Initiative

Initiative.

I'm going to mirror one of Zac Sabbath's first posts and say essentially the same thing. Of course, I think that's a large part of the OSR blogosphere.

The party runs into a monster, eh? Time to roll initiative.

What's the goal here? Is it to accurately simulate tactical combat, so you can identify who moves when? This is a great idea! Let's see, the fighter can roll, then for his two crossbow henchmen, his wizard support, and his cleric, and the cleric's two wardogs. Then the Wizard and his six men-at arms can roll, then the gladiator beastmaster needs to roll, then for his dragon, and his henchmen. Then the thief - oh, you know while that's going on I should roll for the frost wolves, wargs, hill giants, orcs and orc mages.

In the words of Gygax: DMG, Page 62, "Again, a d6 is rolled, and the scores for the two parties are compared. . . The higher of the two rolls is said to possess the initiative for that melee round. (While it is not accurate to roll one die for all individuals comprising each party, it is a convenient and necessary expedient. Separate rolls could be made for each member of two small groups, for instance, but what happens to this simple, brief determination if one party consists of 9 characters and 6 henchmen and the other of 7 giants and 19 dire wolves, let us say?)"

We roll a d6 for the party and a d6 for the DM. It's an exciting time at the table for all involved. You might even say fun.

What is so confusing to me is how through and precise this 30+ year old ruleset is at keeping things fun contrasted with the consistent and insane desire by hundreds of people in the industry over the last 30 years who thought it was a good idea to change it for the worst of reasons (realism, I'm looking in your direction).