No Initiative Order: How Do You Do It?

I wanted to spin this out of the Daggerheart + thread just to stop gumming up the works for @overgeeked and besides, more games than Daggerheart use this sort of system.

So:

When the game does not ask for "initiative order" and players and GMs are meant to share and pass the spotlight, how do you do it? What are your experiences at the table with different kinds of groups (as in, cons versus long term play groups and veterans versus newbs and so on)?

How do you feel about "no initiative order" play? Does it work for you? Is it better? Worse? Just different? than traditional turn order initiative?

ETA: As @Umbran pointed out, I did not actually define the DH initiative system, such that it is. Here is the text from the SRD:
---------
Daggerheart’s turns don’t follow a traditional, rigid format:
there is no explicit initiative mechanic and characters don’t
have a set number of actions they can take or things they can
do before the spotlight passes to someone else. A player with
the spotlight describes what their character does and the
spotlight simply swings to whoever:
A. the fiction would naturally turn it toward
B. hasn’t had the focus in a while, or
C. a triggered mechanic puts it on

Reynard said:

How do you feel about "no initiative order" play?

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Pretty good - most of the RPGs my main group has played over the last few years have used it - Mothership and Spire particularly (before that we also played Dungeon World, Star Wars World, Blades in the Dark, and others which did the same). We've also played more trad games initiative-wise like 5E and CoC (and others) in the same period of course.

Reynard said:

Does it work for you? Is it better? Worse? Just different?

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Yes, it definitely works for the main group, and I would personally say, and I think the players (who I am one of in Mothership) would agree that it's basically better, and certainly less annoying, because an utter inordinate amount of issues and frustrations with trad RPGs revolve around their various and sundry initiative and surprise systems.

I'm actually surprised at how little we miss initiative systems, given the sheer amounts of time and effort we were putting into dealing with them in games like D&D (3E and 4E especially), Shadowrun, various superhero games, etc. Indeed, looking back, the worst rules-related gaming experiences of my entire gaming career which don't revolve around character generation revolve around initiative, including the infamous-at-my-table "3 minutes that lasted 5 hours", where the initiative/action system of Champions: The New Millennium combined with analysis paralysis despite fairly straightforward rules, to make 3 minutes of in-game-time take well over 5 hours of real time!

One thing that is particularly good imho, and particularly beneficial to story and flow is that the same PC isn't limited to one strict "action", and thus the DM can like, focus the camera on something until it's appropriate to cut away, if that metaphor makes sense. With trad initiative systems, it often feels like you have just random, clumsy cuts between what's going on, like it was a sports game and they were just automatically cutting between cameras covering certain players, regardless of whether that player had the ball and was clearly potentially about to score, or if they hanging around at the back, not actually doing much at that precise time (even if they would be, say, 10 seconds later).

I do think it's important that DM guides this to a significant extent - players, in my experience, aren't very good at guiding this, and just leaving them too it doesn't seem to help. They tend to have a sense of fairness, but also can get overly focused or can stop thinking about their own character because they're so entertained by what's going on with another, and they aren't always great at passing the spotlight to like, the right person. I know as a DM, I'm better at passing it when I'm a player than the other players are except for the other DM, who when he's a player, is also good at this (and third player who isn't playing right now sadly, but was also a DM, she was also much better at passing the spotlight).

EDIT - Looking back at "3 minutes that lasted 5 hours" I think a major issue was the swapping back-and-forth, because it meant stuff didn't flow, and even when people tried to prepare for their turns, they often found things had changed. That was a particularly complex system which involved some characters being able to take more actions than others, but those actions being spaced out between the actions of others in a very, very, very annoying way (which wasn't even good at simulating the genre - if the Justice League are fighting a bad guy you don't get the Flash getting say, 100%+ more panels than any other member, and all those panels being like, in-between the panels of the others in a regular way - rather he gets about the same number of panels, but does different things with them, and they're probably mostly in blocks together).

Ruin Explorer said:

Pretty good - most of the RPGs my main group has played over the last few years have used it - Mothership and Spire particularly (before that we also played Dungeon World, Star Wars World, Blades in the Dark, and others which did the same). We've also played more trad games initiative-wise like 5E and CoC (and others) in the same period of course.


Yes, it definitely works for the main group, and I would personally say, and I think the players (who I am one of in Mothership) would agree that it's basically better, and certainly less annoying, because an utter inordinate amount of issues and frustrations with trad RPGs revolve around their various and sundry initiative and surprise systems.

I'm actually surprised at how little we miss initiative systems, given the sheer amounts of time and effort we were putting into dealing with them in games like D&D (3E and 4E especially), Shadowrun, various superhero games, etc. Indeed, looking back, the worst rules-related gaming experiences of my entire gaming career which don't revolve around character generation all revolve around initiative, including the infamous-at-my-table "3 minutes that lasted 5 hours", where the initiative/action system of Champions: The New Millennium combined with analysis paralysis despite fairly straightforward rules, to make 3 minutes of in-game-time take well over 5 hours of real time!

One thing that is particularly good imho, and particularly beneficial to story and flow is that the same PC isn't limited to one strict "action", and thus the DM can like, focus the camera on something until it's appropriate to cut away, if that metaphor makes sense. With trad initiative systems, it often feels like you have just random, clumsy cuts between what's going on, like it was a sports game and they were just automatically cutting between cameras covering certain players, regardless of whether that player had the ball and was clearly potentially about to score, or if they hanging around at the back, not actually doing much at that precise time (even if they would be, say, 10 seconds later).

I do think it's important that DM guides this to a significant extent - players, in my experience, aren't very good at guiding this, and just leaving them too it doesn't seem to help. They tend to have a sense of fairness, but also can get overly focused or can stop thinking about their own character because they're so entertained by what's going on with another, and they aren't always great at passing the spotlight to like, the right person. I know as a DM, I'm better at passing it when I'm a player than the other players are except for the other DM, who when he's a player, is also good at this (and third player who isn't playing right now sadly, but was also a DM, she was also much better at passing the spotlight).

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It is interesting that you indicate that DMs, when players, are better at this. Do you think it is simply experience with pacing and moving the spotlight, or is there something else driving it?

I played a D&D 1e/2e hybrid campaign where I just let the PC always go first in initiative to help speed play and give them a advantage. It was fine.

My preference is actually individual PC initiative rolled each round as it adds to the combat tension. But it's a lot of book keeping.

Reynard said:

It is interesting that you indicate that DMs, when players, are better at this. Do you think it is simply experience with pacing and moving the spotlight, or is there something else driving it?

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I think it's a combination of two things:

1) Yeah experience with pacing/moving the spotlight, and a general familiarity with "directing" the action.

2) Situational awareness. I think in general DMs tend to be focused more on achieving awareness of the entire situation than players are. Most players will have an idea what the other players are doing but frequently, in my experience, it's kind of a foggy one, where they know exactly the cool stuff that PC #3 just did was, but if you question them, they're not entirely sure what PC#1 was doing. This is partly an experience thing but it's also a mindset thing, and I think it's separate from experience with moving the spotlight.

I think you can have 1 without 2 or vice-versa as well - though usually experienced DMs have both.

Also, being real, there's a fourth player who used to be DM and he isn't good at this, and I think it's because when he becomes a player, he fully goes into "player mode" rather than "assistant DM mode" which the other three of us kinda do. Which makes him way less likely to frown when you get the rules wrong (though I find those frowns helpful myself!) but also means he doesn't maintain situational awareness etc.

sevenbastard said:

But it's a lot of book keeping.

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It really is, and 5E and OSR games are way less than 3E and 4E were, but still a lot. I am honestly shocked in retrospect that it took us so long to notice this. Personally I definitely no longer see it as so valuable (it's not valueless, as you say, it can be cool with tension etc.) as to be worth the effort.

Ruin Explorer said:

I think it's a combination of two things:

1) Yeah experience with pacing/moving the spotlight, and a general familiarity with "directing" the action.

2) Situational awareness. I think in general DMs tend to be focused more on achieving awareness of the entire situation than players are. Most players will have an idea what the other players are doing but frequently, in my experience, it's kind of a foggy one, where they know exactly the cool naughty word that PC #3 just did was, but if you question them, they're not entirely sure what PC#1 was doing. This is partly an experience thing but it's also a mindset thing, and I think it's separate from experience with moving the spotlight.

I think you can have 1 without 2 or vice-versa as well - though usually experienced DMs have both.

Also, being real, there's a fourth player who used to be DM and he isn't good at this, and I think it's because when he becomes a player, he fully goes into "player mode" rather than "assistant DM mode" which the other three of us kinda do. Which makes him way less likely to frown when you get the rules wrong (though I find those frowns helpful myself!) but also means he doesn't maintain situational awareness etc.

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Does no turn order help that situational awareness? On paper, it seems like it would.

Ruin Explorer said:

It really is, and 5E and OSR games are way less than 3E and 4E were, but still a lot. I am honestly shocked in retrospect that it took us so long to notice this. Personally I definitely no longer see it as so valuable (it's not valueless, as you say, it can be cool with tension etc.) as to be worth the effort.

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For 5E, I really, really like per round initiative and each enemy (no matter how many bandits or cultists) rolling seperately, but this is only viable when using a VTT like Fantasy Grounds.

I do side initiative for OSE and OSRIC.

I have a list of the players and each round I put a dot next to their name when they take actions so I know they’ve gone. Before I end the round I make sure everyone has a dot. Then next round I start a new column.

Reynard said:

Does no turn order help that situational awareness? On paper, it seems like it would.

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I don't know if it helps it, or just makes it not matter as much, but it certainly seems to make it less of an issue.

No turn order also helps PC team-ups a lot. In games with strict initiative they range from "mildly annoying to orchestrate" to "horribly annoying to orchestrate", to "literally not allowed RAW", but with no turn order suddenly they're ultra-viable, and become vastly more common - and this often works much better story-wise too.

(Side-based initiative also helps with this.)

Reynard said:

I really, really like per round initiative and each enemy (no matter how many bandits or cultists) rolling seperately

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Funny thing is? I also kind of love this. Like, I'm mad when videogames don't do it, and instead have side-based or group initiative, for example. Hell, I even love complex multi-action initiative systems - IN THEORY!!! That's why I kept trying to run games which had them!

But I'm just no longer seeing the sheer work it involves as beneficial in practice, and yeah it does work better with VTTs.

(Weirdly both minis on the tabletop and VTTs don't seem to increase situational awareness to the degree one might expect. Like, people can see the minis, but they don't think about them I guess? Or forget what they were doing?)

darjr said:

I do side initiative for OSE and OSRIC.

I have a list of the players and each round I put a dot next to their name when they take actions so I know they’ve gone. Before I end the round I make sure everyone has a dot. Then next round I start a new column.

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My latest homebrew works similarly. I actually just have the player's start unless they were surprised, and have the challenges balanced with that assumption.

Regardless, yeah whomever on a side knows what they want to do can act next, and get a mark in a column/token on a card/whatever to denote they've acted this round.

It cuts down the time taken a fair amount. Certainly the mechanistic part of determining who goes next is reduced. The people that have trouble deciding what to do still have that problem, but they are less on the spot -- and as they see the number of compatriots with untaken turns dwindle, the mild pressure ramps up (and overall situation becomes more clear) such that they start making decisions. It doesn't solve all problems, but it is a help.

It also allows coordinated activity ('you go in and set up a flank for me,' 'I'll take my attack and then get out of the way for your area-effect'). Your table will have to decide how much table-talk/complex coordination is allowed to match the situation and realism/verisimilitude. But again, if you assume this in your situational set-up, the balance/challenge should still work out right.

This thread is timely, as I'm starting to GM the Wrath & Glory game, which uses a hybrid approach:

PC > NPC > PC > NPC

With each PC round letting the players choose who acts (once each for the entire turn). However, a player or GM can spend metacurrency (Wrath and Ruin points, respectively) to act before the NPCs.

It does remind me a bit of Dungeon World back in the day, which I loved.