[Meta Thread] Dragonstrike's Pokerole Test Game: Mount Coronet Mystery

[Dragonstrike]

Oh. That is a valid concern....

Well, couldn't you just pre-Roll the Enemies' INIs and keep them hidden, and only reveal them after the first Round of combat starts for Group (Ones that involve more than one Player) Encounters? Players choose their Pokemon and give them Orders right away, and then the Round gets Rolled out when everyone has done so. Then for the next Rounds Orders that involve the INIs can be made, for those that want to plan such strategms.

Sure, this play style sacrifices information for convenience/quicker play, but players can compensate by giving Conditional Orders that modify their Pokemon's Action(s) based on when they go in relation to others, or just make Orders that don't hinge on Initiatives entirely. Plus, it's technically more 'realistic', since you wouldn't know how fast someone is in relation to someone until you see the difference in action. 

Its a different way to play, but not bad. I don't like the long wait involved when it comes to the introduction/start of Group Combat Encounters, and this way of doing them would both eliminate that problem and speed GCEs up considerably. That's just my opinion, though.

That depends on if a player would prefer to give their orders after seeing how their pokemon stack up in the Initiative against the opponents.  Nothing wrong with Conditional Orders to compensate for not knowing, but it is additional work for the players, particularly when a lot of pokemon are involved (I've got 4 groups of enemies in this encounter, so Initiative dependent conditionals could be rather complex).

Such a technique does technically also give the NPCs a slight advantage over you guys since I know what all your Initiatives are, so I'm not sure that'd work super well either since I want to keep things relatively fair.



Orders not dependent on Initiatives/Conditional Orders that change depending on Initiatives positions do help speed things up a lot, however (though it's not much different from how we normally play, aside from hiding enemy Initiatives).