Playing Cards for Dynamic Initiative

[DD Note: It was pointed out to me that Savage Worlds has been using playing cards for initiative for ages. 1.) I can't believe I forgot that... I have even played Savage Worlds before. 2.) the method detailed here is simpler. I've explained the differences below.  I fully admit, I didn't reinvent the wheel here.]

I ran three games of Castles & Crusades at Gen Con 2025. (If anyone is curious, I ran each adventure in the Dwarven Glory series.)  It was a great time. One weird thing, though, is that I had occasional trouble with keeping track of initiative. 

Castles & Crusades uses dynamic initiative. Each round, the individual players and the Castle Keeper roll a d10 and people take turns from highest result to lowest.  

At home, I use tiles on the top of my GM screen to organize and display the order for each round. While displaying the order is handy, the process slows the game down. 

Since you're "on the clock" when running a game at a con, I decided not to do that and used the "traditional" method. That is, I verbally counted down from 10 to 1 and had the players chime in on their number to take their turn. 

Whether it was due to the fun of the game or fatigue of CKing three sessions back-to-back (as fun as it was), I had occasional trouble remembering where I was in the order of the round.

This got me revisiting an alternative idea I'd been mulling over - using playing cards to track initiative. I gave it a go last session with my local group and I think it worked pretty well.

Here's what I did:

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to determine order. Naturally, I used Spades. 

• I set aside one full suit (ace to king) to be used to track order. I used a red suit (Hearts, I believe). 

• Each round, I shuffled the Spades and dolled them out to the players to determine who went first. The players kept their cards out in front of them, so it was pretty easy to see who was up.

• I stacked the Hearts from high to low and used them to keep track of where we were.

• After that, we repeated this each round.

While this was only one session, I think it worked well. It kept things moving quickly and made it easy to track turn order.  If you're looking for a way to speed up dynamic initiative, give it a try.  

How This is Different than Savage Worlds' Initiative

• I don't use a whole deck of cards, only 12 from one suit.
• This eliminates ties (which can also slow down play, albeit not dramatically).

• I use a second set of 12 from one suit has a initiative tracker for myself.