Sometimes a PC initiates combat and then the DM asks for initiative. That player then argues they should go first.
Surprise rounds etc. have been (IMO) inelegantly used in these situations over various editions.
I’m toying with a minor house rule — if somebody unexpectedly starts the fight, they don’t roll initiative. Everybody else does, then the person who started it goes first, with their initiative one point ahead of the first person to react.
Might try that next game session! .
I dunno. The guy who decides to suddenly attack may have an advantage, but he might still get beaten on the draw. (Like in just about any Western...)
In these sorts of situations I could see giving that one character Advantage on the roll. If he gets beaten it means he tried to surprise everybody but they were ready for it, and were faster.
This is how I handle it. The way most people run it, rolling initiative is like the D&D equivalent of the screen wipe before combat in a turn-based video game. I prefer to avoid such jarring changes in gameplay as much as possible, so I prefer to treat Initiative just like any other ability check. That is to say, I only call for it to be rolled when it’s necessary to resolve an action with an uncertain outcome. When the rogue sneaks up on the unsuspecting goblin (assuming he’s passed whatever checks he needs to pass to do that) and says he tries to kill the goblin by stabbing him in the jugular, there’s no uncertainty in the outcome. No need to roll Initiative, because the goblin has no means of preventing that from happening. When the fighter tries to sucker punch the thug, there’s some uncertainty. The thug might or might not have quick enough reflexes and/or be wise enough to the fighter’s ruse to see it coming. So, we turn to the dice to resolve the uncertainty with an opposed Dexterity check. Heck, I might even ask the fighter to roll Dexterity (Deception) against the thug’s Dexterity (Insight) in a case like this. Of course, since this is a special case where the result of the opposed Dexterity check determines the order of actions (an “Initiative” check, as it’s referred to in the rules), any modifiers that apply to such checks, such as the Alert Feat, would apply here as well.It sounds to me like you're rolling for initiative too early. The way we've always done it is that you can do whatever you want whenever you want, but once players start stepping on each others' toes trying to do stuff, call for initiative to be rolled. In the case where one player just starts doing combat actions, that player's actions go through (because they said it first) and then initiative is rolled. PCs that weren't paying attention will sometimes be considered surprised the first round.