Initiative every round

[Whill]

There have been a lot of discussions about Initiative over the years, both as tangents in threads and topics about it. I even started a short 2018 House Rules thread about my derived Initiative stat. The first sentence of that thread starts, "In my game I have initiative mechanically work as it does in R&E RAW..." But a recent post in the Star Wars D6 - WEG Facebook group asking if Initiative needed to be rolled every round. I thought no, and went to RAW to get the specific citation for him and realized...

This is rather embarrassing, but I must admit that I've been doing Initiative "wrong" for years, even before my house rule. I've been having Initiative rolled at the beginning of an encounter and not re-rolling every round. I've just had the initial rolls stand. I do have new Initiative rolls mid-encounter when something can turn the tide of the battle, like when the side that lost initiative gains some reinforcements, or a third party shows up and enters the battle already in progress.

I'm not even sure when I went astray from RAW. Initiative was new in 2e and I remember liking that they added it, so I'm pretty sure that for my 4-year campaign from 92-96 I went by the book, but sometimes after I started running R&E in 1997 I stopped doing Initiative every round. Maybe I misremembered how it worked during one of my lapses in playing the game regularly, but I just checked D6 Space and it has the option of doing it every round (which says is more realistic) or just at the beginning of an encounter (which keeps combat moving a little is faster). So it is possible that it was an intentional change I made to my game inspired by D6 Space, which came out in 2005, and then forgot it was a alteration to official R&E rules. But it does feel like it has been at least 15 years. Or maybe I came up with it on my own at some point and just forgot that it was a house rule.

Knowing what is really RAW doesn't make me want to change how I do it. So what does everyone else do? Do you do a new initiative roll each round as in RAW? I'm curious if anyone does it like I do.
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[CRMcNeill]

I've played under multiple GM styles over the years, but when I think about it, my experience roughly paralleled yours. GMs can get pretty overworked running combat scenes, and I think rolling initiative every round is one of those things that just falls by the wayside.

But I agree that it doesn't seem right for initiative to be redone every round without something happening to trigger it.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Darklighter79]

One roll for continuous use of a one action type: like attacking with a blaster pistol each round.

Re-roll of an initiative (some of examples):
a) New action type - like co-pilot leaves his place and moves to ship's turret,
b) Being wounded/stunned, immobilized, ect.,
c) Boost with CP/FP,
d) Boost with a Force Power,
e) Disengage/reengage into combat,
f) Boost by any other source (medicine, drug, technology)
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[Whill]

[garhkal]

[Whill]

[garhkal]

[Grimace]

Whill, I think you may have picked that up from me, from back on the Holonet. I switch from rolling initiative every round to rolling for the EXACT situations you described (and those were the words I used to describe when initiative would change).

So blame me.

I only played with rolling every round for a couple years, and it became so monotonous that I felt it needed to be streamlined. Keeping track EVERY ROUND of who acts when was tedious and the constant changes weren't really necessary in my opinion. When I made the change, my players enjoyed it more and felt it made more sense.

[Whill]

[garhkal]

I never remember seeing Whill over on the SWRPGnetwork's holonet.. before it became a ghost town..
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[Whill]

[Tupteq]

I'm rolling initiative every round. It makes combat more dynamic (chaotic and unpredictable). It often opens new tactical options ("if I win initiative this time I'll do ...") and makes combat more colorful (IMO).

Also, it doesn't take much time when players know what to do (when I say "round ends", they grab they dice instinctively to roll initiative). The only problem is that they like to sometimes forgot about wound penalties.

[Whill]

[shootingwomprats]

In my games I have each player, major NPC, and individual group roll initiative once. This order stays static until something changes in the encounter (earthquake, large explosion, new group showing up, etc).

1. Players who hold an action and interrupt another, this becomes their new intiative.
2. A player may reroll initiative, this is a full round action.
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[garhkal]