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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anax" data-source="post: 2621635" data-attributes="member: 19868">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.</blockquote>

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