Tips for Tracking Initiative
When first getting into roleplaying games, rules can be daunting even for adults. But kids are actually more open to roleplaying as their imaginations are wild and open. For parents wanting to get their children interested in creative play that teaches teamwork, math, and stimulates the imagination, RPGs can be modified to accommodate your adventurous younglings.
Your party of 5 meets up with an angry group of 8 orcs. The scene is set and everyone is ready for battle. Now, roll initiative! For most, this is an exciting part of the game as it provides a turn order based on your abilities and die roll.
But with a substantial number of combatants, it can get daunting keeping track of everyone’s order of initiative. Thankfully, there are many ways to do this rather easily. The following are a few tips and tools on keeping the battle flowing.
Tips:
Prep your battles - Make sure you have done the homework regarding your encounter. Listing down foes ahead of time so you can place them in initiative order makes things quick and easy when setting up a battle.
Have ample paper and take notes - Make sure you have a dedicated notebook for keeping track of initiative and effects during battle.
Mark the miniatures - Keep track of the tabletop battlefield with markers that denote the enemies and their order in the initiative. This can be with tokens, dice, or small slips of paper. Anything that can travel with the mini on the table during battle makes things less confusing.
Mark wounded or injured enemies - Let players know which of their enemies may be bleeding so they can decide which foe to attack.
Keep it simple - If there are many enemies and your initiative list would be massive, fudge some rolls or consider group initiative to make things less confusing. Don’t let turn order disrupt the flow of the battle.
Campaign Apps
Game Master 5 is a great 5th edition based application for your iphone or ipad. It offers many tools for a game master including a nifty initiative tracker that rolls for all the enemies and allows entry of each players’ initiative.
Initiative Notepads
A handy notepad that has basic info on each combatant can be an excellent tool. After each encounter, just tear off the page and you are ready for another battle. Our initiative tracker notepads have all the info you need and plenty of sheets to keep the battles flowing smoothly.
Game Master Screen Hangers
Many game masters use cards or papers folded over and hung off the game master screen to show players initiative order. We’ve got our own handy initiative tracker cards for this very purpose.
Wound and Death Tokens, Monster Markers
Depending on how many foes the party is facing, tokens can be a helpful tool for tabletop battles. Monster Markers let you keep track of each enemy while wound tokens offer a way to see which enemies are injured badly. Death tokens show who has fallen during battle and if a significant amount, could be considered rough terrain. They also make great badges of enemies killed after the battle for the players! We have a few different versions of Death and Wound tokens as well as handy Monster Markers in our online store.
