Alternative initiative system, any experience?

[Miele]

I would like to try a different system for initiative, and I was going to give a try to a tick system, where there are no rounds but a constantly flowing battle.
I would like to hear if you tried such a system or other variations on the default one and what's your experience with it.
My goal is to make combat more dynamic and less predictable, even if a tad more complex to manage.

[Eldariel]

I play with simultaneous Initiative. Basically, we go around the board and everyone declares their action. Then actions are resolved simultaneously: Initiative-checks are tiebreakers in cases where it might matter (e.g. if a hit kills the other party, it's relevant who attacks first, and if an attack would disrupt a spell [in my games, all spellcasting is subject to being disrupted by being damaged], Initiative-check of course determines, whether the spell goes before the attack), but they aren't often necessary, which keeps it fluid.

The things I like about this:
- Artificial movement is gone. People move at the same time so you can't do stupid stuff like walk away from a guy and then cast/attack with a bow: having a melee guy in your face is actually a relevant problem that might prompt you to switch to melee.
- You can't bypass people who try to block you. This makes "bodyblocking" extremely functional.
- Rounds are dynamic: there's no fixed order so you can't actually know whether you'll make it before the enemy.
- Initiative is somewhat more balanced. Winning Initiative is no longer comparable to an extra turn - Alert is still good but no longer insane.
- It keeps everyone engaged. There's no "I wait while this guy plays their turn" - the action declaration round is quick and then everyone is basically acting at the same time (I usually have players roll all relevant rolls during action declaration and then we process those rolls as the action is processed in the round).

I've played with both, new and veteran players and it seems to work for both (though of course, new players need more help with their action options and declaration).

[Laserlight]

As I recall Feng Shui 2 has a tick system. You might start at Initiative 12 or 15, say, and then each standard action costs 3, minor actions cost 1, and you're counting down to the end of the round. There might be a die roll to determine whether end of round is 0, 1, or 2. I haven't played it.

Champions has 12 segments and the number of times you act is based on your Speed, usually 3 to 6. So your lumbering Speed 3 tank would act on segments 4 8 12, your Speed 6 martial artist would act on 2 4 6 8 10 and 12. You can spend your next action early to make a defensive move. For example, someone throws an Area Effect attack on the tank on Segment 5, he can give up his segment 8 to dive for cover right then.

[Keravath]

I play with simultaneous Initiative. Basically, we go around the board and everyone declares their action. Then actions are resolved simultaneously: Initiative-checks are tiebreakers in cases where it might matter (e.g. if a hit kills the other party, it's relevant who attacks first, and if an attack would disrupt a spell [in my games, all spellcasting is subject to being disrupted by being damaged], Initiative-check of course determines, whether the spell goes before the attack), but they aren't often necessary, which keeps it fluid.

The things I like about this:
- Artificial movement is gone. People move at the same time so you can't do stupid stuff like walk away from a guy and then cast/attack with a bow: having a melee guy in your face is actually a relevant problem that might prompt you to switch to melee.
- You can't bypass people who try to block you. This makes "bodyblocking" extremely functional.
- Rounds are dynamic: there's no fixed order so you can't actually know whether you'll make it before the enemy.
- Initiative is somewhat more balanced. Winning Initiative is no longer comparable to an extra turn - Alert is still good but no longer insane.
- It keeps everyone engaged. There's no "I wait while this guy plays their turn" - the action declaration round is quick and then everyone is basically acting at the same time (I usually have players roll all relevant rolls during action declaration and then we process those rolls as the action is processed in the round).

I've played with both, new and veteran players and it seems to work for both (though of course, new players need more help with their action options and declaration).

Just curious how you resolve movement.

An attacker trying to run around a defender for example. If the attacker moves first they can get past or force the defender back. If the defender moves first, they don't know where the attacker is going so stay in place. If you try to move them at the same time, they both end up in the same space so you end up having to decide who goes first anyway.

Simple instructions like chasing seem fine but if you try to run up to someone to attack them and they just increase the range at the same time (perhaps by saying they keep their distance from target X) then you can't close without dashing. A rogue with cunning action dash can always kite their opponent since even taking the dash action they will never get close enough for melee.

How do you handle characters with the mobile feat that would run in and move away? Seems unlikely to work since the target seems likely to chase.

If a character stands still for one of their movements is it lost? They have 30' of movement but don't move on the first round of moves - do they only have 25' left?

How do you handle characters with more movement. Mobile has 40'. A monk or barbarian could be 40, 45, 50+ or more. A character with boots of speed or haste would be even faster. Do they move extra squares on certain turns? Presumably the faster character could move away from an adjacent target then first a ranged weapon at them.

Simultaneous resolution seems to be far more complicated with many more situations that would required rulings and judgement calls.

[Selion]

I would like to try a different system for initiative, and I was going to give a try to a tick system, where there are no rounds but a constantly flowing battle.
I would like to hear if you tried such a system or other variations on the default one and what's your experience with it.
My goal is to make combat more dynamic and less predictable, even if a tad more complex to manage.

If anyone comes with something nice i would welcome it :D
In a PBF game I'm playing the strict initiative order produces issues if players are not quick on their posts, right now we are playing with initiative blocks, if a block of allies is acting before enemies, they can change their order (and even build strategic plays using the new order).
example:
enemy 1
player 1
player 2
enemy 2
player 3
player 4

The way we play is that player 4 can post before player 3, swapping their initiative, but not before player 2, because there is a block of enemies in between

Also, in previous editions there was rules like delaying initiative (meaning lowering purposely your initiative to change order within the party without affecting the enemy initiative), which, in my knowledge, has disappeared in 5th edition, i think it promoted tactical play.

EDIT: example

[Greywander]

I play with simultaneous Initiative. Basically, we go around the board and everyone declares their action. Then actions are resolved simultaneously:

Just curious how you resolve movement.
I was curious about this as well. I've thought about how simultaneous turns would work before, and for movement the best I could come up with was a "location smear", where you're treated as if you occupied every space you moved through on that round. This way, if you're within 5 feet of a creature at any point during your movement (more specifically, if your location smear is within 5 feet of their location smear), they can make a melee attack against you. If you move from cover to cover, someone would be able to make a ranged attack against you. This could lead to declaring actions based on how you anticipate the enemy moving, which might be foiled if they don't move as expected. I'd probably allow players and monsters to use a reaction to change a declared action that hasn't resolved yet.


If a character stands still for one of their movements is it lost? They have 30' of movement but don't move on the first round of moves - do they only have 25' left?
My understanding was that you would declare all of your actions for the round, including movement. So if you don't move on a round, you would lose all your movement for that round. I might have misunderstood how they're handling it, though.

[MrStabby]

I have just one tiny thing that I have done to adjust initiative - but it has worked really well (though a little bit fiddly).

This is when reinforcements arrive.

Previously, I ran that potential reinforcements rolled initiative as normal, took their turns as normal and so could round a corner and immediately throw a fireball and the party would have no chance to react. This gave a massive advantage to anyone joining in (including PCs - if a fight kicked off with some of the party out of the room then this would apply to them).

The rule is storing initiative rolls for the fight. When new combatants join the fight, they roll initiative as well then. Compare how many enemies in the fight had a higher initiative roll than them and then count that many enemy turns from the point that they enter. This is their point in initiative order.

So if there are 5 PCs in a fight and someone unlocks a door or something such that enemies can now enter then those new enemies will roll initiative. If they rolled higher than 3 of the PCs then you would find the initiative score just after the next two PCs turns end, then put them in initiative there.

The things I like about this is that initiative still matters and captures not just speed of action at the start of combat but also the whole group's ability to respond to changing circumstances. It also gives the party (usually) some limited ability to respond to arrivals so glass cannon reinforcements don't just wreck the party and vice versa.

Not a big contribution, but I thought I would throw it in.

[EggKookoo]

I let players use passive initiative -- 10 + dex (and any other mods). They can still roll if they want to, but they all like this rule. It saves a lot of time. I still tend to roll NPC init, but I'll usually pre-roll a bunch of results and cross them off a list as they're consumed.

If two or more allied creatures are grouped/clustered in sequence without a hostile creature's turn happening in between, I allow the characters to sync up their actions. This basically means they may treat their turns as a single combined turn, including rearranging the order of their actions or even interleaving them (rogue moves to an enemy, paladin moves to flank the same enemy, rogue attacks taking advantage of the paladin's position, etc.). It encourages tactical planning between players.

I'm toying with the idea that if a creature makes an OA against someone that is currently "synced" with an ally, that ally can burn a reaction to distract the first creature and impose disadvantage on the OA. Not sure if I like it yet, I'll have to playtest it.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I have unsuccessfully tried synchronization of effort as follows:

Team initiative, everyone rolls initiative, but the team determines who acts first, next, etc. The numbers rolled are redistributed according to the team's action list, the highest going to the party member supposed to act first, and so forth.

Yes, I know...initiative abilities of one character benefit another character. But the PARTY benefits from the fast action, which is what I'm focused on. Because I want my PARTY to think about how they should fight together, which job each have in a fight, and how to do that job best. It ceases to be just me myself on my turn whenever I get my turn and tuned out when it's not my turn.

Monster initiative by type is mixed in, and is not organized intelligently. I assume unless you are up against hobgoblins, you have spent more time thinking about fighting together.

[Person_Man]

I use team initiative. Whichever team started combat (players or enemies) go first in whatever order they prefer. We only role initiative if the players literally stumble on the enemies and both groups are unaware of the others presence, or in situations where combat just randomly breaks out like a barroom brawl.

Makes combat much faster and more enjoyable, much easier to balance how many enemies there should be, much easier to coordinate combos and Sneak Attack and Aura use, etc. I highly recommend it.

[Talamare]

Not exactly 'alternate'

but I often play with player only initiative, and monsters go whenever I feel like it

[Kurt Kurageous]

I use team initiative. Whichever team started combat (players or enemies) go first in whatever order they prefer. We only role initiative if the players literally stumble on the enemies and both groups are unaware of the others presence, or in situations where combat just randomly breaks out like a barroom brawl.

Makes combat much faster and more enjoyable, much easier to balance how many enemies there should be, much easier to coordinate combos and Sneak Attack and Aura use, etc. I highly recommend it.

This is great. You don't have a transition time (ok roll initiative, get the results, rank the results), you just begin it. Helps make combat exciting again because it's sudden.

Only tradeoff downside is class/race features that bonus initiative don't get as much use. YMMV

[MrStabby]

Not exactly 'alternate'

but I often play with player only initiative, and monsters go whenever I feel like it

That does remind me - I play with only the PCs roll. NPCs go at initiative of 10+bonuses. This gives a little variance, but I can still have a little bit of control over sequencing. Also, its quicker.

[sithlordnergal]

I don't really mess with initiative very much. If there are a lot of NPC mooks, I'll do a group roll for them, but if there aren't that many NPCs then they each have their own roll.

[da newt]

As DM I assign badguy initiatives as I see fit (sometimes based on narrative or my preference, sometimes based on passive Dex), and I often group the badguys if it seems 'right' - it's pretty much just a SWAG, but I make sure to reward the PC's with really high initiative and go before the lows ...

I'd like to do more group initiative, but I also really like specific map grid combat, so i'm not sure if I can do both well. I'd like to mess with team good guy declares actions, resolve all good guy things, team bad guy declares, then resolve, etc - something to try to keep it dynamic and engaging, but I haven't experimented with it yet to see how to make it work in practice.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

We did try simultaneous actions in one campaign, but as characters leveled and got more abilities, and monsters gained things like lair and legendary actions we just found there were too many parts of 5e that were designed for 'batting order' combat. So, we gave it up.

We do currently us the default system but have eliminated the Dex adjustment.

[TaiLiu]

It was a different edition, but I used a variant of group initiative. Whoever has the highest Initiative on each side rolls. The side that wins initiative goes first. This saved time: there are only two rolls, and we didn't have calculate averages or anything.


I play with simultaneous Initiative. Basically, we go around the board and everyone declares their action.
I've thought about this variant before. As the DM, do you declare the foe's actions before or after the players? It seems like declaring them beforehand would give the players foreknowledge of enemy actions, while declaring them afterward would give the DM foreknowledge of PC actions.

[PhantomSoul]

I'm curious about this tick system! (And separately love the idea of a more subdivided round, though musings and thought experiments there can run into issues even if they have some lovely possibilities.)

For most of my groups it's been plain Initiative, but in 1.5 cases (one campaign I DMed and a campaign in which I was a player) we had variable Initiative, so Players rolled Initiative as usual the first Round and you went in regular Turn Order, but there was a small (random) boost across rounds. I probably wouldn't do that if everyone were rolling Round after Round, but it was fun with a script automating (a) all Monster Initiative [plus Monster HP tracking], and (b) Player Initiative after Round 1. It was incremental (adds you your previous Round's total), so a good starting Roll is likely to carry you a bit, but you could basically split "acts first, stays fast", "acts first and slows", "acts later and speeds up" and "acts later and stays slower". Not perfect, but the concept worked well and it was great for adding some limited uncertainty across Rounds and we definitely got to enjoy going "OH NO THEY'VE PULLED AHEAD" or "YES, I BEAT X". (It also fit into a broader system used for other things, which is nice.)

The one exception is duels in some groups have had Initiative Rolled each Round, but then there are only two to manage.

[greenstone]

I've used speed factor initiative (from the DMG) and popcorn initiative (from AngryGM) with D&D 5E. I liked them both, my players didn't.

Speed factor initiative had the advantage that the players all discussed tactics, then all declared actions. Overall, it sped up combat but my players felt that it seemd slower (not sure why, we couldn't pin it down).

The reason it actually sped up is that most of my players likie discussing tactics on their turn. So, player 1 goes, has a discussion, then declares and resolves their actions. Player 2 goes, and starts with a little discussion, often repeating discussion that happened on player 1's turn. Then the same for player 3, then player 4, and so on. Of course, all the players also ask the same questions on their turns ("which foe is wounded most?", "has the enemy mage used a reaction?") because they have the memory of a turnip.

With speed factor, the GM describes the situation once, all the players discuss tactics once, then everyone declares actions and then everyone resolves actions.

The big reason that most players didn't like it was that sometimes you missed your action (for example, you declare an attack on a foe but they declare a move and you end up with no-one to attack) and wasting your turn is apparantly the worst most heinous horrible sin in the entire universe. No, I'm not exaggerating - a couple of my players said losing their declared actions was a deal-breaker, that they would leave games over it.

Popcorn initiative was fun, but my players suffered from lack of decision making when deciding who goes next, which did make combats slower. It also did not play well with all of 5E's features that end on the start or end of someone's next turn.

We tried a few sessions with each, then had a good long discussion, and we've compromised by gone back to vanilla 5E initiative - roll once at the start of the encounter.

[Eldariel]

Just curious how you resolve movement.

Generally things that don't have to move get their actions off before those that have to move. So if we have an archer attacking a swordsman 30' away, the archer is going to get their attack off before the swordsman but both will be able to do it in the same round.


An attacker trying to run around a defender for example. If the attacker moves first they can get past or force the defender back. If the defender moves first, they don't know where the attacker is going so stay in place. If you try to move them at the same time, they both end up in the same space so you end up having to decide who goes first anyway.

Defender and attacker move simultaneously; they can't enter the same space. Bypassing someone is an Acrobatics check (opposed by enemy Athletics or Acrobatics), overrunning someone an Athletics check (opposed by enemy Athletics or Acrobatics).


Simple instructions like chasing seem fine but if you try to run up to someone to attack them and they just increase the range at the same time (perhaps by saying they keep their distance from target X) then you can't close without dashing. A rogue with cunning action dash can always kite their opponent since even taking the dash action they will never get close enough for melee.

Rogue Dashing to maintain distance is basically identical to normal rules, with the exception that the Rogue doesn't necessarily have to go first. But that's perfectly functional, yeah.


How do you handle characters with the mobile feat that would run in and move away? Seems unlikely to work since the target seems likely to chase.
9i
Yeah, it would likely not work except with perhaps reach weapons; in most cases it would be possible to close in if the defender wanted to (unless they're like 10' away and attack with a reach weapon and want to get 35' away; in that case I would have them roll opposed Initiative to see whether the kitée gets hit). Mobile would, however, still let them get away with no OA in either case.


If a character stands still for one of their movements is it lost? They have 30' of movement but don't move on the first round of moves - do they only have 25' left?

I basically let them have their full movement if they volitionally choose to go after someone; it would be too much of a hack to implement combat rounds that would enable splitting movement and such. It's not perfect but it works. That said, I rarely run into "I stand still for a while and then move" so I haven't really had to


How do you handle characters with more movement. Mobile has 40'. A monk or barbarian could be 40, 45, 50+ or more. A character with boots of speed or haste would be even faster. Do they move extra squares on certain turns? Presumably the faster character could move away from an adjacent target then first a ranged weapon at them.

Basically, they just move faster. There's nothing much to it. Like a Goblin tries to run away or reach the PCs: a normal PC would have trouble catching it (ultimately Con-based checks for determining endurance) but a Monk or a Barbarian could do so fairly trivially; they just move faster (in my rules, each point of Str above 10 gives you 1' of movement speed so that also helps). Indeed, it's possible to take distance and shoot if your speed advantage is sufficient. I would call for an Initiative contest if they're close enough to the baddie that they could reasonably get a hit off before the speedster manages to take distance


Simultaneous resolution seems to be far more complicated with many more situations that would required rulings and judgement calls.

In practice, it's pretty easy to run. Though yes, it's a bit different. In general you can just ask yourself "How would this work in reality?" - the answer is probably fairly close to that. A fast guy and a slower guy fight - the fast guy always has the option of running away but as long as they want to keep engaged, both will be trading blows. If they're engaged and the fast guy wants to disengage, I use a certain old poster's rule that Disengaging merely halves your speed though - if a 40' character wants to take distance from a 30' one they will have to eat an OA for it (as with default rules). If the character is twice as fast as their enemy, well, that's life: said enemy better have ranged attacks or some hiding place or something.



I've thought about this variant before. As the DM, do you declare the foe's actions before or after the players? It seems like declaring them beforehand would give the players foreknowledge of enemy actions, while declaring them afterward would give the DM foreknowledge of PC actions.

A certain old poster had a system I quite liked for this: declaration is in Int order (so highest Int goes last, to represent quick wits). It's of course efficient to sit in Int order to make this natural too. I stole it.

[RSP]

Current table uses roll initiative each round, but it’s done auto by our VTT, so it’s smooth.

I like that you have to decide your turn without knowing exactly when everyone else will go, so it satisfies my desire to have initiative a little more dynamic and less predictable.

[TaiLiu]

A certain old poster had a system I quite liked for this: declaration is in Int order (so highest Int goes last, to represent quick wits). It's of course efficient to sit in Int order to make this natural too. I stole it.
Oh, smart. It's a little less efficient than just going in a circle, even if players sit in order, since enemies will have varying Intelligence scores. But it promotes a neglected stat (or at least the +int headband) and feels natural. That it gives Wizards a small combat bonus is welcome thematically, but unwelcome powerwise.

[MrStabby]

I've used speed factor initiative (from the DMG) and popcorn initiative (from AngryGM) with D&D 5E. I liked them both, my players didn't.

Speed factor initiative had the advantage that the players all discussed tactics, then all declared actions. Overall, it sped up combat but my players felt that it seemd slower (not sure why, we couldn't pin it down).

The reason it actually sped up is that most of my players likie discussing tactics on their turn. So, player 1 goes, has a discussion, then declares and resolves their actions. Player 2 goes, and starts with a little discussion, often repeating discussion that happened on player 1's turn. Then the same for player 3, then player 4, and so on. Of course, all the players also ask the same questions on their turns ("which foe is wounded most?", "has the enemy mage used a reaction?") because they have the memory of a turnip.

With speed factor, the GM describes the situation once, all the players discuss tactics once, then everyone declares actions and then everyone resolves actions.

The big reason that most players didn't like it was that sometimes you missed your action (for example, you declare an attack on a foe but they declare a move and you end up with no-one to attack) and wasting your turn is apparantly the worst most heinous horrible sin in the entire universe. No, I'm not exaggerating - a couple of my players said losing their declared actions was a deal-breaker, that they would leave games over it.

Popcorn initiative was fun, but my players suffered from lack of decision making when deciding who goes next, which did make combats slower. It also did not play well with all of 5E's features that end on the start or end of someone's next turn.

We tried a few sessions with each, then had a good long discussion, and we've compromised by gone back to vanilla 5E initiative - roll once at the start of the encounter.

I am honestly not getting your surprise that players that don't get to use their abilities get upset by that fact. No save, no way to avoid...

And for a player playing a melee enemy whose whole thing can be thwarted by an ability as ubiquitous as a movement speed, it would seem pretty reasonable thing to gripe about.

If a typical combat lasts 3 or 4 turns, and if melee PCs spend a turn closing with the enemy then losing an action to someone moving isn't a trivial loss at all. Sometimes as a player you do lose turns - you fail a save or something, but that's what options like counterspell or advancing by moving from cover to cover is for. Just straight up being denied your key abilities, potentially several times per session, would have me looking for a new DM as well.

[olskool]

I just use the Design Mechanism's ACTIONS system that they use in their MYTHRAS RPG. Mongoose Publishing's LEGEND uses a similar system. Everyone gets THREE ACTIONS. Each ACTION is, in essence, a "min-round" representing roughly (and I do mean roughly) two seconds of time in a 6-second combat round. Everyone declares their first ACTION (move, attack, drink a potion, etc...) and I go around the table resolving those ACTIONS until everyone has taken their first ACTION. Then the EFFECTS of that round of ACTIONS occur simultaneously for everyone. Yes, it is possible for two combatants to kill each other in any given ACTION phase. The second ACTION phase is then resolved, and finally, the third ACTION phase is taken. The Fighter's Action Surge occurs as a FOURTH ACTION, after everyone else has taken their three ACTIONS. The Rogue's Cunning Action is taken whenever they choose and can preempt the next ACTION coming up in a cycle. Spellcasters use a number of ACTIONS to cast a Spell based on the components of that Spell. Verbal components require 1 ACTION to cast, Somatic & Verbal Spells require 2 ACTIONS to cast, and Verbal, Somatic, & Material component Spells require 3 ACTIONS to cast. Since magic in 5e is so powerful, this is one way I balance out that power. My casters are going to spend their entire round casting their Spell. I do allow Eldrich Knights and anyone with the War Caster FEAT to use their REACTION to replace the ACTION required for a Verbal component. For the EK, this ability replaces their Action Surge (I do this because EKs are more powerful than your basic fighter type).

[Eldariel]

Oh, smart. It's a little less efficient than just going in a circle, even if players sit in order, since enemies will have varying Intelligence scores. But it promotes a neglected stat (or at least the +int headband) and feels natural. That it gives Wizards a small combat bonus is welcome thematically, but unwelcome powerwise.

Yeah, honestly since you have the players' Int scores (relatively) fixed, it's trivial to keep the declaration circle and then just input monsters where they go. Much more efficient than default Initiative, where you have to make a new order at the start of every encounter, at any rate. And yeah, it does buff Wizards, but honestly, they need to be fixed separately of Int.

[Person_Man]

Wow, lot of interesting and fairly complicated variants being used. I’m wondering how many of them work out in Theatre of the Mind play style, which is the default for many of us with the pandemic and Zoom D&D. Don’t get me wrong, I love miniatures and battle maps when I can use them. But perhaps some of these ideas might be better suited to turn based combat video games, where a computer could do all the crazy bookkeeping for the DM.

[KorvinStarmast]

NPCs go at initiative of 10+bonuses. I may go to this, thanks for the tip. :smallsmile:

[Oramac]

I don't know what it's officially called, but I've used what I call Modified Side Initiative.

Basically, all players roll initiative. Top two get their turns essentially at the same time, then a monster group* goes, then the next two players, then the next monster group, and so on.

Monster Group = all the zombie minions are one group. The Lich is another 'group'. The two death knights are the third group, and so on.

[MoiMagnus]

Wow, lot of interesting and fairly complicated variants being used. I’m wondering how many of them work out in Theatre of the Mind play style, which is the default for many of us with the pandemic and Zoom D&D. Don’t get me wrong, I love miniatures and battle maps when I can use them. But perhaps some of these ideas might be better suited to turn based combat video games, where a computer could do all the crazy bookkeeping for the DM.

While it's probably not the one you were referring to with "crazy bookkepping", simultaneous initiative works quite well in TotM. In particular, the main weakness of simultaneous initiative are already there because of TotM:

You're already using "fuzzy" positions that rely on GM's judgement to determine whether something is in range or not
The GM is likely already filling up how player actions resolve according to "what make senses" to him rather than a more boardgame approach with strict rules.
Following the two previous points, you've already filtered out players that fundamentally distaste this "fuzzy" way of playing D&D (e.g. players that have tendencies to not trust their GM).
The players are already constantly asking questions about the positions of the enemies, so the GM can easily add some information about the enemies' intentions when answering (which reduces the likelihood of one's player turn to be rendered useless). Typically, the GM can add "the monster is going toward you" or "the monster is trying to avoid you", which are informations that you can realistically "see" in advance and adapt to.

[Burley]

I've done it without rolling. Just asking "what's your initiative?" The Dex-based characters will likely go first, and then the wizard who took that initiative feat, then probably enemies, then the cleric and barbarian.

Its easier for everybody to plan around that and, after the first round, it plays like normal.

[Lokishade]

I play with simultaneous Initiative.

<snip>

I've played with both, new and veteran players and it seems to work for both (though of course, new players need more help with their action options and declaration).

How did you convince the veteran players to adopt this system?

When I saw it on Dungeoncraft, I was thrilled... only to get shot down by my players' unwillingness to even try it out in mock battles.

[Eldariel]

How did you convince the veteran players to adopt this system?

When I saw it on Dungeoncraft, I was thrilled... only to get shot down by my players' unwillingness to even try it out in mock battles.

Well, we'd played AD&D (and other systems) before so in a sense it was only back to the old. And OTOH we had a chat about the pros and cons of each system and we found we'd much rather have the cons of simultaneous than turn-based Initiative (turn-based causes lots of weird stuff like people being able to walk past each other uncontested, chases requiring a separate system, etc. and reduces player engagement out-of-turn; we found that simultaneous initiative is way more natural and efficient).