Don't make me roll for initiative.........again

[Raven Crowking]

You misunderstood me. They can vote you out as DM for that campaign and vote somebody else in for THAT group. If you choose to play in that same group, it is up to you.

For me, the terms "campaign" and "group" are non synonomous. No one can, for example, demand my adventure design notes. They could, of course, continue with their characters in someone else's version of my world if they so desired.

Sure, you can go DM a different group, but the first group can still vote you out as DM. It doesn't have to be a formal vote, it could just be a refusal to play in your game.

Somewhere up above, I said that sort of thing begins and ends at the door. Which means that we are in perfect agreement. And, again, I'd rather not hijack. Another thread?

 

[DonTadow]

Heres my theroy on initiative. Initiative is an effect caused by the environment the pcs are in. Thus initiative changes often. It is not something the pcs can' "control". Sure pcs can gain a surprise round, but theres nothing they can do to make their initiative better, thus it should be a dm rolled thing. Or at least the argument exists for all initative to be rolled by the dm.

 

[KarinsDad]

Actually, when you do them all at once, it's undeniably faster. You have to do it anyway, so you might as well speed it up. When you don't do it all at once, you are taking the overhead and spreading it out.

And, remember that I said that it doesn't just speed things up,

It actually slow things down. For one thing, when you just sort the cards, the DM does not have to write the inits down. The only time I write down inits is if I have more than 5 or 6 NPCs. Otherwise, I just let the dice sit on the table in left to right order (i.e. bad guy one to bad guy six), figure out the highest init, take that die away, etc. Usually, there is no real need to write down the inits of the bad guys and no need to write down any of the PC/NPC Cohort inits at all. Writing down 50 to 100 numbers has got to be slower than not writing them down at all.

Secondly, if you have 10 inits / other numbers written down for the PCs and use 8 of them each, then they rolled 2 numbers each and you wrote them down for nothing.

It just seems like excessive unnecessary bookkeeping. IMO. Obviously, YMMV.

it (for lack of a better word) "cleans" up the game from a minor amount of (necessary) metagame discussion (init rolls, writing them down, sorting). IMO, it improves combat by strengthening the impact of a start of encounter. The start of an encounter is IMO the most important, noticeable, and engaging part of the encounter.

This is subjective. I suspect that many other people's game are just as much "impacting" and fun at the start of an encounter. That to me is more DM style than it is whether people are rolling dice or not. But, if it works for your game, cool.

So, I think this method is a great improvement and I encourage you to try it for a few sessions. If then you still don't like it, no big deal. It definitely works for me.

Actually, I think I'll pass. The beginning of a session is an important social gathering time for my group where they catch up on recent events, spread the food around, shoot the breeze, joke, and finally, recap where we left off in the previous session. It's a bit of a fun tradition which I would not want to break up with gaming related mundane tasks. Probably just like you do not want to break up the moment by rolling dice at the start of combat.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Tossing another log onto the fire here...

I use prerolled Init as well as prerolled spot checks. I have 2 sheets, each with 10 columns and numbered from 30 down to one. Each player rolls 10 of each and fills in one block per column. If they roll something an earlier player rolled, they either skip to the next column or go up/down to an empty block.

Then at the start of the game I roll 2D10 to figure out which column to start on, and I cycle through the columns as needed.

All my NPC/encounters are on cards with the init/spot already rolled and stacked ready to sort the PC's into the pile.

This takes very little game-time or social time away from the session and allows me to go direct from story to combat with the flip of a card.

Of course, the downside to this system is the higher level of pre-session work the DM has to do. I have a file called Combat Cards {no longer on the web} that has all the SRD critters in card stat-block format for printing up. This means all I need to do is print the selected critters, rolls some checks and I am ready to go.

However... a well run game with re-rolled init and a countdown would not have me calling foul and looking for another game...
And if its Raven Crowkings game..heck I would be driving half-way across the country for it already!

 

[Hussar]

FWIW, I don't think RC would be lying to win an internet discussion.

Reading through this, I realize something. Score one for OpenRPG. I never have any of these issues. I have the PC's initiatives plugged into a roller, so, one click gives me the entire party's initiative. Two more clicks or a cut and paste depending on how energetic I was the night before, gives me the bad guy's initiatives. One single button and the inits are sent to the group ordered high to low and each turn is highlighted at the beginning with an "On Deck:" message included. Player takes his action, types done and I hit a single macro to move on to the next round.

Looks like this:

Thugdar's turn added to list at init count 3 !
(7) Hussar: Thugdar's turn [1d20+2] -> [1,2] = (3) init
Jiru's turn added to list at init count 20 !
(7) Hussar: Jiru's turn [1d20+3] -> [17,3] = (20) init
Yolanda's turn added to list at init count 16 !
(7) Hussar: Yolanda's turn [1d20+5] -> [11,5] = (16) init
Alex's turn added to list at init count 21 !
(7) Hussar: Alex's turn [1d20+3] -> [18,3] = (21) init
(7) Hussar: Irkan's Turn [1d20+4] -> [3,4] = (7)
(7) Hussar: (( actually, Yo, you will likely get a surprise attack ))
(5) Alex: (if it doesn't know you're there, sneak would apply)
Vulture demon's turn added to list at init count 22 !
(7) Hussar: Vulture demon's turn [1d20+2] -> [20,2] = (22) init


Initiatives (Current Count: 0; Sandglass: off):
1) : [22] Vulture demon's turn
2) : [21] Alex's turn
3) : [20] Jiru's turn
4) : [16] Yolanda's turn
5) : [3] Thugdar's turn

(4) Yolanda: (( kk ))
(5) Alex: (aww man one time I get a good number, the bad guy beats me)
(7) Vulture Demon: "Look, food. Hehehehe."

1) NEXT UP FOR THE KILLING: [22] Vulture demon's turn
(on deck: [21] Alex's turn )

SOOOO much easier.

 

[Infiniti2000]

This is subjective. I suspect that many other people's game are just as much "impacting" and fun at the start of an encounter. That to me is more DM style than it is whether people are rolling dice or not. But, if it works for your game, cool.

Perhaps I am not articulating my point on this. It's not that I'm better than anyone else, it's that the time between the promise of action (encounter looming) and the actual action is non-existent in my method. It's "This is what you see" followed immediately by "Druid, what do you do?" There's zero time out for anything (unless we choose to have a cliffhanger-like bathroom break or something). With any other method, whether you write down init's or not, there's an unmistable delay. It's a noticeable and undeniable effect on the excitement level. It may not be much, but it's there.

Actually, I think I'll pass. The beginning of a session is an important social gathering time for my group where they catch up on recent events, spread the food around, shoot the breeze, joke, and finally, recap where we left off in the previous session. It's a bit of a fun tradition which I would not want to break up with gaming related mundane tasks. Probably just like you do not want to break up the moment by rolling dice at the start of combat.

I'm with you on that. We do the same thing. But, the rolls last for a while (for me, it's 5-6 weekly sessions). 2 minutes for each player once every 5-6 weeks, done possibly during a bathroom break or, heck, even at home on his own time, is neglible.

Anyway, please don't think I'm trying to ram this down anyone's throat. I only offer it as a suggestion, nothing more. It works for us, and I just wanted to make my points clear is all.

 

[DonTadow]

Ok, preliminarys are in

I can't say I enjoyed it, though the combat was fast, the disjointment and unsureness of combat was not the chaotic bliss I was expecting. The Pcs enjoy tactics and that pretty much got thrown out the window. Sure more real, but a lot less fun. The PCs commented that they really didnt care too much for it at the end, and even if the rollng was taken care of, it still took longer as PCs were very unprepared when their turn came up following another.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

There's zero time out for anything (unless we choose to have a cliffhanger-like bathroom break or something). With any other method, whether you write down init's or not, there's an unmistable delay. It's a noticeable and undeniable effect on the excitement level. It may not be much, but it's there.

To me this is one of the best aspects of the cyclic card system. My players are not aware that the 'encounter' has started until the first combat action either happens or is asked for..
{I often don't pick up the stack of cards until this point...}

The end result is that the players are more mindfull of what is going on in the social encounters that litter the framework of the story, whereas the roll-for-init is a blatant 'this encounter is for combat' neon sign.

 

[Raven Crowking]

To me this is one of the best aspects of the cyclic card system. My players are not aware that the 'encounter' has started until the first combat action either happens or is asked for..
{I often don't pick up the stack of cards until this point...}

The end result is that the players are more mindfull of what is going on in the social encounters that litter the framework of the story, whereas the roll-for-init is a blatant 'this encounter is for combat' neon sign.

Ah, well, I don't have anyone roll for init until the first combat action either happens or is asked for.