Initiatives Referee DM GM Tip

 I was watching YouTube (well really listening while doing other things) and Group Initiative came up as a topic on one of the channels. It occurred to me a few tips on Initiative types and how to use them might be helpful. 

Initiative is a term and game mechanic you find in a lot of RPGs and tactical war games. If your new to gaming all it really means is who’s turn it is or in what order various things happen. In most games going first is what people want to do as it gives them an edge over their opponents. In a game like Chess Initiative is assigned to the White player for example or in some board games you roll a dice to find out who goes first.

Individual Initiative is what is in most RPG rules when “combat” (combat can include actions one party try’s  that another wants to stop without actually being combat) is about to begin and everyone rolls for Initiative. For the most part this is what you will see, everyone rolling some sort of dice and adding or subtracting modifiers usually based on something like the Player Characters Dexterity (agility, reaction speed) to see in what order all the players and the referee’s “monsters” (forces, NPCs, etc) move or take action of some sort. This seems very reasonable enough, but is not always as practical as it seems. Imagine 12 players plus the referee rolling for every Character they control... it’s going to be a massively long “combat”. Now imagine adding in specialty rules that create even more dice rolling to resolve all sorts of specialized combat or moves and what amounts to in real life time but a few minutes of action becomes 3 hours of dice rolling to create effects, use abilities, be super realistic with weapons and so on. This is not to say Individual Initiative is not a good thing in the right circumstances, however honestly until very recently this is not how I ever tried to run combat in D&D or as a player experienced D&D combat. In one of my D&D games I did individual initiative as we played that session and it was tedious. (The next time I DM I will not do that again, several changes are coming to the next game). I decided to ask my husband about his childhood memories of playing D&D and other RPGs to see what his play group was doing back then.  So what were we doing different? We were using Group Initiative... and it seems it was pretty common back when we were kids (we didn’t meet till part way through high school and went to different schools, so our various play groups through elementary school and most of High School were different folks). Does this mean we never used Individual Initiative, of course not but Initiative needs to be tailored to the event, and that is what folks were doing.

For instance PCs are a ship crew. Using Star Trek as an example... Scotty is in Engineering, Dr. McCoy in Sickbay, Spock is off duty in his Quarters reading the newest scientific studies, Kirk is on the Bridge. In this example everyone is in a different place and will therefore not possess the same knowledge or opportunity for knowledge, so the event that is about to happen to the Enterprise may only be applicable to specific individuals to roll for... others simply will not roll as they can only know something after the event and action has begun. Thus having specific Characters roll makes sense, but not everybody, just who needs to.

Dr McCoy knows there is problem, but no one else does. (Star Trek)

Group Initiative is when the referee rolls for all the “baddies” and 1 player rolls for the whole group. So now instead of a roll for every PC and monster just two rolls are made. This sort of thing speeds up combat as the horde of goblins and those 12 players I mentioned earlier can resolve the fight quicker.  This is good for mass combat. Using Star Trek again two battle fleets meet, just two rolls... who goes first, who goes next is needed... not rolls for every ship in the fleet. This is my traditional choice for most combat situations as the players are moving around as a group usually, so it makes sense to treat this roll as a group. Generally the party either decides a default roller, or in some cases the referee will ask a specific player to roll for the group because they are the one most likely to know something is up first. Group rolls can be broken down into units as well. This very useful for massive battles.

Everyone knows there is going to be a big fight and so it is group versus group. (Star Wars)

Simultaneous Initiative is when everything happens at once no one moves first, they move together. Technically in Individual Initiative this can happen if people roll the same number. This tends to come up in some War Games both sides submit troop movements/actions in writing to the referee and then they move their units, basically the referee keeps everyone honest. However it can be applied to RPG especially if players are in competing teams, working each with secret agendas (murder mystery for instance) and so on. If it makes sense to use this Initiative type (which like Group goes all the way back to OD&D rules via Chainmail) use it!   

Who is the murder? One of the PCs but whom? (The Movie Clue)

Mixed Initiative is when you mix Group and Individual Initiative rolls. Most of the time I do not do this as it can unbalance play, usually favoring the players to much. The most common form of this I have seen is all the baddies getting rolled as a group, and then the PCs and player controlled NPCs getting to do individual rolls. In some situations mixed is okay for example back to Star Trek, the Enterprise and her crew are part of a battle fleet, the PCs are all on the Enterprise the rest of the fleet is just fleet. In this sort of case I would have players roll for the fleet once, but the Enterprise separately. I would balance out the game by doing exactly the same thing on the opponent side, so if I controlled say the Klingons as the referee that fleet would have one ship with unique NPCs and it would get it’s own Initiative too. 

The focus of the battle is two fold, the drama for the players on one ship and the win conditions for their overall fleet. (Star Trek)

No Initiative! This ideas flys in the face of fairness and reality or does it? Chaos! Anarchy! It’s the end! Remain calm it really is not chaos. Really all No Initiative does is create Simultaneous Initiative but in a verbal form. Referee describes the situation players say what they are doing and then based on all the other stuff we roll for or compare between opponents in the game we see what happens. But what about Surprise? Well if players are stalked and the taken by Surprise then of course the bad guys get to go first but all action after that initial turn reverts to no one having Initiative. 

Everyone knows the fight is coming and they are ready for it on both sides with all the insults flying from the Klingons this isn’t an Initiative moment, this is a case of a Player’s Character loosing a Wisdom or Will Power roll... so all battle happens at once.   (Star Trek)

Basically you have options for different situations, play styles, ways to speed up or focus the story by rolling for Initiative using different types or even not rolling at all. Think of this mechanic in filming terms... the big epic battle or action shoots were detail is not needed to the up close one on one action scenes were detail is needed... what moves and makes the story the best in the moment. Think of the options as a tool, which option works best to facilitate playability of your game, create drama, build tension, and create action. You want to keep the action moving not bogged down to a crawl, but at times you need to focus the immersion of the story telling action or drama. No matter what sort of RPG you are playing try these out if they make sense in the moment, play with the mechanics.

Happy Gaming!