If TSR had wanted to make a game where everyone decides what they are doing and it all happens simultaneously, they would have done so.
Please do explain to me how, exactly.
Tabletop games having people taking turns are not designed that way out of preference. They are designed that way out of there not being any other choice. Exactly how would a group of people seated around a table playing a game play it other than through taking turns? Please do explain.
There’s a difference between speaking in turn and having the actions in the game world happen in turn. It wouldn’t be hard to design a game system so everyone says what they want to do for each round of combat, then you roll for all the results. If I was making a game this way, I’d probably have an initiative system in reverse. There would be an advantage in declaring your intentions last as you know what everyone is doing. Maybe each attack has a speed factor that determines the order blows land. There’s lots of ways of doing it, but the crucial thing would be not knowing the outcome of the each character’s action before deciding what to do.
Are there no games like this? Shit, maybe I’m onto something here.
Anyway, even ignoring all that, it’s a massive stretch of logic to say that real time combat is somehow closer to D&D. Whatever the intent of TSR in designing it, or WoTC in evolving it, the D&D experience is decidedly turn based.
That’s not an argument to say a D&D video game should necessarily also be turn based, I just think that trying to argue to opposite is quite funny.
