Clockwork Dice Mechanic

It's been a joy riding to and from work everyday for the past few months, as I've been listening to the funny dudes over at System Mastery Podcast. Once at work, of course, the happiness factor drops considerably... but at least I can mull over what I've learned from some old role playing game. A while ago there was a very neat mechanic that I thought I'd explore for my own game(s).

Initiative and Actions Per Turn are always mechanics that differ greatly from game to game. This old RPG had a system where the players have a pool of action dice (I think it was d10), and at the start of each "round" they would roll them all. Then, the GM would count down from 10 (9...8...7...etc) and at each interval would allow players to act with any dice they had at or above that number (essentially letting them save dice for later). Somewhere in there the monsters would take a turn, and the players would have to risk whether to act fast with fewer dice, or act later with a higher chance of success (or more actions - I don't remember exactly).

This is brilliant (I think)! Immediately my mind jumped to d12s and a clock system. I think overall, a really clean system could be built this way.  The real issue is, that despite it's neat mechanism and decision space, it would end up being more of a slog than it was worth. In an RPG, there's already so much going on, any chance to slim chunky mechanics is a good one. Unfortunately, this mechanic is chunky.

But, I think it could work great for a board game, either a cooperative dungeon crawl or competitive race. It's brewing my mind, so let's hope something comes of it!