Tracking initiative

[Jd Smith1]

How do you track initiative at your F2F games?

I built the high-tech device pictured below. The white pins are PCs, and have names on both sides. The blue pins are the enemy, and are only marked on my side. The pins are stacked with high at the bottom (first to go) to low at the top (last). A small green clip it attached to the end of the pin currently active.

This way my players can see the order and anticipate their turn, rolling up their actions while the player ahead of them is resolving his action. It makes for a smooth, quick flow.

Regular NPCs work in groups, major NPCs have their own marker.

 

[Retreater]

Similar system, except that I write the player's name on a clothespin and put it atop my DM screen (which is eye level and easy for everyone at the table to see). I also use M1 - M5 as placeholders for "monster initiative." To make it even easier for me I have taped small numbers written on a strip of 1" grid paper along the top. Just snap the clothespin on the right number and go down the line. For ties, you can easily stack on clothespin on the other. If someone wants to delay their action, give them their clothespin as a physical reminder and put them back on the track when they want to act.
Numerous players from my group have adopted this method when they GM other tables.

 

[Umbran]

How do you track initiative at your F2F games?

For D&D's cyclical initiative, the same way you do. The stick is held up by something a bit more crafty that one of the players did - a mountain with a dragon coiled around it, made of clay. The clips are clothespins, but same idea.

For my Ashen Stars game, I was using "popcorn initiative" (aka Elective choice initiative), for which we used a set of cards - one side says "ready" indicating a character that can still act this round, the other saying "Done".

When I was running classic Deadlands, the initiative is generated by dealing standard playing cards, and the cards also serve as order trackers.

 

[Richards]

I build an initiative card for each PC and each monster type. These are the size of a playing card, with a black-and-white image of the PC/monster printed on a sheet of paper (I can fit eight on a sheet), cut out, glued to the back of an index card, cut out again, I write the name of the PC/monster on the back, and then I cover it with ConTact paper and cut it out again, this time leaving about 1/8" around the edge of the card. I save these in a series of index card holder boxes. It's a little extra work before each adventure if I don't already have initiative cards for all of the monsters I'll be using, but once an initiative card has been built for a given monster I have it for any subsequent adventure using that monster.

In use, I have everyone roll for initiative and then assemble my deck for the encounter. The top card shows who's currently up. If they take their complete turn, I move the card to the back of the deck and press on with the next PC/monster's turn; if the PC/monster readies an action, I place their card at the back of the deck like normal but turned 90 degrees so it sticks out, indicating there's still a readied action that can come into play at any time. (Once they take their readied action, the card gets turned back like normal.) And if a PC is, say, paralyzed or held I can put his or her initiative card upside down as a reminder there's something going on with that PC the next time his or her initiative rolls around.

The initiative cards are handy not only in tracking initiative but also in showing the players what their PCs see. On occasion, I've purposefully used monster images from different sources so the players don't automatically recognize the picture of a given monster from the Monster Manual; as an example, I used a Tony DiTerlizzi image of a skum and made sure to describe the creature as a "fishman" rather than a skum and the players had no idea their PCs would likely be encountering aboleths later in that adventure. It allows me to overrule Monster Manual images I don't like - since I still run a 3.5 game, I can make sure the carrion crawlers, homunculi, and ogres in my game look more like the traditional versions of those creatures than the oddities that showed up in the 3.0/3.5 Monster Manual.

Johnathan

 

[Gilladian]

I don’t use a player-facing init tracker. As I dont like alerting them tothings I track at times. I have a strip of cork in a fancy plastic holder, with sharpie numbers down the side, and I use plastic thumbtacks. White with a letter on top for PCs, and colors with numbers for NPCs. I still run My houseruled 3.5, so I also track trap and spell durations And other fun stuff. I’ve used it for years and it works quite well.

 

[TheSword]

I still use one of Paizo’s magnetic wipe boards with magnetized tokens.

All the Gear, No Idea!

 

[Cadence]

Last game F2F game I was in just used a dry erase board and markers. Erased after each combat.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I just track it on my notepad

 

[Lanefan]

We reroll init every time, and as our init system revolves around d6s (and can't go higher than 6 or lower than 1) it's easy for the players to just leave their init dice in front of them (everyone has loads of d6s!). I roll the opponents' init's behind the screen; and then usually lay them out in rough spatial approximation of where the particular opponent is on the table so I can remember which init(s) go with which foe.

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

I write it down in a piece of my notebook paper. Then I just call out who's turn it is and expect my players to start learning the current fight's order and adapt to it. What a fool I am - it never works out that way.