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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Avoiding Initiative
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<blockquote data-quote="TheCosmicKid" data-source="post: 7408134" data-attributes="member: 6683613"><p>Have not tried it yet, but I am toying with the idea of using a building a deck of cards to determine initiative. Cards have a natural advantage over dice in this context: by shuffling them, you immediately create an ordered list, without any number-sorting or ever having to resolve ties. So, and again I'm just spitballing here:</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each participant in the combat gets a number of cards in the deck equal to 1 + their initiative modifier. Treat negative modifiers as positive for this purpose. (You'll see why.) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the beginning of each round, shuffle the deck. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the beginning of each turn, draw a card to pick a character. (After drawing a card, discard it until the next round.) </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A character with a positive initiative acts the first time <em>any</em> of their cards are drawn. If they've already acted this round, draw another card. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A character with a negative initiative acts only when <em>all</em> of their cards are drawn. If they can't act yet, draw another card.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">At the risk of stating the obvious, a character with zero initiative acts when their single card is drawn. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Once all characters have acted, start a new round. </li> </ul><p></p><p>On the other hand, the traditional initiative ritual is meaningful for a lot of people. Hell, one of my own Signature DM Moves[sup]TM[/sup] is to begin session one of a campaign with the words "Roll initiative". There's an effect there. And that would obviously be lost with a more "efficient" initiative system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TheCosmicKid, post: 7408134, member: 6683613"] Have not tried it yet, but I am toying with the idea of using a building a deck of cards to determine initiative. Cards have a natural advantage over dice in this context: by shuffling them, you immediately create an ordered list, without any number-sorting or ever having to resolve ties. So, and again I'm just spitballing here: [LIST] [*]Each participant in the combat gets a number of cards in the deck equal to 1 + their initiative modifier. Treat negative modifiers as positive for this purpose. (You'll see why.) [*]At the beginning of each round, shuffle the deck. [*]At the beginning of each turn, draw a card to pick a character. (After drawing a card, discard it until the next round.) [*]A character with a positive initiative acts the first time [I]any[/I] of their cards are drawn. If they've already acted this round, draw another card. [*]A character with a negative initiative acts only when [I]all[/I] of their cards are drawn. If they can't act yet, draw another card. [*]At the risk of stating the obvious, a character with zero initiative acts when their single card is drawn. [*]Once all characters have acted, start a new round. [/LIST] On the other hand, the traditional initiative ritual is meaningful for a lot of people. Hell, one of my own Signature DM Moves[sup]TM[/sup] is to begin session one of a campaign with the words "Roll initiative". There's an effect there. And that would obviously be lost with a more "efficient" initiative system. [/QUOTE]
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