Initiative as a Token
A long time ago, in a country far away I wrote a silly game about space Vikings. It has a mechanic that let you give the initiative away to the opposition in exchange for bonus dice. It’s not a bad idea, and I wonder why I’ve never thought of using something along those lines since then.
I like the idea of initiative as something you can take away from opponents, depending on how the flow of the fight goes. Fights can’t always be as elegant as the duel in Princess Bride but I think we can do better than just rolling a die.
All I have is a kernel of an idea that I’ll test in my next games (CY_borg or CRACK! not sure which will happen first). But here it is, directly from my brainmeat:
- Initiative is a physical token on the table. Use something cool looking.
- The side who initiates the attack starts with the initiative. Or roll if not sure.
- On their initiative, the players or the monsters/NPC act in the order they chose.
- Initiative can be lost:
- On a very bad roll or fumble
- As a payment to improve the result of a roll
- In exchange for better odds at a roll
- Initiative can be seized:
- With a very good or critical roll
- By succeeding at a specific action
- By not acting on your turn
You’d have to be very narrative focused to make this work. I don’t think it’d work in a grid-based, action economy environment like Pathfinder of the Ampersand Brand. But if you’re playing loosey-goosey, heroic games, you can easily make the iniative a stake of your fight scenes.
I’ll think of some examples when my brain isn’t as foggy as it is today (why else do you think I’m blogging on a Friday afternoon?)