German Swordfighting Initiative: Vor, Nach, Gleich, Indes

Recently, I started reading up on some of the principles behind German longsword fighting. In doing so, I stumbled across this article explaining the concepts governing initiative as defined by Joachim Meyer. In the words of Keith Farrell (author of the aforementioned post) these concepts should be defined as follows:

"Vor is an Action that demands an Answer."

"Nach is the Answer to the Action."

"Gleich is either when both fencers perform an Action that demands an Answer, without reference to what the other fencer is doing, or when both fencers are simply Reacting to each other without anyone actually Acting."

"Indes is that really cool moment where a Response to the Action will itself demand an Answer."

These concepts have helped me a lot in my swordfighting, but I think they could be really useful for RPG combat as well. 

A Zwerhaw against and Oberhaw is a classic example of responding Indes:
Not only do you block the attack, you also attack your opponent at the same time.

A common problem

In tRPG games that feature a lot of combat there is a complaint that I see a lot: 

No matter the situation they are in, my players never seem to do anything other than attack.

There are myriad answers to this problem, most of them focussing on preparing encounters in such a way that players either have more interesting things to do or more pressing matters to attent to than just attacking whatever is in front of them. However, when I stopped planning out 'combat' encounters, these became almost completely meaningless. And even before that, coming up with contrivances to entice my players to do something else was often too time consuming for me to use it often. 

Side note: Electric Bastionland has a rule that disincentivizes multiple people attacking the same target, by taking the highest damaged rolled against any one target rather than adding up all the damage rolled against that target. I like this fix, but it doesn't really do what I want.

My solution

I think that the concepts of Vor, Nach, Gleich and Indes can fix this problem in a way that makes fights more dynamic without adding a lot of extra work for the GM, namely by changing initiative. The system works as follows:

Initiative determines the actions of NPCs during a conflict with players.
If players have the initiative, NPCs are not actively on the offensive for whatever reason.
If NPCs have the initiative, they are taking actions against the PCs which require a response to prevent them from experiencing negative consequences.
The GM decides the initiative in whichever way they prefer and telegraphs the actions of the NPCs accordingly. [In accordance with ICI, the more dangerous the action of an NPC is, the more clearly I would personally telegraph it.]
After the players describe what they do based on the GM's description, the GM resolves all the actions simultaneously.

The principles of Gleich and Indes can help the GM with resolving situations:

If the PCs do something that would require a response from an NPC who has initiative without taking care to not get hurt the situation is Gleich: Both parties involved get hurt.
If the PCs' respond to an action from an NPC in such a way that they defend themselves and disrupt or hurt the NPC the situation is Indes: The NPC loses the initiative on top of any other effects of the PCs' actions. 

An example:

The current description might be a bit vague, so let me recount a fight in my school game recently and see if that helps explain the concept a bit better. 

The PC's are investigating a half submerged cavern in a small boat. They put a giant octopus to sleep at the bottom of the cavern. A cult is doing something nefarious in a room at the back of the cavern. The PCs were a little bit loud and attracted the attention of all 8 cultist guards, armed with crossbows.

GM: The culists raise their loaded bows and aim at the boat. What do you do?

Warlock: I jump in the water
Fighter: I want to yell at them to tell them that I will kill them if they attack
Rogue: I want to agree with player 2
Wizard: I want to draw my wand so I am ready to cast a spell if the need arises
Druid: I want to cast a lightning spell

Given earlier exchanges between the cultists and the Fighter, his attempt to sway the cultists has no chance of success, meaning he and the Rogue act in Gleich. The Warlock tries to respond [in swordfighting terms, he acts in Nach], but doesn't find cover, so the response is inadequate to prevent getting hit. The Wizard is too careful to act this turn and has a chance to get hit. the Druid responds, but does so without taking care of his own safety, meaning he is also acting Gleich. 

GM: The cultists ignore your warning, letting their arrows fly without aiming at anyone in particular. [Rolls dice to determine which of the arrows hits which PC]. 4 arrows hit the Warlock mortally wounding him, 1 hits the Rogue but the wound is shallow and 3 head for the Druid one of which misses. The 2 arrows that hit are enough to deal a mortal wound, but not before your spell goes off and a lightning bolt arcs towards the cultists. Roll to see how many get hit. [Druid rolls a 1 for targets and an 6 for damage]: The closest cultist gets hit in the chest with a loud bang and collapses to the ground.

The rest of the cultists seek cover behind the doorway to reload their crossbows and the loud sound from the lightning bolt has [rolls dice] awakened the giant octopus. The octopus is waking up and orienting itself this round, but will act the next round. What do you do?

Neither the cultists nor the octopus is currently acting against the PCs, meaning the players can either take this chance to take the initiative for themselves or they can rally.

Had (some) of the PCs taken cover behind the boat they would have responded appropriately to the threat and they wouldn't have gotten hit [which would have meant they acted in Nach]. 

Had they done so while using the lightning spell to collapse the ceiling above the cultists, they would have acted Indes: not only would they be safe from the arrows, they would have acted against the cultists, taking the initiative. 

My players almost died to this exchange, however they never felt like they were dicked over as they could always make an accurate guess about what was coming next. Luck was on their side, which is why they survived, but they knew they had made some questionable decisions (like not steering the boat out of the cave once PCs started dropping) and weren't upset about the way I had ran the encounter.

Determining whether or not the NPCs will take the initiative is something I find quite easy to decide based on the context of any given situation, but feel free to do so based on coin flips or opposed rolls or whatever other way you like. 

Final thoughts:

What I like about this initiative system is that it not only allows me to telegraph moves (meaning I can make these moves devastating/insta kill without feeling bad about using them) it also means I can recreate those scenes you find in a lot of other media in which someone is being pushed into the defence, without opening to attack unless risking they get hit themselves. 

It also means conflicts have tides now, which players have to keep in mind and can actively turn to their advantage. 

You can easily incorporate this in monster design too (after its breath attack the dragon pauses its assault, allowing any PCs still alive to take the initiative). 

And best of all, you don't have to teach anything to the players in advance. If you describe the flow of the battle well enough, a logical response to each situation will come to the players quite naturally (even if those responses might not always be optimal). 

I'd have to play around with it more to see what the limits and drawbacks of the system are. I won't pretend this is the end all be all of initiative. Consider it another tool at your disposal to deal with certain kinds of situations. Currently, I really like it for the kinds of combats I like to run and I could see something like this being useful in certain kinds of verbal exchanges as well, though I haven't had a chance to try that yet.