The Initiative System

Nearly every Table-top RPG and their kid brother uses some sort of initiative system. It's one of the main combat rules, so that each fight doesn't devolve into the childhood

"I got you!"

"No you didn't! You missed. I got you!"

"Nuh uh..."

Needless to say - we don't want that to happen. After all, we're grown-ups here... who like rules when we play pretend about fighting monsters and space pirates...

Anyway - where was I?

In many systems, the initiative system is just some method to figure out the order in which everyone takes their full turn. Which works fine, but it wasn't the direction that I wanted to go with Space Dogs RPG.

In Space Dogs RPG, each side (generally the players and the 'bad guys') roll 3d10 at the beginning of each turn. (for the NPCs this is also their Morale test - but I won't bog things down with that here) Whichever side rolls higher goes first, and on a tie the side which has a character with the highest Sharpness attribute gets to choose whether to go first or second.

Now, I hear you say, "But Mr. Space Dogs Man, of course they'll go first. Why would anyone choose to go later?" to which I go, "Don't ask questions until I'm done explaining! Spare the rod and..." Nevermind.

After rolling Initiative, each side (all together) takes their turn moving. The big thing is that during your Movement Phase, you also have to choose what Action you're going to take, whether that's using your assault rifle, a psychic power, or stabbing someone with your sword. That's why going second can be advantageous, because you get to find out what the other side is going to be doing before you move or pick your own Action.

After the Movement Phase comes the Run Phase. That may seem redundant, but base movement is slow in Space Dogs, with the human base being only 1 square (2 meters) on the grid. You need to spend an action running to move quickly around the battlefield, and doing so boosts your defense for the round as you're harder to hit.

After the Run Phase is the Ranged Phase, which unsurprisingly, when everyone who chose a ranged Action fires off ranged attacks such as firearms, grenades, and most psychic powers. This is done in initiative order (again - per side as there is no individual initiative).

Finally, is the Melee Phase, which is where everybody who picked a melee Action (or was engaged in melee before the Ranged Phase) rolls their attacks, which are opposed rolls and happen all at the same time.

After the Melee Phase is over, you just rinse and repeat.

1. Initiative/Morale Phase

2. Movement Phase

3. Run Phase

4. Ranged Phase

5. Melee Phase

As you can see, Space Dogs' initiative system is a bit different from the standard, and in testing I've found it to add quite a bit of tactical depth to combat. I hope that when you test it out that you feel the same way.