Initiative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games Examined

While this article on Associated Content isn’t directly related to CRPGs, a summarization of the different ways initiative has been handled in tabletop role-playing games over the years can help shed some light on why certain mechanics work the way they do in many of the video games we play. The modern day initiative scheme:

One Time Roll, Cyclical – This initiative method is incredibly basic and one of the best known, mostly due to the system being used by 3rd and 4th edition D&D rules. The system has each character act at the same time, relative to all other characters, each round. For a system like D&D, with large health values and static defense scores, this is a relatively optimal way of dealing with initiative. No character gets the advantage of acting twice before another and the flow of combat is not interrupted by re-rolling initiative every round.

White Wolf borrowed this initiative system when creating the New World of Darkness line, and what worked for d20 rules failed miserably for White Wolf. While cyclical initiative is fine for a game with static defenses and no injury penalties, it creates an unpleasant game experience in a game with injury penalties and active defense. In the New World of Darkness, once a character gains the initiative edge, an opposing character has to use the single action granted each round to defend against an attack. This means that once a character wins initiative there is just about no way for the initiative loser to ever win combat.

More than 30 years after the first role playing game was published, initiative determination still hasn’t become standardized. The D&D rules have changed more than once and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they changed again in the fifth edition. White Wolf, despite using similar rules systems throughout the various games it produces, has used over half a dozen different initiative systems, none of which has fully captured the flavor the games try present. If the optimal initiative system exists, one which is mechanically sounds, captures the flavor of the game, and simulates reality well, it has yet to be found, though game designers appear to be ever searching for it.