I've always been a little uncomfortable with the concept of Initiative in the rules-as-written - winning side takes all their actions while losing side stands still then losing side (assuming anyone is left standing) goes while winning side stands still. Granted the losing side can be Dodging, Blocking, etc.

It's usually been my experience that the players almost always win the Initiative roll. This can make for some extremely short adventures when the PCs splatter the opposition early in the game on the first round of combat. Conversely, if the PCs lose the Initiative, they, too face the prospect of being over-run themselves.

As a possible variant, I'm looking to the system used in A Song of Ice & Fire RPG, which I've run for the last 6 years. In this version, each PC and major NPC rolls for Initiative separately. Groups of thugs or creatures roll one Initiative regardless of how many of them there are. Individual "Initiative" cards are kept for each and arranged by die roll - highest first (ties are resolved by who has the higher Agility - if the same, roll a d10). When your card comes up, you act - or Hold if you choose.

Your thoughts?

I've always preferred individual initiatives.

I agree.

I suppose group or side initiative could be used if the leader of the team had LEADERSHIP talent and used his intuition and leadership bonus.

Another one for individual initiative. Although using a group initiative to represent leadership is interesting.

Are you familiar with Battletech? In that game there is a system for group initiative might work here. Each side rolls initiative with the applicable bonuses. Then each side moves one unit, starting with the losing side. so:

1)Roll initiative
2)losing side moves one unit
3)winning side moves one unit
4)repeat steps 2 & 3 untill no units are left

The idea behind this systemis that actions are all simultaneous, but the winning side has the advantage of being able to react to the losing side, in a limited fashion.

I am also suddenly in love with the idea of Leadership and team initiative.

Anything that makes the Leadership more useful than just "form a karma pool and gain extra 50 Karma."

Cool.

Been using side ( or group ) initiative for D&D , just makes combats go quicker. I like how it divides the combat round mentally.

I do individual initiatives and have everyone declare actions. Then higher initiatives can roll to alter their declared actions to pre-empt lower initiatives as necessary in combat.