[Dead of Night] initiative -- player, not character?
Ron Edwards:
Hi,
My reading of the text, and application of that reading, is that it has nothing to do with stopping or interrupting others' actions in progress, but only with determining what to do when we don't know what anyone is doing. So the characters are looking around a spooky mansion. Instead of consulting some chart of initiative values, the GM just waits for someone to say what they do, and that's the person whose action we now resolve. Same goes for fights, obviously at a somewhat faster in-fiction pace.
That's why it's really important to pay attention to the rule about not rolling twice in a row; it's phrased rather delicately and precisely, and I found it to work very well.
There is a mechanism for pre-empting someone when they've announced an action, i.e., going first instead of that person, requiring spending a Story Point. But even that doesn't interrupt an action in progress.
Best, Ron
JamesDJIII:
I was James Daniel is referring to above.
This was the first time I'd run it - I may have goofed several times following the rules for initiative. I do recall trying to keep hard to the "who ever talks first, they get iniative".
If a person was not saying "I do X!" then I took it to be just color, essentially, and fair game to ignore as far as "doing something" declarations.
I remember at one point all three players were looking back and forth at each other, each one not quite sure what to say when confronted with danger, especially Rohit, who was sitting between Mark and Daniel. It was comical to me, the observer, as Rohit turned back and forth with a "What the fuck do we do now?" look.
When I sensed no one was going to step up, I grabbed the dice and went from there. I don't think I ever rolled twice in a row, but it's possible in the heat of things I forgot or flubbed that.
When I run this again, I will take a few minutes to establish how the initiative works. I feel bad I didn't make that more clear. You guys were super patient and a lot of fun to play with.
David Berg:
Hey James! Thanks for chiming in. It was definitely a fun game, and we should do it again! (I'll be in touch about that when my schedule frees up.)
The shared moment of "Oh crap what do we do? What do we- Agh, now something's happening!" was great. I think the initiative system shines in situations like that.
Do you remember the specific moment I described above? The 3 PCs had just returned from the collection vessel, talked to the NPCs at the docking structure, and then my guy had gone off to do something (tend to an injured dude?) while Mark and Rohit's guys had begun a private conversation.
I, as a player, wanted to listen in, as the conversation seemed like a good moment in the game, where we see Mark's inner psycho coming through as the stress of the ordeal gets to him. That's a big part of the horror movie for me!
At that moment, you threatened my guy with danger, and when I said, "Just a minute, I want to hear this conversation," you attacked with the danger and I lost a Survival point.
Do you remember that? I'm just curious about what your rationale was at the time. Was there some game rule or principle you were following, or were you bored by Mark and Rohit's conversation, or were we simply running out of play time, or something else?
Thanks!
-David
JamesDJIII:
I think I do remember that part.
It might have been nerves, but I think my thinking was "No one is saying what they are doing in a declarative sense." Given that, I felt it perfectly OK to grab initiative for myself. I'm trying to remember if the tension was above 10, which may also have really been a signal to me to start putting on more pressure.
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