Fabio Andrea Rossi
First Post
Hi all, I just wanted to share a different method we used last Friday to manage Initiative. It worked really well, better than expected, so I wanted to share it to see if someone else may enjoy it.
It brings back the “initiative rolled each round” without the rolling & math part, and without need to put everybody in order (the main reason why I don’t do this each round), adding sensible tension to the table. It is meant to make combats unpredictable and increase Players’ involvement and attention during the combat, at the same time deleting the need to track initiatives results.
This system comes from one of our player thinkering over Savage Worlds cards system. It isn’t slower, in fact it may be quicker, as there will no more be needed the guy who says “now playing: the wizard, next is the Fighter.”
The method use Tarots or similar cards with evocative images. It works with standard playing cards too, but we found a strange excitement in players seeing their card showing up.
How it works? Like this:
The biggest effect is that everybody is on his toes and everybody is closely following the action as the next guy could be you. Tactical challenge is higher: as you never know who will go next, players (and monsters) won’t be able to synergize by making tactics that rely on knowing who’s next. For some goup, this may be an hindrance, to me and my players (some of which are the tactical kind) it’s instead a big feature, as it becomes more of a tactical challenge to choose what you do in a changing environment.
For instance, no more situations like “ok, it’s three of us before the Behir acts, I’ll cast Hold Monster so if it does not work we still have 2 turns before him” or “Jeff is down dying but no monster acting before the cleric so I’ll keep my potion of healing and attack”.
There are a couple drawbacks: first, due to effects that last “until the end of your next turn”. In a standard game, it always last one full round. In this scenario, it may be longer or shorter depending on draw order, which is random. But, it will always last one round for the creature, so this (which was our main doubt) proved at the table to be a non-issue. Yes, sometime it will be more advantageous and some times less so. To us, the advantage of the system so far proved much more enjoyable than the drawbacks.
For example: a “shield” spell may protect the caster from more attacks or less attacks than in a standard game, but in the long run who cares, it’s the same for monsters and it will even out with time.
The other main drawback is that Dexterity, Feats and Spells impacting on initiatives are not accounted for. Once again, for us (even the 20 Dex guy) it’s a sacrifice worth making. First, Monsters too won’t use these modifiers so it’s not that bad, it’s only bad relative to the very good initiative Characters. Bad initiative characters will benefit from this. What we ruled is that if a charcater gets the ALERT feat (only, as the +5 init. is big in that FEAT core) the character will get 2 cards and act on the first draw.
This has been just a single experimente who worked very well at the table, more issues (or benefits) may show up. I really feared mesing around with the combat flow but instead this proved to be fast, furious and much more fun, also for the DM aka me.
For now, it gave back to our table a fresh air of tension to the combats, try this and tell me how it work for you!
It brings back the “initiative rolled each round” without the rolling & math part, and without need to put everybody in order (the main reason why I don’t do this each round), adding sensible tension to the table. It is meant to make combats unpredictable and increase Players’ involvement and attention during the combat, at the same time deleting the need to track initiatives results.
This system comes from one of our player thinkering over Savage Worlds cards system. It isn’t slower, in fact it may be quicker, as there will no more be needed the guy who says “now playing: the wizard, next is the Fighter.”
The method use Tarots or similar cards with evocative images. It works with standard playing cards too, but we found a strange excitement in players seeing their card showing up.
How it works? Like this:
- Choose one card to represent each player character;
- Add a bunch for monsters to use during the night; I used a Big Bad Monster, Mean Mininons, Witch and similar art to represent main monster kinds);
- Mix the card and put the deck in a place where everybody can see it;
- Draw first card: it’s that character turn;
- Draw second card: it’s now that character turn;
- And so on. Mix the cards each end of round and repeat.
The biggest effect is that everybody is on his toes and everybody is closely following the action as the next guy could be you. Tactical challenge is higher: as you never know who will go next, players (and monsters) won’t be able to synergize by making tactics that rely on knowing who’s next. For some goup, this may be an hindrance, to me and my players (some of which are the tactical kind) it’s instead a big feature, as it becomes more of a tactical challenge to choose what you do in a changing environment.
For instance, no more situations like “ok, it’s three of us before the Behir acts, I’ll cast Hold Monster so if it does not work we still have 2 turns before him” or “Jeff is down dying but no monster acting before the cleric so I’ll keep my potion of healing and attack”.
There are a couple drawbacks: first, due to effects that last “until the end of your next turn”. In a standard game, it always last one full round. In this scenario, it may be longer or shorter depending on draw order, which is random. But, it will always last one round for the creature, so this (which was our main doubt) proved at the table to be a non-issue. Yes, sometime it will be more advantageous and some times less so. To us, the advantage of the system so far proved much more enjoyable than the drawbacks.
For example: a “shield” spell may protect the caster from more attacks or less attacks than in a standard game, but in the long run who cares, it’s the same for monsters and it will even out with time.
The other main drawback is that Dexterity, Feats and Spells impacting on initiatives are not accounted for. Once again, for us (even the 20 Dex guy) it’s a sacrifice worth making. First, Monsters too won’t use these modifiers so it’s not that bad, it’s only bad relative to the very good initiative Characters. Bad initiative characters will benefit from this. What we ruled is that if a charcater gets the ALERT feat (only, as the +5 init. is big in that FEAT core) the character will get 2 cards and act on the first draw.
This has been just a single experimente who worked very well at the table, more issues (or benefits) may show up. I really feared mesing around with the combat flow but instead this proved to be fast, furious and much more fun, also for the DM aka me.
For now, it gave back to our table a fresh air of tension to the combats, try this and tell me how it work for you!
