Gamma World 1e suggested Initiative in order of DEX score. Hero has their action phase system and Palladium has their attack/action economy.

I prefer group initiative. 1D6 for PCs, 1D6 for Monsters, ties go to heroes, if you lose init, you hand the die to the next player, if you win init, you roll for next round.

Burning Wheel has an initiative system that's out of the ordinary, though I don't particularly care for it myself.

Chivalry & Sorcery has a system of blows, you might find a version of it on the net.

Harnmaster has a way for combatants to get free actions when they do well, but I'm forgetting how it works. Just look for the words "tactical advantage" in a review.

Swashbuckler (Jim Dietz) has a nifty system a bit similar to BW and TRoS (actually those may have come after). I think it's more workable though. May be derived from En Garde, not sure. Anyway the key is that you must secretly choose an action each round, but the actions available are limited by what you chose the previous round.

Am in a rush but I'll mention the old wargames Magic Realm and Gunslinger as being worth mining--if you can get your hands on them.

Quote from: The Traveller;476954Is that not more or less the tick system?

I think that was one of the terms later games used for it, yes.

Many of those have multipe actions avaialble per clock,'tick'.  
We use the other variant, where we count seconds.  readied weapons/spells and longer ones have very few seconds needed (at first) and a lower dice add on, longer term actions and movement add onto the seconds needed, etc.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;476893I been thinking about initiative.

Every rpg i've played has had a roll for initiative - order of combat - each and every round. But those systems never took into account what happened in the previous round (proably for brevity's sake).

HERO System (doesn't use rolls)
HackMaster/AD&D (your actions, movement could put your "initiative" to attack into the next round)
Aces&Eights
D&D 3.x/d20 system
GURPS (doesn't use rolls)

Personally, I prefer Aces&Eights and my system for OpenD6 that was inspired by A&E. One roll to start things going then after that when you finish you're current action you declare your next action, and that takes a certain amount of time to complete.

Actually most systems don't take into account the character's condition (based on damage taken) etc except for external effects like being slowed, in area of entanglement, etc. Heck not every system even says "everything happening in a "round" happens simultaneously - those that do still apply all damage/effects in the same round immediately and this wouldn't happen if they were all "simultaneous"

Quote from: LordVreeg;476964We use the other variant, where we count seconds.  readied weapons/spells and longer ones have very few seconds needed (at first) and a lower dice add on, longer term actions and movement add onto the seconds needed, etc.

Yeah that is basically the same. Really it comes down to two options - a game can try to account for the different times that actions take, or it can handwave it so a broadsword swing takes the same time as pulling a trigger. If the former, you'll probably end up with some variant on the tick system sooner or later. It does work smoothly if you aren't using Exalted.

Quote from: The Traveller;476999Yeah that is basically the same. Really it comes down to two options - a game can try to account for the different times that actions take, or it can handwave it so a broadsword swing takes the same time as pulling a trigger. If the former, you'll probably end up with some variant on the tick system sooner or later. It does work smoothly if you aren't using Exalted.

Lol.
The thing that is interesting in the continuous or open systems is adjudicating distance and characters changing their actions during the kept time.  It is also important to make it worthwhile for the pcs to wait once in a while.

When it comes to actual Physical Combat the Grim & Gritty combat rules for History Farce have an inventive solution in that each "attack" is similtaneous. Combat being decided by a roll off.

Of course this falls apart a bit with big Combats.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;476893I been thinking about initiative.

Every rpg i've played has had a roll for initiative - order of combat - each and every round. But those systems never took into account what happened in the previous round (proably for brevity's sake).

40K is the only game i've come across where one roll is made for initiative throughout the entire combat. That's as different a system i've seen.

Um... don't basically all D20 games default to doing this?

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;477049Um... don't basically all D20 games default to doing this?

RPGPundit

No, 3rd Ed D&D/d20 Modern have you roll one initiative for the entire combat/encounter. It was 1st/2nd ed AD&D that you re-rolled every round.

A system I used in a CCG I built that would easily convert to an RPG was that initiaitve stayed withte h side that dealt damage.

Initiative controlled the phase at which encounters begin

Flight
Parley
Magic
Ranged combat
Melee


Parley was an attempt to turn enemy agents based on a Guile battle - a card based Sissors - paper- stones game modified for the stat differences

Magic allowed the attacker to initiate Magical powers which were very powerful but more importantly had fixed results , like deal 2 wounds etc. If someone was hit with magical damage they could not close range to melee, although they could still shoot.

Ranged combat involved pulling a number of cards from 'The Gun Deck' which was 9 cards with a variety of number of wounds, misses and jams. Different guns and skills drew different numbers of cards and could ignore certain results. If someone was hit with ranged damage they could not close to short range and melee combat.

Melee (which is the bit that is relevant here) was resolved by each player pulling a card from the Melee deck, but the cards in the Melee deck were varied depening on the Characters Prowess and special skills. The cards are compared and the difference is dealt in damage (or sometimes special effects) to the looser. The winner keeps initiative and so controls the combat stack. Because melee is at the bottom you can't use magic, flee or parley if you take damage in melee combat (you can use some ranged weapons in melee, like pistols for example).

The point is that in the system if you take damage you loose initiative and you don't deal damage for that round. The system massively favours the strong over the weak but its a CCG and combat needs to be fast.

The mecahnism is fairly realistic in that in real melee combat if you are getting hit you don't tend to hit back you tend to cover up and look for an opening (ie steal initiative). It would be easy to take the principle and apply it to an RPG. Basically the winner of initiative is the attacker. That remains the case until they fail to hit their opponent when intitiave moves over and the attacker becomes the defender. You can add special moves like Repoiste that seize initiative or ones like a hail mary that allow you to make an attack even though you don't have inititive at the risk of taking more damage or being easier to hit.
The advantage is that you don't need to count ticks, you still have a concept of rounds which is useful for timing other events (like spell effects), and it both removes the roll each round for initiative which you don't like and the one roll determines initiative for the whole combat which I assume you don't like or you would just use that.

It does change combat. Fast guys that attack first get a big bonus as you can keep on hitting you opponent for low damage and so stop them hitting you. Being able to block those attacks and somehow seize initiative becomes critical.
I guess it would worse best with some kind of fatigue mechanism whereby the attacker expends from a pool of points as they attack so eventually they have to take a break or they run out (again fairly realistic). You could do that with a pile of poker chips spending 2 each round you attack and 1 each round you block (with variants for special attacks etc etc.) and some recovery mechanic.
Combat would get a bit slow but I think it woudl be entertaining.

Quote from: Claudius;476916Ars Magica 3rd. He who rolls the highest attack keeps the initiative the next round.

The Riddle of Steel. He who rolls highest (whether attack or parry) has the initiative the next round.

What about characters that don't or can't act, or attack, for that round?

In StarCluster games, each round an initiative is rolled, but the player can speed up his portion in initiative by taking penalties to Chance and/or Quality of Success, or by slowing down her place in initiative, gain bonuses to Chance and/or Quality. Being wounded sufficiently exacts a penalty on initiative as well as on Chance and Quality.

-clash

Quote from: GamerDude;477080No, 3rd Ed D&D/d20 Modern have you roll one initiative for the entire combat/encounter. It was 1st/2nd ed AD&D that you re-rolled every round.

That's my point. Ghost Whistler was complaining about "roll each round" initiative, while claiming that the only game he knew of that did one-roll initiative was 40k, when in fact the most popular, most diverse, and biggest selling system of the last 10 years had this exact same mechanic.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;477131That's my point. Ghost Whistler was complaining about "roll each round" initiative, while claiming that the only game he knew of that did one-roll initiative was 40k, when in fact the most popular, most diverse, and biggest selling system of the last 10 years had this exact same mechanic.

RPGPundit

Complaining? How in the fuck do you reach that conclusion. I simply asked a question.

Quote from: flyingmice;477129In StarCluster games, each round an initiative is rolled, but the player can speed up his portion in initiative by taking penalties to Chance and/or Quality of Success, or by slowing down her place in initiative, gain bonuses to Chance and/or Quality. Being wounded sufficiently exacts a penalty on initiative as well as on Chance and Quality.

-clash

right, that makes sesne, and brings some nice strategy to the idea.