Action Action Action!

I've been away from the Hostargo thought train for a while. In that time though I've had the opportunity to play a handful of other RPGs, and it's been a good re-anchoring for me. I want to make Hostargo the most fun RPG to play, whatever that means.

I've had a lot of fun playing rules-lite games like Dread and All Out of Bubblegum. I've had just as much fun playing crunchier games like D&D. And I've had a blast playing video RPGs, such as good ole Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy (NES original!), among others. So I've taken a good look at each of these game's "action systems" in order to figure out what makes for the most fun per tick.

One key thing that these games have reinforced for me is the thought that turn order is unavoidable. You can make an overly-complicated initiative system, in an effort to make it a mechanic in the game players can interact with (e.g. Shadowrun), but this usually is too heavy for what fun it gains you. You can also completely ignore this type of rule, like Dungeon World. But just because you, the rules creator, chose to ignore it, does not mean the person running the game (GM) can. Someone must organize and select characters to "act" in turn. Yes, games like DW have the concept of the moving spotlight, but that concept falls apart quickly when you try applying it to a slightly heavier, tactical combat game.

And the tactical combat is a big part of Hostargo. So the trick will be to make a turn order system that doesn't get bogged down with mechanics, but isn't too loose as to not work for the combat portion of the game. To make a system like this, we have to first look at our action economy system.

Hostargo used to use a 3-tick system, where a normal action would be 2 ticks, an extended action was 3 ticks, and a reaction was a single tick. This worked, but not well. The problem was that in theory, it was a simple resource spending system, but in practice, it only served to confuse players trying to think about what they could do per-tick. Instead, I have to concede that D&D 5e's action-move-bonus-reaction system is pretty darn solid.

What helped me realize this was actually other games, such as Final Fantasy. In original FF, you either attacked, or cast a spell, and that's it. And while interesting as one of the original video RPGs of it's time, this actually doesn't hold up in the game design space. Attacking, especially with a random chance to miss (e.g. pretty much every tabletop RPG ever), is just not a fun use of a turn. D&D 4e actually realized this, and made all of the classes have special powers so that everyone could feel unique. Of course, an issue people have with 4th edition was that if everyone is special, no one is special.

But, I don't think 4e's design was too far out there. Really, it was a wonderful game and a bunch of people just didn't appreciate the lack of fiddly bits that they could munchkin. My theory is that in reality, they just didn't like the action economy system, because they only got to really do one thing a turn, and that thing was either a basic, special, or super special move. Their basic moves didn't feel special, because they could do them pretty much all of the time.

So with 5e they moved back to a system that included "basic" actions, such as "attack". And a lot of people are much happier with it, myself included. Special actions then generally cost some sort of resources (e.g. spell slot, superiority die), and we're back to having them actually feel special. But, special actions still replace normal actions, such that sometimes, your turn only includes a basic action. And those are the turns that are generally lackluster in 'fun'.

Instead, I propose giving players the power to do both a special and a basic action each turn. And, just like major-minor actions in D&D 3e, the player should have the power to downgrade an action. So, we'll keep our "3 tick" system: one special, one basic, and one re-action. But, you can downgrade a special to a basic, and a basic to a reaction, if you'd like. This gives players the ability to move -> attack, or attack + attack at a minimum. Or, use a "special move", and still act normally, such as following up with an attack, or moving to a better position. Lastly, I love reactions as a concept because it allows players to act directly in response to their allies or their enemies actions.

Circling back to turn order, with this <hopefully> streamlined action system, I can safely grant the ability for everyone to regain all of their ticks after the GM's turn. Then, I will start a "popcorn" initiative, starting with whichever player is in the most immediate, threatening, or just generally most interesting situation. So the GM chooses the first player, and then the players choose who goes next, until all players have gone.

Simple, understandable (more importantly easily explainable), and efficient. This will allow players to take awesome turns, without adding in needless complexity.

*Stretches* - aaaah yeah it's good to get back on this thought train. Cheers y'all!