Distractions and the Fog of War

I was thinking more about combat in role-playing games in general. One of my ‘issues’ is that combat can seem static, organized, and managed to the point where it feels staged. I like combat to be chaotic, unpredictable, noisy, and for it never to quite go as planned. There are only few mechanical manners of doing this and every time I sit down to come up with a rule for managing chaos I have to stand back and laugh at myself for being an idiot. 

 

Create chaos with rules?! Why do I always think it can be done? I do continually try it with a confusing array of ad hoc decisions at the table, obstacles, and even one non-rule. Now, to this non-rule! I don’t really use initiative. I say I do and most times I encourage players to roll for initiative. Everyone seems to like rolling for initiative. It doesn’t really matter though, not really, not in the big picture of the combat. Initiative plays only a small role in the combat though it may appear otherwise.

Prior to initiating combat, I have all the players tell me what their characters are going to be doing in the upcoming round. Once a player has told me, their character has to follow through with that action no matter what else might be going on elsewhere in the combat. There is no changing of minds, redirecting attacks, or courses of action. The only function initiative serves is allowing me to orchestrate an order to who gets to roll first. That’s just a metagame necessity.

Occasionally this leads to some overkill, unnecessary actions, characters working at odds with one another, all manner shenanigans which cause not a small amount of hilarity at the table, and confusion. I appreciate the confusion the most. When a spell caster accidently traps half their party in a web spell, well, things get interesting at the table. Monsters are under the same restrictions as well, which adds even more ‘fog’ at the table.  

Now I just want to throw initiative out altogether and not even bother with it. I doubt that will happen but I will give a try and see what happens. I will ask everyone just announce what their characters are doing and we all start rolling dice to find out how the round ends. That sounds like a plan.

Oh and starting the five count again. Players will only have five seconds to decide what their characters are going to do.