So I was asked to give opinions on the savage worlds initiative system. And I gotta say I like it. Despite it's chaos it adds some interesting tactics.
To understand why let's dissect how it works:
You have a 54 card poker deck + two jokers.
Each round everyone is dealt at least 1 card.
If you have the hesitent hindrance you get dealt two cards and take the lowest.
If you have the level headed edge you are dealt two cards and choose which one you wish to use.
With improved level headed you draw three cards and choose.
And then there's the Quick edge which lets you redraw cards below 6, in cases of level headed, after you have drawn your two/3 cards you can start to discard and draw until one of them is over 6.
Extras (Nameless NPC masses) are grouped by type and all act on a single init card.
This continues each round until a joker is drawn. The one who has a joker gains +2 on all actions (this is very scary if a large group of extras gets this). Not only that they may go whenever they please that round with flawless interrupt. After a joker is drawn the deck is shuffled and things continue.
And the interrupting is where it gets fun.
See in a lot of d20 games you can prepare an action on a specific trigger to fire, you need to be quite specific on that trigger often and if it doesn't come up it can be a waste.
In savage worlds initiative you just hold on to the card. If something happens that you decide you need to interrupt you declare your intent to interrupt and roll athletics. The opposing party rolls agility, if you win, you go first, if they win, you go after then.
This can get pretty sneaky when you consider the mechanics of shaken.
In savage worlds you don't have a big HP pool, you basically inflict shaken with damage, and upgrade shaken to wounds, and you can also inflict shaken with tests, such as pitting taunt against smarts or intimidate against spirit or fighting against agility, throwing the enemy's guard down. Shaken when applied forces a spirit roll at the start of your turn in order to see if you can act, if not you are limited to moving half your speed, but you can break it with a benny, even out of turn.
So, imagine a character with high athletics, they got level headed and a fair chance of starting high in the order, their turn comes up, a bunch of orcs are poised to attack, they can take a hit but they are more worried about the squishy mage, so they hold their action. First orc comes at them they ward off the blow, second one rushes the mage who is standing behind them, they interrupt the orcs action to take a swat at them, they win initiative they score a solid enough blow to force shaken on the orc. Since the orc's turn has already started their turn is now loused up and they fail the attack, and now the mage can counter right into the orcs face on their turn.
Alternatively if you roll high damage you might remove exactly the things trying to damage the more vulnerable people in your team.
But you can play it off in other ways, like winning initiative and having really well trained taunt, which isn't like a MMO taunting. No. Taunt is all about using sick burns to jostle people into disadvantageous situations. In combat you can use it as a test against smarts, on a basic success you can inflict vulnerable (+2 to all attacks on the target) or even distracted (-2 on all their actions). If I ace the roll (beat the opposed check by +4) I can inflict shaken, which sets them up for more damage down the road, and might make them miss a turn, or like in the above example, I could try to interrupt people at range as they try to attack say me, or go after some objective I don't like.
And its through these various ways to force order on the initiative that things get interesting with this initiative system. THat's not to mention the Calculating edge which lets you ignore up to -2 modifier on penalites if your init is 4 or lower. -2 just happens to be the same penalty for a multi-action. Level headed and improved level headed explicitly let you pick which card you are going to use, so you could totally use the edge to fish for low cards to trigger calculating or lean on the high card for when you just have to go first.
Savage worlds tends to have some explosive excitement baked in though, the jokers play into that. +2 on all your actions really enhances your deadliness. And I seen parties get wrecked (but survive, mostly) because a swarm of ghouls got dealt a joker.