Action is an important part of most fantasy RPGs, with “fantasy adventure game” being an accurate description alongside “role playing game.” Many players automatically turn their thoughts to the combat rules a system offers and perhaps later consider rules governing perilous climbs, balancing on ledges, chases, pursuits, swinging on ropes over yawning chasms, and so forth. Imaginary fights claim the most exciting territory for many players.

Action rules help determine: what’s important to the system and what players can expect to happen frequently; how the players can expect PCs and foes to interact; how dangerous adventuring can be for PCs

Action rules require abstraction of elements due to game demands. This is a key element of crafting action rules and fitting them into the system with the other parts. How abstract, how granular, what choices are available to players?

When crafting an action system, ordering the action is the primary challenge. Ordering provides the structure that everything else is built on.

First, we look at the abstraction. What level of detail are we looking at? How do we best support the level of detail we want?

The granularity of time keeping has to support that detail. If we want granules fine enough that finding and disarming a trap requires eight specific steps/decisions, then a round of a minute might not fit best with that.

The traditional structure is built on rounds of some length and the action that takes place is generally assumed to fit within the time of one round. Whether a ten second round or one minute round, the action has to fit, for the most part. The abstraction assumes a process of multiple small steps when disarming a trap or skewering a rat or deciphering glyphs.

One criticism of this is that not every action a character is allowed reasonably fills a round — there are actions that strain credulity when stretched out that long a time. Others are multi-round affairs with but one decision to be made at the outset and everything thereafter is but a countdown.

How we order action involves putting one action ahead of another and we have to decide on how to go about doing that. Do we look at the nature of the action? The expertise of the character acting? Determine it randomly? Base it on the size of the creature (a giant’s arm is so long it effectively telegraphs swings well in advance)?

Then, do we place the actions in phases to regulate adjudication order? Magic work comes before missile fire (or vice versa) so spells get loosed prior to arrows thudding home in the wizard?

In the projects I have underway, I’m working on three different action systems. One uses five phases during a round to help highlight differences between weapons and skill levels and action types. A second system uses three phases to break down ordering. And the last uses beats wherein a player doesn’t know in advance if the character can finish a chosen action in that time frame or not. If you guessed the first two systems have quite similar goals for action abstraction and the third takes a significantly different approach, you’re correct.

Quick looks:

Five phase system: Swift; Quick; Tempered; Deliberate; and Slow (and Last) phases.

Three phase system: Early phase; Main phase; Late phase.

Beats system: everything in each beat is simultaneous; a PC may be able to make a quick attack or move a normal attack or move, start a lengthy attack with stunting that won’t finish for another beat or two; Action Dice determine what’s available in a given beat.

As the title mentions, I’m looking at these as action systems and not simply combat systems. They’re being crafted to cover melee, ranged weapons (including artillery), magical dueling, aerial fighting, underwater skirmishing, chases and pursuits, scurrying along ropes, clinging to rock faces, and any other sort of action I figure could make an appearance in games on a regular basis. I’m looking to make them suitable for use with skirmishes and to work alongside mass battle rules as needed.