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Quertus
2020-12-03, 02:36 PM
What are the various systems for initiative that RPGs use? Which ones are best suited to what purposes?

That I can think of…

Conceptually, there is round-based (order determined once per combat, order determined each round), group-based (all of us then all of them, one of us then one of them, X of us then Y of them), and tick-based (ticks by character, ticks by action). EDIT: adding… "they go as a reaction to the PCs (AW, epic monsters)”, "choose who goes next (Fate?)”, and "go when you want to (AW)".

Mechanically, there's die rolls, die pools, exploding dice, cards, bidding, resources, modifiers by action / weapon, modifying initiative (delaying, EDIT: exalted 3e), ongoing actions (covering fire), and even player skill. EDIT: adding "actions that trigger off initiative (Exalted 3e)".

The simplest is probably one side goes, then the other side goes. I often use this for Battletech weapons fire, which is *technically* resolved simultaneously, and I'd have to say that it works rather well for that purpose.

Speaking of Battletech, one of the most complex is continuously rebalancing "X of us go, Y of you go". For a 7 on 17, that could look like 12212212221222122212221222. Keeping track of not just that, but actually visualizing who has and hasn't moved yet while taking your turn is rather challenging.

For simple yet structured, the d20 system is pretty simple. But I find that players are actually more engaged in the initiative minigame a) when there's more to it, and b) when there's stakes. Whether that's the 2e (and earlier) D&D "will you (or the healer) go before the Dragon breaths away your last HPs? Will the dragon gamble on beating the healer, or choose to cast a spell (like Hold Person) that will hurt even if you *are* healed?", or exploding dice letting someone rock the initiative, or even Marvel facerip "best initiative chooses 'first' or 'last' turn order" making initiative something you actually think about to all be superior in terms of tension and player engagement to more simple initiative systems.

OTOH, the predictability of both cyclic and tick-based initiative are really helpful when you need to use the bathroom or otherwise plan a short break when your absence won't slow down the game.

-----

So, what do y'all think? What systems do you find good for what purposes? What systems have I missed?

KaussH
2020-12-03, 02:40 PM
I liked the old mook sytem for deadlands, draw 1.5 cards per mook, lay them face down, flip and go. Surprising easy and fast for small and large groups. Add the teamwork system with it ( ok i have 3 jacks, they all shoot at bob, for a +2 )

Anonymouswizard
2020-12-03, 03:06 PM
I have a fondness for card-based initiative, but honestly? Set order, either fastest to slowest or round the table potentially with alternating sides so the PCs don't stand around waiting while I'm controlling six characters three of which have spells or whatever. It's clean, simple, and works, and while yes it makes things more predictable it's appeal lies in that simpicity.

I stopped wanting complex initiative systems after running a game of Shadowrun 5e. Sure, fast characters felt fast, but rolling initiative every round, dealing with up to fifteen different counts, subtracting ten each pass and seeing who could still act, it was a lot of work on my end. It's nice and relatively more realistic than other systems, but urgh it doesn't feel better in play than set orders and rounds, so I stick with the simpler system.

Martin Greywolf
2020-12-03, 03:44 PM
Since TTRPGs happen in real world and we don't have luxury of computing all this in a few milliseconds, the easier it is to resolve initiative, the better. If we need to make fast characters feel fast, let's do it by giving them an extra actions without rolling seven times.

That means I favor initiative rolled once at start of combat, not only is it easy on computing time, it lets people get used to where they are in initiative order, freeing some of their brain power for the things in a fight that are actually engaging. Basing order off of stats without a roll, as FATE does, among others, is your best bet here.

That said, an intiative system needs to have at least an option of scattering the order among the sides, AABABBBABAB is good, AAAAABBBBB is very, very bad. The reason why is pretty clear, the side that goes first can, if not braindead, use focus fire to take out opposition before they get to do anything, and lord thy god help you if they have AoE attacks. That kind of thing stacks up fast. All the attacks happening at the same time elimintaes this worry, but sounds like an absolute nightmare to bookkeep.

Grod_The_Giant
2020-12-03, 03:53 PM
No discussion of initiative is completed without mentioning Exalted 3e's take on it--namely, combining it with plot-armor-hit-points and killing power. The key is that there are two kinds of attacks, withering and decisive.

Withering attacks don't touch your foe's health track--instead, they steal initiative. If I hit you for 10 damage with a withering attack, my Initiative goes up by 11 and yours goes down by 10. If it's reduced below zero, I get bonus initiative and you take some extra penalties. Weapon damage and armor-based soak both factor into withering attacks. In fiction, they're lethal attacks aimed to kill... but mechanically, they translate into glancing blows, knocking your foe off balance, all the other sorts of stuff that non-meat-based hit points normally imply.
Decisive attacks represent the hits that actually draw blood. Unlike withering attacks, weapons and armor don't matter here. If you hit, you roll damage dice equal to your current Initiative, then reset to 3.

It turns initiative from a simple "who goes first" to a broader measure of "who's dominating the fight right now." It's intentionally swingy--rolling well on Join Battle lets you launch a nasty alpha strike right off the bad, and if you knock an opponent from higher ini than yours to lower you effectively go twice in a row... but after making a decisive you're left extremely vulnerable-- and it can be a pain to track without some sort of assistance*. But it's a really cool way of mixing meat-hit-points and plot-armor-hit-points, and it makes combat hella dynamic.




*Before the world ended, I printed out a big grid like so:


Initiative
Yet to Act
Already Acted


20+




19




18

lightningcat
2020-12-03, 05:00 PM
My prefered initiative system is the tick system from Exalted 2e, but one of the more interesting ones was used in a FATE Accelerated one shot I ran. Every rolled at the start of combat, with the winner going first, but when they finished their action they choose the next character to go. The first time they all went in a row, but the second time they broke their actions up between the opponents, so the opponents didn't also all go in a row.

Yora
2020-12-03, 05:06 PM
Apocalypse World games have no initiative at all. This works on the mechanic that any move taken by a player includes both the PC's action and a corresponding reaction (either by an NPC or the environment). NPCs never have a turn, take actions, or make rolls, unless all players decide to just stand around and do nothing as a threat is coming right at them.
Players take turns according to who shouts first or by the players agreeing who of them gets first. A player can decide to deal with a threat by taking four turns in a row, but that means that the same PC is the target of all four reactions. You generally wear yourself out very quickly that way and it's better to share the conseques of all actions among the various PCs of the party.

Managing player participation is something that happens outside of the rules. It's up to the GM to decide when to intervene when it seems like one player is hugging the attention while other players are trying to get a turn as well.

Quertus
2020-12-03, 09:40 PM
Since TTRPGs happen in real world and we don't have luxury of computing all this in a few milliseconds, the easier it is to resolve initiative, the better. If we need to make fast characters feel fast, let's do it by giving them an extra actions without rolling seven times.

That means I favor initiative rolled once at start of combat, not only is it easy on computing time, it lets people get used to where they are in initiative order, freeing some of their brain power for the things in a fight that are actually engaging. Basing order off of stats without a roll, as FATE does, among others, is your best bet here.

That said, an intiative system needs to have at least an option of scattering the order among the sides, AABABBBABAB is good, AAAAABBBBB is very, very bad. The reason why is pretty clear, the side that goes first can, if not braindead, use focus fire to take out opposition before they get to do anything, and lord thy god help you if they have AoE attacks. That kind of thing stacks up fast. All the attacks happening at the same time elimintaes this worry, but sounds like an absolute nightmare to bookkeep.

So, especially as GM, I tend to write code to roll (and track) initiative for all my NPCs (if not sometimes the PCs as well), have it all set up and data entered before the game whenever possible, etc. So that changes my priorities, as I imagine that it might yours if you operated this way.

I'm not sure that making fast characters feel fast by giving them the mechanical equivalent of a free surprise round is in any way better than the old ShadowRun technique. Any suggestions here for a potential upgrade?

Yes, static initiative certainly lets people get used to the rhythm of their initiative order. That's both good and bad (or, perhaps, can be good or bad, depending on your goals). BTW, how did you feel about the 3e module that a) used stock characters and b) gave them pre-built set initiative totals for the whole module? So, say, J. always went on 8, throughout the whole module.

Arguably the best videogame of all time, Brigandine, has "your level is your initiative", which can be a fun minigame to select your commanders to try to avoid - or arrange - the "AAABBB" scenario.

Attacks happening at the same time… is pretty trivially easy to deal with, actually. Why do you imagine that it would be hard?


No discussion of initiative is completed without mentioning Exalted 3e's take on it--

… huh. So… this sounds to me like "powers that manipulate initiative" and "powers that key off initiative", tied into a more traditional initiative framework.

Is that a fair assessment?


Apocalypse World games have no initiative at all… Players take turns according to who shouts first or by the players agreeing who of them gets first. A player can decide to deal with a threat by taking four turns in a row, but that means that the same PC is the target of all four reactions.

That definitely merits inclusion.

So… what's it good / bad for? (Other than "bad for spotlight hogging" for the particular implementation where there is no limit to number of actions one can take)

Grod_The_Giant
2020-12-03, 10:04 PM
… huh. So… this sounds to me like "powers that manipulate initiative" and "powers that key off initiative", tied into a more traditional initiative framework.

Is that a fair assessment?
Not quite-- "attacks manipulate and key off initiative" would probably be more accurate, because every attack is either withering or decisive. Abilities that bypass the initiative system and damage health directly are rare and powerful.

Glimbur
2020-12-03, 11:29 PM
Street Fighter has you pre-calculate the speed of every attack based on the maneuver and your Dex. Each turn everyone secretly picks a maneuver. Starting at 0, you count up in initiative. When your number comes up you have to start acting. However, anyone faster than you can interrupt. This can be moving away from a grapple, blocking a punch, or doing a back-flip kick to both avoid a hit and deliver one of your own. Blocking speeds you up for next round and combos are faster after the first thing. It is an interesting system.

gijoemike
2020-12-04, 01:05 AM
I prefer the cenimatic feel of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars. Each unit or minion group rolls initiative similar to D&D. Start at the top of the order. But instead of the person who rolled a 3 going on 3 one person who hasn't gone this round on the same side of combat goes. So order of combat is fixed allowing the table to get into a rythem but who is acting at that moment is not fixed.

A scoundral could have a good initiative roll but decide to let the bounty hunter go first even though they rolled the worst init in the whole combat.

The jedi went in the last slot in the previous round and goes again at the top of the next!

As combatants drop the worst init slot on their side goes away.

Mastikator
2020-12-04, 03:25 AM
IMO the less time is spend worrying/calculating about initiative, the better. The fewer things slowing down combat the better.

Saintheart
2020-12-04, 03:35 AM
For D&D 3.5 in PbP/forum play, what I'm trying out now is group initiative, which is to say: all but getting rid of initiative because otherwise you wind up waiting 2 weeks for someone to post their actions during combat.

(1) Roll initiative as normal for all players and the monsters.
(2) Everyone who rolled higher than the monsters goes before the monsters do.
(3) Everyone who rolled lower than the monsters goes after the monsters do.

48 hour time limit applies for players in each group to post. Actions are resolved in order of posting. Effects starting one one player's post in the round go off when that player posts again in the next round. If I'm nice about it I might allow someone who acts before the monsters and then doesn't post to drop into the post-monster-actions group, but that's about it. But then nobody really fine-tunes or messes with initiative using stuff like Inhibit or Incite, so there aren't many big edge cases to deal with. We'll see how that goes.

Pelle
2020-12-04, 03:50 AM
You also have the bag of tokens initiative of TROIKA!. It's more or less assemble two tokens per participant plus a special token in a bag. The GM draws randomly from it, and the token drawn gets a turn. Keep on drawing until you hit the special one, then all token goes back into the bag.

Good: You never know who's turn it is next, that can be exciting.
Bad: You may never get a turn. However, if a character doesn't get to act for a long while, that represents hesitation, cowardness etc.

Alteiner
2020-12-04, 01:56 PM
I'm pretty fond of how Lancer does initiative, wherein a PC (decided either among the party or by the GM) always acts first, followed by a hostile, followed by another PC nominated by the player who went last, rinse and repeat until one side runs out of turns, whereupon the remaining characters take their turns in whatever order their controllers want, at which point the next round starts. It keeps things active and variable and, more the point, allows the players much more agency in making plans than a randomized initiative system.

Yora
2020-12-04, 03:06 PM
So… what's it good / bad for? (Other than "bad for spotlight hogging" for the particular implementation where there is no limit to number of actions one can take)

The benefit I see with "no initiative" and NPC actions being reactions to PC actions is that a situation can be addressed by the characters for which it is dramatically fitting. In a system with individual initiative, you often get situations where all characters get a turn, but only two or three of the characters are actually contributing meaningfully. A good example is the low-level D&D wizard who says "well, I guess I'll use my crossbow again" every round. (Admittedly an extreme case, but similar things happen often enough.)
An important thing about Apocalypse World and its many descendants is that the system does not really differentiate between combat and non-combat situations or abilities. You simply have scenes in which all characters who are present can decide to declare they are making a move and exposing themselves to receiving a reaction from an NPC, creature, or the environment.

A nice thing about all of this is that it is much more open to party members with no meaningful combat abilities at all. It is already assumed that not all characters will be contributing equally (or at all) in every single scene. You might have a scene where PC #1 steps forward to negotiate with hostile NPCs, making several moves and rolls in a row to deal with the situation. Then when the talk breaks down and blades are drawn, PCs #2 and #3 are doing several combat moves. And then maybe at some point PC #4 interrupts to declare that he uses to confusion to sneak behind the enemies to lock the door and prevent reinforcements to get into the room.

Another thing that this shares with all systems that don't have a fixed initiative number for every PC is that you get a much faster flow of combat. You don't have one player taking a minute deciding on a move while all other players are waiting to see what he does before the next player can start taking a minute to think about his turn. As soon as any of the players at the table has an idea for something to do next, you go with that.
As I mentioned, it does require that the GM is actively monitoring which players might want to declare an action and waiting for an opportunity to speak. But I think that's just good practice in general.

KaussH
2020-12-04, 04:57 PM
I have only gotten to read it but.. clockwork dominion uses + and - for initiative cards but... you can also do stuff like cash cards to "seize the moment" (go now) or respond to an attacker.

Dienekes
2020-12-05, 10:20 AM
Riddle of Steel kind of has two, one actually called Initiative and the other closer to what everyone means by initiative.

When combat starts everyone breaks off into what I’ll call pods of combat. If your team of 4 are facing off against an enemy of 10 the GM says where these ten are running to engage whom. Maybe two groups of three are fighting two of your team, and the last four split up between the last two.

All these pods are presumed to be fighting at the same time. Order does not matter, the GM just goes down the list in any order.

Within each pod what the game calls Initiative is determined the first round. Everyone takes a colored dice and reveals it simultaneously to determine if you’re being aggressive, defensive, or neutral. Everyone who rolled aggressive makes attacks, everyone who rolled defensive makes defenses, neutral can do either but not as well. Everyone rolls their attacks and defenses simultaneously. It is very possible for two aggressive opponents to hit and potentially kill each other. If an opponent is hit they lose initiative and must be defensive on the next round. If your defense is very good you gain Initiative and can be offensive on the next round. If you are aggressive but see a change in the wind heading your way, you can choose to be defensive next round.

Stuff that effects multiple pods takes effect at the end of all pods turns.

It’s pretty fun. But by its nature it relies far more on tactics being taken ahead of the combat rather than within. Not that there aren’t ways to mess with other pods of combat, or break up pods completely. But there’s a good chance once you get in your pod, you’re fighting for your life until you beat your opponent or one of your allies rushes in to attack opponents in your pod and essentially create a new pod with them.

It took some getting used to, but it turned out to be very fun and fast once you got the hang of it. All the GM needs to do is keep track of who’s fighting whom and the rest pretty much flows from there.

SwordCoastTaxi
2020-12-05, 02:57 PM
IMO the less time is spend worrying/calculating about initiative, the better. The fewer things slowing down combat the better.
+10 This.

It's why I haven't found an initiative rule better than GURPS 4e (highest Speed scores go first).

Vahnavoi
2020-12-05, 06:00 PM
Let me add a few others that I've seen in convention minigames:

Hands on deck: when initiative is called, players have to touch a card or spot at the table. Whoever makes it first, acts first.

Jungle Dash: as the party game. There is a totem at the middle of the table. Whenever initiative is called, whoever grabs the totem has initiative. If the totem is lost or two players end up wrestling over it, their characters are out of action until totem is restored to the table.

Of course, with both versions, players can try to be civil about it and agree who touches the deck or grabs the totem... but if they're taking too much time, the GM can sneakily touch the deck or take the totem and then enemies have initiative.

These systems trade away mathematical modelling and computation of character abilities in favor of speed of resolution and the players paying attention to what happens in the game. No toilet breaks during combat. :smalltongue:

A concept related to initiative but not quite it, is timed turns. Player has limited amount of real time to decide on action. If valid action is not declared, character does not act and turn is passed to next in line. Obviously the point is to keep turns from lasting forever. Time given to a player may be tied to character ability (player of a character in advantaged position gets more time, player of disadvantaged character gets less) .

EDIT:

There's also "BANG! You're dead!" initiative where, when initiative is called, you grab a toy gun or pretend to shoot at target, usually while target is doing the same. Fastest draw wins.

Grod_The_Giant
2020-12-05, 07:15 PM
There's also "BANG! You're dead!" initiative where, when initiative is called, you grab a toy gun or pretend to shoot at target, usually while target is doing the same. Fastest draw wins.
I want to use that for a Deadlands game.

Ignimortis
2020-12-05, 11:35 PM
No discussion of initiative is completed without mentioning Exalted 3e's take on it--namely, combining it with plot-armor-hit-points and killing power. The key is that there are two kinds of attacks, withering and decisive.

Withering attacks don't touch your foe's health track--instead, they steal initiative. If I hit you for 10 damage with a withering attack, my Initiative goes up by 11 and yours goes down by 10. If it's reduced below zero, I get bonus initiative and you take some extra penalties. Weapon damage and armor-based soak both factor into withering attacks. In fiction, they're lethal attacks aimed to kill... but mechanically, they translate into glancing blows, knocking your foe off balance, all the other sorts of stuff that non-meat-based hit points normally imply.
Decisive attacks represent the hits that actually draw blood. Unlike withering attacks, weapons and armor don't matter here. If you hit, you roll damage dice equal to your current Initiative, then reset to 3.

It turns initiative from a simple "who goes first" to a broader measure of "who's dominating the fight right now." It's intentionally swingy--rolling well on Join Battle lets you launch a nasty alpha strike right off the bad, and if you knock an opponent from higher ini than yours to lower you effectively go twice in a row... but after making a decisive you're left extremely vulnerable-- and it can be a pain to track without some sort of assistance*. But it's a really cool way of mixing meat-hit-points and plot-armor-hit-points, and it makes combat hella dynamic.

It's also basically Dissidia Final Fantasy in a nutshell. When I've read the text, I understood it perfectly the first time around, simply because I've played a ton of Dissidia (and I think it's referenced in the book somewhere). Steal Bravery with normal attacks (and you get a bonus if you Break them, i.e. reduce Bravery to zero), line up an HP attack, which deals damage equal to your current Bravery (and ignores any sort of defense outside of dodging, even breaks blocks), but be careful, because that resets your own Bravery to 0 and it'll take a few seconds to regenerate to your base value - unless you land some more Bravery attacks and get more yourself.
------------------------------------------
Personally, I like Shadowrun's wonky initiative. It's hell to track (though 4e's variant is probably the easiest), but I just can't see a way to let fast characters both feel fast, make it fair (so that high initiative characters don't just take 3 actions before anyone else and kill the whole room) and also make an initiative system resolve easily (if you know of any, let me know).

olskool
2020-12-15, 07:25 PM
Prefer the MYTHRAS system originally used by The Design Mechanism in RuneQuest 6.

You roll for Initiative and rank scores from highest to lowest. In my system, I give everyone 3 ACTIONS (MYTHRAS allows for variable numbers of ACTIONS based on a PC's stats). EACH person takes ONE ACTION from highest to lowest until EVERYONE has taken an Action. Then, everyone takes their second ACTION from fastest to slowest. Finally, everyone takes their third (and final) ACTION from highest to lowest. The round is now over. I simply treat each "Action pass" (the order everyone acts in) as a sort of "mini round."

Faily
2020-12-15, 09:03 PM
I prefer the cenimatic feel of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars. Each unit or minion group rolls initiative similar to D&D. Start at the top of the order. But instead of the person who rolled a 3 going on 3 one person who hasn't gone this round on the same side of combat goes. So order of combat is fixed allowing the table to get into a rythem but who is acting at that moment is not fixed.

A scoundral could have a good initiative roll but decide to let the bounty hunter go first even though they rolled the worst init in the whole combat.

The jedi went in the last slot in the previous round and goes again at the top of the next!

As combatants drop the worst init slot on their side goes away.

Likewise, I really like FFG Star Wars' initiative system. It gives a layer of tactical decisions to initiative from the players (and bypasses the "I'll delay until after X" from 3.5/PF, since you can just let someone else go that turn instead).

It also works really well for Play-by-post format, because then combat can keep moving as players can take the next PC initiative slot as they're online, rather than having to wait for their turn.