Recently, the team behind DC20, a game turning heads in the tabletop space, posted a design development update; they have chosen to ditch D&D 5e-style individual initiative in favour of zipper initiative. It’s the kind of change that looks small, but has major impact at the table. Initiative systems aren’t neutral. They signal what combat is, who it belongs to, and what kind of tension the game wants to create. Changing the initiative system quietly changes the whole vibe of a fight.
Here are the four main types of initiative that dominate the hobby. I’ll cover what they do, what a game gains and what it loses with its choice; however, more importantly I want to focus on why I think the developers chose it—that helps understand if a system is really for us.
The Current King of Initiative Systems
The most common system is one you’ve probably already played: roll initiative, build the action order, and see where fate puts everyone. D&D 5e, Pathfinder and Starfinder all use it; Savage Worlds uses it, but uses cards instead of dice; I want to note most of my Savage Worlds experience comes through the weird west Deadlands subsystem; using cards is an especially brilliant match considering the genre.
The objective here is manufactured chaos. Anyone may go first; anyone might go last. Abilities and bonuses can reduce some of the randomness, but this is for groups that want risk baked into their fights. Rolling high or drawing a card ahead of the enemy gives a rush; and even though rolling low can inspire dread, that stress will end up making future success feel all the sweeter.
Going Further
Old School Essentials actually escalates the chaos further with an optional rule where players roll every round. Maximum randomness creates very swingy combat. This is for gamers who want to be on edge the whole time, and don’t wish to be stuck last for long.
The downside of this system is characters become difficult to coordinate. Players who love teamwork are likely to be less happy as they fight against, not with, the system. Turns can feel more individualistic. more isolated; it’s exciting for players taking their turn, and really good for personal power fantasies. However, this can be a problem for others, especially in larger groups. Complex combats can turn players into spectators; keeping everyone’s focus is a real challenge.
The design of games like Shadowdark and Index Card RPG are obvious responses to this problem.Rolling only happens once, locking in the action order for the session—Shadowdark—or highest roll wins, and then turn order goes clockwise—ICRPG. This injects a much smaller amount of chaos into the mix, instead favouring efficiency. Tables wanting less time bookkeeping, more action while keeping some randomness in play may like this balance best.
Side-Based Initiative Systems
The other response, and best positioned to encourage teamwork, is initiative by side. Basic/Expert D&D (more commonly B/X D&D) was actually doing this way back in 1981. The sides roll a d6, highest goes first. It’s quick and lets players coordinate their moves and attacks perfectly to maximum effect, the monsters doing the same.
This style taps into TTRPG’s origins of wargaming. Initiative—even the name is a wargaming term—is frequently decided by a single dice roll before battle begins. It’s fast, lean, and gets the action going ASAP.
OSR’s Reviving Oldschool Initiative Systems
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many modern OSR games have revived this approach, trying to evoke that Old School flavour. Shadow of the Demon Lord (super dark fantasy) and Shadow of the Weird Wizard (more traditional and heroic) by Robert J. Schwalb are great examples.
Here, the monsters’ initiative is fixed. Players have the tactical decision to go first, leaving themselves vulnerable, or after, for more effective attacks. Some abilities only work in certain phases, and some enemies need certain solutions. Groups that love a tactical challenge will be in their element.
Schwalb’s system should satisfy players wanting reliably cool characters, fast-paced combat, and reduced GM workload. The removal of randomness is the heavy lifter here. It lets players gain control and synchronise their attacks in a display of elevated teamwork.
And they’ll need it.
Enemies hit hard, really hard in the case of Demon Lord. Players may have control over the order of action, but monsters are much more dangerous than in 5e or Pathfinder. Whereas random initiative means there’s a chance a boss monster might go last, there’s no unknown quantity here. Players know exactly when an enemy will go; if they can’t put the monster down first, the characters are in for some pain. Pressure is reliably high in each and every fight.
Taking Away Security
These styles of initiative will appeal to problem-solvers and fans of closely coordinated teamwork alike. Games like D&D and Pathfinder throw enough health or hero points at characters to survive the occasional beating. There’s no such safety net here.
In exchange, characters can consistently do cool things. Going first is always a choice; there’s no risk of a character dropping before they act, unless the player gambles. As mentioned, this initiative style is primed for puzzle-solvers and people who love a plan coming together. It may also strongly appeal to more story-first players, and those who reliably want to stomp bad guys.
However, it’s precisely that mechanically balanced, gamist design that will be a poor fit for others. Simulation—or emulation, if you prefer—groups will find it much less satisfying.
Time-Simulation/Emulation Initiative Systems
One alternative is tick-based, sometimes called count initiative. This trades some of the teamwork inherent in side initiative for more simulation—or emulation. My main touchstone here is the game Hackmaster.
Actions—movement, attacking, spellcasting—all take different lengths of time. Players have similar control to those in side initiative, but it’s a lot more granular. For example, using a dagger is faster than a shortsword, which is faster than a greataxe. As such, it’s not as forgiving as Shadow of the X systems. If a player wants to use a greataxe all the time, they will be going after lighter armed characters.
Physics-Inspired
The big draw for this style is the heightened sense of simulation/emulation. Play feels more realistic; fights feel more logical. Of course a character slashing a dagger strikes before a brute wielding a massive axe: that makes total sense, right?
Some groups will love this and be fine with the extra time needed to work through a round. It’s primed for gamers wanting a grittier, more physics-based experience. Characters lose some over-the-top, heroic actions, but the payoff is more understandable combat. For some, that ramps up the immersion.
Players wanting to play Marvel characters should probably look elsewhere. Fans of Game of Thrones or The Witcher, perhaps, will feel a lot more at home.
This style of initiative can still satisfy puzzle-lovers and teamwork enthusiasts alike, but in different ways to side-based games. Having a few different weapons—including spells—gives characters the ability to pick and choose whether they go before or after the enemy. The weapon used, rather than the attack type, becomes the variable. However, hot-swapping isn’t an option. It often costs an action to switch weapons mid-combat in these crunchier systems; fortune favours the forewarned.
This approach is more constraining, but that’s the point. Tension comes from wielding the right weapon in the right situation. It’s the restraints of emulated realism that feed both the challenge and the immersion.
It’s also worth noting both this system and the one-roll games are reaching for emulation in different ways. Players who see combat as chaos will prefer a modern D&D-like game. Groups who want the cut-and-thrust of cold, calculated warriors will flourish here.
For gamers looking for a compromise between these two competing poles, alternating initiative may hold the answer.
Zipper Initiative Systems
Alternating initiative, otherwise known as zipper initiative, tries to balance chaos and control. One player goes first, then an enemy, then a player, and so on. Chaos comes from not knowing which enemy—or PC—will go first and who may go next until combat is already in full flow. The players are choosing amongst themselves, allowing a heavy dose of teamwork.
Control derives from players being able to decide the order they will act; of course, they can also try and anticipate their opponents’ order, too. DC20 has opted to ditch the old 5e one-roll approach, and followed in the footsteps of Draw Steel.
The switch will appeal to certain gamers. Like side-based initiative, it cuts straight to the action. It also feeds teamwork and puzzle-solving. However, the teamwork element is stronger in Draw Steel.
DC20 has chosen to fix the initiative order after the first round. This creates a bit more bookkeeping for the GM, and takes flexibility away from the party; they cannot respond to developments or new threats by mixing up the order. That will produce tension some groups will love, or a lack of flexibility other tables won’t.
Initiative Systems Hard-Wired for Teamwork
Draw Steel lets the players change the order every round. Besides wanting to make teamwork a central pillar to the combat experience, this is also necessary given Draw Steel’s metacurrencies. Players options change every round as characters spend or accrue ability metacurrencies and enemies get pushed around the map. The dynamic of combat demands a much more fluid approach to initiative.
Draw Steel adds further chaos to the mix as round by round the GM builds up Malice. Malice is the GM’s own metacurrency; it enables them to shake up the scene—and the action order—more and more as the fight goes on.
DC20 is adding complexity through situational bonuses; these are much less reliable than Draw Steel’s metacurrencies, so its rigidity will make a lot of sense to its fans.
What about Popcorning?
Popcorn initiative is the last subsystem I’ll talk about, and it’s the extreme version of alternating. More properly known as elective order initiative or Balsera-style initiative after Leonard Balsera, the original designer. Whichever player acts first then chooses the next character or monster to follow them. This goes around the table until everything has had a turn.
You might have the instinctive idea for all the players to choose each other, ensuring they all go first. However, doing this once is usually enough for it to rarely, if ever, happen again.
Whoever goes last in the order chooses who goes first in the next. Therefore, if the PCs have left anything alive, all those monsters act in unison. Then, they can dogpile the PCs again because the GM kept control of the initiative. Players not spreading out the enemy’s action order can swiftly find their characters overwhelmed with no way to interrupt the execution.
This is obviously trading out the simulation/emulation of count initiative. In fact, by offering some chaos, control, and reliably cool heroes, it’s neatly positioned between the one-roll and side-based approaches.
Summing Up
And that is really the crux of this article. Each of these initiative systems will appeal to different groups playing different games. They all have positives and negatives from a design perspective; they’re all performing a balancing act between chaos, control, teamwork, power fantasy, and simulation/emulation. There is no one-size fits all. (I haven’t even touched on narrative spotlight approaches of storyteller games like Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, and Daggerheart; another article, perhaps).
Some games will be able to swap out their initiative style. More modular games like D&D 5e are easier to convert than others; games like Draw Steel,whose initiative underpins so much of the design focus to combat, I’d be more hesitant with. One thing I would certainly recommend is for groups to question what they really want out of combat.
That will inform which game—and which initiative system—will suit their needs best. Initiative reveals so much about what a game is trying to do. It shows how important combat is and the vibe it wants to exude. It’s often the moment when characters become heroes, when the metal meets the meat.
