We've never had a problem in our group. someone says they want to go and they go. Or if multiple they say wha they want to do and between the 2 they decide which is the better action.
We also use the success.advantage system

In moments when players in our group can't decide who goes first if more than one take the slot, we default to who actually rolled better when we did initiative. Which doesn't happen much. What happens more often is the first turn of combat, if someone rolled super high on the roll they can ruthlessly declair they take the high spot. The rest of the group accepts it, because that person earned it with the high roll. Even if their action isn't the most sound. Stupid Wookie ex-slave Marauder charging Trandoshan slavers instead of talking and accepting a bribe instead of fighting...

In moments when players in our group can't decide who goes first if more than one take the slot, we default to who actually rolled better when we did initiative. Which doesn't happen much. What happens more often is the first turn of combat, if someone rolled super high on the roll they can ruthlessly declair they take the high spot. The rest of the group accepts it, because that person earned it with the high roll. Even if their action isn't the most sound. Stupid Wookie ex-slave Marauder charging Trandoshan slavers instead of talking and accepting a bribe instead of fighting...

That's a good approach but just talking about it makes me think how rarely you actually need to resolve conflicts in this way. I like the initiative system - it actually encourages team spirit. Instead of just waiting for the GM to tell you to go you're constantly talking, planning and saying "you've bring the speeder around to give cover, then I'll launch the rocket..." Etc.

I have been using 4th index cards. One side of an index card is good for 1 combat because I also track wounds for the NPC on the bottom. Generally the combat focused PCs go first so they can take out baddies before they get a turn the only real question is melee PC vs ranged pic and generally the melee PCWORLD takes the last slot before the first NPC slot so that the ranged pic's can shoot with out having their ally in the way and the NPC get an extra purple because they are engaged. Then the melee pc tends to go first in the second and later rounds, pierce is a wonderful thing. I've been writing 3rd a etc for the pcs on the top left then the same for NPCs on the middle left then PC, PC, NPC etc on the top to middle right edge and as I said NPC wounds on the bottom. PCs are good about remembering whether they have gone or not and it's not hard for me to remember too. I like the 3 number 2 decimal notation... I'll start using it.

I use the initiative rules from WFRP. Successes go on the slot order and if there are NPCs with the same roll they go after players. So...

4 - Player

3 - Player, NPC

2 - NPC

1 - Player, Player

One quick roll, no fussing around with the advantage-as-tiebreaker stuff. It's really fine as written, but the WFRP method is quicker for me when it comes to large encounters.

I've started to do shorthand when writing down successes and advantages. Number dot number. For the example above, I'd write on my white board:

3.2

2.3

2.0

0.2

We use the same on a #grid square kind of thing of 0-5 and 5-0, don't really have anyone popping initiative at 6-0 or something.

Just curious how people handle fairly 'large' combats? Have about 4-5 regulars in the group and I've found that if there's something like a 4-5 minion groups, 2-3 rivals and a nemisis or 2, it basically bogs down into a bit of a dice-fest. Not as bad as some other games but wondering if theres any innovative house rules or ideas for streamlining it a bit.

MKX, I'm a big fan of keeping it simple for initiative.

Watching GM Chris run a session last year at Gamernation Con, I was inspired by how smooth and easy he made it.

Very often, there'd be one initiative slot which all the minion groups would act in. No worrying about individual rolls for each of them, or adding or removing slots as groups are eliminated.

Just do one NPC slot for all of them. If you want to keep it really simple you could do a single NPC slot for all your enemies.

Most fights aren't so complex that it's going to dramatically alter your strategy, and if they ARE very complex, then you owe it to yourself to streamline how you manage it.

My question to my fellow GM's would be how do you handle initiative slots of people / minion groups that get taken out of the fight.

Say I have four minion groups of stormtroopers that are going at 2/1, 2/0, 1/0 and 0/1. The party blast one group to small burning chunks. I tend to delete the lowest initiative point.

How do others handle this aspect of combat attrition?

My question to my fellow GM's would be how do you handle initiative slots of people / minion groups that get taken out of the fight.

Say I have four minion groups of stormtroopers that are going at 2/1, 2/0, 1/0 and 0/1. The party blast one group to small burning chunks. I tend to delete the lowest initiative point.

How do others handle this aspect of combat attrition?

I tend to take out the lowest one as well. With that said if the players really have an interesting encounter going on that involves more than trading damage math i'll occasionally take out one of the upper or middle slots if it will enable an excited player to do something awesome.

My question to my fellow GM's would be how do you handle initiative slots of people / minion groups that get taken out of the fight.

Say I have four minion groups of stormtroopers that are going at 2/1, 2/0, 1/0 and 0/1. The party blast one group to small burning chunks. I tend to delete the lowest initiative point.

How do others handle this aspect of combat attrition?

Why change the slots? Just leave the slots in place. If no one is available to act in the slot then you just bypass over it.

If you remove slots, when do you do this? If you do it at the moment the character/NPC is killed then you can rob that side of actions. Say minion group A goes then a player kills that minion group. If you remove the bottom slot at that moment, then minion group B won't be able to go that turn. They just stood around for a minute watching their buddy die.

Keep it simple. Don't mess with the slots after they have been rolled. Confusion can be added when you do mess with them after fighting started.

Also, "empty" slots leave room for those downed NPCs to be revived or for reinforcements to come in without rolling for new slots.

I tend to remove the last slot as well, but Jamwes raises a great point I hadn't considered.

I'm all for keeping it simple, so there's not even any need to remove a slot!

Say I have four minion groups of stormtroopers that are going at 2/1, 2/0, 1/0 and 0/1. The party blast one group to small burning chunks. I tend to delete the lowest initiative point.

How do others handle this aspect of combat attrition?

What our GM does is clearly specify which minion group is which, and then it’s up to us to choose who to attack. That damage gets marked against that group, and if they are taken out, then they get taken out.

He usually uses dice to represent the field of combat, whether it be starship combat or personal combat. Different colored/size/type dice represent different PCs, and other different colored/size/type dice represent NPCs. But if there are multiple groups of minions that are all the same basic type, they’ll get the same color/size/type dice, and then what distinguishes them is the number that is shown — so Security Guards Group 1, SG2, SG3, etc….

That method actually works pretty well. Those of us who really care can go get plastic figures from one of the other games and use that instead of a die to represent us, and I recently bought from Miniatures Market a number of WotC plastic Wookiees to represent my character in various different poses, holding different weapons, etc….