Let's Talk Initiative, Shall We?

[Water Bob]

General game mechanics discussion...



Way back in the day, I preferred individual initiative every combat round. I played that way for years. Sure, in the hands of the wrong GM, it makes for an awful break in the flow in the game--another dice throw, EACH combat round. But, I made it work. My players liked it. And, our old AD&D (1E) games were amazingly fun.

As I became a more mature gamer, more experienced, with a better understanding of how things worked, I realized that what I was gaining in simulated realism by rolling nish each round, I was losing in the unrealistic method of characters acting back-to-back in a combat.

Let's say a foe goes last in a round and then wins nish the next round, going first. If that foe runs both turns (to, say, go warn his buddies), then he gains a very unrealistic advantage in distance moved with respect to the other characters in the combat: One moment the foe is next to a PC, and the next, the foe is impossibly far before the PC has been able to do anything.




For this, and other reasons, my preferance was altered. Today, I still prefer individual initiative, but I like to roll it once and use the same order for the entire combat, but still allowing PCs to move their place in the nish line-up by using a hold action.

I roll once. That establishes the "flow" of the combat, and for most combats, the order does not change.

Compared to the nish-every-round method that I used to use, this is much faster and more conducive to flowing, exciting combats--and still, it has a bit a feel of simultaneous action though it is a turn-based structure.





What I want to talk about is the other major forms of initiative. You may set your players up in a certain order (by a character stat or ability, or by player experience--or by personality, allowing those that tend to act quickly to go first all the time, giving those that like to think a bit time to think) then using that order the entire game, no matter what.

One form of initiative is one I've flirted with the free-form method, where the first player that indicates an action gives his character initiative. The GM directs play, basically deciding who has and doesn't have initiative based on player description and the dynamics of the scenario.

That method has pro's and con's, but it does intrigue me.





Then, you've got games, like Classic Traveller, where initiative doesn't matter at all because the game round factors are not considered to go into effect until the end of the round. Effects aren't immediate--a character doesn't take damage in the middle of the round. All damage is considered effective at the end of the round. Thus, a foe could be killed early in the round, but that foe still gets his chance to act that round--because the damage that kills the foe is not applied until everybody in the round has had a chance to act.

Because damage is not applied until the end of the round, it really doesn't matter who goes first. Thus, the GM doesn't need to bother with initiative.

In an instantaneous-effect game, like Star Wars, if a stormtrooper gets blown away early, before he's had a chance to act, then that's too bad. Trooper dead. He doesn't get a turn because he was killed before he can act. I think most RPG's these days operate this way.





I'm interested in hearing from those who like the other major way of determining initiative: That is, to have some method of nish determination (maybe have the character with the highest chance on a "side" make a throw, or have all characters throw, using the highest result), then using that to determine nish for "sides". Whomever wins, the entire side gets to go. If the players win, the all the PCs act first. If the foes win, then all of the foes act first, followed by all of the PCs acting together. Sometimes, winning side-initiative gives the winner the choice of having his side act first or last--whichever he thinks is more beneficial. Once nish is determined, that same side order is used throughout the combat.

Who likes this?

It seems quite popular in many games. What I dislike about it is that it allows unrealistic coordination. Let's say that you're in a Star Wars game, and the 5 PCs come up against 9 stormtroopers lead by a Dark Jedi. Whenever the PC side comes up, all 5 PCs can coordinate their attacks ont he Dark Jedi--all at one time. If the PC side acts first, the PCs could unrealistically ignore the troopers and attack the Dark Jedi multiple times before he's had a chance to move. This type of thing also appears in fantasy games where the PCs are trying to kill the enemy spellcaster first.

I really don't think this method is any faster than individual nish rolled for the first round only, with that order kept throughout the combat.

You people who play this way...what about it appeals to you?

 

[cccc]

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok brings A LOT of cool new mechanics to the RPG space and one of them is definitely how initiative is handled. Rather than dice, the game uses runes, and for initiative it uses tokens\tiles. No numbers to roll or remember. Start of initiative shuffle the tiles that represent each combatant and lay them out in an order. Anyone who has surprise or some initial advantage can slide up and down the initiative train by a certain threshold. Each round players may play a rune to change their initiative order by + or - 1. Some powers have initiative order shuffling built in. It's an easy time effective way to visually display the order each round. The game is also built in a way that doesn't ALWAYS make it beneficial to go first... in some cases you want to go later in the round, resulting in a tactical, yet easy system. It meets your needs, it's quick and very dynamic. I'm hooked on FOTN:R!

 

[GMMichael]

I'll throw one initiative roll for each of my badguy types, which is often just one type. The effect is that there's a period when all PCs go, and a period when all badguys go. Works fine for me, because combat is rarely over in one round, meaning that the Dark Jedi's stormtroopers always get a chance to do something.

What I'd like to try, though, is a continuous initiative. So at the end of your round, you roll initiative again, and act on that initiative, even if it falls before someone who hasn't acted yet. This could supersede certain class features that allow "multiple attacks," reward dextrous characters, or even penalize players who spend a long time deciding what to do.

 

[steenan]

Some other initiative systems:

1. In Mistborn Adventure Game, each round players declare actions from lowest Wits to highest; then, actions are resolved from highest action pool to lowest (action pool depends on the action you're trying to perform).

2. In Exalted, you don't have rounds, you have ticks. Action speed determines how many ticks you need to wait between one action and the next.

3. In 7th Sea you roll a number of dice each round. You can take one action for each of these dice, in phases that correspond to what each die rolled.

4. In Dogs in the Vineyard, after the dice pools are rolled, the person with highest sum of their best two dice takes the first action; then you just go around the table.

5. In Dungeon World, there is no initiative at all. The action flows between the players according to the fictional events and dramatic focus.

 

[Water Bob]

I do, indeed, love WEG's D6 Star Wars game. No hit points. No Feats. No character levels. No complicated rules. Just dice codes. A character's sheet is nothing but six stats, each assigned a dice code, and the improved skills the character has governed by those six stats--again, each skill with a dice code. And, the dice is always a six sider.

Fast action is the name of this game. Harrowing chases are a dream come true in this rpg. Whether it be a farmboy vs. a dozen stormtroopers, a single Jedi fighting a Sith, a tramp freighter zipping around close asteroids with TIE fighters on its tail, a single X-Wing in a nat-cluster of enemy fighters, or a number of huge capital ships blowing each other to bits, this game makes the play easy and the action exciting.

No matter the situation, the game really is just a matter of rolling a number of six sided dice to see if a target number was reached. That's 80% of the game mechanics, combined with a lively, descriptive GM that will help you visualize the action.

As much as I am enamored with those rules, be it the simple first edition or the more detailed second edition revised and expanded edition, I never have warmed to the combat procedure detailed in RAW.

The procedure changes a bit, depending on edition, but the combat round is Side Based. The GM determines how many sides are taking place in the combat. Usually, the number is two, like the Rebels and the Imperials. Sometimes, you can have other sides, like the neutral Corporate Sector security guards, the Empire characters, the Hutt's men, the bounty hunters, and the Rebels.

Once the number of sides is determined, the character with the highest Perception on each side rolls that attribute. The character who gets the highest roll decides to act first or last--for the entire side.

When it's a side's turn to go, the character among that side with the highest Perception score acts first, followed by the second highest PER, then third, and so on, until the entire Side has acted.

When a character acts, he tells the GM how many actions he will take during his turn (so that he can take appropriate penalties to each action), then he performs only his first action.

All characters on the side perform only their first action.

Then, we move to the second side, where all of those characters perform only their first action.

If there are only two sides, we move back to the first side, where the characters peform their second action, if they have them.

And, you see how this goes. Each character peforms only one action and cannot perform another until every character in the combat has performed their single actions.

I don't find this very conducive to the Star Wars universe (and the rest of the game system, for that matter) at all. It's slow and methodical, and in practice, not fun.

From experience, most characters can comfortably take 2-3 actions in a round. Let's say you want to run up to the doorway, use it as cover as you pop around and squeeze off two shots from your blaster at the stormtroopers.

If you play Star Wars D6 RAW, what you do is wait for your side to go, then wait for your turn within the side. Then you move up to the doorway--your first action.

Then, you've got to wait the entire time for every other PC and NPC to do their single actions, and when it finally gets back to you, you get to lean around the corner and pop off one shot.

Then, everyone does their second actions. And, when it comes back you to you, you can finally fire off that second shot you wanted to make.

Does that seem like Star Wars to you?

I understand the appeal of this system. It takes a turn based encounter and makes gives you the closest to simultaneous actions as you're going to get.

But, it's not fun! It's not "Star Wars".

When I run the game, we roll PER for every character as an initiative roll. We do this once. That sets up the order for the combat.

Then, we simply follow that order for the entire combat, allowing a character to do all sorts of quick, Star Warsy, actions.

If you want to cross to the doorway, jut around, and fire two shots at the stormtroopers, you can do that the way I run the game. And, it feels like Star Wars.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't use initiative in my D&D hack. Everyone declares what they're doing for the round at the same time. Players can change their action based on what other characters are doing. Then we roll to resolve those actions.

I have been playing a little d6 Star Wars lately. I have a slightly different version of initiative:

Everyone rolls PER. (I normally make only one roll for the NPCs to keep it simple.)
Characters declare what they're doing for the round in order of PER rolls.
You can decide to declare last if you roll high.
We roll to resolve actions based on declaration order. Each character takes all their actions for the round in that order.

 

[Water Bob]

I have been playing a little d6 Star Wars lately. I have a slightly different version of initiative:

Everyone rolls PER. (I normally make only one roll for the NPCs to keep it simple.)
Characters declare what they're doing for the round in order of PER rolls.
You can decide to declare last if you roll high.
We roll to resolve actions based on declaration order. Each character takes all their actions for the round in that order.

The combat sequence and nish system in D6 Star Wars changed slightly with each incarnation of the rules.

There's first edition Star Wars.

First edition Star Wars with the Rules Upgrade.

First edition Star Wars with the Rules Companion.

Second edition Star Wars.

Second edition Star Wars Revised & Expanded.



You get little differences between the systems. For example, in 1E SW, normal movement did not count as an action. A character could move up to 5 meters and fire his blaster without penalty. The character could run up to 10 meters in a round, but this did count as an action.

When you get to second edition, the movement rules are changed. In 1E, there's crawl, walk, and run. In 2E, there's Cautious Move (5 meters), Cruise Move (10 meters), High Speed Move (20 meters), and All-Out Move (40 meters).

Cautious Move does not count as an action unless the terrain is categoriezed as Difficult, Very Difficult, or Heroic (and if so, it counts as an action).

Both Cruise and High Speed count as a single action.

And, All-Out is the only action allowed during that round.

Typically, if movement counts as an action, then movement must actually be rolled for (although there are some exceptions, like Cruise Move on Easy terrain--that counts as an action but no roll is required).

 

[Huw]

Runequest had fixed initiative (3rd ed and earlier; not familiar with the more recent versions), and I've seen that in numerous computer RPGs as well. Essentially, your character always acts at a certain time in the round. If you have a strike rank (the Runequest term) 6, then you always act before the SR 7s and always after the SR 5s.

This sounds too simple, but it works really well. Especially in CRPGs, where one player controls the entire party, you can do some really tactical combats. In desktop you get realistic-feeling rules regarding with multiple attacks, drawing and sheathing weapons, even reach. In RQ the longer weapons had a lower SR, so don't go attacking the pikemen with your dagger unless you're really fast.

 

[avalkauskas]

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok brings A LOT of cool new mechanics to the RPG space and one of them is definitely how initiative is handled. Rather than dice, the game uses runes, and for initiative it uses tokens\tiles. No numbers to roll or remember. Start of initiative shuffle the tiles that represent each combatant and lay them out in an order. Anyone who has surprise or some initial advantage can slide up and down the initiative train by a certain threshold. Each round players may play a rune to change their initiative order by + or - 1. Some powers have initiative order shuffling built in. It's an easy time effective way to visually display the order each round. The game is also built in a way that doesn't ALWAYS make it beneficial to go first... in some cases you want to go later in the round, resulting in a tactical, yet easy system. It meets your needs, it's quick and very dynamic. I'm hooked on FOTN:R!

You're too kind. Yup I was never a fan of spending time every round rolling dice and noting down the values and then having to sort them, especially if we're talking about a dozen combatants. We needed a solution that gives everyone an individual initiative and is dynamic from round to round. I think we struck a good balance!

 

[EYEforanEYE]

The ideas presented as far as how initiative is conducted is refreshing but I will never alter the rules of initiative for any game unless it is paramount for the game to be hosted more effectively. In any event, the fun part in playing is not concentrating so hard on the mechanic no matter how flawed it may be or how it may not make sense. In over 38+ years of gaming, initiative has never been a back breaker or a total loss to a game.

I was never a fan of how combat in real time worked especially in games such as Battletech or Star Fleet Battles. Simultaneous fire/initiative/combat just does not seem the proper venue. Unlike D&D which has it down right, if a spellcaster is struck by an arrow while casting a spell, the spell is negated immediately. There is no simultaneous combat and I rather it be that way.