07:12 for those who want to skip to a description of how his no initiative system works.

I just tried this today for the first time. I went through an entire dungeon that would normally take me 2-3 hours in just 1:20 or so. It was dynamic, it was exciting. My players were thrilled, afraid, confident, apprehensive! It was a roller coaster of emotions as the situations changed between combat and non-combat rather fast. Most fights lasted 3 rounds, boss fight lasted 4 rounds, the paladin went down once but survived. They loved the challenge level, the speed and how realistic it felt. All players came to me individually to tell me how they loved the feeling of team-work and being engaged 100% of the time instead of waiting for their turn. There were minor mistakes when I didn't process ranged attackes first in one fight, but I caught the mistakes in the act and corrected, and everyone understood since this is a new system for us all. The "No Initiative" system is great, improved my game 100%. I don't ever wanna go back.

I tried this with my old group and they hated it, they would barely give it a chance. Then I tried it with a group of new players, and they loved it. As the DM I love it too. Way faster, more dynamic, and fun.

I'd like to see an encounter played the "normal" way and then played again using your method see the time difference and then the players opinions on which they found better and more enjoyable. Having the not so identical twins might convert older players over to this system. That would make for an interesting video in my opinion.

Love it. It reminds me of football; both sides plan their "plays", then the "snap" happens and you resolve the results of those competing plans.

Due to the subject matter I thought "Gnome Chomsky" and that gave me a giggle.

So I left a comment earlier voicing my doubts about this system but having run it with my players all of them seem to love it. They dont have to wait 20 minutes to hit something again and arent stuck on the one player who never remembers his spells and doesnt decide what to do until his turn. It creates stressful combat scenarios where everyone has to decide quickly and it makes everything so much more entertaining and we were able to make it through 3 encounters in a single session. That's almost unheard of for us.

As an intermediate, you can also use Moldvay's initiative which is that both teams roll one dice for initiative, and everyone on each team goes at the same time. It throws off the "balance" and lets characters get alpha striked and such, but personally I'm pretty damn tired of everything being "balanced" and "fair".

I took this advice and ran my last session this past sunday with no initiative. Everyone loved it and it worked great. I used a little 2 min sand timer, but ultimately didn't really need it. Thanks!

Love it. Modification: The natural result of the attack roll affects the timing of the attack. If the PC rolls a 17 and the moster rolls a 16 and they both hit, the PC's hit lands first. If they happen to kill the monster, the monster's attack will never happen. Except for ranged attacks. Resolve all ranged attacks first to preserve your notion that ranged attacks should happen first (...when at range -- if they are not at range I would reverse this). In fact, you could do this for multiple ranges. You could have a "spear range" whereby if you begin at that range, your attack will go first against a shorter weapon, even with lower initiative... until they close with you.

This approach became vital to my PBEM game. Can you imagine trying to run a traditional initiative style combat when every turn had to be communicated by email and took 2 days to complete? Instead, everyone sent in their intentions and I resolved the next round of combat based on those intentions. Still took 2 days but now it was the entire combat round, not just one player's turn. One interesting thing that evolved from the change was that where players had not discussed combat tactics in advance the intentions submitted often resulted in collisions and conflicts. e.g. two characters trying to attack the same opponent, or in some cases everyone waiting for someone else to do something. This merely increased the tension and fun of the combat encounters. In one encounter the elven wizard was being threatened by a thug and both the human characters decided to be the hero and step forward to save her. One decided to rush the thug and try to attack him, the other decided merely step between the thug and the elf to shield her. They both arrived at the same point at the same time and had to role an agility test to avoid colliding. They failed, they then rolled dexterity to remain on their feet and the charging character failed 'Tripped over their colleague's foot and landed at the feet of the surprised thug dropping their weapon that skittered off between the thug's legs.' That incident got talked about for weeks after the session, but couldn't have happened with an 'I go U Go' system. The player who tripped also became obsessed with their character being clumsy and sank a fortune in boosting its Dexterity.

Im not sure if you've heard of the system called Shadow of the Demon Lord, but it has a very unique way to do initiative. At the start of each turn, each player declares either Fast Turn or Slow Turn. Fast turns go first, but they only get 1 action. Slow turns go after fast turns, but they get two actions (only 1 attack tho). Players always go before monsters and the order in which the players go changes every turn based on who chooses fast turn or slow turn. It adds a lot of strategic thought into initiative that I like a lot. You get questions like "Should I take a fast turn and hit the zombie with my sword or take a slow turn to retreat and reload my weapon". And it allows for better coordination between players so that they can set up cool combos with each other. Its a really neat system with an awesome way to choose initiative that I love that I thought i'd share with everyone

Must say, this combat system is amazing! After watching this video, maybe 7-8 times, i finally tried it at my table. We raided a heavy combat dungeon (Graud Haug, Storm Kings Thunder) in 3 hours, with RP encounters. Regular play would have been at least 2 sessions! Will be using this from now on 👍

Hey people! Tried it in two different tables. It works and does put more strain on the DM. Combat went much faster, was much more engaging and dangerous. However I felt the need for a small change to accomodate with even better results. Everyone declares their action (or bonus action) and roll a d20. If the action required a roll that number is it (e.g attack), if not it is used only for initiative. All results and damages are calculated before we move to the secondary actions and/or bonus actions and remaining movement (with the proper reactions). This was done to keep balance as the proposed method makes spellcasters significantly more powerful and leads to many DM calls. I believe it makes the combat even more realistic and still quite fast. Battles took only a third of the original time with this method and it is actually simpler. "Everyone rolls a d20" now let's see what happened is faster than "you roll an attack, you roll spell damage and so on.

Yes, yes! This is essentially old-school AD&D combat. It simulates all these actions happening simultaneously. Everyone declares their actions at the beginning of the round before initiative is even rolled. Initiative was only really important in melee if one's blow killed their opponent before the opponent's blow, essentially intercepting the attack. Otherwise, it was a factor in who moves or charges first at the opening of combat. I like the idea of no initiative, because i don't like the style of combat where all combatants are taking turns, which seems more like a turn-based computer game than table top playing. Okay, rant over.

My GM's in house rules for combat was the following: No innitiative, but turns would be taken by Ranged, Spellcaster and Melee in that order. The "attacking" party goes first, what party attacks gets determined by a perception check with advantages/disadvantages, or whoever has the surprise factor. PCs can arrange between themselves an order and the master does the same for the NPCs. While you're engaged in combat you do realiza what is going on around you - to a certain degree - at least from round to round. If the enemy's head has been blown off by a magic missile, the warrior is not gonna waste his time attacking a dead enemy, he will take a different action... Attack the nearest live enemy, preparing to block an incoming strike from a charging goblin from behind, etc.

This is great! I ditched initiative years ago too for the simultaneous nature of combat but have still been doing "turn order" by just going around the table for keeping order at the table, blah blah nuance. I like requiring all action declarations and rolling dice all at once, that sounds like a good way to remove the need for any turn order.

I am getting back into D&D after twenty years and I find you stuff great. Thanks.

I think what some of you are failing to see is that he's not telling you it's movement then attacks 🙄🙄 if the wizard or whatever other class decides to use a swift action, those swift actions can be used anytime throughout the round. Those free actions? Literally anytime. Don't wait. Use it when you feel like between movement or combat. What he's saying is everything should happen at once instead of one at a time. 1 goblin and 1 fighter are engaged in combat. The goblin moves forward, the fighter uses a swift action to take a 5 foot step then attacks, not giving the goblin the opportunity to strike. It's about a better story than it is about playing a video game with paper, which is where a huge amount of these comments come from are rules lawyers, min maxers, and individuals that see the game as more of numbers. For example, the majority of the comments here are most likely GMs who would already have a bias against the system since they'd need to take time out of the session to teach the players these new rules. If we ignore the timer and just have the events happen all at once this method makes significantly more sense.

Unless the DM collects action on paper, just having people speak their intent is in itself an iniative because people hear everyone's moves and can plan accordingly in that half second of heads up.

As an army veteran I agree--your homebrew is much more realistic. As a DM I think it would be a fun experiment for some fights but initiative helps resolve rules in a more efficient way. And by rules I mean tons of them from spell effects to all different weapons and physical characteristics of monsters, horses, obstacles--there's just too much to compute. I agree that dex is arbitrary for initiative--I just did an experiment with 6 Players and 4 henchman/pets on the PC side: I just assigned 10 different static initiatives for the player side and rolled one ten sided die for all my monsters. The PC "order" was based completely on Dexterity! The Level 5 Fighter and Paladin in the Party put a stop to my experiment after one session--with good reason--why would they go towards the end? Just because their dex scores are each 10? They have all the combat exp in the world compared to the other characters. We since went back to rolling regular initiative every few rounds or so.

I think this system would work well for smaller encounters/fights that you don't want to spend forever on. For more crucial battles, using initiative builds tension, more enthralling for story telling. I think it has its applications, just depends on the players too. Some people live for the combat system, could lose interest without it

As one who has done historical martial arts, I can tell you that "turns" are real in a fight...to a point. Both parties are not always in the offensive at the same time. More often then not one is offensive and the other defensive until a gap i the guard of the attacker is seen and taken advantage of. I think this is what the initiative system does; give the simulation of the attack/defend reality of combat.

1 issue I have with your statement on magic. "why would anyone use magic is a sword is faster", the counter argument to this is "why would anyone pick up a sword if a spell is just as fast"

It is catching on. I have been in life or death combat and it is scary. You have to fight, intimidate, posture, and even flee. You are definitely not able to think about the long term consequences of your actions, and you act first to BUY time. I love it. Combat is becoming soooo slow and it's also losing the risk factor it once has as you level up. Parasympathetic response is basically earned AFTER combat and maybe before.

This looks like it puts a whooole lot more strain on the DM. Keeping track of what everyone is doing while narrating and forming a plan for each enemy as well as incorporating any potential unique conditions/narrative events is already hard as it is, personally i can't really see myself adding having to interpret 15 different rolls all at once on top of that as well as having to do all those things at once. This might just stem from me being a new DM tho, practice makes perfect i suppose. I also feel like the more chaotic pacing leads to an inability for an individual player to as accurately as possible describe what they want to do and that coupled with humans' tendency for peer pressure might lead to them having a harder time thinking outside the box. Why jump from the balcony onto a chandelier, cut the rope and let it fall down on my enemies when i can just go down the stairs and hit them with my sword like all the other people are doing right now? I can also see this system making it harder to coordinate specific strategies as all the players go at the same time and can't really react to each other on the same round. Not entirely sure how this system would handle held actions either. The eggtimer idea is neat tho, can't believe i never thought of that before.

You left out the best part; it saves time! People aren't spending the first 2-5 minutes of the combat rolling, adding mods, then communicating the info the GM who then needs to record the info on their method of choice. And God forbid somebody wants to "hold their action," now you have to track all of that as well!

This may work really well for Pathfinder. The three action economy mixes actions with movement which would make it clear what is going on with when a character is attacking while a monster is moving (for example). Actions that take multiple action points to perform would leave the character stationary for that pass.

I am absolutely trying this out with my own homebrew-hacked D&D game. After fiddling with Mike Mearls "Greyhawk Initiative" and using alternate die (d10, d12), this really seems the most intuitive and "gritty", which is PERFECT for the vibe I'm trying to capture at my table.

This is one aspect I really envy in the One-Roll Engine games. The order by which things are resolved is part of the roll. There are several games based on this system, so there are variances, but I'll try to describe it in general. 1. An appropriate Ability+Skill is used to determine the order of announcing actions. This is similar to the D&D concept of DEX based Initiative, but could also be based on observation or mental skills as the situation demands. 2. Going from slowest to fastest character, every player announces their intended actions. This gives a benefit to having higher "Initiatie" as you have the benefit of "reading" the battlefield, while slower characters get "locked into" their actions. 3. Everyone rolls to determine success and results. ORE uses a set matching mechanic, so success requires finding matching values in the dice you roll. Better abilities give you more dice to roll with higher chances of success. Larger matching sets generally decides more success: faster, stronger, more powerful, etc. 4. Higher success results can preempt lower successes or failures. So a successful attack can be used to stop all opponent's attack. There are a couple other rules around this in various specific games.

If I think how much time we lose to play a fight with 5 players "reacting" depending what the player before did... this way is a game changer. Thank you!

I disagree entirely with your description of dexterity. Regardless of what it means in the real world, in dungeons and dragons dexterity is tied to (quoting from 5e PHB) "any attempt to move nimbly, quickly, or quietly, or to keep from falling on tricky footing." It is tied to skills such as acrobatics. Dexterity is far more than being nimbpe with your fingers.

Some things im trying to understand before I go live with this in my game. How do you handle movement? If I target an area with fireball, but then the monster moves out of that area to melee another player...does my fireball just whiff? What is the order of operations if a player says I want to melee attack that goblin, and then my goblins action is running away...How does my player catch up to the goblin....like ever? What if I want to run up and melee a goblin but that goblin wants to run into a gas cloud....I just blindly run into the gas cloud with him? There seems to be a lot of corner cases that completely hurt the system...or there is something im not getting? The only possible things I can think of, is running it like: all ranged attacks and spells happen first...Then all movement happens......then all melee actions happen... I dunno but a bit of clarity would be great... Thanks!

I really REALLY like your initiative system, but my brain is having a hard time processing it. I would really like to implement it in​ my gaming sessions.

This is still such a good video, no matter how often I watch it, it _never_ gets old 🤘

I love this idea so much. I’m bringing it to my table next week.

Dungeon Craft - I love your approach about doing away w/ initiative. I can see how this makes D&D's abstract combat system far more exciting. It plays less like a tactical war game, and feels more like a real and memorable combat experience. Thanks!

I really love the Call of Cthulhu Initiative System. Just note down all your Characters Dexterity and go in order. So you as a keeper know exactly who would go first and between the roleplaying and the action is no pause at all. It's just: "Kevin" what do you do now? And the combat blends in nearly perfectly. The swedish fantasy game "Symbaroum" has more or less the same rules about who goes first. I like how on point and slick this system is.

I had this thought once. Thank you for the validation. I'm definitely going to try it next session.

Hi, at first, it is writte in wore english, just on the fly translated, a first draft of an idea ... I wanted to introduce my concept, basing on many of your ideas. New Initiative System You have up to now a pool of initiative points. proficient bonus + DEX + WIS. (The INI feat gives you only 3 points) This is a pool of points, can be refreshed every short rest. Basing on the idea, a fight doesn't start with 'roll for initiative' pause, the fight start with a 90seconds orientation and determination phase. everyone has to build his own action chain****, and before the timer ended, everyone has to say short, roughly and quick what he want to do and roll his d20 dice(s)** As higher the result as earlier the chraracter can act. But the dice rolls are not fix. There are three kinds of actions, that can modify the result (only for counting the turn order) quick action - making a check and talk, only talk normal action - make an action (attack, climb, run) and moving afterwards* slowly action - move first and than make the action At this point the most complicated point is coming... mark the dice with a quick tokken or a slow tokken. Not only because of the action type, also because at this point, after rolling, you can invest initiative points, to modify the result (you see your chance-to speak with real inititive view). As higher the result as earlier the chraracter can act, each fast or initiaive point give you a +5 bonus to the turn order result (not to the result of your action) Those with high INI can spend as many points as they want, so they can act really quickly in this turn (but a natural 20 is still first even if someone pimps its value to over 20) Spending the INI Points is just a short time window, after that the pimped dice resulta can be evaluated. the highest result can start his acting sequence, with his triggers, conditions and terms (that was just a rough attempt) but it can happen that it wouldn't work because of the timing some conditions have changed in that massive way that the plan doesn't work) than he can follow part conditions or in his worse case he can do nothing. That is the dynamic of a fight, every second counts and those how are to slow can't act. Only those how have still initiative points in there pool can use them to change ther action chain, just spend one of the point and you can change something and act (not a full action just a modified, but better than do nothing. Oh.. forgotten... if some have the same results, they wil lhandle both actions at the same time The mechanic with the tokkens makes it a little bit complicate at the beginning, but the benefits are high, dynamic figths - less waiting time, more stressful figths, more dynamic and more tactical options, or more tactic thoughs required. I think if everyone knows about the use of the +5 tokkens and the roll all dices in one area the DM can see ( or one area and everybody knows his colour ;) ) it will work fast. The DM rolls also for his creatures an with there initiative tokkens for the turn order ;) if he needs the initiative tokkens should been game depending, only if he has a plan.... it will hurry up the game if he doesnt use the tokkens. But he can... and in soem situations he should spend massive tokkens ;) It is the first concept... with this rules I will make he first test, it is better to have something written down to have something into hands. Uh.. I need tokkens for the players here hands... *this is the standart action (if everyone knows that first moving will give the -1 penulty) so it shouldn't modified to make the game quick. It is still not realistic, but to catch the high dynamic of a fight into simplfied rules is impossible) ** prof Bonus and weapon etc bonus didn't count for find out the order sequence, it make it to complicate ;) ***magic use needs also a dice, as in one of your other videos... no limit of spellslots, but a dice roll ( 8 + spell level against your casting value (d20 + prof.b. + attribut) - this is not really planned until the end - **** action chain examples: (attack) action + moving action melee attack against orc 1 + holding position (if orc died before attack is done an no alternate target is near by, he can't act ) rushing forward + attacking one in reach enemy range attack against same target as dwarf attacks, find new tactical position (this means he must know the dwarfs target or must wait until the dwarf attacks) running to point x and fire to orc 2 if i get a good line of sight wait until an enemy comes to me and hack'n slay cast fireball to the center of the orcs (in worse case the fireball comes if the orcs are gone or other charaters are in melee with them...)

I love the chaos and uncertainty that happens. There is a real fog of war and sometimes fear. Oh man does it speed up the game.

I like the idea. Reminds me of this one strat game I saw played where you are in command of a squad, you set what you want them to do and the other team sets what they want to do, then there is an action round where you sit back and see it play out.

I really love this idea because of how time efficient it is in addition to bring about a sense of realism

That Idea is actually really great. I am a Solo Gamer and this speeds things significantly up. It also builds tension and that's what combat is about. Thank you, Professor for this advice.

Your system might be more realistic, but its more complicated. The whole love for 5e is that it is simplified.

As a DM, taught by one of the best DM ever, we always ran combat that way.

I am definitely going to try and adapt the system for my table. One of my biggest frustrations as a DM, and it always results in the players being way more powerful than they should be, is that combat takes so long in standard 5E that I only ever plan one or two combat encounters per adventuring day. if I do anything more than that, the game ends up feeling like it’s 90% combat and 10%, exploration and role-play. This system looks like it could knock a two hour combat encounter down to half an hour at most. That is something that I would absolutely love to put in my game.

Only just found this Channel and Subscribed. Some really intriguing ideas here and I love the new ways one can look at resolving initiative, combat...a wide range of real fun ways across multiple videos. Thanks so much for taking the time to put these together.

Ok, now that battle demonstration was epic!

I was going to recommend Dungeon World, so I’m glad you took note of it at the end of the video. The problem I have with your method as described here is that the game described here, 5e, and my weekly home game, Pathfinder, is that these systems are made with initiative in mind. I saw one of your comments that said you don’t play with bonus actions, but that’s nearly half of what a character can do in their turn. Bonus actions in 5e practically define what makes your character unique from any other wizard or fighter. In Pathfinder, I’ve often thought about nixing certain mechanics to make things run faster or more smooth, but then there’s a character with a class ability that has exceptions to the standard rule, giving them that edge. I could give numerous examples of this, and in the case of a feat, the players could just not take that feat, but what happens when it’s a class ability? Should I give them a free feat to replace their basically non-functioning move? Traits and a lot of other things come to mind with Pathfinder, too. I, personally, prefer the rules of Dungeon World, but my friends’ don’t care for it as much. I like that, in that game, all players are kept interested in any combat and even in social events because if they don’t, they need to have things explained all over again. I’m not against taking out initiative at all, but you really should play a game that is built around that concept rather than try to change how another is. I do like the idea of having a skirmish like this happening once in a while, but I wouldn’t take action economy away from the players.

Again, another amazing video on this subject. I remember playing some other RPG's in the 80's that had simultaneous combat and thought nothing of it. As a DM, anything that speeds play is a plus to me. Also, I think I remember in AD&D you used to have to commit to an action and still roll initiative, I think this was because of the number of players. [I used to have larger groups than today. Back then I had between 6 to 8 players. Today it is down to 4 to 6 at most.] This system will work. As for Magic User Spells, I agree with you, these spells were designed for combat, at least most are, so it only makes sense that they would go off as fast if not faster than a ranged weapon. I think the deciding factor would be perception. But I like the idea of rolling to hit and damage die together to speed play without using initiative. Thanks professor.

Love this. Always thought standing around while two enemies strike me once or twice while I wait my turn is absolutely stupid.

I went through your channel and didn’t see a vital video: you using this with a group as well as standard initiative in a combat situation. I want to see it in action, that will allow me to better determine viability. Thanks

I've just recently started implementing this system with my group, and I have one question. Do you know how to better manage large numbers of enemies and potential allies in combat? I found this system really easy to implement effectively when I only had to concern myself with a few actions, but when the numbers exceeded 10 or so, it became a lot more difficult for me to manage everything. Is this just something you get better at with experience?

If I recall how we did it 42 years ago, first we sorted out surprise. Range weapons went first. Then combatants engaged simultaneously. Initiative only decided whose attacks would be resolved first (in game time the attacks happened in the same exchange (turn). Most of the time, all players followed what was needed to hit and what bonuses where being added. It was important that we all were SURE we were playing by the same rules. That group process made turn based combat very practical. I don't remember exactly what the 1e rules say about this. I do remember having a few short but detailed discussions about how combat should work. We took the DMs Guide at it's word. The rules were just guidelines... suggestions. We only rolled one initiative for the first combat round. The outcome of races... would be argued based on base movement rates, encumbrances, and other conditions before the initiative roll might be factored in. I repeat, melee combat was simultaneous.

I am currently making up a modernized combat system for an OSR-type home brew (i.e., setting and mechanics) that I will soon run. The academic in me drives me to cite many sources including fantasy literature, historical literature, books about magic and witchcraft, game system books, critiques of fantasy RPGs, and now KZfaq channels. I was just about to define "initiative" as "the order in which players and creatures take turns within a round" when I remembered this video, went back and reviewed it. I love it because one of my goals is to make the flow simple, and I believe that players will be more engaged at the table if they announce what their PCs will do (followed by the DM announcing what the creatures will do) at the beginning of the round. I don't want combat to seem like "doing your taxes" as Hankerin Ferndale/Runequest guy describes it. Thanks again Prof. Dungeon Master! I love your material. The text so far: • Attack (Combat Encounter)-Combat encounters are usually played in “encounter time,” which consists of a sequence of rounds. A “round” is a 10 second time interval during which each PC and monster may choose to do something. (NOTE: Although commonly seen in other fantasy RPGs, there are no “turns” or “initiative” in this game.)19 The typical flow of a combat encounter is as such:... 19 “DungeonCraft #6: No More Initiative,” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r8Wdq7x836vOnac.html, accessed 9 May 2020."

Isn't the thief closing the door before the goblins just initiative?

This system looks like cluster fcuk of chaos and madness I LOVE IIIIT!!!

Running a oneshot this weekend. Gonna try this out. Thanks Professor!

Great job! You've rediscovered the old FGU Swordbearer combat system without the greater realism of their damage and armor defense. Next to go is the irrational and overly abstracted (if not wrong) Armor Class notion.

Good video! I'm always looking to ditch away heavy and/or time-consuming rules and mechanics in favor of narrative. This reminds me to the old combat system from World Of Darkness Vampire with the single difference that in that system players would say in inverse order of initiative what their actions would be, that way the more "astute" players would know what less "astute" players would do so they could plan their move but because the actions are declared before anything happens the combat flows rapidly each round, in the new system they ended up using turn by turn like D&D. I personally like to vary combat encounters according to their significance in the story, using the regular system for normal and short encounters (few enemies) and often using the "handling mobs" mechanic from the DM Master Book when there are too many foes.... But also I sometimes use purely narrative combat and/or using a single roll.... Of course it depends mainly on how everyone likes to play but in my group we've been playing for more than a decade and we try to focus much more on the story and role playing that on following strict rules. I red a phrase once in a programming tutorial that I try to apply to many situations: "Always do what feels less awkward" :)

7:51 How did the order of movements and engagements happen, it looks like the fighter got to decide where he moved first, how was that decided? Then 2 Goblins got to decide where they moved next? In this example there is batting order to it. How did the fighter decide he would attack a goblin if there was no goblin there, what if no goblin decided to move there? 7:58 now after seeing this formation an archer is "moving into position" did he decide that before anything happened like you said at 7:47, if so how did he decide he would have line of sight to attack goblin there if he didn't know a goblin would be there? How did the formation in 7:51 go to the one in 8:00 while simultaneous players and NPC knowing what, how and where they would be able to attack things? Correct me if wrong, but this "system" seems to have some fatal holes it needs to sort out.

This video is responsible for the tactical turn order system that I use in my D&D-killer, DtwenD. I really like it and once I've completed writing it, I will credit that part of the system to you, Professor Dungeon Master.

This sounds like an amazing system, definitely going to try this for my next session, thanks for the videos

"No more initiative!" ** gets pelted with a bunch of d20s **

I kind of like the idea from Troika! rpg, the initiative is made by drawing tokens from a bag. There is one token for every combatant and one restart-token, when the restart-token is picked up every token goes back in the bag and a new turn starts. Total chaos, but still very managable because you don't have to keep track of anything. Not for every game or every type of player/DM, but a really smart and fun idea IMO.

This is perfect, it puts a sense of urgency on the players when needed for larger groups. I think with a boss of sorts I'd do initiative style but I will rock this on my next DM and record it hopefully to see how it goes.

Oh my god... this is brilliant, I'm going to try this out at my next session, of course letting my players know before game begins, and then collect their opinions at the end of the game. I need to grab an egg timer before game starts so I can do that

Cool in theory, quite a headache in practice. If you're up for heavy homebrewing and changing a bunch of race/class features, monster abilities and spells, definitely go for it. Otherwise, don't even bother trying.

Hi, I'm applying this new system to my D&D 5e desk and the group is enjoying it a lot. The battle becomes more fluid and everyone is more engaged. During the game I had some questions and would like to know how you think they should be resolved. 1st - If a character wants to engage the opponent for a melee attack, but the opponent decides to use his move to distance himself, would the attack happen or would they run after each other? 2nd - Has some class skills that depend on the initiative, for example the Rogue class Assassin archetype has the Assassin ability, in which case his initiative is greater, his attacks are considered critical. Thank you very much in advance.

This works amazingly well. For my last three sessions for two different campaigns (1e and 5e), removing initiative has dramatically sped up combat. My players were hesitant at first, but after 6 combat encounters, we won’t roll initiative ever again. Thanks for the video and this channel!

I have thought of a declaration based system earlier, but while it really adds realism, I see several problems with it. A) Whoever declares later clearly has the advantage. This could be solved by having everyone write their declaration down, then show them. B) It puts a lot more strain on the GM. You not only have to track where everyone is at the start of the round, but also where they are in the middle of it. This is because the creatures (including PCs) are moving at the same time, trying to intercept each other. This also gives the possiblity of creatures accidentaly colliding. C) In many cases, you still have to determine the order, in which everything happens. And using To Hit rolls for this does not seem correct to me for two reasons: 1: There are actions that do not have To Hit rolls. Many spells do not have them, as well as using items. This means that for such actions, you will have to roll initiative anyway. (Such as the door example. That was an initiative roll of Ranger vs. Goblins) 2: Even if all actions, whose order has to be determined do use To Hit rolls, using how well someone hits as how soon he does it does not make sense. How well you hit is not the same as how fast. Also, order should be: First, all stationary attacks go off. Hitting and missing determined for melee ones. Second, hitting determined for stationary ranged attacks. Third, order of interceptions determined. This is the hardest step for the GM. He/She has to determine where and in what order any interceptions happen. Let's say goblin 1 wants to attack a wizard, but a fighter wants to attack goblin 1. Goblin 2 wants to attack the fighter. Both fighter and goblin 1 will die from 1 hit. Which will happen first: Will goblin 1 reach the wizard? Will the figher reach goblin 1? Or will goblin 2 reach the fighter? At this point the GM has to factor in the distances, directions and speeds of the three moving creatures and determine it. Fourth, hitting determined for ranged attacks after moving. In such system, all stationary attacks would have a chance to hit, even if the attacker died while making it. Using items and spells would be in the same step as attacking with the same range. Of course, if two actions, that can not both happen, or the order of them happening is particularly important (Ex.: someone being healed and dying, teleporting away and dying, being teleported to multiple locations at once, ...) are to happen in the same step (other than 3), their order still has to be determined with initiative roll. Self-target is considered melee, as is using ranged attacks in point-blank range.

I really don't care about whether it's realistic. We're talking about a game where skinny guys in robes terrify big burly guys with great swords by wiggling their fingers... Reality went out the window in the first sentence. However, it is a game, and a game has to make a certain amount of sense in order to hold the players' interest. I think this system can accomplish both goals, and in principle I think it moves the game forward in the direction that 5e is already moving... Simplifying for the purpose of giving more game experience within a shorter real life time period. Older versions of D&D each eventually bogged down in rules stacked on rules, and variations stacked on variations. The sheer complexity evolved to try to account for every different idea that players and designers came up with. In the end, it became it's own joke. The idea of a 30 second combat scenario taking over an hour or rolling dice and rules lawyering is a cliche' that persists. The initiative system isn't to blame for this complexity. But holding on to it serves no purpose, if an equally functional system can accomplish the same end faster. The question to me is, does this system offer sufficient mechanical support to account for a nearly infinite set of conditions. At first blush, I think yes. But it puts a greater burden on the relationship of trust between the players and the DM. This system relies heavily on the DM interpreting complex interactions into very simple mechanics. I see a lot of gain to be had here. I also see hurt feelings resulting in not giving it a fair shot in many cases.

OD&D has no initiative system. It’s not in the booklets. It defaults to the CHAINMAIL rules. Dave Arneson did simultaneous resolution. I think that’s the way it works in ept too.

EXTREMELY HELPFUL. Thank you Professor!

Like the process, will need to watch it a couple more times to ensure I have in in long term memory. I love this Chanel

I don't think I'll be shifting to this method anytime soon as my players are too used to the old initiative style, but I do like the way this frantic all fight better resembles the chaos of a melee. If I get a new group at some point I think I will try this but I will let the players narrate their side in the order they choose so they retain agency and a part of telling the story. Imagine a Dice Tower setup like these beautiful towers from Fates End (www.kickstarter.com/projects/kimbolt/fates-end-3d-printable-dice-towers?ref=user_menu) set to roll into a joined dice pool in the center of the players- everyone has their own tower and their own distinct dice, rolled all together in a mess and then the players narrate through how their actions worked out in an order of their choosing, but the catch is if they slow down or stall or pause in their choosing of who goes next, that's when the DM has the monster/ group of monsters act!

I'm not worried about Players, I'm worried about amount of work I'd have to put in combat as DM. With initiative I have some time to get ideas, to focus on description of each action. This seems to be barely manageable (but with experience it could get better) and really exhausting (and DMing is exhausting experience even without this kind of improvisation). With this, I would be happy as a player, but as a DM I'd avoid every combat I could because it won't be fun for me. It'd be just work.

I love this video. It makes absolute sense to me. I’ve been doing simultaneous actions forever. I get people to describe their actions, and based on what they do, that determines who goes first. If the archer says, without hesitation, I’ll shoot the nearest goblin - they go first. If a wizard takes a while to decide what spell to cast - they go last (because of hesitation). Between rounds players can strategize a little, but I don’t give them much time for that. The players are supposed to work out their overall strategy outside of combat, like a sports team working out several “plays”; then in combat someone can shout “corbomite maneauver” (or whatever) and the party should know what to do. This is closer to a real battle and it also causes more chaos: I’ve had players actually almost come to blows because one player did the wrong maneuver- I just tell them to keep in character because in the game world the party might be genuinely pissed that one guy put them all at risk. Sometimes it is important to know who hits first, like when someone hits a mage casting a spell. In this case, as you suggested, i use the attack roll to decide who goes first (wizards roll to cast spells - I’ve not used the d&d spell system ever because I hated it from day 1; instead I use a simple mana system. )

I've been running a shadowrun homebrew for a few years, based on WEG Starwars 1e, doing a similar thing and it's worked great. Characters can call out actions at any time and reactions to thing other characters are doing. Rolls are made with the relevant skill and the result, in a addition to being tested against the difficulty, is used to see who acts first. It's really great for games where situations weave between combat, stealth and roleplaying. One attack roll can be an entire combat with all the drama that comes with. There was a crazy tense fight where the Street Sam only had his sword and was faced with cybered up troll with an SMG. The Samurai tried talking his way out then drew and charged, the troll fired in response. Troll won, tore up the samurai with bullets BUT not enough to kill him and the Sam closed the distance dismembering the troll. All one roll. It also works for giving other stuff the tension of combat. You can use social rolls for defense (getting out your irresistible offer before they pull the trigger) It's good for throwing stealth into things and getting to feel your hiding juuust as the enemy shows up. No initiative is a great way to go.

Umm what about buff spells such as bless, do they always ‘go first’??

Dexterity isnt just the English definition, it also includes your agility to an extent

Played D&d since 1983. Since then I separated dexterity and agility into two separate attributes. Now I'm doing away with initiative too. Thanks for the help!

I was legit just thinking about this the other day. And then just stumbled upon your video today. Thanks for the great video, and the knowledge that my idea isn't totally new and crazy.

I'm on my 3rd trip through your video archives and I have to say -I really like all of your hacks. I've got a group of inexperienced D&D players who are open to anything. I think I'm going to give this a try next session. I've played a lot of Savage Worlds and FATE, and combat in those systems is less granular, but a lot more exciting. I find I both love and hate D&D combat. as someone who just likes game mechanics as theory, I enjoy how technical it can get. But in practice, any fight that lasts more than 3 rounds quickly becomes tedious. W/the "batting order" initiative of D&D I keep seeing 2 scenarios play out over the 6 combat encounters we have run so far: If the goblins roll high initiative they maul the low-level PCs and some go down before getting to do anything "cool". Or, the goblins roll low and the PCs wipe most of them out in the first round, leaving only one or two left standing, leading to very anti-climactic combats.

Would that be the "Gnome Chomsky of games"? Hardy har har! I haven't played D&D since the mid 80s. I recently saw a video about painting miniatures (which I love - I still have all my old Grenadier and Ral Parthas) and of course then started watching videos on playing the game. As I was used to playing Ed. 1 with a few things from Ed. 2, I find most of the points you make in your videos dead on. We would often use an egg timer (hourglass type of course!) to keep combat quick and fresh. Anyway, just wanted to say I enjoy your videos and I'm working my way through your entire catalog.

I really like the idea. I definitely want to try this with my group. Thanks for the info.

Wow, I absolutely love this. I already used a pretty different system for initiative where the different teams go as a group in one big turn where anyone can use their actions and movement in whatever order they see fit. This works really well in my experience, and it made me realize how little individual initiative actually contributes to the game. I don't think whatever potential benefits it might offer outweigh how much easier and more fun it is to just have everyone go at the same time. It feels more cooperative as well. It's not one person's turn while everyone else sits and waits, it's everyone's turn at once, and you can coordinate to do some cool stuff because of that. It goes way faster too. This takes it a step further. The system I use is already halfway to removing initiative entirely, so I've been of the opinion that that it's not really necessary for a while now. I'd love to actually try this out and see how it goes.

I love it and I'm going to use it. However, do you have any tips about when you roll 10 dice for damage by the opponents, how do I know who gets what damage?

I like the idea, but not sure it would work that well in 5e, major problems with the DM managing the combat. How would reactions/bonus actions and Monster lair/legendary actions work.

My group has started using this and we love it thank you for the idea

I love this, it's simple, makes sense and fast. The variables I would add if need is movement and complexity add penalties to the roll. Only if needed however. Greater detail means a slower game. A d20 is measurements of 5% change. A fighter moving 2 inches gets a -2 to their engagement check against the target who's standing there. A spell gets a penalty vs complexity, (Vocal, Semantic, material) To cast a spell. Actions that aren't opposed such as a ranged attack are basically free since the attempt isn't challenged in any way. This can all be added up to action costs. Every movement and action effects the roll. Goblins vs the ranger to the door. The goblins are 2 inches away, the ranger is 3, both roll, goblins at a -3 (Reach the door and pass through or get a door to the face) the ranger at a -5 (3 to get to the door, 1 to grab the door and close it, another to lock it). This gives us an idea of what happens as well. The what if breakdown A tie. Goblins reach the door right as the ranger locks the door. Goblins win +1. Goblins reach the door but it's slammed on them. Failing a reflex means they are knocked down and the Ranger locks the door. Goblins win by +2. The lead goblin reaches the door and fights to keep it open, failing a knock down means the ranger slams the door against the goblins but it may not close all the way. One of the goblins may make it through or is crushed against the door and the frame, possibly crushing it. Next round it's goblins vs the ranger to contest the door. Goblins win by +3. The goblins rush past the door and swarm the defenseless ranger who has a hand on the door, the other on their bow. RIP Ranger.

I've been coming back to this video for years, absolutely obsessing over this idea. I really love the concept but here's the problem I can't seem to work out in my head--how do the players themselves declare actions vs their opponents declaring actions? What if the players have competing interests? I get that you can make everybody roll off simultaneously, but that's just sorting out the results. Making a declaration of your action is important information that can affect what others do, so how do you get everyone to declare simultaneously without having them write it down every turn? Isn't the order of declaration a type of de facto initiative?

How do you handle effects like Blink, Stunning Strikes, and Alert that rely on turns / initiative to work? I would guess stunning strikes would be easiest, just until end of next round? The others seem a bit harder though.

History lesson: Mind Blown- on Wells and the Lake Geneva connection. Awesome-- really nice piece of history relative to game design!

Gygax only included "initiative" (and he disliked that term,) to determine who goes first because everyone at the table declaring actions at the same time was chaos. Per the original rules, everything happened simultaneously, weapons had speeds and spells had casting times to determine when things happened in the round. In current editions of D&D, actions, spells, and movement happens simultaneously and instantaneously in your turn, so to speak, so some sort of initiative order is required to make it work. If you are slow, you pretty much get no chance in combat, or are forced to bat cleanup if there's anything left. Your system brings back the spirit of the original rules.

I find it interesting how the creator of the video is perfectly fine explaining things about the initiative to anyone other than people who bring up bonus actions or reactions. It’s almost as if he didn’t think it through or something and doesn’t have an answer

the Noam Chomsky of games XD haha.....Noam...Gnome Chomsky...i just came up with a new NPC

Dexterity includes your reflexes. But that said like the system used in Cortex. Where the person currently moving gets to pick who goes next. The last person to act gets to pick who moves first in the next round. But I like your system too.

Interesting points to start a conversation about why we use initiative.