Freeform initiative alternative

[Dausuul]

But that's just it... Aside from an general attentiveness gained from what is effectively just a placebo, nothing really changes.

Not at all. It's the difference between:

"We have fifty men and fifty women. How many people do we have total? Let's see... one, two, three, four... *extended period of counting* ...ninety-nine, one hundred."

and

"We have fifty men and fifty women. How many people do we have total? Fifty plus fifty equals one hundred."

Same outcome, much less wasted effort to get there.

 

[Pbartender]

The 'individual init' system (the standard setup) results in one player "leaning in" at a time - engaged in the setup, and plotting his moves. The rest of the group has no incentive to "lean in"... they are all sitting back, waiting for their turn because the battlefield is changing too much to plan too far in advance. Some get up to get a drink, others draw or read, etc - but they are not engaged.

This variant system however has all of the players "leaning in" TOGETHER, at the same time - all with an immediate interest in what is going on. They are all working together, plotting and planning - excited to unleash this rounds's actions against the monsters... "Yea, cool, if you do that then I can do THIS." "And once you guys do that, I will blast this area with THIS" etc.

I would posit, though, that it generally depends on the group... While my players don't always do it, they're very often already "leaning in" together. In our case, it's a selfish thing, of sorts. They give hints and suggestions to the other players so their character can get a better advantage, which in turn normally benefits the group.

Down deep, it's a fundamental difference between the latest two editions... Most adventuring parties in 3E seemed to be groups of self-contained adventurers. The individuals could shine on their own. In 4E, the emphasis has shifted to the team, wherein a well coordinated group is greater than the sum of it's parts. Grokking that can make a big a difference in how smoothly the game (and especially combat) moves along.

I'm not disparaging this method (I'm sorry, if it came off that way)... I was just trying to figure out why this method made such a big difference, since mechanically speaking, there seems to be very little advantage to it. The answer is that it's more of a psychological solution, rather than a mechanical one -- It helps the players think like a team rather than individuals, it helps them pay attention between turns, and it helps stay excited about the game. Because of that, the combats move faster -- the characters are more effective, monsters die faster, players have their actions ready when their turn arrives, no one is bored and needs to be spurred into action.

That's an important thing to know, because it means that we don't always have to change the rules of the game to make it a better game. Sometimes, we just need to find a way to get into the right mind set for the game we're playing. I find that fascinating.

We made the same mental change in our group, but in a little different way. We did it by collectively building characters... The players all built their characters with feedback from the others, so that as a team their abilities and powers all complimented each other and bolstered each other's weaknesses. Now they do the same thing you mention... They each pay attention to the actions of the other players, and suggest courses of action that could set up inter-character combos.

Again, same ends, different means...

But like I said, don't get me wrong. Kudos on finding a way to make this work for your group, I'm glad it helps. As a DM, it's always awesome to see the players working together on that level. It might not work for everybody, but sharing stuff like this and discussing why it works might help someone else in the same way.

 

[weem]

The answer is that it's more of a psychological solution, rather than a mechanical one -- It helps the players think like a team rather than individuals, it helps them pay attention between turns, and it helps stay excited about the game. Because of that, the combats move faster -- the characters are more effective, monsters die faster, players have their actions ready when their turn arrives, no one is bored and needs to be spurred into action.

There's more to it than that though. It's not simply a fix DM's can use for bad/easily distracted players. I know you aren't saying exactly that, but your responses read like it. It is a method (in my experience) that benefits groups of any level of experience, and in more ways than simply psychological.

A few of those "other" ways...

1) This system does not track initiative order. The standard one does. It may not seem like much to have to make up cards, and re-arrange them regularly as needed, or manage a whiteboard list erasing and updating as needed, but there is a big difference between having to do that, and not (I have done many of both). Right now, my initiative tracking time takes me no time at all. I roll once... who beat it? Then you go now. That's it - it's all me / them / me / them after that, the order inside each of which does not matter, even with readied actions.

...This makes things much faster not only for me, but for the players

2) When I manage the monsters, it's MUCH faster to do them all at once, as opposed to one, then taking inventory of what a PC does, then a few more monsters, then tracking what another PC or two does, etc. It's an efficiency thing, and I think most people will tell you (and you probably already know) it's much more efficient to do one task at a time (managing all my monsters at once) than it is to be disrupted and have to break that one task into many pieces done between other tasks. We have software at my company (and it exists in many more) meant to prevent just this type of thing from occurring.

...This makes things MUCH faster for me

3) The players get to be much more strategic and work together on their planning. The Wizards Thunderwaves some goblins into a pile, the Sorcerer nukes the pile, and the Fighter jumps in using Sweeping Blow to mark them all. With the standard init system, The Wizard pushes them into a pile, and then the goblins may get to go... so they move in to attack... now the Sorcerer can't do the blast he wanted to... and the Fighter needs to think of something else because now that it's his turn, things have changed dramatically. But remember, the monsters have the same benefits of going all at once

...This allows the PC's to do some really cool combo-like things they otherwise do not get to do (most of the time).

If you (anyone) try it for a while, you will see it is not the same.

I'm not saying it will always be better... maybe you will like the standard method better, but the point is it is not the same thing. It's not just a fix for poor playing or distracted players either.

Whimsical asked...

Does anyone have any more information about this method? I don't want to try it until I'm ready to handle the peculiarities of this method. Anyone else use this method? Let me know about your experiences and feedback about it

I say give it a shot, it's awesome (imo). It has done a lot for mine, and many other games - it's sped them up, got players much more involved, allowed for much more dynamic strategy, makes my job much easier/faster, so on and so on

If you have specific questions about it, post em here - I will do my best to answer what I can based on my experience with it.

 

[Pbartender]

There's more to it than that though. It's not simply a fix DM's can use for bad/easily distracted players. I know you aren't saying exactly that, but your responses read like it...

...It's not just a fix for poor playing or distracted players either.

Oh, good heavens, no... That's anything but what I meant...

I see it more the other way around, actually. Majorly poor or distracted playing will probably need a much more invasive fix than this.

In my view point, this is a sort "fine tuning" measure will be of the biggest benefit to veterans players who need just a little extra oomph to keep the pace of the game up.

I roll once... who beat it? Then you go now. That's it - it's all me / them / me / them after that, the order inside each of which does not matter, even with readied actions.

For some reason it wasn't exactly clicking before, but put that way it makes sense now.

I'd be curious to try it with my group... I have the sort of group where the time it takes to make turn-by-turn decision of which PC goes first might outweigh the time saved by not having to mess with the initiative cards.

 

[weem]

I know my posts come off as defensive - and I don't mean to be, I just want to make sure the idea is not dismissed (by anyone) as not different enough or of only good use as a problem solving tool - it is cool in many different ways, for different reasons.

This method of initiative management has been a game changer for my various groups and many others.

One quick story - my brother lives 3 hours away from me, but runs a game for 7 people, all of whom we have known and gamed with for a loong time. Very cohesive, well experienced group. One night on the phone I was explaining to my brother how well this method had been working for us, and he said he might just have to give it a try... but he said the guys did really well anyway, and that he wasn't sure they would be down to try it.

The next time I went up there (about 2 months later), I ran into some of these guys before I saw my brother and right away, after the hello's they were diving into how awesome "your initiative system is". They were really into it. Of course, I corrected them and said it wasn't mine (though I seem to be it's biggest advocate over this last year).

Anyway, it won't be for everyone i would guess, but I have not seen anyone use it and later switch back once they have tried it for a few encounters.

If people try and it don't like it? Well, at least they tried it, and that's awesome!

 

[Pbartender]

I know my posts come off as defensive - and I don't mean to be...

Don't worry about it... It was an interesting and fun discussion that got me thinking about one or two things I hadn't expected to going into this.

Anyway, I've not got a habit of instinctive skepticism, and I honestly rather enjoy playing the devil's advocate. I find that arguing the opposing viewpoint helps to find the flaws in my own thinking, whereby I can adapt and adjust my thoughts to give me a greater understanding of the subject in general.

Sometimes, I unintentionally ruffle feathers when I do it... No harm meant and no offense taken. It's always nice to to run across someone who can take it in stride, and have a civil debate that can come to a gentlemanly conclusion.

 

[Nifft]

WHFRP3E has a similar system. Everyone has their own initiative bonus and roll but then, round by round, they are available to anyone in the group.

Quite like that idea and thinking of dragging it into my home brew campaign.

I came in just to mention this, and here it is already.

To clarify:

1/ All PCs roll Initiative, and mark their results on one side of a line.

2/ All foes roll Initiative, and mark their results on the other side of a line.

3/ Run down the line. Whenever you get to a PC-mark, any one PC gets to go. They decide amongst themselves which one. Same deal for foes: one at a time and at specific times limited by their Initiative roll, but otherwise in whatever order would be most beneficial.

It works really well, though I could see how it might get hairy without the Party Tension mechanic... which works so well, I want to steal that for every game in the future.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Pseudopsyche]

This variant system however has all of the players "leaning in" TOGETHER, at the same time - all with an immediate interest in what is going on. They are all working together, plotting and planning - excited to unleash this rounds's actions against the monsters... "Yea, cool, if you do that then I can do THIS." "And once you guys do that, I will blast this area with THIS" etc.

I've been dying to try the ars ludi approach for a while, but I haven't found time to start a new group since moving to San Francisco. The way I see it, it's the difference between parallel processing and serial. As a computer scientist, I appreciate the speedup possible with parallel computation. I hadn't even considered the social benefits of fostering teamwork.

 

[IronWolf]

I've been dying to try the ars ludi approach for a while, but I haven't found time to start a new group since moving to San Francisco. The way I see it, it's the difference between parallel processing and serial. As a computer scientist, I appreciate the speedup possible with parallel computation. I hadn't even considered the social benefits of fostering teamwork.

Yeah, the parallel processing aspect is probably the biggest benefit for our group. It seems to just speed the combat process up for us. Not sure it is doing a whole lot for our teamwork one way or the other!

 

[Marx420]

Adopted this today after reading for my incredibly stoned and/or on psychedelics group and it was a resounding success (can't believe I never thought of it myself, probably because I have slick initiative tracker). Kept everyone far more involved to the point of yelling ferocious battle cries at 3 in the morning and rousing my dad (though it could've also been the drugs...) Thanks for the house rule bro, policy enacted!