Death in the Dark - Meaningful Torchlight and Light-based Initiative

Some find that torches and light management generally to be easily forgotten during play. Something easily glossed over. This omission comes, often unknowingly, to the detriment of both the atmosphere and play of dungeon-delving adventure. So, what to do? 

This house-rule bakes light into initiative, taking light source management directly into and during combat. Presenting new dilemmas and meaningful choices as your party manages light to tip or rebalance combat in their favour - will they attempt to light that new torch or try to push on despite the disadvantage?

Once you have trained your players (and possibly even yourself) to regularly consider the darkness, and their provisions against it, you can start to use light/dark more and more in all different facets of play. Here’s how it works:

Use side initiative: roll once per round of combat (before the round begins), the highest roll determines which side (monsters or party) acts first.

• Monsters roll 1d6.
• The party rolls a d4 with no light, a d6 with one light and a maximum of d8 with two or more light sources (but the more spare light sources the better).
• (Alternatively, the party rolls 1d4, +1 per active light source, to a maximum of +2)
• The party wins ties but a light source is destroyed in the process.

The Role: 

Like the Caller, Mapper, or Chronicler roles, your group might appoint a Lightkeeper (Pointman, Underscout, Warden, etc). This player:

• Tracks the party’s active light sources.
• Rolls for initiative.
• Optionally, manages marching order and/or makes all the encounter rolls (though this can be its own separate player role).

The Lightkeeper player could use a simple tracker like this, with a number of counters/tokens/beads equal to whatever torches/lanterns/runes/lightbulbs/flashlights/glow-rods that the party possesses, placing them in the light bonus boxes or spare light 'pool' respectively. 

 LIGHT?:     

 ▢     ▢

(d6) (d8)

   POOL

[‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾]

[              ]

[________]

Or

 LIGHT?:     

 ▢     ▢

(+1) (+2)

   POOL

[‾‾‾‾‾‾‾‾]

[              ]

[________]

On Light Destruction, Tips and Optional Rules:

• A light source is automatically destroyed on matched initiative rolls - the party cannot elect to lose initiative, so it's best to carry more than 2 light sources. 
• As the DM, don't neglect to describe how each light source is destroyed. This is important.
• Destroyed light sources cannot be reused, torches cannot be relit, lanterns cannot be repaired or refuelled.
• This form of light source destruction is in addition to light source depletion via rolls on the Overloaded Encounter Die.
• During daylight or well lit sections of the dungeon use normal d6 vs d6 side initiative.
• Your party will often run at the maximum initiative bonus but don't worry, they will burn through light sources quickly.
• Lanterns. Lanterns are better than torches in that they can be covered when the light wants to be hidden (unlike torches which must be extinguished and therefore, destroyed) and again, unlike torches, are not destroyed/depleted by overloaded encounter rolls that cause light depletion, they just run out of oil. Lanterns are only destroyed on joint initiative rolls. But feel free to house rule this as you see fit. 
• Use a good, workable encumbrance system. If using a slot-based encumbrance system, one torch should take up one slot. 
• Light Destruction on initiative roll draws is the most elegant thing about this - you can continue to use d6 vs d6 side initiative with just this tweak. 
• Dwarves have infravision, not dark vision so they still they still benefit from light sources in combat.
• Populate dungeons with monsters that target characters carrying light sources and creatures/traps that target light sources directly. 

Optional: Dungeon Scarring

If you want dungeon DARKNESS to be a fantastic and corrosive phenomenon, to feel like a living force that hates you - consider Dungeon Scarring. For every 10 minutes the party spend without a source of light (or whenever encounters are rolled for) the characters suffer from dungeon scarring - each affected player must pinch off a piece of their character sheet, no more than a few millimetres, that or poke a hole with a sharp pencil. To be even harsher, you can enforce dungeon scarring for each initiative roll the party makes without a light source. Your players will never forget their torches again. 

Postscript:

This is something of an adaptation of a method employed by James Young, which in turn I believe was inspired by Veins of the Earth's initiative system. Also, check out this cool meta house rule for initiative by Benign Brown Beast.