Before you make the obvious retort: yes, I realise that once you’re comfortable with your compatriots consisting of one half-gnome, one werewombat and the obligatory high-elf warrior princess with a CHA of 18 and knockers which constantly threaten to burst out of her reinforced mithril brassiere you’re probably also not too worried by the lack of realism afforded by the hive mind. Gameplay does after all trump all else.

I stopped using individual initiative about 8 years ago and went back to the old side-by-side way, no matter what a game’s rules stipulate. I find this to be a vast improvement in game play, for all the reasons you outlined. I think this is a case where simulationism subverts good game play. (Individual initiatives seem to make the most sense, realistically.)

I’m nearly finished with a design called Red Box Adventures. In it, players each make an initiative roll. Adventurers with initiative get to go before the monsters in the first round. After that, it’s just normal side-by-side with all the player-characters acting together after the monsters’ first turn. This keeps the group concept but allows the individuals to feel like they’re empowered. It’s working very well so far.

The DM was using one of those magnetic combat pads w/dry erase labels to track initiative. But instead of keeping it behind the screen, he kept it conveniently in view of everyone (standing upright) so that everyone knew whose turn it was and who was “on deck.” One of the players assumed responsibility for keeping the thing organized and the result was that everyone (instead of staring into space or texting) watched the action, eagerly anticipating their turn to go. Everything moved along rather nicely.

@Reinhart – I think that miniatures are among the most useful tools a GM could ask for. It can be difficult to plot tactical combats and have the players be fully aware of the environment without some kind of visual representation. It is a useful tool for GMs and players alike.

I know many people who were introduced into roleplaying in the 1990′s with games that made use of almost no props or artifice. While social scenes had much face to face communication and interaction between players and the GM, combat generally was where player participation dropped considerably. There was rarely a sense of shared reality in most combat scenes, and many of these games generally didn’t grant players combat decisions that had any ramification besides an amount of damage. Regardless of the GM’s flavorful descriptions, by the end of the second turn, minutes had passed and the imagined scene had mostly deteriorated to a featureless landscape where characters pointed weapons at each other.

Many of these players once scoffed at AD&D but later became quite interested in the maps and miniatures aspect of Dungeons and Dragons, starting the later 3.5 edition. Since then, they’ve become much more engaged in combat scenes, but there were still problems with the players of fighters and other simple warrior classes becoming bored or distracted. This has been mostly alleviated for them in 4e, with the introduction of some tactical relevance and resource management even for warriors.

I’m just bringing this up because I think some people may be working off of a false sense of nostalgia. Miniatures and grids are not perfect for every game and situation, but obscured communication and the absence of information that would be immediately apparent should not be considered a system “feature.” When it comes to engaging the player, I think it’s more whether the player has a meaningful set of options for each of their actions, than whether they have battle maps to look at or not.

I’m finding that 4e DnD’s initiative system, while still innately limited with abstract turns and rounds, does create an interesting dynamic of players attempting to tactically “control” initiative. Most of my players attempt to gain high initiative specifically to better coordinate their actions with their allies and to react to the behavior of their enemies. They typically hold their turns to after other players or monsters to better setup their own actions.

By the third or fourth round the turn sequence begins to become more established, but it’s unique for each battle, and based on the decisions of the players. It’s only by this point that players begin to become less focused on what’s going on, as their strategy becomes focused and their turns become more routine and determined by chance. So it’s not perfect, but I actually think it’s progress.