Hidden Initiative

[airwalkrr]

I use this rule in most of my campaigns. I like it because it adds an element of surprise and saves time. I use the initiative cards from The Game Mechanics and when we enter combat, I roll initiative behind my screen so the players don't know the initiative order. It has worked out very well for over a year.

There is a drawback of course. The players feel like they have less control of their character which can frustrate them. I still let them roll initiative on certain occassions, such as a surprise round during which it is only one player and a monster acting.

I developed the idea after reading the description of the spell, sign in the Miniatures Handbook. Before that, my groups often wrote initiative down on the battlemat, which, while it left little ambiguity to the initiative system, often slowed things down as we hunted for who went next. I also never liked it because the players got to see the monster initiative, and while nothing forced me to write it on the battlemap, I had a tendency to forget monsters unless their initiatives were right there with the players'.

Anyone have any thoughts on this method? I'm always looking for ways to speed up D&D combat.

 

[Dog Moon]

Personally, I see little reason to keep initiative hidden from the players. In my group, we do use initiative cards, which have definitely come in handy. The characters all roll their initiatives and the DM puts their cards in order. He then rolls the initiative for the monsters. Because we only have four players, everyone pretty much knows the order of everybody after the first round, monsters included because it's obvious the Goblins go between the Fighter and the Wizard if the Wizard attacks, the DM attacks with the Goblins, and then tells the Fighter he can go.

Knowing when they go, in my group, has become important because it allows us to use tactics against the enemies [And the DM knows when everyone goes so the monsters can use tactics against the players] and allows us to think ahead a little.

As for saving time in combat, I do not have any suggestions for that because my group tends to stop frequently to discuss tactics or look up something we want to do but aren't sure of the rules on it. We try not to take up too much time, but because we're a small group, we go through battles somewhat quickly anyway.

 

[magic_gathering2001]

When I DM I roll all initiative write down the monster's actions ask the players what their actions are and then reveal the paper and describe combat(usually movement is to a square not to a person)

 

[Anax]

Our gaming group generally doesn't keep initiative secret.

I will note, however, the following things we do that are sort of like secret initiative:

1) If there's a surprise round, only the characters that are acting during the surprise round roll initiative. (i.e. they don't know when the surprised characters will be able to act in the first normal round.)

2) Monster initiative is sometimes revealed when the monster first acts (or appears and acts, if the characters were unaware of it.)

What this means, basically, is that the folks who act first have to be somewhat conservative: it's not clear when the bad guys will be acting, nor is it clear if they'll act multiple times before allies will be able to act.

On the plus side, it's not a bad idea to encourage conservative play at the start of an encounter, to be sure that the players pick up on any special habits the enemy might have, and don't rush into an ambush.

On the minus side, going first in initiative is *meant* to be an advantage. Concealing information about what order actions will be taken in makes some sense, from a meta-game point of view. But not so much sense from a game physics point of view. After all, remember that even though the players are moving their characters in turns, that's just an abstraction that we use because simultaneous action is too difficult. Based on that, it makes sense that everybody will know everybody else's initiative (except for a surprise round, or when a new enemy is about to enter the fray and surprise people), because it's not "what order?" that they know, it's "who's most able to act?" When you're at initiative 16, and the orc is at initiative 12, and your pal is at initiative 2, what you're seeing in that is that the orc is just about ready to swing his sword, or cut loose and run, or whatever, and your pal is staring off into space drooling.

So--I do think initiative cards are useful for keeping things moving, but rolling for initiative secretly just makes it harder for players to plan what they're going to do. Imagine, for example, that you have two players who always do a one-two sort of thing: the first to act moves up to an enemy, and the other follows along and flanks, and then they go to town. If neither player knows which one of them will act first, they have to juggle more possibilities in their head than if player A knows "I will go first, so I'll choose to go to this enemy, and do my thing" and player B knows "I will go second, so I'll follow A's lead." Instead, it's "If I go first, I will do this, otherwise I'll follow A's lead."

That's my take on it, anyway.

 

[3catcircus]

An easy way of using "hidden" initiative without hiding the players' own initiatives is to simply count backwards from 30 (typically, initiative is no higher than this unless you are doing an Epic game). As each number in the initiative order is reached, the NPCs or the PCs declare their actions and take their turn.

What this does is two things:

1. Maintains an element of the unknown.
2. Prevents players from coordinating an entire war full of actions when the round only represents 6 seconds worth of activity - I generally only give the player 10 seconds of real time on their initiative to declare their standard/move/full round actions and to take any free actions.

 

[the Jester]

I find the gains in ambiguity to be more than offset by the loss in game speed. I think keeping things moving is very important in d20 system games; the simplified (compared to 1e/2e) initiative system is one great change (imho) and I have never had a problem with it. Besides, the ambiguity only lasts til everyone has gone once.

 

[Thia Halmades]

Hey, initiative cards. Cards... with people's NAMES ON THEM and STACKED IN ORDER.

Dammit. Why didn't I think of that?

Oh, right. The point. Yeah, no need to hide initiative. I just let the players roll and then go in order after I scribble it down. Also, I use the same suprise rule -- if the MOB shows up, it rolls initiative and unless spotted, gets the drop. If someone else spots it, that individual rolls init, and the party is caught off guard. Combat flows at a moderate pace for my party, but they've been using tactics together for three years running, so there's a lot less arguing and a lot more yelling and die rolling.

LCpt. Thia Halmades