Video Preview – How Surprise Works in D&D 5e

You could use passives with a few Fate dice to keep it from being entirely static.

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I don't quite understand that you say there is no free round of combat when there is surprise, but the rule you refer to says someone who is surprised can't do anything except a reaction at the end of the round. That seems almost the same to me.

First rate! Thank you for the excellent explanation and overview.

I haven’t thought this through, but how about giving characters who succeed on their stealth check advantage on initiative if the group as a whole fails at stealth and so no enemy is surprised? It could be a sort of partial success. It caps the number of times you get to go before the opposing side does, but it does give you a higher chance that you at least get to hit first. That could be nice for stealthy characters that travel with very unstealthy companions.