using props to track initiative - an idea

[mattcolville]

One of my players took a square of wood, and mounted a dowel on it. Like one of the spokes from a Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

Then he took some PVC pipe and cut it into rings. Each ring fits over the dowel perfectly. He then cut a section out of each ring, so now they look like a capital 'C'. He then pained each C and wrote a player's name on the outside. You can snap the Cs on and off easily. The board sits in the middle of the table, so everyone can see the initiative order, and everyone can reach it and move their C around when they hold or ready and action.

 

[scourger]

I used the Combat Tracker sheet until I got the initiative cards from The Game Mechanics. The cards work well, but it is a lot of cards ot print & complete. There are also a lot of cards & numbers to keep ordered, especially if you use them for the foes' hit points, etc. I found them very handy as mini-character sheets in a game for which I made all the foes & NPCs. Otherwise, I would like to have them pre-printed. Toward the end of my last game, I just used 3x5 cards for some combatants.

I also tried "balckjack" initiative. I used a standard deck of playing cards and gave each combatant a 2-card hand to which was added their initiative bonus. It was different, but too unwieldy. I couldn't look out & see the numbers easily. Plus, dealing the cards every round meant a lot of shuffling. I would have liked to just give the players a hit (an extra card) for Improved Initiative and ignore the dexterity modifier, but the players hated that idea. I was trying to capture that old Deadlands feel, but it didn't work.

Savage Worlds, the successor to Deadlands, uses cards for initiative in a very cool way that I would like to incorporate into D&D. Each PC, major foe & minor foe group gets a card each round. The GM counts down from aces to dueces. The suits are valued, too, so there are no ties. A joker allows an interrupt, and a person can go on hold to see what happens. Using this system in D&D devalues dexterity slightly with respect to initiative, but I think it's okay since dexterity already modifies many very important things in the game anyway.

 

[NiTessine]

We just have the DM write our initiatives on the battlemap in the pattern where we are sitting around the table. The NPCs' initiatives go by their initial or number next to that. It's fast, and it works.

 

[haiiro]

One of my players took a square of wood, and mounted a dowel on it. Like one of the spokes from a Towers of Hanoi puzzle.

Then he took some PVC pipe and cut it into rings. Each ring fits over the dowel perfectly. He then cut a section out of each ring, so now they look like a capital 'C'. He then pained each C and wrote a player's name on the outside. You can snap the Cs on and off easily. The board sits in the middle of the table, so everyone can see the initiative order, and everyone can reach it and move their C around when they hold or ready and action.

This is a pretty cool idea -- it sounds like a bit of work to build, but it'd sure look neat on the table!

 

[RayneBlythewood9]

I found a white magnetic dry erase board at Walmart and then bought a magnet roll that had a peel off sticky side. Then I got label with diffrent colors and made a magnetic name tag of sorts. The labels are for the superstitious people who worry about their character dying as soon as something is made for them. So you tell them don't worry you can pop this label on over the old one and add a new name.

The magnetic white board and magnetic name tags is just an awesome way to go.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I use The Game Mechanics init cards, and we ditch the numbers. Everyone rolls init, I put the cards in order based on that roll, and then we ignore the actual init numbers for the rest of the combat. If someone wants to delay or ready, I turn the card sideways in the stack until their turn comes, and then put them in order in the stack. Makes it a LOT easier to track.

This is what we do. Each character has a card for the duration of the game, which has their name, the player name, and then simple stat stuff. AC, HP, saves, spot listen search. Then there's a card that says "ME" or "Bad Guys," and one that says "End of Round." When rolling initiative, we employ The Crabs.

Two plastic crabs are placed before the DM. One is for 20, the other is for 10. The steps are thus:

I point at a player at one end of the table.
They roll and declare their initiative, with a cheer or groan, as appropriate.
I put their card down in front of me, in a position relative to the crabs.
I promptly forget their number.
Repeat. With the crabs, there is less guessing on what people's numbers were.

 

[Mercule]

I use The Game Mechanics init cards, and we ditch the numbers. Everyone rolls init, I put the cards in order based on that roll, and then we ignore the actual init numbers for the rest of the combat. If someone wants to delay or ready, I turn the card sideways in the stack until their turn comes, and then put them in order in the stack. Makes it a LOT easier to track.

Ditto to all the above. I've started throwing in the "End of Round" card lately, but that's more an academic thing to see if there's any point.

Oh, and a linkee.

 

[haiiro]

It's interesting that for what sounds like a relatively simple concept -- intiative order -- there are this many different ways of implementing it so that it actually functions as a simple concept. And I'm sure this thread isn't done with yet!

There are some very cool ideas here, plenty of food for thought.

 

[Razz0putin]

Roll inish put it in order call out a range say any over 20 if there's a lot start asking specific #'s over 20. figure out who's first then tell who's second to make ready. whoever's second ignores me. Then they're playing a spellcaster and don't have a clue what the spell is AND THEY'VE PLAYED THE GAME FOR TWENTY ODD YEARS YOU THINK THEY COULD AT LEAST LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE BASICS. whew thanks I needed that. I'm not sure our inish system works to well