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My brother sent this email out to me and some friends. I thought others would find it interesting.
Eric and I spoke one night about what 'initiative' really meant and what it meant to be 'ready for anything' all of the time.
There is a concept in the shooting/law enforcement/military community called "The OODA Loop." OODA stands for:
Observe - what is going on around you
Orient - what options do you have to deal with it
Decide - what are you gonna do
Act - do it!
It is the way your mind works in any situation. Under stress your loop could get stuck in Observe - if you have not trained to break out of it (think of times when you 'freeze up'). As you guys train to get better and better, you are training to move through that loop quicker and quicker.
For the most part if ANYTHING interrupts your travel through the loop, you brain goes back to the beginning.
As for combat (real or imaginary), think of stoney faced cops who seem to have a bad attitude. When they confront people, most cops have already gone through Observe and Orient, then they press a pause button in their mind for Decide and Act. It takes HUGE amounts of mental and physical energy to walk around like that for minutes or hours (or even a whole day!). All the while, they maintain that hold AND have to process other stimuli without letting go of that Observe/Orient place holder in their mind...
See, what they know, that most folks don't, is that a maggot will have already gone through Observe, Orient AND Decide by the time he encounters the cop. He will be one step ahead...and that is usually enough. Everyone smiles and talks nice and pretends to be innocent (particularly the guilty) so the cop has to ride the bleeding edge between civility and all out war - or he will die.
Now remember back to the times you have interacted with cops who were torqued out. See, you know you would never treat them poorly. But, they don't... They HAVE to expect you will try to hurt them in order to prevent someone from killing them.
Remember their faces, their intensity, their distraction, and maybe their inability to hear what you are saying... They have effectively turned on 'improved initiative' they have jacked up every sense in their body to be ready for anything. Their muscles are tensed and ready to act. And depending on how natural it is for them, or how well trained they are, or how much experience they have, their cognitive ability may suffer and fatigue will set in over time.
You can not stay in this state all the time. I know, I try to do it when I am in public. The result is that I do not hear as well as I could. I do not process ancillary stuff as I normally would. AND...I am not fun to be around while in that state. Not to mention it is exhausting.
Hope this helps to frame the concept.
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Interesting, but...well, not to be rude, but what's the point?
Are you suggesting rules for initiative (perhaps where you take a penalty on Perception and Diplomacy in exchange for a bonus to Initiative)?
Are you giving RP advice on how characters should behave when in hostile environments?
Or is it just on observation on the way d20 rules might apply to real life?
You might also extend this description to (Improved) Uncanny Dodge and Quick Draw among other things.
Now we know why exactly nobody trusts a Barbarian or Rogue - the reasons also fit in nicely with both classes often dumping Charisma. ;-)
As an afterthought, the same might also apply to our friends on steroids, the Monks. ^^
Always a pleasure to rant and rave and still be helpful. ;-)
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That is an interesting take on the OODA loop, though I would argue that Decide and Act are dependant on the Observe and Orient, it is a loop after all. Most of of the time you Observe & Orient - if nothing is going on then you decide to do nothing and continue Acting as normal. You then go back to Observe & Orient. A maggot gains nothing by deciding before the cop, if the cop is able to process information quicker than the maggot. He whose OODA loop is faster wins (at least in Boyd's theory)
Over time you become very proficient at the Observe & Orient so you can Decide & Act at a moments notice. In reality this only takes energy if your mind does not orient that way (see Myers-Briggs).
To me, that is what Improved Initiative is.
Your post caught my eye, as I am a huge fan of the OODA loop and it jives well with my ENTP mindset, my job, and a MS in Systems Management :]
Interesting observations.
Not sure I can agree with a couple things though, in particular:
"so the cop has to ride the bleeding edge between civility and all out war - or he will die."
Once a cop starts thinking in terms of 'all out war,' thats when people die...whether its suspects, innocents, or other law enforcement.
Its a pretty dangerous road our law enforcement has been going down the past few decades.