Interesting alternatives to initiative order turns?

[Ancient History]

Mr. Cavern sets a timer and all players submit their actions on pieces of paper, Jeopardy-style. Actions resolve simultaneously.

[JonSetanta]

Can someone give me a run down on why rolling initiative every round is a bad idea, please? The current Pathfinder game I'm in uses this as a house rule.

Sure. It wastes real time recalculating turn order.

Did that 15 years ago in AD&D as an experiment. Stupid then, stupid now.

[Stubbazubba]

Yeah, as sigma said, it's adding a lot of time for every round of resolution. Unless you've got some really awesome mechanics that manipulate that, it'll never be worth it.

[TOZ]

I guess it hasn't been a problem since we have a six hour block for sessions, so we don't stress about packing enough in.

[JonSetanta]

I guess it hasn't been a problem since we have a six hour block for sessions, so we don't stress about packing enough in.

You son of a bitch... I'm lucky if I get more than an hour every few months.

[TOZ]

Why do you think I'm putting up with a Pathfinder game? My 3.5 game is limited to 3 hours.

[Bihlbo]

We've tried the option of group initiative, where every PC gets to act when it's the PCs' turn, and actions are simultaneous. The problem with it that no one wants to let someone else change their character's actions, but this is just unavoidable. Either one of the players is like me and tactically plans out all of the actions for the whole group and then makes a case for a brilliant plan, or someone decides their action is most important, goes first, and changes the possible actions of someone else - a problem because there is no objective way to have determined which of the two should have gone before the other.

We concluded it sucks and went back to individual initiative rolls, but we were still frustrated by it. I think a more realistic turn order mechanic (i.e. one that creates greater immersion and facilitates RP) would be best for our group, but I haven't found the right one.

[TOZ]

I tried group initiatives for my group and they were too uncoordinated to handle deciding who goes when amongst themselves. So I went back to dictating the order based of of their die rolls like normal. Blech.

[...You Lost Me]

I tried ModelCitizen's proposition. Blew my mind.

The system encourages (or at least for our group it encouraged) sending the tank up the biggest danger and smacking it, then having the rest of the party focus down the biggest danger after its initiative pass ends because he can only pass to his minions. I resolved this by making the bad guy have multiple turns, so initiative could be passed to him several times. It made combat more... thoughtful.

Also, group chants and stuff work better (like the shocker lizard thing), because each one can devote its action to producing the effect, and then pass initiative to another one devoting itself to produce the effect. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

Anyhow, I recommend the system. YMMV of course.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm looking for interesting alternatives to modern D&D's "roll initiative, act in order".

There aren't any, at least if you mean 'not-fucked up AND of theoretical interest'. It's like asking for an interesting alternative to each player having a hold of at least one PC. You can come up with theoretical alternatives (two people control one PC), but as far as there being something you could use as-is and have it be situationally -- let alone generically -- superior? There ain't any. You can do minor theoretical tweaks such as 'highest roll goes first, then roll to see what direction the next turn counter goes' or 'reroll initiative every round' (which I very highly disapprove of) but if you want to maximize speed, fairness, predictability, transparency, and player interest that's honestly the best you can do.

Let me ask you this: why do you think that people have rolled sequential initiative in the first place?

[ModelCitizen]

I tried ModelCitizen's proposition. Blew my mind.

The system encourages (or at least for our group it encouraged) sending the tank up the biggest danger and smacking it, then having the rest of the party focus down the biggest danger after its initiative pass ends because he can only pass to his minions. I resolved this by making the bad guy have multiple turns, so initiative could be passed to him several times. It made combat more... thoughtful.

Also, group chants and stuff work better (like the shocker lizard thing), because each one can devote its action to producing the effect, and then pass initiative to another one devoting itself to produce the effect. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

Anyhow, I recommend the system. YMMV of course.

Awesome.

Mind describing that first fight though? All other factors being equal, assist-training the boss should create the best possible turn order for the monsters. The boss goes first and then the rest go in an order the DM chooses. Was there something else going on that made it useful to force the boss to go early?

Can someone give me a run down on why rolling initiative every round is a bad idea, please? The current Pathfinder game I'm in uses this as a house rule.

Sure. It wastes real time recalculating turn order.

Did that 15 years ago in AD&D as an experiment. Stupid then, stupid now.

It also creates a block of two back-to-back actions when a character loses and then wins initiative, which rewards losing initiative in a weird counter-intuitive way.

The problem is really easy to see in the original Fallout games. Boot up Fallout 1 or 2, grab a pile of stimpaks, and try to fight mobs that can kill you in two rounds. As long as you keep losing initiative you can heal to full and attack every round, but as soon as you win one round and then lose the next the mobs get two actions with no chance to stim in between and you die.

[TOZ]

I have determined that the best way to handle this initiative system is to hold action and go last every round, so that I will never get hit with back to back enemy actions. Basically making it a rule that 'I always lose initiative'.

[Blade]

I've been toying with the use of a "D2 system", using "success" and "no success" tokens (you can use playing cards, and consider that red cars are "success" and black are "no-success" for example), and a threshold to reach.

Players declare their actions for the turn and put the correponding tokens in front of them. For example :
- action one: I shoot bad guy 1, I've got shooting a pool of 7, so I put 7 tokens for that action.
- action two: I shoot bad guy 2, I've got a shooting pool of 5 (there's a -2 for changing target) so I put 5 tokens for that action.

Once everybody is ready (or action declaration phase is over, if you use a timer), the GM calls the actions one after the other, and they're resolved simultaneously. If something can't go as planned, the player can switch his action for another one but loses token in the process and modifiers can be applied to following actions (if I'm hit during action 1, I'll remove tokens from my second action).

Pools are also used for "reactive" actions (dodging/soaking and so on).

I still have to work on how to make action switching go smoothly and other details like that, but it has the advantage of not slowing down the resolution process with pool calculation and dice rolls.

[mean_liar]

Here's one to try: Simultaneous Resolution. Like in diplomacy, or in Mafia. Everyone submits their actions all at once on slips of paper and then the DM resolves what happened that turn.

This is similar to my favorite turn-order system from Street Fighter: the Storytelling Game.

Play cards, in secret, with Speeds.

Lowest Speed goes first (by oral count-up: -5 Speed? No? -4 Speed? Yes? Go), revealing their action

Higher Speeds can interrupt lower Speeds (and even higher Speeds interrupt them), revealing their action

Revealed actions resolve in descending Speeds

Resume counting-up of Speed

[...You Lost Me]

Awesome.

Mind describing that first fight though? All other factors being equal, assist-training the boss should create the best possible turn order for the monsters. The boss goes first and then the rest go in an order the DM chooses. Was there something else going on that made it useful to force the boss to go early?

Well the party hung back while the tank went up to the big boss, and targeted him. This passed initiative to the boss, and he only could get a good target out of the tank (the rest of the party was away and split up), so he either could take a non-offense action (which is generally bad because I make my big bosses into huge damage dealers) or not get a full attack OR take an AoO or two or three (the knight loved this) to get in range.

Then, the boss has finished his turn, and the players get in range and fire off their abilities one at a time. Each time, the boss has to transfer to a minion who generally attacks something close (a player), which transfers initiative to them again until the party finishes. In round 2, that strategy is gone.

[ModelCitizen]

I'd actually call that a feature. The fighter grabbing aggro by running in first is how it's theoretically supposed to work.

I could see giving boss monsters multiple turns per round though, especially if the extra turns had some kind of global limit on repeating actions or repeating targets. I don't want a dragon using its four turns to bite the rogue four times, but I could see giving it one real turn and then a bunch of other limited turns for claws and tailslaps and defensive spells.

[OgreBattle]

ModelCitizen, I'll have to try your idea out. It flows in a way that seems sensible, like I can imagine every pass as a square in a page of manga.

Was this D&D3e? What system was it?
Were there also interrupt actions?

[tenuki]

ModelCitizen, I'll have to try your idea out.

Plus fucking one. It totally takes a huge step back from realistic simulation, but it looks like it's awesome to narrate.

[ModelCitizen]

Was this D&D3e? What system was it?
Were there also interrupt actions?

I've never actually played with this idea, I can't get a game together to save my life anymore. My intent was that that it would work in D&D though. For 3e you'd have to fiddle with how you track 1-round durations, and you'd have to use the "included in the attack" logic from 4e marking instead of the strict definition of "target," but I wasn't thinking you'd have to remove AoOs.

[Neurosis]

A science fiction ruleset (focusing on vehicle combat) that I'm working on right now uses a system I think is subtly unique, although inspired by the 1st-3rd editions of Shadowrun.

Basically you roll and total a variable number of d6 (whole game uses only and solely d6; mechanical theme in ALMOST ALL of my work) and possibly a modifier. Then you act from highest to lowest in order; nothing revolutionary yet. Then you subtract a number from everyone's initiative, and all of those with a positive value remaining act in order from highest to lowest. Again, nothing new: for those of you paying attention, you've just heard me describe Shadowrun's initiative system for every edition except 4th.

The big difference here: the number you subtract from your initiative is NOT fixed for everyone. Instead, the number you subtract (called your ReAct value) is determined by the handling of the vehicle you're in, how juiced your nervous system is, etcetera, etcetera. So even if both roll an initiative of 59 for some reason, a hover tank with a ReAct of -30 gets to act twice (on 59 and on 29), while a supersonic interceptor fighter plane with a ReAct of -10 gets to act six times; on 59, on 49, on 39, on 29, on 19, and on 9. The rest of the systems in the game support this, with starship combat actually having a delay in initiative ticks between projectile weapons are fired and when they arrive on target, giving point defense gunners a chance to shoot them down.

---Why Rolling Initiative Ever Round Is A Bad Idea---
It takes IRL time, which to me is a resource that is always, always in short supply when gaming. Therefore I never do it.