Playing Cards for Dynamic Initiative

DD Note 9/6/2025: 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. 

DD Note 9/7/2025: I also just learned that Dragonbane, Year Zero, Twilight 2000 also use cards (I'm sure there are more).

I fully admit, I didn't reinvent the wheel here. This is just another spin on the concept.

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 (and likely other games)

• Savage Worlds has a whole system based on using the deck of cards for initiative. I'm just replacing dice rolls.
• I don't use a whole deck of cards, only 13 from one suit.
• This eliminates ties (which can also slow down play, albeit not dramatically).

• I use a second set of 13 from one suit has a initiative tracker for myself.

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit - My Dungeon Master Binder: Part 4 - Encounters

Slowing continuing onward with my Dungeon Master binder, next up: Encounters!

The Encounters section is not for the "core" module/adventure, but rather sandbox resources. These are random tables and other tools to help me figure out what happens to the party when they're traveling on the road or wilderness.

As always, a cover page with some inspirational art.  For this one, it's "Flight" by Jeff Fairbourn (heads up - some of his stuff is NSFW/weird).

I'm running a Haunted Highlands campaign, so I have a printout of its own random encounters section.

I have a few things from James Mishler Games. He has shifted his focus to ShadowDark completely, so these Castles & Crusades ones are no longer available.  That's a shame, because they're useful.

100 Exciting Encounters - 1st Level Encounters

I also have a few official ones by Troll Lord Games, which are also unfortunately unavailable.  

Castles & Crusades - Encounters: Bands of Orcs

Castles & Crusades - Encounters: Unusual Roadside Encounters

Although it's not in my binder because it's not a random table, it's worth mentioning Castles & Crusades Classic Monsters Encounters. It's a nice collection of "side treks" and lairs.

And then last, but not least a few gems by Azukail Games. This fellow cranks out a ton of reasonably priced and useful random tables. They give a bit of detail to get your Dungeon Master mind following. He makes things for just about every system you can think of and, if that isn't enough, many are system agnostic.

100 Random Encounters for on the Road or in the Wilderness

100 Encounters for the Borderland Regions

100 Encounters in a Fey Forest

100 Things a Wandering Monster is Doing

Next up - Treasure!

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit - My Dungeon Master Binder: Part 3 - NPCs

Alrighty, getting back to it - here is the next part in my Dungeon Master binder. NPCs!

Counter intuitively, the one key thing I do not have in my NPC section is a list of ready-to-go names. Why? Because:

1. I have names from the C&C Castle Keeper Screen in the Combat Section, and
2. I use Knave 2e for a ton of random tables (Knave 2e is an excellent toolbox for any D&D-ish game).

Another useful NPC source: Castles & Crusades NPC Almanac Sketches. While I didn't print it out for my binder (it's freaking large), this is a great resource worth having. Like most C&C material, it's easily usable with any D&D-related game (particularly those in the OSR).

Okay, so what do I actually have in the binder?  

Well, a touch of art of course. This one is by the ever-reliable Vigil Finlay.

First off, I have some homemade sheets detailing key players from Dirty Bowbe's Roadhouse in my Haunted Highlands campaign.

I have a few key pages from the The Miscellaneum of Cinder by Jeff Reints of Jeff's Gameblog fame. (I posted a link to the Scribd site version because the free copy at that Jeff posted on Lulu is now a dead link.)

• Namely, the Six Sages and...

• ... People to Meet.

Then I have two items by the ever-great DM Samuel (aka Iron Neuron Enterprises):

• Cults, Cultists, and Priests to Populate the Temples in Your C&C Game, and

• Thugs, Bandits, and Town Guards: Common Low-Level Human Opponents for Your C&C Game. 

These could just as easily be placed in the Encounters section of my binder, but I have them in the NPCs section for the time being.

While DM Samuel is typically a C&C gamemaster, these could easily be used in most D&D-style games.

And then last, but not least a few gems by Azukail Games. This fellow cranks out a ton of reasonably priced and useful random tables. These aren't bare bones tables. They give a bit of detail to get your Dungeon Master mind following. He makes things for just about every system you can think of and, if that isn't enough, many are system agnostic.

In my binder, I have:

• 100 NPCs To Meet On The Road Or In The Wilderness 

Here is an example:

• 100 Helpful Hirelings

Here is an example:

• 100 NPCs You Might Meet At The Tavern

Here is an example:

In the next post, I'll have more Azukail Games resources (and others).

Next up - Encounters!

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit - My Dungeon Master Binder: Part 2 - COMBAT

Continuing my posts about my Dungeon Master binder, I'll start with the first section: "Combat." The section could just as easily be labeled "Rules," but, for me, it's the combat stuff I need to have at the ready.

Let's take a tour of my Combat section...

Page 1: Badass Conan art by Travis Charest 

Page 2: One of my favorite D&D art pics - Thor by Jim Rosolof from the 1e AD&D Deities & Demigods.

Next, I have my critical hit and miss tables, namely “Great Hits & Terrible Misses” from Crusader Journal #7 by Jeffrey P. Talanian (who now has his own excellent RPG, Hyperborea). While made for C&C, they would work fine with any D&D-style system.

Then I have my cheat sheets. This includes homemade sheets that I made using Marq (Canva would also work well). Obviously, good ol' Word or Google Docs would probably be fine, but Marq made it easier to rearrange tables, etc. 

I also have the official Castles & Crusades table sheets that came with the Reforged Kickstarter.

Then, to cap it off, I have pages from the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper Screen. Most systems have printable versions of their GM screens on DriveThruRPG, so those are a great source of pages like this. 

Next post, I'll go over my NPC section.  Stay tuned!

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit - My Dungeon Master Binder: Part 1

It's been a while. Time to come back out of the shadows for a it. 

Let's chat about a quintessential part of the DM's toolbox - the Dungeon Master binder. For other DM kit stuff, see my other posts about my Dungeon Tool Kit. I said that Part 6 was the final... but I lied.

If you don't get this reference, we can't be friends.

Now, if you're one of my eight fans out there, you might be saying, "Wait, Double D, didn't you already write about a DM notebook (Rocketbook)?"  And I would say, "Nay, my dear plebeian. That notebook serves a different function: namely prep notes and in-game notes." A DM binder is a storehouse of useful materials meant for use at the table.

I can't believe I found an image that explains that there are different types of tables.

After a lot of trial and error, I've whittled my binder's contents down to four key sections.

1. Combat:  Handy rule reference sheets, mainly for combat.
2. NPCs:  NPC resources, such as summaries of frequently encountered NPCs and tables for working up NPCs on the fly.
3. Encounters:  Random encounter tables, short encounter write-ups, and ready to go monster stats.
4. Treasure - Treasure tables for cool loot and such. These are things you don't find in your Game Master guide of choice.

I will detail what I have in each of these sections in upcoming posts. To start, I'm going to focus on the actual physical binder that I use.

So let's get into it.

My current binder of choice is this expandable binder. I'm assuming that a lot of my fellow gamers are office supply nerds like me (and if I'm wrong, don't shatter my dreams). As such, you'll appreciate this.

Here is the pre-nerdified Amazon photo.

Here is the post nerdified version in action.

Quick note: I found the cool "Hack n' Slash" graphic from Reddit and it was made by CastleGrief. This dude needs to start making shirts and stickers.

Okay. So why this binder? Well, because it's expandable. I apparently have a thing for things that grow in size. It isn't overly bulky like a traditional hardback binder, but isn't limp like a soft binder (insert joke about DD liking it hard here).

Other things that I find useful:

Clear sheet protectors.

• Print out all the good stuff you have from DriveThruRPG and put it in your binder.

Tabs/Page Markers

• Get to your good stuff fast.  Also handy for your hardcopy RPG books.

Binder Hole Reinforcers

• Sounds like something dirty.
• Not a big fan of plastic? Use these for your printouts.

Cheap 3-Hole Puncher

• Punch them holes, bitch.

More to come!

Resources for Converting D&D to Castles & Crusades (Repost)

 

Convert or else!

UPDATED on March 2, 2025 to fix the links! (Updated from the 4/12/2012 post)

I've noticed that people come across my blog a lot while searching for help for converting Dungeons & Dragons to Castles & Crusades. Here are a few great resources for converting D&D to C&C (whether it's Basic, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.53, and not sure about 4e).

Troll Lord Games, the makers of C&C, have an official guide for converting from 5e: 

• Slaying the Dragon: A Conversion Guide

The Other Side blog has a few posts about it:

• Converting D&D 5 to Castles & Crusades: Character Conversion

Duke Omote's Advanced Castles & Crusades Page - This page has all kind of rules expansions that incorporate rules from various D&D editions into C&C.  For example, Omote has rules for Skills and Talents (a.k.a. Feats) that might make converting PCs easier. If you are looking to convert older D&D to C&C, he has rules for Racial Classes and more.

The Crusader's Companion -  Peter J. Schroeder compiled a ton of great gamer-created C&C rules into this impressive tome and it is just awesome. It includes a lot of d20 SRD monsters, items, spells, etc. that aren't in the C&C core rules. Also, the Castle Keepering chapter has a Conversion section that provides tables and charts to help you convert D&D materials from other editions into C&C (as well as Pathfinder).

The Castle Keepers Guide - While it doesn't deal with conversion specifically, it does include rules for Skills and Advantages (aka Feats) that might make converting 3.0 or 3.5 D&D to C&C easier.

Free Compact Character Sheet & Template

I worked up some small character sheets for Castles & Crusades.  However, I created a template you can modify in Canva for any system:

• Compare Character Sheet Template

I plan to use these as CK (DM/GM/judge) "cheat" sheets of the players' PCs, but they could also be used for NPCs.  I made two versions: one that uses the new "reforged" term of "Disposition" term, and one that uses the older "Alignment" term.

Download here: link

Download here: link

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit Part 6 - Portable RPG Storage Carrier!

Well, here we are - the final post in my Dungeon Master Kit series! (Other posts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.)  This will one will focus on how I cart around my materials. Obviously, there is the good ol' backpack, but, again, I'm a Grade A Nerd and need MORE.  

There are lot of cool deluxe bags these days, but they're are pricey. "Cases"  in point (get it?): example 1, example 2, example 3, and example 4.

Since I couldn't find a bag my speed and in my price range, I went with something else: the Quik Cart.  Sure, it's a "seen on Shark Tank" product, but it is handy. Plenty of room for my loot.

Here it is in action. As you can see, I can fit a good big of materials. 

I bought both the Regular and the Sport model, and kept the Sport one. The other one was too big. Here's a comparison, with a voiceover by my lovely wife.

My Dungeon Master Tool Kit Part 5 - Map Case

All righty, a quick and dirty post (just how your mom likes it) for my Dungeon Master Kit series (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4).  Warning: copious phallic jokes within.

I'm running a Castles & Crusades sandbox game in the Haunted Highlands.  I love having a big physical map for the players and me to gaze at.  There is something frickin' cool about a good fantasy map. 

It's a Haunted Highlands hex map made by Darlene, who did the original Greyhawk map.  I bought the PDF from the Troll Lords site and had it printed at Staples.  (It doesn't seem they have it available at their updated storefront.) Since I can reprint it, I have no problem with us writing on it and making it our own.

What I present.

What my players see.

Well, it's kind of a pain to cart around without getting mangled, so being the top-grade nerd that I am, I bought a map case for it from Amazon. It was cheap and has been indeed handy. It's expandable too, which is nice.

Ribbed for your pleasure.

It's a grower, not a shower.

Impressive length.