Initiative System Opinions

[fattom23]

I wanted to ask a general opinion question of everyone: What are your opinions on determining initiative in every round of combat vs. determining initiative once for an entire encounter? I'm working on an online-distributed game (https://www.coal-rpg.com). My system is card-based, and a character can either draw a random card from the deck for initiative or play a card from hand to get a better initiative. Since a character has to expend a finite resource to get a combat edge, I'm inclined to have initiative be once per encounter. Any thoughts?

[misterecho]

Hi fattom,
Welcome to 1km1kt, we're a friendly bunch.
We discussed initiative at length

In my opinion you should try out a the ideas you have in playtesting, to see how much a more complex system adds without slowing down too much. I think the balance is key. If combat takes too long in a system, i usually change it or ditch it all together! however if it's not detailed enough players can feel that their characters personalities and abilities are not accurately portrayed. Making them feel cheated.

Balance is the key i guess i was trying to say in a huge preamble

[Rob Lang]

There's a balance to be had. If it is important to your system and it is quick to resolve then have it often. If not, then have it once per encounter.

By making a person roll for initiative each round, you're really saying that each round is not too dependent on the others. By having one initiative at the start - you are asking people to form tactics for the entire encounter.

[Thought]

Initiative and Acting Order strike me as a great place to question commonly held conventions and to explore the possibilities of game design.

For example, is there this dichotomy in Acting Order? That it is determined either every round or at the start of an encounter, and never shall the two meet? What if rules are provided so that occasionally (but not every round) Acting Order gets jumbled around? Or perhaps a "Final Fantasy X" style system is used where certain actions increase an individual's rank in the Acting Order, or decrease it, or decreases and opponents? There's a lot of room for grey area in this topic, I'd argue.

Your particular system seems to be like that "FFX" style I mentioned above, in which case randomly determining the acting order each round is counter-productive. However, one could implement "brackets," a series of rounds (5, for example), at the start of which Acting Order is randomized, but during which that can be adjusted through special cards. If the bracket expires, Acting Order is randomized again (and depending on the game's general theme, other things might happen too).

Just a temporarily randomized,

Thought

[Kinslayer]

Continuing Thought's, well, thought, you could have a default of determining initiative once per encounter. Then, you can allow a player (or NPC) to attempt to better their position at the start of their turn. This would be entirely optional. Once so determined that initiative place would last the duration of the encounter--until someone else did likewise, of course.