Ticks Tick Me Off!

P

Persell

Ten Thousand Club
So how do people keep track of them darn ticks?


We've tried everything. A paper with numbers and names, everyone sitting with their own die to tick down at the GM's whim (usually ending up with people going "Oops! Missed me!") and so on.


Did anyone try to convert to Scions tick-system? Seems a lot more fluid to me.


Maybe they even revised it? I dunno. But please. Help.
 
...Then we must've missed something. Big time.


We figured the ticks were just going ON and ON and ON forever, without ever "resetting".


Well. That helps. Except the link for the battle-wheel is broken.
 
Ticks do go on and on for as long as the battle lasts. They don't "reset".
 
One of the things that I find helps is to have everyone at the table select a fig, set a series of dice from 0-6, and have everyone place their figs by Join battle. After all the figs on 0 are resolved, I move everyone up one.


It's inelegant, but I like it.
 
Sidalia said:
...Then we must've missed something. Big time.
We figured the ticks were just going ON and ON and ON forever, without ever "resetting".
Click to expand...
Well, that is basically how ticks work. You progress tick-by-tick until the battle ends. The little bit about the ways to track ticks in Scion: Hero, at the beginning of the Combat chapter, explains the battle wheel.
Sidalia said:
Except the link for the battle-wheel is broken.
Click to expand...
Works for me. Try Googling "battle wheel", or navigating over to the official Exalted Wiki, scrolling down the front page to Resources, and looking under Other Resources.
 
I, as GM, keep a master list of when folks should declare next. I also make players keep track of the speed of their last action, and announce how many ticks are passing. This works mainly because so many people in my games have laptops or smartphones to keep notes on.
 
Plague of Hats: Yeah, found a battle-wheel. I'll give it a try. :)


IanPrice: Few in our group have laptops and smartphones, since they'd rather spend their money on swords or simply not spend money at all... and yes, swords.
 
My Exalted page has a zip archive of some variant battle wheels I made a while back. These differ from the official one by having more steps as well as the ability to track DV penalty at the same time. I've never actually tested them.
 
One solution I found elegant was a little bowl of glass beads. When you performed an action, you took a number of them equal to the Speed of the action, and each time the Ticks "ticked", you tossed one back into the bowl. When you ran out, you took your next action.


Doesn't need to be beads, of course. A bowl of pennies would work just as well.
 
Jukashi said:
One solution I found elegant was a little bowl of glass beads. When you performed an action, you took a number of them equal to the Speed of the action, and each time the Ticks "ticked", you tossed one back into the bowl. When you ran out, you took your next action.
Doesn't need to be beads, of course. A bowl of pennies would work just as well.
Click to expand...
This worked perfectly. I used those yellow glass-thingies that came with Legacy of The Unconquered Sun. :)
 
I know I'm a dick for saying this, but I don't see what's so hard about keeping track of ticks without elaborate props. It's basic counting, not calculus. I'm not sure why so many people have trouble grasping it.
 
White boards are cheap, awesome and very multipurpose. You can even make a semi-permanent battle wheel with masking tape. It's big, visible to everyone and you can even include DV modifiers on it.
 
You can also print a tabler with like 30-50 cells for ticks (it's doubtful the combat will last that much anyway) and place a little paper with the name of the player and move it accordingly so he knows when he acts.


But yeah, I never saw the problem either... I'm even adapting it to many other heavy action games (like shadowrun).
 
I write down the names of the characters, and the ticks they act on:


Bill 0


John 2


Badguys 4


I then simply add the speed of the action the person takes to their total ticks. Then I look for the smallest number. It's that's person's turn. So if bill swings his goremaul...


Bill 0-5


John 2


Badguys 4


It's john's turn. John fires his powerbow, followed by the badguys and their spears, so we're then at:


Bill 0-5


John 2-8


Badguys 4-9


I love this system because it not only tracks ticks well, it also tracks actions, and it can tell you how long your battle is. Which is why I knew when my hero faced off with a dragon blooded for 120 grueling ticks. And it doesn't take tokens (which can be dislodged).
 
mileage may vary on the length of combat. Because of varied action from kicking extras around to chasing a BBEG to dealing with some henchmen to the BBEG himself and his various tricks in his hidden fortress, I remember an epic combat taking over 70 ticks without a break in the action.
 
Well, unless they're of the Malfean Luminata variety, they don't really drain that much and don't have much chance being disease vectors...
 
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