Interrupts

[foleypt]

Hi Everybody,

I´m returning to GMing MT after a break of 19 years

I have read through a few of the threads on this board about interrupts and I think we are handling them well.

However while playing through a session last night I realised that I had been imposing a restriction on interrupts that I can't afterwards justify from the rules, namely I am not allowing the interrupted player to then try interrupt his interrupter.

Imagine a conflict with just two people Good Guy A (GGA) and Bad Guy A (BGA)

BGA won initiative at the start of the conflict (I determine initiative on tactics pool, highest leadership skill and d6) and attacks GGA with his fist.

GGA interrupts successfully and tries to punch BGA before BGA gets his swing in. As I have been playing it BGA can't then try to interrupt, but if there was another combatant BGB they could, but I am not sure if that is correct as it means I seem to always have bad guys having to rush in from somewhere else in order to save the original bad guy who has been interrupted (yes I am aware of the rule prohibiting people in HTH from interrupting anyone but the person attacking them)
It almost seems as if by going first in the round you are being prejudiced against.

The only relevant quote I could find is player's manual pg 70

A unit undergoing a hand to hand combat can try to interrupt the attacker; in this case use the units DEX as a DM in place of movement speed. In effect, two units locked in HTH may interrupt each other, but no other units. Units not engaged in the HTH attack may inturrupt with a fire attack, or they may move adjacent to a unit and conduct a hth attack themselves

BTW when should player's declare movement, it seems that it should be at the start of the turn before anyone moves, so the dm for the to hit roll can be determined by people going first. If so and a speed of 2 is declared, are the players obliged to actually move?

I introduced a home rule to deal with the I have been interrupted and my original action no longer makes sense or I have failed an inturrupt and no longer want to carry though with my action event. I have made it a routine Dex task to update your action or else you are locked into doing the declared action

 

[McPerth]

There was an example of personal combat that explained how interrupts were used, I think in one TD, but I'm affraid I cannot find it right now.

 

[aramis]

There was an example of personal combat that explained how interrupts were used, I think in one TD, but I'm affraid I cannot find it right now.

I did one on the board a few years ago.
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=177410&postcount=4

 

[foleypt]

Interrupts and also Assessing damage

Thanks for that Aramis!

However it doesn't answer my question and I actually have one major problem with your example, the indented version I quote below

Thug declares he's going kill dave.
| Jo Interrupts, declaring shell shoot thug. Rolls, makes.
|| Before She gets to roll, however, thugger declares an interrupt of Jo. Thugger rolls, and declares hhe's going to shoot Jo.
||-Tom decides to interrupt Thugger, and shoot him, but fails.
||Thugger rolls to hit; hits Jo, but she takes only 2 from it, and is still functional.
||Tom, bacause of failing the interrupt, now shoots Thugger.
|Jo Rolls to hit Thug, rolls +8 over, and thug goes down.
|Thug (whose action it would be) is now down, dropped by Jo before Thug could kill dave.
|Sarah, Thuggiest still haven't acted. Since Thug acted first, either sara needs to announce an action.
|Sara decides to dive for dave, and cut him loose.
||Thuggier objects, and tries to interrupt to bas Sara with his 20# maul... and fails the interrupt.
||Sara makes the difficult knife task to cut dave loose.
||Now, having done her bit, thuggiest womps her... She;s out. |Dave, however, grabs her and runs...

I can't see how Tom can interrupt, Thug went first, was interrupted by Jo, who was then in turn interrupted by thugger, we then have 1 active interrupt from each side, how then can Tom interrupt?

To return to my question, in the above example would the following be possible

Thug declares he's going kill Jo.
| Jo Interrupts, declaring she will shoot thug. Rolls, makes.
|| Before She gets to roll, however, THUG declares an interrupt of Jo

If you are being interrupted can you then try to interrupt your interrupter, or do you have to depend on a friend. In one on one hand to hand combat against a high dex opponent you then end up being disadvantaged if you go first as it is more likely then not that your opponent will successfully interrupt you and end up going first.


Another question, this time involving assessing damage.
BTW I assume here I have been correct in ruling that if a character has been wounded and made unconscious due to hits, but on subsequent medical treatment and hence rolling of the hits as stat damage they turn out to have no stats at zero the procedure is to recalculate temporary Life Force and Hits and declare them conscious again.

OK, here is the hypothetical: assuming the current state of a person is Str 1. Dex 4, End 5 and thus has Hits 2/2. The character is hit again for a further 2 points of damage.. unconscious again. Doc gets to him on time and damage is rolled again. First dice of damage is rolled and it is a 6, what happens now?, here are the rules

pg 75 Player's Manual

For each damage point received, roll 1D and apply the
results as damage to the character’s Strength, Dexterity, or
Endurance. Apply each roll to one of the three characteristics.

I take from the above that the player can choose which stat to apply the damage to, and if there doesn't exist any concept of a negative stat and if they are wise they would apply the 6 to str because they have another dice of damage still to apply and they don't want two stats at 0 or else they have a major wound.

If a stat is reduced to negative, do I have to apply the remainder to another stat, or is damage applied to stats randomly or is damage applied to stats where the minimum amount of negative stat would occur and so in this case it would have to go to End??

 

[aramis]

If a character has not yet acted, he may attempt an interrupt of any opposing character.

There's only ONE interrupt active at a time... if you've been interrupted successfully, you are not active until the interruptor has finished. But also, you can't attempt to interrupt if your buddy fails to interrupt.

 

[foleypt]

Thanks for keeping with me here, I know a lot of people mention interrupts as being one of the unplayable aspects of MT, but I like them, they seem to make a round more fluid for players, with everybody paying more attention to what happens rather then just waiting for their turn, so I am keen to iron out the kinks before I get much further into my campaign.

In your reply I am not sure if you are attempting to answer my initial question or are clarifying why you allowed Tom to interrupt in your example.

I think what you are saying is that in your opinion an interrupted person can go on to be interrupt as they have not yet acted and so can qualify as being eligible to interrupt

A unit from the opposing side (which has not yet taken a turn)
can choose to interrupt another unit’s turn and take its turn
in the middle of that unit’s turn.

however, I think that eligibility criteria is not valid as it occurs to me that an interrupted person has in many cases already (at least partially) acted, as the interruption can occur during any part of their turn. Also the interrupted person has defiantly made a declaration of what they intend to do and in most GM's opinions that locks them into doing that (consider failed interrupts etc)

I am a bit unsure if your comment about an interrupted interrupt not yet being active and I assume that this part is justification for the second PC interrupt in your example is valid

Only one active interrupt is permitted per side.

How by your reasoning would you ever get more then one active interrupt? In my reasoning a successful interrupt is active even if it is subsequently usurped by an opposing interrupt

lntempt Example: The players are fighting a group of NPCs on a starship. It is the players’ turn. One of the player characters, Dur Telemon, takes his turn.
Dur decides to run from cover at the end of the corridor to an inset doorway closer to the enemy and, thereby, close from medium to short range; this action enables him to get a better shot. Dur starts to move (run) down the hall by moving out into the open one square. One of the NPC players specifies an interrupt; he wants to take his turn now and shoot at Dur while
Dur is in the open. The NPC rolls for the interrupt task and succeeds.
Before the NPC can attack, another player character, Aybee Owen declares an interrupt of the NPCs turn. Aybee wants to lay down covering fire for Dur by shooting at the NPC who is going to shoot at Dur. Aybee rolls an interrupt task and succeeds. Because all damage from attacks takes effect immediately, if Aybee can put the NPC out of the action before the NPC’s turn resumes, the NPC will be unable to do anything to Dur. Neither the players nor the NPCs can interrupt any further (since only one interrupt per side is allowed, per square of movement or per attack). When Dur moves another square, or if he shoots while moving down the hall, another pair of interrupts will become possible.

The above is an example from the player's manual and I think it makes clear that your second Tom attempt at interrupt was not valid. An interesting point from the above example is whether somebody who interrupts by say running forward and then attacking HTH makes themselves a valid target for interrupts

(since only one interrupt per side is allowed, per square of movement or per attack)

I suppose that they do, but however the example then goes on to mention Dur (the initial turn taker) as being the source of initiating further interrupt eligibility. In fact thinking things over perhaps this is your justification for allowing the Tom interrupt as he is interrupting thuggers action and thuggers action could be considered a valid point of interruption in it's own right. I can perhaps now understand how you arrived at that conclusion, but I don't think it squares with the given example from the player's manual

All these points seem like making the thing over complicated.. however what I like about interrupts is that they give you a sense that all of this is happening simultaneously, which is to be desired but we need to impose correctly the limits as the last thing we want is that every time somebody moves a chain of endless interrupts is set off and if I don't have an answer for these types of question I know it is only a matter of time before some smart arse player raises the question in the middle of a combat and the last thing I want to do is have to have a real life rules fight in the middle of a game combat.

 

[foleypt]

To Summerize (I Hope)

Can a person (perhaps having partially done their turn) being interrupted then go on to interrupt the interrupter or get involved in any other future interrupt confrontations before game flow returns to them and they get to move again?

Can a person who is interrupting perform actions that can provoke new interrupt attempts that do not count towards the one active interrupt per side limit of the initial person who moved in their 'proper' initiative order?

What is an active interrupt?

 

[aramis]

You can not interrupt if you have been interrupted successfully. You go AFTER them
You can't interrupt if you have been interrupted unsuccessfully; they go after you, unless someone else interrupts.
You can interrupt only if you have not yet acted. You will either go before or after them.
You can't interrupt one of your side.
You can't interrupt someone who failed to interrupt until the person who they interrupted has acted.

I'm fuzzy about whether two people can sequentially try to interrupt one opponent (IE, A fails, B attempts); generally, I don't allow it.