At the beginning of the first round of combat, all players and the GM need to determine in what order the characters take their turns. Do the soldiers ambush the supply column, or does the hidden sniper get in the first shot? This is referred to as the Initiative order.

To determine the Initiative order, each player character and NPC makes a Simple (-) Cool or Vigilance check (for more information on which to use, see the Cool or Vigilance? sidebar on page 95). Once all Initiative checks have been made, the GM notes the results of each check and ranks them in order from the highest number of s to the lowest. If two checks are tied, the check with more a is ranked higher. If a player character and an NPC are still tied, the player character is ranked higher. This is the Initiative order.