4 thoughts on “just for Jason Cordova”

  1. Ha! For anyone not paying attention, I (frequently) despise the concept of initiative in roleplaying games. You can take almost any RPG, gut the initiative system, and have more fun with it. Try it. I promise it works. You just go with what makes sense in the fiction, rather than wasting 20 minutes fiddling with initiative. Only the most tactical of combat systems need it (and even then, something like Marvel Heroic’s is probably a better fit – see the link in the article). 

    All that said, Ryan’s points are interesting. The idea of initiative being a way of distinguishing fast characters is a valid one (though I would argue you can still do that with narrative tricks). And I can get behind an initiative system that is fun and/or different (again, Marvel Heroic’s is nice, and I quite like the one in Savage Worlds, too). The question, for me: Is this slowing the game down? 9 times out of 10, the answer is ‘yes.’ 

  2. Ha! For anyone not paying attention, I (frequently) despise the concept of initiative in roleplaying games. You can take almost any RPG, gut the initiative system, and have more fun with it. Try it. I promise it works. You just go with what makes sense in the fiction, rather than wasting 20 minutes fiddling with initiative. Only the most tactical of combat systems need it (and even then, something like Marvel Heroic’s is probably a better fit – see the link in the article). 

    All that said, Ryan’s points are interesting. The idea of initiative being a way of distinguishing fast characters is a valid one (though I would argue you can still do that with narrative tricks). And I can get behind an initiative system that is fun and/or different (again, Marvel Heroic’s is nice, and I quite like the one in Savage Worlds, too). The question, for me: Is this slowing the game down? 9 times out of 10, the answer is ‘yes.’ 

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