Quote from: RPGPundit;819652For D&D/OSR games: do you prefer to have group initiative? Individual? D20+dex? D6? D10?  Something else?

It's a mixed bag.

Group initiative tends to encourage teamwork, but it's significantly more time-consuming than individual initiative.

The difference is that with individual initiative I'm controlling the pace and can generally keep the table moving at a pretty good clip. With group initiative I end up with waffle from the players about whose action is going to resolve next.

For OD&D I used a phased group initiative, as described here. This was a nice compromise, although some players had a difficult time grokking it.

Quote from: Nerzenjäger;819667Roll a d6 for the whole group, then characters and foes alternate, beginning with a member of the group that won the initiative check. Who gets to act when in their respective group is up to them. All excess combatants act in a desired order until everybody got their turn. Roll for initiative again.

The Star Wars RPGs from FFG use a variant of that: Everybody roles individual initiative, but the resulting initiative slots belong to your "team".

It's interesting on paper. In practice it appears to be basically the worst of both worlds: Discourages teamwork because you're not taking actions at the same time, but has all the waffle of people deciding what order they're going to go in. It does provide an interesting strategic decision, but does so in a heavily dissociated way (much like MHR's hot potato initiative).

The Numenera variant is also interesting: Everybody rolls individual initiative. PCs who succeed on the initiative check all get an action. Then the NPCs go. And then you alternate groups.

There's also the systems where you announce your actions in reverse initiative order and then resolve them all simultaneously (with tie-breaking edges being given to the initiative winners).

The initiative system I use most often determines initiative by group, with all members of the winning side getting a +5 bonus to their "Strike Speed" which is loosely based on the Weapon Priority system from Judges Guild (most easily found on page 17 of the 2nd edition of the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets booklet published in 1978.  I then count down the Weapon Factors and characters/monsters act when their weapon factor comes up. It works somewhat like strike rank in Chaosium RQ 1/2. It players faster than it takes to describe it here once players are used to it.

I really like the initiative in Twilight 2000 2end, and Savage Worlds. I know SW with the cards is considered by some gimmicky, but I like it. I don't look at it as gimmicky as much as I look at as wargamey. Which is plenty fine for me.

Quote from: Bren;819738Why? it would seem to work better for large parties than for small parties. In my experience individual initiative is slower than group initiative for large parties since you have to go turn by turn and most players wait to roll or even think about what they are going to do until it is there turn.

With group initiative rolled each turn it is you often get on side acting twice in a row. With a large number of player/critters in play concentrated fire under those can be absolutely devastating.

The key here is "rolled again each turn". If you roll once for group initiative and keep going back and forward it doesn't matter so much.

I like "simultaneous moves" with phases such as:

1) Control & Morale
2) Ready Shots
3) Melee
4) Movement & Shooting (Lance charges at end)
5) Spells

Activating a ring or such: phase 2
Using a wand or such: as shooting
Scrolls: after spoken spells

Initiative factors are used as needed to break ties. Depending on situation, that could be based on longer weapon, dexterity, spell level, group roll or a toss for that particular case. I like the latter for spells, so one is never assured of getting the drop.

Start by having everyone declare intent, then resolve everything in its proper phase.

Quote from: Ronin;819748I really like the initiative in Twilight 2000 2end, and Savage Worlds. I know SW with the cards is considered by some gimmicky, but I like it. I don't look at it as gimmicky as much as I look at as wargamey. Which is plenty fine for me.

I found the cards in SW work remarkably well. It self documents (no more GM scribbling initiative scores) and allows for all sorts of special effects and opportunities for Edges.

Given a choice, I prefer simply alternating sides (so effectively group initiative) starting with the side that didn't start the fight (but skipping them if they were surprised). It does have some potential for waffling about who goes first, but that can be dealt with by enforcing time limits on that decision. But there's no initiative bonus there, so I don't use this in D&D.

In D&D we went from d6 group in OD&D to d10 group and then individual in AD&D to d20 individual later, with dexterity bonus in each case; but still rolling once for large groups of NPCs.

Folks using spells or magic items, or bracing spears against charges, and the like,  declare intent beforehand (for purposes of spell interruption, etc.)

Group initiative is rolled on d6.

PCs with a Dex bonus may be able to act simultaneously as the enemy if the party die is one point below the enemy,  or act before the enemy if the party and enemy get simultaneous initiative.  

Simultaneously initiative is generally simultaneous, unless closing with weapons of wildly different lengths, or other corner cases.

Quote from: Simlasa;819718That kind of reminds me of how we did it in Earthdawn, but no cards, everyone just declared and the GM wrote it down in order of rolled init + speed bonus. A character could change it's declaration when it's turn came but at a penalty for changing course.
It did come out feeling fairly simultaneous, less action/reaction, but like everything else in Earthdawn it sounded cool but took too fucking long in play.

Cards are useful because they can be reused. Players tend to perform the same basic actions frequently during combat, changing only the targets of their actions. Reusing those index cards saves you the time of having to write down actions every round.

Quote from: Soylent Green;819750With group initiative rolled each turn it is you often get on side acting twice in a row. With a large number of player/critters in play concentrated fire under those can be absolutely devastating.

Yes.  And?

I take it you consider this to be a major bug.  Personally, I see it as a feature.  Combat should be dangerous and unpredictable, not just a countdown of "we'll finish whittling down their HP in 3 rounds... 2... 1...  done!"  The possibility of either side getting a devastating double turn adds danger and unpredictability.  If you don't want to risk the possibility that those 15 orcs might get a double turn against your party, find a way to not fight those 15 orcs.

Quote from: nDervish;819834Yes.  And?

I take it you consider this to be a major bug.  Personally, I see it as a feature.  Combat should be dangerous and unpredictable, not just a countdown of "we'll finish whittling down their HP in 3 rounds... 2... 1...  done!"  The possibility of either side getting a devastating double turn adds danger and unpredictability.  If you don't want to risk the possibility that those 15 orcs might get a double turn against your party, find a way to not fight those 15 orcs.

I think it's a potential bug because I don't think it scales well. Just be clear I do like the unpredictability of group based initiative rerolled each turn, I used it in Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands, that's how much I like it.

What I am saying is that I think initiative should be equally important in a 3 vs 3 fight as with a 7 vs 7 fight. Maybe it's just a perception thing, but I find that with larger party this kind of initiative can become disproportionately important due to things like concentrated fire and stacking effects.

d20+dex+misc mod

1) Players all strip naked, take ten minutes to oil themselves and apply face paint, then form a circle. Each of them are allowed to carry one of:  a broken bottle, a kitchen knife or a simple wooden or metal club (their choice)

2) I yell "FAPPO!", throw a handful of firecrackers into the circle and duck behind an overturned desk

3) events play out naturally.

Why? is that weird? how do you guys do it?

that depends do you find it hard because a lot of people find initiative hard for some reason

OD&D: Declare any spells ahead of time. Roll a d12 per player (no mods). Reroll each round.

B/X: Declare any & all actions ahead of time. Each character has an initiative die on their sheet: default is d6. This die steps up or down depending on Dex and Wis bonuses. So a character with a Dex bonus of +2 and a Wis mod of -1 rolls a d8 for init. Monsters get whatever initiative die I think they should get. Reroll each round

AD&D: I use segments, weapon length, weapon speed, etc. etc. etc. Actions are declared ahead of time. Each side rolls a d6, this number is added to a series of character-specific modifiers. The final number determines which segment(s) the character acts in. Reroll each round. I never used to do it this way, but I recently programmed myself something to manage all the calculations, and it works well.