Looking to Develop Visual Initiative Tracker

Hi, long-time listener, first-time caller. ;)

I'm looking to implement Circle of Hands on roll20. It's very much a theatre-of-the-mind type game, so it doesn't have a lot of needs that roll20 can't solve "out of the box".

However, it does have a pretty unique requirement for what most people would call its "initiative tracker". I've tried describing it in the past, and have learned that I always misrepresent it. I'm going to opt to present a snippet of the rules:

CHAPTER 5: KILLING
When someone says, “It's time to kill you,” this is how it's done.

Positioning
A fight begins with the GM describing the physical 
circumstances, based on anything that is known and anything
they were personally imagining at that moment. This setup is
non-negotiable and without questions or discussion. Then
everyone briefly says what the characters they play are just
beginning to do, in any order regardless of the characters' relative
speeds.

Announcements and timing
The initial sequence for when the actions land is set by current
Quickness. Resolve Quickness ties with an odd-even die roll.
Use a physical circle about 10 cm in diameter, and designate its
orientation, like a clock with 12:00. Get a little token for each
character in the fight. Put the one who goes first at 3:00, the next
at 2:00, and so on, tracing back counterclockwise over the top.
Start with the person at 3:00. They may do whatever was
announced or do something else. When their action is resolved,
move the counter clockwise so that it's at the end of the line and
scoot them all clockwise so the next person is now at 3:00.

Once begun, there are no rounds or units of time or action,
Quickness values are no longer relevant to ordering, and intent is
stated per combatant, not as a group procedure. Play continues by
seeing who's at 3:00, then wrapping that token around to the end.
You may choose to have your character do nothing at 3:00; they
simply go around to the end without doing anything.

A character's position in the sequence is altered in three ways.
...

The rules then go on to explain how a character's postion in the sequence can actually be changed (not really relevant to my question).

Right. My question.

How do I implement this 10cm circle play aid in Roll20? Shuffling tokens around on the vtt with no automation strikes me as really time-consuming compared to doing it in meatspace with physical objects.

Suggestions on how to do this?

In broadstrokes, this would be an API script. You'd likely trigger it via having the user select a token, which will become the center of the circle, and then sending an API command (e.g. !circleset) that the script would look for. You'd need some way to designate which characters/tokens to add to the tracker, maybe via the order in which they are dragged into the circle area.

EDIT

Reread the rules, and the API method would actually be simpler. I'd set this up the following way:

1. have a character called clock (or whatever you decide on for the name).
• Create a default token for this character that is whatever image you want, just need something to select for it on the board
• create the following abilities (content to be determined by whatever commands you set the API up to look for for each of these actions)
• initialize - Creates the clock on the map centered on the token for the clock character
• add - Adds all selected tokens tokens to the tracker
• progress - progresses through the initiative
• stop - shuts the clock and deletes the token copies
2. Have your API script look for the commands for the various actions that need to be done

END EDIT

Alternatively, if you don't absolutely need the circular representation, you could setup something with the initiative tracker where it puts a label of 3:00 at the top of the tracker, and then you add tokens to the tracker as normal, except that the script watches for when the 3:00 entry comes around again and then moves the person that was at the top to the back (if I'm understanding the rules correctly).

I was wondering about using the baked-in initiative tracker, too.  The problem with it is that (believe it or not), my experience is that the physical shape of the play aid makes a real difference in how well players interact with it.  It's surprising, but there it is.  So, yeah, the circular part is kinda non-negotiable.

Gave some edits as I realized I'd been misreading the rules. You'll probably want to use the following dependencies for this since you'll be working with geometry:

• vectorMath (for doing the geometric calculations easily)

Oh, in case a visual is of use to folks, here's the circle "in use" by six, creatively-named characters.

Just another thought, while the visual may be useful, if this is going to be a community sheet, understand that not everyone playing will be a Pro Subscriber, so you should still consider how they might use the regular initiative tracker.

I made up a script that uses the chat for initiative that follow the rules the only thing is it doesnt have the clock face see below.

I just had another idea. 

Can tokens be rotated? 

Can tokens be grouped? 

Can a group of tokens be rotated?

Darcy said:

Can tokens be rotated? 

Yes

Can tokens be grouped? 

Yes

Can a group of tokens be rotated?

Yes

So, if you were to group your tokens, you could rotate them all around the common center.  That may not work quite how you are hoping, but it's easy enough to give it a try and find out.