Talking about Initiative Again

Initiative is floating around the blogosphere again. As far as I'm concerned, it's a closed matter.

Initiative belongs with alignment and the one-minute round in the dustbin of D&D history.

I've written previously about the futility of an alignment system, and how I run combat here:

http://spellsandsteel.blogspot.ca/2013/08/the-irrelevance-of-initiative.html



I've never seen a convincing explanation for why initiative is required. I'd like to deal with some of the reasons people think you should have an initiative system, and debunk them.

It allows for additional depth in character building - you can build a character with the advantage of always winning initiative!

First off, I decry the whole notion of "Character Building", but we'll leave that aside. This argument is typically seen from proponents of "board-game" systems like 3e/Pathfinder or 4e.

The real fallacy here is that having a fast initiative is somehow an advantage. As I've shown before, after the first round, initiative order is largely irrelevant, the turn cycle becoming cyclical with no well-defined start or end point. If you're re-rolling initiative every round, it becomes even more arbitrary.

Additionally, due to artifacts of a turn-based system, it can actually be a disadvantage to act first in certain situations.

It adds excitement to combat.

Personally, I don't find this, but I suppose that's a matter of opinion. I find it's an arbitrary and unrealistic rule that leads to thinking about the game rather than the game world. Personally, I try to make things as fast, fluid, and realistic as possible so that the game is always about the game world rather than the game rules.


It allows you to differentiate between weapons.

I suppose this is true, but it's not particularly realistic at the level of abstraction present in D&D. Over the course of a 10-second round, there's a lot of movement, and it's just totally irrelevant that you can make two or three quick, light slashes with a knife in the time it takes to make a full swing with a poleaxe.

And there are better ways to differentiate weapons - namely by function.

It allows you to differentiate characters.

Again, I suppose this is true, but not really realistic. I find it hard to believe that over a ten-second round, someone could be so much faster than someone else that they could consistently move first every time.

And since initiative order doesn't actually matter (or make sense), it's a distinction without a difference - it's a false differentiation.

It's more realistic.

This is just absurd. Again, at the level of abstraction in D&D, there's no meaningful "first" actor in a round. Ten seconds is just so long and so much can happen in a fight in that time, that a you-go I-go turn system is patently ridiculous from a realism perspective.


As a necessary component of a you-go-I-go turn system, there's nothing realistic about initiative.

The Irrelevance of Initiative

Since combat is an ongoing cycle with everyone acting, the idea that people are acting in order in combat rounds is kind of arbitrary. After a full cycle, the beginning and end of the cycle cannot be determined, and therefore being "higher" or "lower" in initiative order is meaningless.

An example. Consider this initiative order:

Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil

Now, look at how the initiative for a 5-round combat looks:

Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil
Bill
Wilma
Orc #1
Steve
Jane
Orc #2
Ogre #1
Phil

For the bulk of the combat, there's literally no way to know if Bill is going first, or Ogre #1, or Wilma, or Phil. Each person just goes after the previous one. If you allow actions to change your initiative order (i.e. "held" actions), then the whole concept becomes even more meaningless.

On top of that, going first is not necessarily an advantage, due to the artifacts of a turn-based system.

Consider Wilma and Bill, both Level 1 Fighters with 3HP and d6 damage weapons. Their movement is 30' (for the purposes of the example).

If they start 35' apart, the person who goes "first" is actually at a serious disadvantage - if they move up at all, the other will be able to then move up on their turn and strike them. If the blow connects, the odds are even that it will kill them, and the fight will be over.

This is why I prefer to do things this way:

I describe the beginning of the action of each opponent (i.e. Orc #1 is moving towards Bill, Orc #2 is moving towards Jane, and the Ogre is preparing to throw a rock).

Then the players say what they intend to do:

Bill: I'm going to draw my sword and fight Orc #1.
Wilma: I'm going to help Bill.
Steve: I'll cast Figface on the Ogre.
Jane: I'm going to flip the table to block Orc #2's advance, and look for my Horn of Fury in my pack.
Phil: I'll defend Jane while she looks for the Horn.

Then we just go around in whatever order is convenient (typically clockwise) and adjudicate the results, with the idea in mind that this is all happening simultaneously.

I don't find that it's any harder to do things that way than it is with an initiative system, it's a lot more satisfying, as the players get to make informed choices based on a hint of what the enemies are going to do, and it avoids all the weird artifacts of a turn-based system.

This system is similar to some strategy games on the market, such as TacOps 4 - there are "order phases" where the game is paused and players issue orders, and then "battle phases" where the game runs in real-time for, say, 1 minute of game time (during which time orders can't be changed or given).