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No Initiative Order: How Do You Do It?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9677104" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>Unfortunately, not being familiar with Daggerheart, and not having waded through 18+ pages of that thread to figure out what the reference is, I don't know what you mean by "this sort of system". I will take a stab at it without that refereence, then - it might even be valuable to do so! But, if it means I write a bunch of stuff everyone else knows, because they know Daggerheart, my apologies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, starting with the point that, even if the game says everything happens at once, or does not ask for an initiative order, as a practical matter human players at a table actually need to resolve things one at a time, in some order.</p><p></p><p>The most common approach I know of is "popcorn initiative" (also known as "Elective Action Order initiative" or "Balsera style initiative" or "hand-off initiative"), which is common in Fate variants, Gumshoe variants, and some Cortex-driven games. I think it may have first appeared in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, so has been around for a bit more than a decade, and was first suggested by Leonard Balsera.</p><p></p><p>In this system, when action starts, we choose someone to start the order - typically this is the first person who actually declared an action, but it may be chosen by the GM, or maybe you have an initiative roll. When the player finishes their turn, they simply <em>choose</em> who goes next. When all actors in the scene/encounter have gone, the last in the previous round picks the first person for the next round.</p><p></p><p>There's some strategy to work with there, in that if your enemy is the last to go, they can choose <em>themselves</em> to go first in the next round, getting two rounds of actions before the PCs can respond, which is often undesirable. This system allows players to plan cinematic and tactical maneuvers of the form, "I will do X, then you can do Y" with much greater facility than random order allows.</p><p></p><p>I have a set of cards to help players track who has and hasn't gone in a round: <a href="https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/146133/Turn-Tracker-Initiative-Cards" target="_blank">Turn Tracker Initiative Cards - Amazing Rando Design | DriveThruCards.com</a></p><p></p><p>I've also seen another way of handing resolution, in Deathmatch Island, but that game puts the focus on resolving conflicts, rather than individual tasks/rounds of action.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I haven't had any problems in using popcorn initiative. I don't usually use it in D&D, in games in which initiative results determine the number of actions you get in a round, or games in which PCs have spent a lot of build resources on being good at traditional initiative. There are ways to convert games, but I haven't been in a situation where that'd be a significant improvement.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Mostly just different, perhaps a little better in many circumstances. It allows for players to set up combinations of actions more reliably, which is a lot of fun.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 9677104, member: 177"] Unfortunately, not being familiar with Daggerheart, and not having waded through 18+ pages of that thread to figure out what the reference is, I don't know what you mean by "this sort of system". I will take a stab at it without that refereence, then - it might even be valuable to do so! But, if it means I write a bunch of stuff everyone else knows, because they know Daggerheart, my apologies. So, starting with the point that, even if the game says everything happens at once, or does not ask for an initiative order, as a practical matter human players at a table actually need to resolve things one at a time, in some order. The most common approach I know of is "popcorn initiative" (also known as "Elective Action Order initiative" or "Balsera style initiative" or "hand-off initiative"), which is common in Fate variants, Gumshoe variants, and some Cortex-driven games. I think it may have first appeared in Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, so has been around for a bit more than a decade, and was first suggested by Leonard Balsera. In this system, when action starts, we choose someone to start the order - typically this is the first person who actually declared an action, but it may be chosen by the GM, or maybe you have an initiative roll. When the player finishes their turn, they simply [I]choose[/I] who goes next. When all actors in the scene/encounter have gone, the last in the previous round picks the first person for the next round. There's some strategy to work with there, in that if your enemy is the last to go, they can choose [I]themselves[/I] to go first in the next round, getting two rounds of actions before the PCs can respond, which is often undesirable. This system allows players to plan cinematic and tactical maneuvers of the form, "I will do X, then you can do Y" with much greater facility than random order allows. I have a set of cards to help players track who has and hasn't gone in a round: [URL="https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/146133/Turn-Tracker-Initiative-Cards"]Turn Tracker Initiative Cards - Amazing Rando Design | DriveThruCards.com[/URL] I've also seen another way of handing resolution, in Deathmatch Island, but that game puts the focus on resolving conflicts, rather than individual tasks/rounds of action. I haven't had any problems in using popcorn initiative. I don't usually use it in D&D, in games in which initiative results determine the number of actions you get in a round, or games in which PCs have spent a lot of build resources on being good at traditional initiative. There are ways to convert games, but I haven't been in a situation where that'd be a significant improvement. Mostly just different, perhaps a little better in many circumstances. It allows for players to set up combinations of actions more reliably, which is a lot of fun. [/QUOTE]
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