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Three Alternative Initiative Options

by Mike on 3 November 2025

Initiative is one of those strange mechanics that can suck all the excitement out of a situation. As soon as a battle is about to begin, we all sit down and do a bunch of accounting and mathematical ranking.

If you're happy with initiative as-is, that's awesome. If, however, you want to look at a few alternatives, look no further.

Around the Table

Probably the easiest initiative option is the "around the table" option. The Shadowdark RPG features this style of initiative for its speed, simplicity, and lack of bookkeeping.

For this style of initiative, everyone rolls initiative as normal and whoever has the highest roll goes first. At that point, initiative goes clockwise around the table. This way you never know where initiative is going to start but everyone knows the order after that roll.

If you want to shake things up, you can reverse the direction every other battle or decide what direction it goes based on the even or odd number of the highest roll. Even and turns go clockwise, odd and they go counterclockwise.

Initiative is already random enough that going around the table is just about as good as figuring out the whole initiative order and it's faster, easier, and requires no record-keeping.

This style of initiative doesn't work quite as easily in online play. You can either forgo this technique or use the list of characters alphabetically (or reverse alphabetically) which usually means looking up or down your Discord voice channel list or some other list of characters you have in front of you.

Of course, if your online system is as complex as normal initiative, maybe just go with the normal style of initiative and turn-order.

Elective Action Order ("Popcorn Intiative")

Also known as Balsera-style initiative or "popcorn" initiative, elective action order puts turn-order in the hands of the players. Here's how Fate Condensed describes it:

At the start of a scene, the GM and players decide who goes first based on the situation, then the active player picks who goes next. The GM’s characters are selected in the turn order just like the PCs, with the GM deciding who goes next after the NPCs have acted. After everyone has taken a turn, the last player picks who goes next at the start of the next exchange.

This method is a cool cinematic-focused sort of way of handling initiative but it feels ripe for min-maxing. Why wouldn't you put the monsters at the bottom of the turn order? Sure, they could technically go twice if the GM chooses the monsters right after they go but it still feels like monsters would have the advantage.

Fast and Slow Turns

This one comes from Shadow of the Demon Lord by Robert Schwalb but can be easily ported over to 5e. Each round of combat is broken down into "fast turns" and "slow turns". In 5e, a fast turn would include an action, a bonus action, or a move. A slow turn includes the full range of actions, bonus actions, and moves. In each of these two phases, the characters go first with their fast turns, then monster fast turns, then character slow turns, then monster slow turns. Within each phase, you don't worry about the turn order. Players choose who goes in each player phase and the GM determines the order of the monsters' turns.

Fast and slow turns let characters (and the GM) choose whether to act quickly but not do as much stuff or act slowly but get more access to their available actions. It's another way to give everyone more control over turn order and doesn't require a lot of book keeping. It can break down, however, if you have more than four or five players.

Bonus Option – Monsters Go on 12

I really like the "around the table" style of initiative but that doesn't work well online. Elective action order and "fast and slow" turns also have some quirky bits to them. So for online play and even in in-person play, I have the monsters always go on an initiative of 12. This gives some slower monsters a little leg up but it almost always ensures the monsters go somewhere in the middle of the round. It also means I don't have to bother to roll to throw my monsters into the ring.

I also use the lazy trick of asking one of the players to manage initiative which helps significantly. I'd be using the numbered 3x5 cards for initiative except one of my players made an awesome wood-block initiative stack that we use instead. This tool makes tracking and displaying initiative fast and easy.

Try Them Out – Use the One You Dig

It's always fun to find different ways to tackle particular elements of our RPG. If any of the above initiative variants grab you, bring them to your next game and try them out on a low-stakes encounter. See how you like it and how your players like it. Try a few of them out and then pick the one you like the best. There's also no reason you can't use a few different ones. Maybe easy battles call for "around the table" style initiative while more high-stakes boss battles use the standard initiative system.

Try things out and choose the options that work best for you and your group.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

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Friend Doesn't Want My AI / LLM Generated Campaign

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a YouTube video on The Void Dragon – Dragon Empire Prep Session 42.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

What type of monsters do each of your players love to fight?
Mix hordes of small monsters, some juicy big monsters, and boss monsters all together.
With each scene you plan, ask what choices and actions lie in front of the characters.
Think one horizon out. What things do you need in your next game to prepare for the one after that?
Let players break debilitating status effects by taking psychic damage at the beginning of their turn.
Roll for random treasure, then determine if that treasure's cool for your group.
Beach and shopping episodes give the characters a break between big climactic adventures.

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