My House Rule Initiative Procedure

I wasn't the first to come up with this general idea.  But I've been running with it for a while.  I think it helps me run quicker and more interesting combats.

Initiative House Rules Procedure:

1.    DM announces initiative and everyone rolls as per normal, d20 plus dexterity mod or other modifiers.
2.    DM uses their big spindown d20 to show the 1 opposing/monster initiative score
3.    Player to the DM’s left announces whether they beat/tied the opposing initiative score and if they do, take their turn.
4.    Play continues going around the table to the left, each player taking their turn if they beat the monsters’ score.
5.    DM takes the monsters’ turn for all the monsters.  DM removes the big spindown die so they don’t forget that the monsters had their turn (I… sometimes drink when I DM).
6.    Players then restart to the DM’s left, taking their turn if the monsters beat them on initiative.
7.    Round ends.  Housekeeping.
8.    Go back to step 1, re-rolling initiative for the next round. 

Pros:
Fast.  You don’t have to take the time of ordering a huge list of combatants slowing down the start of each combat.  Every player knows when their turn is coming up.  Nobody has to keep track and look up who is next.  As a DM, I can just look around the table to call out actions.
Chaos: Combat can be unpredictable and occasionally combatants get two actions against an opponent.

Cons:
You lose some details with all the monsters having one initiative.  Faster and slower monsters on the same side even out.

So far the players endorse this.  I especially enjoy having less upkeep to track the initiative scores of individual monsters.  One of the things that I think I do well as a DM is run combats relatively quickly, which adds a bit of drama and excitement.

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