No Initiative Order: How Do You Do It?

[Seramus]

I'm trying to figure out a good way to handle Daggerheart's No Initiative system in a PBP game. It's been working great in my online games, but I also do some PBP and I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I generally use Sided Initiative in PBP, even when I'm running things like 5E - all of my players take a turn, then I take my turns. That's 2 steps, giving each of the players a full day to post their turns, and I post mine on the 2nd day.

The Daggerheart No Initiative system seems like it would struggle in PBP, since each time the players get their turn there would have to be an extremely brief conversation about who is taking that turn. Even with great players, that's subject to the players even being around to talk about it. It could slow down the whole process from 2 Steps to... more than 2 Steps.

It seems like Sided Initiative is still the best option even for Daggerheart, where all of my players would have their turn, then I would total up their Failures and Fears and take that many turns myself (+any additional turns I buy with Fear).

Is there a better solution for PBP I might be overlooking? Minimizing the number of steps is my priority, to keep play moving forward.

 

[pemerton]

Am I correct in interpreting that the "no initiative order" here specifically refers to initiative order in combat for RPGs with combat?

Assuming that the answer to my Q is "yes," it does make me wonder why the issue of initiative order comes up for combat specifically. I wonder if it's cultural baggage from DND. Or I wonder if there is something fundamentally different about combat vs non-combat situation.

The only thing I don't really see is the importance of the in-game timescale.

All good questions.

 

[R_J_K75]

My preference is actually individual PC initiative rolled each round as it adds to the combat tension. But it's a lot of book keeping.

That's how we played 2E too. It did add more tension and took more work at the table, but I liked it. I remember many combats came down to wire and was won or lost depending on who won initiative the last few rounds. One thing that 3E did by only using one initiative roll per combat was give the players the ability to strategize from round to round because they knew when in the initiative order their turn was. I always thought that gave them an unfair advantage, but because we usually played RAW, I didn't bother changing it. I'm pretty sure I have never played any RPG that didn't use some form of initiative.