Will rerolling initiative each round stop meta-gaming about initiative?

Question

I am thinking of implementing Speed Factor Initiative, but I don't really want to use all of it.

Speed Factor Initiative "RAW" would work like this:

• Everyone must declare an action prior to rolling
• Initiative is rolled after each round
• There are additional modifier to be added based on weapon type and size

While I love the unpredictability of this initiative variant, I am not sure that my player are experienced enough to declare their action this early. I am looking at only taking the portion of this variant that causes everyone to re-roll each round.

I don't want them to have to declare their action ahead of time, or make the formula for initiative more complex.

Has anyone else tried this? Did it work? My main purpose is to kind of stop meta-gaming naturally. Because there are some brand new player, I want them to be able to converse with the people who have played before, but I don't want a conversation like this to happen:

PC1: I don't really know what to do here

PC2: Well if I move here and you move there we can flank the goblin. Because we have higher initiative, he won't be able to act before this happens

While this is constructive for PC1 to learn some of these battle tactics, I think by simply mixing up initiative each turn, that will be enough to really thwart the meta-gaming because they don't really know who acts when.

Answer 1

Your problem as described doesn't sound like meta-gaming. It sounds like making tactics, and working together. You should encourage this! If your team can act faster than the goblin, it makes perfect sense to take it out before it can take an action.

From your comment:

I am trying to stop full conversations about what to do next in combat

To me it sounds like you feel your players are spending too much time planning out every single decision in combat, which to be fair can definitely eliminate any sense of dramatic tension.

If you want to up the pace of combat, you can put them on a time limit. Get a timer, an hourglass or something similar and tell your players they have until the sand empties to make your move. 60 seconds is usually plenty of time to make a decision, and once your players get used to it they probably won't even need the timer any more. The problem is that this might put undue pressure on a newer player, since you did mention you have some in your group.

While speed factor is certainly an option, in my experience re-rolling initiative is tedious, and can drag down the pace of the game even more, especially with new players. As pointed out in the comments, messing with initiative order can have other undesired effects. Monsters or players can effectively get two turns in a row, which throws off the balance of a lot of things, such as "until start of your next turn" abilities. Not to mention, re-tracking initiative every round puts even more work on your plate as DM. It also doesn't really solve the root problem of players over-analyzing combat; it just makes things more unpredictable.

As always, talk with your players before you change anything. Make sure everyone is on the same page about what you all want out of the game. If everyone is enjoying the way things are, there may not be a problem and trying to force them to change their ways could cause them to resent you.

Another option is to just up the tactics of your monsters! Make them flank, co-ordinate, ambush, lead players into traps, etc. Let the players feel like their planning pays off when they outsmart an equally intelligent enemy.

Answer 2

What you describe is not metagaming

Relevantly, metagaming is "is any approach to a game that transcends or operates outside of the prescribed rules of the game" - there are other definitions that aren't relevant here.

There are the rules of the game. Therefore, it can't be metagaming.

The word that you need to use for this is tactics. Personally, I don't think its a good idea to try and eliminate tactics for the tactical part of the game but that's up to you.

Has anyone else tried this?

Yes. Me. A long time ago.

Rolling initiative each round and declaring actions in advance was the original way that D&D0, D&D Basic and AD&D did this although there was a single die roll for each 'side' not individual initiative.

Did it work? Sure, however, D&D abandoned it (which might tell you something) and my table abandoned the declaration element long before D&D did (which also might tell you something).

The Issues

• It's slow. The most time-consuming part of combat with little or no payback is rolling initiative. If you are going to do this, I strongly suggest that you drop individual initiative and roll once per side - I believe the DMG has an option for this but I'm too lazy to look.
• It's possible to cheat. Now I know you are scrupulously honest and would never consciously use your knowledge of the PC's stated actions to inform the monster's actions. However, knowing what they are will unconsciously influence you - because you're human. Notwithstanding, when the monster does something of nerfing the PCs, your players will suspect that you cheated whether such suspicion is justified or not. You can overcome this by having everyone write down their actions but that makes a slow system even slower.
• It won't do what you want. All you are doing is changing the tactical situation which means your players will develop different tactics to cope. For example, if your enemy can move out of reach of your melee attack expect the players to eschew them for ranged attacks. More specifically, you are making the tactical situation more complex; the natural reaction of your players will be to spend more time considering their tactics, not less time.
• Its less realistic. Yes, I said less. Small unit combat teams coordinate their actions if they want to survive. If it helps your verisimilitude, don't think of the tactical discussions as happening at the moment; think of them as discussions, training and practice that the party has gone through many, many times so that these are actually near instinctive responses to the tactical situation that presents itself.

Answer 3

Yes, rerolling initiative each round without making action declarations first works, in the sense of being a functional way to play the game. It works well enough that it's the standard approach in many non-D&D RPGs.

No, rerolling initiative each round will not prevent the kind of coordination described in the question. Even if the initiative order changes from one round to the next, the order for the current turn is known (or at least can be known) when each person takes their turn. The players may not know "we both go before the goblin every round", but they still know "we both go before the goblin this round".

If you want to prevent that kind of coordination (which may or may not be appropriate, depending on your characters, preferred style of play, etc.), you need to have the players decide what to do before they know whether they're going to act before or after the goblin this round, which is the purpose of doing action declarations before rolling initiative.

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To expand on the "or at least can be known" comment, one way of dealing with dynamic initiative systems is to do an initiative countdown each round. e.g., The GM might say, "Does anyone have initiative 25 or higher? No? 24... 23...", then Alice says, "I have 23" and takes her turn. When she's done, the GM asks, "Anyone else on 23? 22... 21..." and so on. When using this method, it's common for nobody (even the GM) to know the full initiative order at any given time, although you could still announce your initiative position if you want others to know it, or ask them for theirs before the countdown reaches them.