Neurotic
I plan on living forever. Or die trying.
The approaches I've seen before:
1. Everyone posts as they can, DM orders the actions by initiative and adjudicates the actions by intent if there was something impossible (i.e. one character kills the enemy earlier in the initiative, but later in posts)
2. Actions happen in the order posted (more often than not, the DM also provides attack, damage (for OAs), remaining HP and AC of the monsters), players can narrate hits, misses and kills
3. Rarest: strict initiative, posts in order however long it takes.
Variations: some group monsters and players in several groups, others (most) simply lump monsters in one group players in the other and the initiative is really only relevant in the first round (flat-footed before you act etc)
Some post saves of the monsters too (rare)
Reactions are handled by announcing in advance your intent - otherwise what happens is that DM finishes the round, player X 3 days later says, I'm not hit I did <ability to avoid hits>, a week lost to retcon. If you didn't post probably or possible reaction, you didn't get it. Also, sometimes, DM uses your reaction if it seems something likely to be used without consulting you (killing blows, high crits, low HP, whatever)
In living 4e Mal Malenkirk posted his rules of initiative at the start of every adventure and most games adopted it (public monster info (relevant, not every power), initiative only at the start, map updates (we used google sheets so everyone could move their character and monsters affected by powers on their turn)
1. Everyone posts as they can, DM orders the actions by initiative and adjudicates the actions by intent if there was something impossible (i.e. one character kills the enemy earlier in the initiative, but later in posts)
2. Actions happen in the order posted (more often than not, the DM also provides attack, damage (for OAs), remaining HP and AC of the monsters), players can narrate hits, misses and kills
3. Rarest: strict initiative, posts in order however long it takes.
Variations: some group monsters and players in several groups, others (most) simply lump monsters in one group players in the other and the initiative is really only relevant in the first round (flat-footed before you act etc)
Some post saves of the monsters too (rare)
Reactions are handled by announcing in advance your intent - otherwise what happens is that DM finishes the round, player X 3 days later says, I'm not hit I did <ability to avoid hits>, a week lost to retcon. If you didn't post probably or possible reaction, you didn't get it. Also, sometimes, DM uses your reaction if it seems something likely to be used without consulting you (killing blows, high crits, low HP, whatever)
In living 4e Mal Malenkirk posted his rules of initiative at the start of every adventure and most games adopted it (public monster info (relevant, not every power), initiative only at the start, map updates (we used google sheets so everyone could move their character and monsters affected by powers on their turn)
