This is going to be a finesse technique, the kind of hyper-specific tip that’s probably not worth focusing on until you’ve mastered a lot of other skills as a game master. (Like the ones described in So You Want to Be a Game Master.) But it’s a subtlety that I’ve found to have a remarkably out-sized impact on the flow of a session.

Imagine that you’re calling for an initiative check: The players all roll their dice, do the appropriate mathematical rituals for your current system of choice, and immediately begin shouting out their results, often at the same time.

Your mileage may vary, but I often find – particularly with larger groups – that this leads to a lot of confusion. I’ll miss or lose track of numbers as I’m trying to get them all written down, leading to a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth between me and the players. I’ve even had a few cases where I’ve realized I didn’t catch someone’s initiative result and asked them to repeat it, only to discover that the player had forgotten what they rolled!

So the tip here is pretty straightforward: Don’t do that.

What I’ve found is that the groups that run smoothest are the ones who roll their initiative check and then wait for me to individually call for the results.

GM: Initiative checks, please.

(dice are rolled)

GM: Nasira?

Jacqueline: 16.

GM: Tithenmamiwen?

Sarah: 24.

And so forth.

Usually I’ll just go around the table, but you can also read the table pretty easily and start with whoever finishes calculating their initiative first.

For a long while, I was aware that collecting initiatives was really easy for some of my tables, but a clusterfuck for others. Eventually I figured out what the difference was (players waiting to deliver the information in turns rather than all at once) and I started training the players at my other tables to follow suit.

It sounds simple, but the difference it makes is startling.

OTHER GROUP CHECKS

Obviously this same technique may apply to other situations where everyone at the table is making a simultaneous check, but I’ve personally only found it necessary when I need to track and write down the specific check results (or other numbers).

More broadly, it’s useful in any situation where you’re resolving each PCs’ result separately. In the case of the typical initiative check, this resolution is recording the results and sorting them into the initiative sequence. Another example would be checks with multiple degrees of success or failure, where you’re probably going to want to resolve the precise result of each check for each PCs’ result in turns.

For other checks, you may find it more useful to focus on identifying the threshold of the check. In other words, if you know what number each PC needs to roll in order to succeed, you can probably resolve each check result near-instantaneously and mentally keep track of which PCs succeeded.

Of course, in some games this will include initiative, since there’s a wide variety of initiative systems out there. For example, in Numenera initiative is resolved by having the PCs make a Speed check against the level of their opponents: Those who succeed go before the opponents (in any order of their choosing); those who fail go after them. That’s just a threshold and it’s usually straightforward to keep track.

If the PCs are facing mixed opposition of multiple levels, however, it’s possible for some of them to go between the bad guys, and I’ll usually transition back to collecting results in turns. (Or I’ll ask, “Who succeeded at level 5? Who succeeded at level 3?” and collect them in batches.)

BONUS TIP: ROLL INITIATIVE LAST

A related tip that I’ve shared before is that, rather than rolling initiative at the beginning of an encounter, you should instead roll initiative at the end of an encounter, write down the results, and then use them for the next encounter.

(This won’t work in every system, but in most systems initiative modifiers never change, so it doesn’t really matter when you roll the check.)

When it looks like the PCs are about to encounter something, roll for its initiative and slot it into the order. If they don’t encounter it for some reason, no big deal, you can just scratch it out.

Using the technique, by the time combat starts, initiative is already completely resolved, so there’s no delay where you ask for initiative, the dice are rolled, your players tell you the results, then you sort those results into order, and then…

Instead, you can start combat instantly. When the PCs are ambushed, for example, you can deliver the adrenalin-packed punch of the ogre smashing through the wall and immediately roll into the action, instead of deflating that moment with the mundane bureaucracy of collecting initiative scores.

SOFTWARE TOOLS

If you’re playing on a computer or have a computer at hand while playing at the table, then VTTs, spreadsheets, and other software tools can often be used to automatically generate, sort, and otherwise manage initiative scores.

The only limitation I’ve found when using these tools is that, if I have a laptop at the table, it’s usually because there’s some other utility that I’m using the screen for (e.g., searching PDF rulebooks, accessing stat blocks, etc.). I generally want the initiative information in a combat encounter at my fingertips, so I don’t want to be tabbing through windows trying to find my list. Make sure to take this into account when setting up your software tools.

FURTHER READING
GM Don’t List: Not Writing Down Initiative
OD&D Combat Sequence

RPG SUPERBRAIN JUSTIN ALEXANDER FINALLY PUTS ALL HIS GM ADVICE IN ONE BOOK!

According to Dave Thaumavore, I’m an RPG Superbrain.

I should put that on my business cards.

While you’re waiting for those business cards, though, you should check out How Do You Become a Good GM? Justin Alexander Has Some Answers, which is the far-ranging and deep-diving interview I did with Dave which dug into the darkest corners of my GMing philosophy, my approach to adventure design, and the driving passion which led to the publication of So You Want To Be a Game Master.

Here’s an excerpt:

But what it DID have was a really awesome McGuffin motivating the whole campaign, solid set-pieces, and four really cool villain factions with awesome hideouts. (Hideouts which, oddly, the published adventure told the DM they should never, ever allow the PCs to go to.) Basically, just a bunch of cool bits either glued to a railroad or bizarrely locked in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD BEHOLDER.

READ IT NOW!

Her name was composed of seven syllables which blended together in a symphonic burst of seeming melody when uttered by even the most banal of tongues. It was a perfect name for a perfect person. She was in a room which, like herself, was perfect. A perfect ceiling, perfect doors, perfect furnishings, all enclosed within perfect walls.

She pushed herself along those perfect walls, molded atom by atom in a perfect shape conceived by a perfect mind. And as she went she felt those perfect walls tremble beneath her perfect fingers and for the first time within her breast she felt the groping pangs of what beings long before her time would know as fear. In this fear she went, finding her way in a world which slowly went mad about her.

She came to a stair of gold and she went down it, curving down and down into the depths below.  She followed some grown instinct which told her that to delve deep below the surface was to find safety. The further down she went, the safer she would be. But today those instincts were betrayed as the rumblings grew and the halls through which she passed quaked and shuddered. And the fear grew within her.

This perfect place was falling from her. Though the walls were yet around her, seemingly unperturbed, she could feel the betrayal rumbling through her feet and into her legs; passing through attentive nerves which strained for any sign of the source of the insanity which plagued her world.

Through a door which opened even as she thought of passing through it, through another hall and another door, and into a wide place where other people stood or sat or ran. Her legs began to carry her faster. There was no sense, not even instinct, in her now – only the need for movement, the vain hope that there was someplace to which she could retreat and leave this place behind her. But the halls were endless. The corridors and passages and fretted rooms soared past her, one leading to the next with perfect grace and endless options.

The fear was still growing within her and now she felt the floor surge beneath her and she tumbled. This perfect woman, who had never known pain before, stumbled and fell and agonies coursed through her. Baffled and confused by this new, sharp sensation which seemed to both catch at her and rip through her at once, she looked down with wide, naïve eyes at the floor. Never had its rigid surface failed to yield before her, but now it seemed a shine had left it. It was cold and hard, and she knew it would never accept her in a warm embrace again.

Searing with betrayal, she pushed hard against her new enemy and lifted herself back to her feet. Now her pace had quickened once more as she raced with destiny, fate nipping at her heels. Her legs became a blur of motion and, though it took a seeming eternity, eventually she began to feel the pains of strain in her sides and in her feet and legs. Tears streamed down her face, but she could not bring herself to stop. To do so would be to admit this strange new reality and imbue it with purpose and truth. So she ran and ran and ran. There was no seeming end to her flight from the inevitable, her daunting fight against that which she could not see and could not hope to comprehend.

She might have continued thus until her death, but that she came into a room which stopped her. Here, among the golden columns and the silver walls, a group had gathered. The shaking was growing in intensity once more, but curious to see why these others had accumulated she slowed her weary feet and stopped beside them. They were a solid wall of flesh, their backs to her, surrounding something unseen upon the floor. With the uncaring abrasion belonging to those who had never mingled in a crowd, she forced her way through them.

What she saw was an impossibility. It could not be. It should not be. And yet she could not deny that it was so. Unless she was mad. Her mind seized at that vain straw, but she pushed it back down through force of will. This was not madness which confronted her. It was a dire truth. She knew that, could sense that, though she could not begin to grasp the true enormity of what confronted her.

A black gash had formed across that floor, here in this corner among the gold and silver. A dark maw which had claimed the perfect contours of this perfect world, crushing unspoken assurances which had lasted generations beyond the memories of those who now stared down at its daunting presence.

Around her the woman could hear the muttering of those gathered, a seemingly grisly undertone to the monstrosity which gaped before her. She felt the world spin about her in a daze and she let herself trail into the warm feeling of denial which beckoned to her, but all too soon she was jolted back to the cold realities which surrounded her by the massive shocks which rattled the chamber in which she stood. The blind panic of her fear clutched at her and she fled.

But now there was nowhere to flee. Wherever she went the impossible was being made possible. Perfect, indestructible things were falling to pieces all about her. The unseen, unguessed at technology which ran her perfect world had begun to fail for reasons which her people, trapped by their own design in perfect chambers beneath a world which had proceeded apace without them, could not begin to suspect.

Now the rooms and hallways through which she had run tossed her like a rag from her feet and, try as she might, she could not find the strength or balance to rise again. Great cracks appeared in the walls about her. Reality had become a fantasy, fantasy a reality.

She heard the screams of others, and knew – in a distant, unclear way – that her own voice had joined them. A loud crack resonated and, looking up, she saw that the ceiling was giving way and crashing down toward her. Then there was a bright flash of light and she knew no more.

Plasma seared away at the world which had once belonged to her and others like her and soon that world was no more. Soon after that, the sun which had shone unseen over that world for untold millennia finished its throes of death and exploded in a scintillant array of light which could be seen from one end of the known cosmos to the other. Of the woman and her people, a people who had lived longer than collective memory itself, no trace was left. Their legacy was nothing. Their world was nothing. They were nothing. All that remained was a void of memory, and the empty stretches of the universe that beckoned, unheard and unanswered.

It’s here!

For those braving their first dungeon, it’s a step-by-step guide. As one delves deeper into mysteries, raids, heists, wilderness exploration, and urbancrawls, So You Want to Be a Game Master transforms into the ultimate GM’s survival guide.

If you still need to snag your copy, it’s available in both physical and e-book formats from these fine purveyors of the written word, plus other bookstores and game stores worldwide:

Hard to believe this is really happening!

If you’re a fan of the Alexandrian and would like to support the book, the next couple of weeks are a really critical juncture. Some things you can do:

Buy the book. See above!

Buy the book for other people. I know it’s crass commercialism, but this book is the perfect gift for your GM. Or, if you’re already a GM, for players you think would be interested in running a game for the first time.

After direct support, the biggest thing is letting people know about the book. This could include:

• Taking a picture of the book when you get it and posting it to social media.
• Retweeting/reposting my social media posts when you see them (on BlueSky, Mastodon, or Twitter).
• Link to the reviews, interviews, and other media appearances I’ve done for the book. You can find links here.
• Link to my Youtube videos talking about the book.
• Mention the book on reddit, social media, Discord, etc. when it’s legitimately relevant to a conversation. (Don’t spam, please!)

Make a library request and ask your local library to carry a copy of the book!

It also makes a big difference if, after reading the book, you write a review. This only needs to be a few sentences, but it can be posted sites like:

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Goodreads
• Indigo
• BAM!
• Blackwell’s

And did you know that you could post the same review on multiple sites? Cool fact.

Go to Part 1

GM: Okay, the orc stabs Derek’s paladin. Let’s see… We’re on… 17. Anyone on 17…?

16…?

15…?

14…?

Julia: I’m on 14!

GM: Okay, the goblins are, too. What’s your Dexterity score?

Julia: 12.

GM: You’ll go first.

(a minute later)

GM: Anyone on 13? How about 12?

Don’t be this guy.

If you’ve never experienced this at the table, you might find it hard to believe that this is a thing that actually happens, but it’s surprisingly common. I constantly find myself playing in games like this at conventions. I’ve even seen it happen in games using a VTT, which I find particularly baffling since it’s usually pretty trivial to set these up to auto-track initiative results.

It seems that for some people this is just the way they think RPGs are supposed to work.

The problem, of course, is pacing. Or, rather, the complete lack of it. In addition to wasting huge swaths of time with this inane call-and-response ritual, it also completely disrupts any sense of flow or build in the combat encounter. Each action becomes an isolated island floating in a vast sea of numeric chanting.

It’s also prone to mistakes and confusion, as calls are missed or initiative check results are forgotten.

WRITE IT DOWN

The solution, of course, is to simply write down the group’s initiative results, sorting them into a list so that you can tell in a single glance whose turn is next.

This list not only eliminates the dead time of the call-and-response, it can also unlock other techniques for improving the pace of your combat encounters. For example, it allows you to put players on deck.

GM: Derek, you’re up. Julia, you’re on deck.

This lets the player know that it’s time to figure out exactly what they want to do, making it far more likely, when their turn arrives, that they’ll be ready to jump straight into action.

(The advanced technique is that you don’t always need to do this, as you’ll learn how to read the table and know when upcoming players need the cue to refocus. With some groups you may even be able to build on this by having player pre-roll their attacks and so forth, further improving the pace and focus of play.)

Of course, in some roleplaying games it won’t be necessary to write down initiative scores at all. For example, in the Infinity roleplaying game I designed, the PCs always go first (in any order they choose), but the NPCs can “jump” up and interrupt their actions if the GM spends a meta-currency called Heat. The only thing you need to keep track of in that system is which characters have gone on the current turn.

In other RPGs, however, writing down initiative may be easier said than done. To take an extreme example, consider Feng Shui, which uses shot-based initiative in which:

• Characters roll their initiative and that is the Shot in which they take their first action of the round, starting with the highest Shot.
• Each action has a shot cost, which is subtracted from the character’s current Shot value, creating a new Shot value.
• When the round counts down to that Shot, the character can then take their next action, subtracting the shot cost, and repeating until all characters have hit Shot 0 and the round ends.

It seems as if this system would basically require the GM to count down, right? Who’s going on Shot 18? Who’s going on Shot 17? Who’s going on Shot 16? And so forth.

But all that’s really required is a different form of recordkeeping.

This is, in fact, why Feng Shui includes a shot counter: a physical track that can be used, in combination with counters or miniatures, to keep track of which characters are acting on which shot. In practice, this counter should be placed on the table in full view of the players, allowing everyone to see at a glance the sequence of upcoming actions.

(See Feng Shui: Using the Shot Counter for a longer discussion of advanced techniques this tool can also unlock.)

GM DON’T #16.1: DON’T WRITE ANYTHING DOWN

Flipping things around, initiative is not the only part of a roleplaying game where you can run into these inefficiencies. Pay attention to any interaction where you’re repeatedly asking the players to deliver the same piece of information over and over again, and then eliminate that interaction by proactively recording the information so that you don’t have to ask for it.

Armor Class in D&D is a common example of this. How often are you asking your players what their AC is while resolving attacks? If it’s more than once a session (at most), it’s probably too often.

A good place to record this information would be a Post-It swap note for your GM screen, putting it literally at your fingertips whenever you need it.

There are, however, a couple of exceptions to this that are worth noting.

First, any value that is frequently shifting during play, since this increases both the hassle of bookkeeping and the likelihood of error. A technique that can work here, however, is to enlist the players’ help by making them responsible for keeping the reference up to date: This might be a tent card that sits in front of each player with the relevant values. Or, in a VTT, it might be a shared note or file that everyone can keep updated.

Second, you don’t want to accidentally preempt mechanics or abilities that allow the players to react to specific actions, particularly if it might modify the value in question. (“What’s your AC?”, for example, also doubles as a convenient notification that a PC is being attacked and has the opportunity to activate their salamander cloak.) You can frequently route around this by simply being aware of the issue and making sure to include the appropriate prompts without the extraneous numerical exchange, but it’s definitely worth being aware of the potential issue.

FURTHER READING
Random GM Tip: Collecting Initiative

Go to Part 17: Too Many Players