Just curious… Given the “popcorn” style of initiative in STA, what’s the purpose of the Pass task? Wouldn’t a player simply ask not to be handed initiative?
Also, it says that Pass does not count as the PC having taken a turn. Does that mean that side doesn’t have to pay to keep initiative to pass to another PC?
The purpose of the Pass task is to take one or more Minor Actions without also attempting a Task. Consequently, the PC does only count as having not taken a turn, when they did not take any Minor Actions. In this specific situation this indeed means that the opposing side does not have to pay to keep initiative.
Lemme suss this out. Initiative has been handed to a PC. Normally, they take their Turn and then hand initiative to the opposition, or pay Momentum to keep initiative on their side and hand it to another PC.
If they Pass (with no Minor Action), they haven’t taken a Turn. So do they still count as having “had” initiative, and need to hand it to the opposition or pay Momentum to keep it, or did Pass-ing mean they never “had” initiative, and it can just go to a different PC?
Yes (at least that’s what I’d argue).
But paying Momentum to keep it does not make too much sense, as, as you’ve pointed out correctly, initiative could have been handed to that player in the first place.
Passing without taking a turn is a way to manipulate the order of initiative and to “keep initative without cost” at the end of the round.
Ah, interesting! Thanks for that observation.
Thanks for asking, had to re-read the passage myself and, thereby, got a better understanding of the rules. 