The Logic of the Caller

Over the last few games, our group has reverted to using a very "Old School" way of player-GM interaction during combat rounds. This system defines one of the players as a "Caller", i.e., the player that arbitrates and communicates the desires of the other player's to the GM. As bizarre as it may seem, this system actually seems to accomplish several useful things at once:

1. The players are all involved in the action of the round. Since it is every player's "turn" at the same time, fewer of them are texting messages, making dice towers, or playing with the monster miniatures when they should be paying attention to the game.
2. You don't have to worry about "initiative order", since it is the players who determine which character is acting in what order.
3. The character's actions are very coordinated, as if they have actually been working at surviving as a team for quite a while. (hmm...perhaps callers should not be allowed until after 3rd level?). Thus, the fighter never runs forwards into the fireball the mage is casting, and so-on.
   

I might expand the role of callers to include such things as room searches, trap and secret-door finding, etc., and see how that works out next.