In reply to cooneydad (msg # 36):

Same here. It's easier for me to award an Advance after a chapter than keep track of odd amounts.

When using a Plot Point Campaing, I usually plan all the "chapters" (Plot Points and Savage Tales) that I want to use. Then I map one chapter per Advance.

Makes it easy to plan for "I want them reaching Heroic by the time they are through this part of the campaign".

How do you manage the initiative draws on RPoL?
I'm using the option in the dice roller to use the deck of 54 cards including jokers, but this way you have to do a new draw each time (it is like you mix the deck of cards each time), while strictly speaking the ruleset says that you should mix the deck only if you find a joker.
As a "house rule" I do accept this small deviation from the ruleset (in practice mixing the deck at each draw).
Do you manage it differently?

Nope, I just accept the fact it's wrong and move on.

I have played with people who were so devoted they kept an actual deck of cards next to their computer with a discard pile and just told us what they drew.  That went away a long time ago though, it's too much for most people to deal with.

Some people (who even do this in person) do simple dice rolls.  I hate to say it but the card initiative gimmick doesn't do too much in Savage Worlds if you're not playing in person, and a lot of people do roll 1d20 with 1 and 20 being the Black and Red Jokers.  I know there's things that go wrong if you draw clubs or whatever but it's not like that mechanic can't be improvised just as easily when it pops up.  But I just draw cards because I started in Classic.

In person, people can hide their cards from you, sleeve them, etc. so there's more reason to do it.

Yes, that's too much for me as well.

The campaign that I'm currently running (https://preview.drivethrurpg.c...6/end-times-campaign) does exactly the same: one advance for each adventure / chapter of the campaign.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:21, Fri 03 Nov 2023.

You can use a d54 for the deck of cards. 13 cards with the suits in order of Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades with 53 and 54 being the Black and Red Jokers.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 44):

The dice roller have the option for 54 card decks (including jokers) and it also allows drawing a number of cards in one go; my "problem" (hence house rule) is that the rules state that you should draw from the same deck without mixing it until you find a joker. If you roll every time you want to do the initiative draw, then it is like you are mixing the deck at every draw and not only when you draw a joker.

In reply to Yaztromo (msg # 45):

Hence why I say use the d54. The GM can keep track of the rolls or do the rolls themselves ignoring repeats until a Joker is rolled.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 46):

You could do the same thing with the card puller, but you'd still have to manually track every card pulled and make people redraw them.  There's no solution to the problem there.

Your method also involves not only tracking every roll but also translating it into the corresponding card, unless you specifically made the cards go in descending order (Maybe Ace of Spades is 52 and 2 of Clubs is 1).  But that still seems like the same problem as using physical cards, it's just too much for most people to keep track of.

In reply to drewalt (msg # 47):

I use a table and have no problem as all of the early RPGs I started with were table based like 1E AD&D, Marvel FASERIP, DC Heroes, and others.

In reply to Jobe00 (msg # 48):

Using a table doesn't solve the problem.

The die roller is already doing that. It uses an r54 script to randomly generate a number between 1 and 54, then has a table that has the name of each result, which is what it exports as the result. It starts at AH for 1, goes Ace-King up through Hearts, Spades, Clubs, and finally Diamonds, and then The Red Joker is #53 and the Black Joker is #54.

I know this, because this is what you find if you input numbers into the Rig The Roll box as a GM.

You are literally doing what the die roller is already doing.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 13:05, Sat 04 Nov 2023.

GM could even append the numbers to the bottom of a current post so all the players know to ignore repeats until a Joker is drawn.

Pulled Cards: 4,8,15,16,23,42

Even easier? Just list the already pulled cards, so folks could just use the die roller normally. Otherwise, this is just not ever going to work with the amount of attention people typically pay. Or do you think anyone other than the GM is really going to care to:

1) check a list of numbers

and

2) convert those numbers into cards pulled?

This is unnecessary busywork for the sake of a consistency that doesn't actually affect the game all that much. It's pointless and time-wasteing for a game that's supposed to be Fast Furious Fun. This is a solution to a "problem" that isn't problematic in the first place.

Simply depends on the group playing. Some groups pay more attention to rules and details, especially in pbp games... others... not so much, can't be bothered to reread the last few posts. ;-)

I feel like it's a solution for those that this sort of thing might bother. Listing the cards pulled would be easier, but the players would still need to make the *effort* to pay attention to the list either way.

Thank you, this is the point I keep trying to make.  People are not going to memorize "14 is seven of hearts" or whatever, and even if they did, there's no benefit whatsoever into translating the "seven of hearts" result into a numeral for purposes of tracking what's already been pulled.  It'd be like selecting 54 Pantone shades of red and mapping each one to a card and listing "carmine, cardinal, maroon, crimson" or giving each card a name and listing "Joe, Julio, Ramit, Sally".  It's not helpful at all, it's just adding a layer of complication to the basic problem.

Using an aid to translate it back to the card it represents doesn't solve the problem either (that's just reversing what you just did unnecessarily to begin with), because none of that gets around the fact whatever notation you use, whether it's the actual card, or a numeral or anything, you would have to track what's already been drawn and then redraw it whenever appropriate and that is tedious.

I'm not a developer or a coder, but I suspect recreating selection without replacement using an electronic dice roller would require the application to store a memory of what's already been pulled somewhere and also know when to reset itself.  When you do it in person, the discard pile is effectively the memory, so basically you need a way to code a discard pile.  In that context numbering or coding the cards might be essential but unless we're going that far I don't see how it helps at all.

In practical terms, the only thing I can see that goes wrong is two parties can wind up with duplicate cards, and the frequency of Jokers is off.  Using a real deck, the longer you go without a Joker the more likely you are to get one, RPoL games can have a bad Joker rhythm but given how slow PbP is it really doesn't bother anyone much.

The d54 thing doesn't offer a solution that the die roller doesn't already provide, though, and it adds an unnecessary layer of abstraction to the whole initiative process that you could just as easily get tracking the cards everyone's pulled already and asking them to redraw duplicates. With the generally slow pace of pbp compared to any other form of ttrpg gaming (seriously -- even multiple posts a day won't match the speed of, say, a group actively meeting on Discord or Roll20, let alone actually getting together in a physical space), this does not strike me as a very useful workaround for the die roller's lack of object permanence.

Agree upon an order cards will be drawn for players in for the game.  GM should privately draw 54 cards and place the results in a private thread.  Then GM can tick off cards, inform players which they were assigned and those to their opponents.  Once a Joker is reached in the sequence its time to draw a new set of 54.

Players would certainly need to trust the GM and would be a little extra bookkeeping.

We usually use decks that have more than 2 jokers in them, so the die roller is essentially including 2 jokers per person utilizing the die roller.

*shrug*

If you really want to keep it like a physical deck of cards, have the GM or one player run the die roller to draw 53 cards in a single pull and cycle through the PCs/NPCs in the same order until you hit a Joker.  (This might require several combats to get to the Joker.)  Then ignore everything after the first Joker drawn and pull another 53 cards.  Rinse and repeat.

So in the above example using the below draws, only the aqua values would be used and after the Red Joker acted, or all cards after it to represent the full draw for the round, a new draw of 53 cards would be made.

9:53, Today: bashful_batrean drew the 53 cards: 5C, 8S, 6S, QC, QH, 7C, 8D, JS, AC, 2C, 2S, RJ!, QS, 10S, AH, JH, BJ!, 10C, 6D, JC, 3S, 4D, 2D, 3D, KC, 5H, 7D, 9S, KS, 4H, 10H, 4S, KH, 4C, JD, 2H, 6C, 5D, 7H, 8H, 10D, 9C, AD, 7S, 9H, 8C, 3C, 9D, 3H, 5S, 6H, KD, AS using a deck of 54 cards.

And just why would you be fixing a die roll for initiative Mr. GM?  *suspicious side-eye*    :P

In reply to bashful_batrean (msg # 58):

Maybe this is the only way around... it requires extra admin work on the GM side and it must be a secret roll to avoid spoiling the initiative draw ahead of time, but it is in line with the ruleset...

*shrug* I wasn't. I was trying to figure out how it would work. If I needed to. Just in case.

And you're assuming a lot. SW uses cards for things other than initiative, especially on the GM side (particularly in adventure building).
This message was last edited by the player at 14:29, Mon 06 Nov 2023.

I know that - just teasing you! ^_^  (After I posted I recalled you had multiple Deadlands games where it might be needed..  Or old Ravenloft where certain ominous cards in fortune-telling builds the atmosphere. )