Originally published at: Revisiting Initiative in OSR+ — Errata — Advanced Old School Revival — OSR+
There’s always been a tension in system design between quick, fluid action in play and immersive, tactical depth. This is because the more crunch we add in order to better simulate what’s going on in the fiction, the more time it takes to resolve that crunch, which may in the end have the opposite effect than intended.
Classic initiative order, where each of us rolls to see who goes first, is the simplest response to designing around the bottleneck that arises in any RPG that has a GM: that is, the GM can only put one person in the spotlight at a time, and as a consequence can only resolve one PC's actions at a time, because the nature of the RPG is a conversation with a natural back and forth. We can't talk over each other, and we can't have multiple spotlights without multiple GMs.
Design Principles
After some playtesting, we've landed on a middle ground that's a balance between tactical play and fluidity. These were our goals in redesigning initiative for OSR+:
- Run initiative faster, while preserving the system's tactical depth of reactions and bonus actions;
- Preserve the immersive chaos of battle. We want initiative order to change from round to round, based on a randomizer that's augmented by abilities the PCs may have;
- Respect the fiction first. Action order should be dictated by what happens in the fiction, not by an arbitrary turn sequencing, lopsided "side-based" initiative, or non-diegetic solutions such as "popcorn" initiative that allows players to arbitrarily choose who goes next. Therefore, when players react to other players should be dictated by what makes sense fictionally;
- Eliminate waiting for holds, while privileging high rollers. PCs who roll high on initiative should be able to see what people are doing before they act because they're reacting quicker than their opponents. But we don't want to have to keep circling back on initiative to pick up PCs who held their turn;
- Avoid GM fiat in turn order. We don't want to resort to the GM arbitrarily managing the spotlight based on vibes or based on whoever is fastest to act out-of-character;
- Enforce clarity and be manageable for the GM, such that turn order can be managed easily by the GM or a caller and in such a way that clearly indicates who has acted and who acts next. We don't want complex trackers or resource pools;
- No beat counts, timers, or "speak quickly or you lose your turn" that puts pressure on players to act;
- Initiative never stalls, such that there is a mechanism to force the round to continue moving, if PCs or NPCs are at a standstill.
The New Initiative Rules
So, given all that, we've landed on a slight modification to initiative that involves the introduction of chain reactions and the ability for anyone to act in any order:
- Roll initiative. Everyone rolls a d6 the start of a round, adding a +2 if they have the Perception skill. The GM or the Caller writes down everyone's initiative, which represents the fastest they can act in the round.
- Start a chain reaction. Anyone can start a chain reaction, which is a sequence of fictionally related actions.
- GM resolution. If no one intervenes with a higher initiative, then the PC who started the chain reaction gets resolved first. If higher initiative players intervene, then the spotlight moves to them, and their action is resolved first, before the spotlight returns to the player who started the chain reaction.
And two key rules:
- If no one starts a chain reaction, then the person with the lowest initiative must act next.
- You can only join a chain reaction if your action is fictionally related to what the player who kicked things off is doing, even if you have the initiative.
- PCs are not committed to their action until the spotlight returns to them and the GM begins resolving their action. So if someone interrupts you and the situation has changed, you can change your action when the spotlight returns to you.