Nick Nacks is a turn-based game, and initiative decides who goes first
One of the players rolls a d10. On a 6 or higher, the players go first, or a 5 or lower, the enemies go first. On the first round of combat, whichever party went first decides which creature acts first. Then you swap to the other party and they decide who goes. You repeat this process until either every creature has acted, or one side has several creatures that haven't acted. All remaining creatures act on the same turn and then you start back from the top, using the same order as round 1.
When initiative is rolled, all [buff] effects disappear automatically (unless its duration is longer than 1 minute). This is to discourage spamming buffing spells and then waiting to recover mana.
What happens when we start fighting in the middle of talking?
In the event where there are two parties that don't immediately fight, when initiative starts is usually determined by whenever someone takes an aggressive action, such as casting a spell or drawing an arrow. In these cases, where both parties are aware of each other, initiative gets rolled immediately before any actions happen.
Certain types of underhanded tactics can get around this, such as using sleight of hand to draw concealed weapons or deception for a sucker punch. See surprise for more details.
Surprise
In most types of DnD-style games, if you get the jump on your opponent, the sneaky party gets an entire turn to themselves. This is not the case in Nick Nacks. The conventional "surprise round" is now a normal round in combat.
All characters that are surprised lose are DD during the first round, and the surprising party always goes first in initiative. Surprise can be a bit finicky sometimes, making you question if only some characters should be surprised. If that's what your gut tells you, that's how it is.
For example, your party's rogue who was hiding in an alley ambushes a group of guardsmen that are harassing the rest of the party. The guard captain notices but his men do not. Captain is not DD, the rest are.
