falls down and dies. That doesn't happen in reality.

Unless you're using the term reality loosely and are thinking that 'everything moving at once in realtime = reality'.

[AlanC9]

Also, turnbased doesn't exclude depicting a realtime situation already, only on a step by step basis.  It doesn't need to be changed into an actual realtime visualization of events. Simply because there are sequenced turns, as opposed to simultaneous turns, doesn't mean the combat situation you're playing is not meant to be happening in real time. A combat situation in turnbased basically breaks down to pausing the situation presented to you in order to expand on each character's individual actions. All character actions, ie, turns, are individually played, yet, they are meant to be considered as having been played simultaneous by the end of the round.

Though making the actions sequential can introduce distortions, of course. In D&D 3.0, since all movement happens on the individual segment, the game positions only match up with real-time positions at the end of the round. This can produce illogical results with AoE effects.

I've seen fairly unrealistic and erratic things happening in realtime games, and they're supposed to magically represent reality.

"Magically"? Since the real world is in RT, I figure any attempt to do a realistic game would necessarily be RT too, or at least quasi-RT like a phased system.

Not that realism is necessary or desirable.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Though making the actions sequential can introduce distortions, of course. In D&D 3.0, since all movement happens on the individual segment, the game positions only match up with real-time positions at the end of the round. This can produce  illogical results with AoE effects.

True.

"Magically"? Since the real world is in RT, I figure any attempt to do a realistic game would necessarily be RT too, or at least quasi-RT like a phased system.

Not that realism is necessary or desirable.

My point was that I don't feel using a realtime combat model will magically (or instantly, or absolutely) make it necessarily more realistic. Again, you have the example of characters who swing their swords at each other until one falls, or of realtime games where combatants are in front of each other trading shots until one dies. Thats why I'm left wondering if he was considering all aspects of reality, or if he was instead proposing that "reality=realtime", because there's more to reality than just the apperance. We all move in real time in reality, but we don't get that kind of behaviour or rules you see. In short, one aspect that mimicks reality is simultaneously moving away from it.

[Rand1]

Well, after all this talk about realtime or turn base (Which is turn base you know...), I think that the majurity has spoken...

[alanschu]

I didn't want to get involved (since I don't particularly care) about the real-time versus turn-based discussion.

But since the "majority" of the people have apparently said that NWN and all the Infinity Engine games are Turn Based....I would like to vote that the game is real time.

A turn based game simply must have sequential turns to be a turn based game.

The fact that each player has their own combat "turn" does not make a game turn based....it's just the rules governing exactly how the player attacks in the game. What Bioware did (and what I thought Roleplayer made quite clear) is adapt the turn based structure of D&D and implement it in a real-time environment. The game does not stop to ask you if you want to move, who to attack, and then when you are done go on to the next player.

Look at Temple of Elemental Evil, and look at Baldur's Gate/NWN, and you will see that the two games play VERY differently.

In any case, I'm done.


P.S. Majority has spoken??? What biased poll are you basing this on? A discussion between a handful of people?

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I am getting behind the years, but at least I tried. If someone was going to reject what the creators of the games would say, then what I would say would be dismissed, then I assumed the same would very likely happen with what I'd say, but it was worth the shot.

I'm glad the majority, whichever it was, has spoken. Their precious insight will forever hold a special place in my heart, now that I've been taught that turnbased = realtime.

Live and learn, as they say.

[alanschu]

LOL