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Mastikator
2019-01-05, 10:12 AM
I have this question about the pros and cons of two systems of dealing with turn based combat and action economy. The two systems being "Action Points" vs "Actions" (for a lack of a better name). The "Actions" one being used in nearly all games, you have a set number of actions you can do per turn (like standard and move in D&D) and the "Action Points" being used AFAIK only in the CRPGs Fallout 1 & 2 from the 90s where each turn a character gets a number of action points and any given action uses action points.

Are there any table top systems that use the action point system and how does it compare with the normal system of just having actions?

What are people's experiences with using action points, is it too much book keeping or hard to balance? Why is regular actions so prevalent? Convention or merit?

Altair_the_Vexed
2019-01-05, 11:47 AM
Actions are usually fairly simple, so they're easy to remember and apply - many games lack any distinction between action types, leaving it up to the GM to figure it out.
Action points may be more complex and require more looking up of the points assigned to particular actions - all easy stuff for a computer to do, but harder to manage at the gaming table.

That said, some games effectively use an equivalent of action points under the hood - you mentioned DND, so I'll take d20 3.x for my example as it's the one I played most. That system has Standard actions, Move actions, Full-round actions, Free actions and some other variations. You can do 1 standard action plus a move action only per round, whereas you can do 2 move actions. You can do one Full-round action only. You can do any number of Free actions.
There are some deeper complexities to these rules that I won't bother with here, as they don't serve to support the point I'm making - which is that, with a bit of reverse engineering, you could assign points values to these action types.
But why bother? The basic system, with descriptive names ("Standard", "Move", "Full-round", etc) is relatively easy to get the hang of - whereas a set of number assigned to types of action might be more confusing.

Man_Over_Game
2019-01-07, 03:37 PM
Actions are usually fairly simple, so they're easy to remember and apply - many games lack any distinction between action types, leaving it up to the GM to figure it out.
Action points may be more complex and require more looking up of the points assigned to particular actions - all easy stuff for a computer to do, but harder to manage at the gaming table.

That said, some games effectively use an equivalent of action points under the hood - you mentioned DND, so I'll take d20 3.x for my example as it's the one I played most. That system has Standard actions, Move actions, Full-round actions, Free actions and some other variations. You can do 1 standard action plus a move action only per round, whereas you can do 2 move actions. You can do one Full-round action only. You can do any number of Free actions.
There are some deeper complexities to these rules that I won't bother with here, as they don't serve to support the point I'm making - which is that, with a bit of reverse engineering, you could assign points values to these action types.
But why bother? The basic system, with descriptive names ("Standard", "Move", "Full-round", etc) is relatively easy to get the hang of - whereas a set of number assigned to types of action might be more confusing.

On the flipside, though, while the names of those set actions make sense, sometimes the ways those actions interact can lead to a lot of rule-keeping. That's one of the major points with avoiding an action-point system: Doing your turn should be simple, so that other players can get back into the action as quickly as possible.

Additionally, action point systems usually allow multiple possible moves per turn, which is pretty contrary to game design, especially when involved with other players. Most TTRPGs have a system where each unit has its own order in the game, rather than each side. This is to allow players to see each individual enemy action as an obstacle to react to. Someone hit your friend, so you heal your friend so he doesn't die. Allowing multiple actions on one side to happen at once creates a massive imbalance where there's no reaction to an event. Your friend took too much damage while at being at full health, so he dies without you being able to do anything about it. Sometimes, that happens, but those events generally aren't what most people consider "games". Even a game like Chess or Checkers has action-reaction built into it, and action points generally allow you to interfere with that flow. Rather than making a single attack, you build a character who's designed to kill an enemy before they can provide any kind of defense/response to stay alive.

And that may be a valid strategy, IF there can be a strategy built against it. But generally, with Action-based RPGs, the number of attacks per round (and thus, damage per round) is easier to estimate and so it's likely that most RPGs use Actions because it's easier.

Florian
2019-01-07, 04:32 PM
What you named "action points" is, AFAIK, more commonly called a "Tick" system.

The most striking example that I know is the German RPG system Splittermond. Each action, reaction and effect has a certain cost in "Ticks". For example, drawing, aiming and firing a bow will cost 10 ticks for drawing, 2 ticks for firing and a variable amount of 2 ticks depending on how long you aim. That system uses a regular battle map as well as a tick map to track who does what and when.

Slipperychicken
2019-01-07, 04:53 PM
Mythras and RuneQuest use action points; most things in combat (attack, parry, charge, draw/sheathe, etc) just take one action point to do. People can only take one proactive action on their turn, so it's quite simple to handle, especially if you have some tokens to use for it. Its transparency and simplicity also make it easy to mod if you want things to work a little differently (i.e. everyone gets the same AP, extra AP for players, people can only make one proactive action in a round, etc).

Florian
2019-01-07, 05:00 PM
Mythras and RuneQuest use action points; most things in combat (attack, parry, charge, draw/sheathe, etc) just take one action point to do. People can only take one proactive action on their turn, so it's quite simple to handle, especially if you have some tokens to use for it. Its transparency and simplicity also make it easy to mod if you want things to work a little differently (i.e. everyone gets the same AP, extra AP for players, people can only make one proactive action in a round, etc).

That's not what was meant. In the Fallout series, a character has a number of AP based on stats, perks and so on, with all potential action coming with a cost attached. For example, when my character has 9 AP in total per round, I could use 1 to kneel down, 2 for the Aim action, 5 for a Aimed Shot and then 1 to reload. That's my round then.

(IMHO, that version only works in a strictly single player game)

Pauly
2019-01-07, 07:42 PM
You see action points in a lot of skirmish level TT wargames. And to some extent you see it in all games. You have a movement phase, with a set amount of movement per turn. In many games you can give up your movement to get a cover bonus, or you can give up your attacks to get extra movement. You have an attack phase with a set number of attacks you can do per turn. Your magic phase often requires the PC to give up their movement and attacks or part therof in order to cast. You can have an action phase where you have major, minor and free actions.
Most games do have a defacto AP system, just that they hardwire the choices into the games system.

Action Point systems:
Pros-
Allows flexibility of action. You can move-attack; attack-move; move-attack-move. Which makes for a more cinematic gaming experience.
Allows players to split their turns (I use half my AP, you do your move, then I use the remaining half of my AP)
Simple to keep track of.
Allows some more complex rules that are designed to stop people exploiting IGO-UGO systems (like attacks of opportunity) to be removed.

Cons
What do you do with ‘unused’ APs? Can you carry them over to the next turn? Players will feel cheated if they lose their APs, but if you allow APs to carry over it can lead to other abuses.
Overwatch lockdown. (To prevent players abusing the move-attack-move the other player is allowed to go on overwatch so they can attack in another player’s turn. This leads to both sides in cover and on overwatch and no one moving into the middle spaces).
A significant number of players don’t like the flexibility and prefer the rigid structure of traditional systems.
It requires some degree of honest bookkeeping.
If you allow players to split their turns it can lead to abuse by perfect co-ordination.

I’ve always enjoyed AP type games because it feels more realistic to me, but I know many players who need a rigid playturn sequence.

Slipperychicken
2019-01-07, 11:15 PM
What do you do with ‘unused’ APs? Can you carry them over to the next turn? Players will feel cheated if they lose their APs, but if you allow APs to carry over it can lead to other abuses.

One option is to have them used reactively as well; to protect oneself, counter/deflect, evade danger, exploit an opening, or attempt to keep up with an enemy trying to outmaneuver the character. Basically the main idea is to use them to oppose enemies' actions.


My group's usually fine with losing their actions. If the group gets too tired of someone's lengthy decision process, we usually just declare that the character 'dithered' or 'hesitated'. We don't need to use it often, and the receiving player tends to accept that result without issue as a kind of wake-up call to make their choices more efficiently. They're the same way about resources such as AP; when it's a use-it-or-lose-it resource like time, they tend to be fine when the "lose it" outcome happens.

Quertus
2019-01-08, 12:23 AM
So, where does rifts fit into this schema?

Erloas
2019-01-08, 01:04 AM
In games like fallout 1&2 it was a balance for some types of weapons. A dagger, pistol, or punch would use less AP than a sledgehammer or sniper rifle. It would take more AP for a targeted shot or a burst fire shot.
So you could get more attacks in with some weapon combos.
Also each square moved used an AP, so there was never any time where you couldn't use all of them. It was also always a choice between more damage and taking cover.

Maximising your AP use was important.

Anonymouswizard
2019-01-08, 04:55 AM
I've seen action points used in TTRPGs, and the problem is that they tend to take target lengthy RPG combat and make it even longer. In 3.X I saw combat rounds traking twenty to thirty minutes each, with action points that would probably lengthen to an hour

As they were brought up, I'll mention that a Tick system generally works like this: your turn comes up, and you perform your action. It resolves now, but has a Speed which determines when your next action is. So bandaging wounds might be Speed 6, an attack with a sword Speed 5, and an attack with a dagger Speed 3. Generally the more potent an action the higher the Tick cost. There is a variant where you use charge times instead, so if an action is Speed 3 it resolves three Ticks after your turn, but that can easily lead to people moving out of range while you 'charge'.

Pelle
2019-01-08, 05:31 AM
I don't like action points in rpgs, because it makes the players having to make more decisions on their turns. For my first action point I will do this, my second ... etc. I prefer it to be 1 action per player, so that one can ask "it's your turn, what do you do?", quickly resolve it, and move to the next player.

Pauly
2019-01-08, 06:00 AM
I've seen action points used in TTRPGs, and the problem is that they tend to take target lengthy RPG combat and make it even longer. In 3.X I saw combat rounds traking twenty to thirty minutes each, with action points that would probably lengthen to an hour
'.

An AP system would definitely fail with a decision heavy RPG like D&D.

But in another system where the tactical decisions are light (e.g. all swords are “swords” and all do the same damage, and an attack magic spell level 3 does 3d6 damage) then an AP system can work.

Its about how and where the game designer puts granularity into their system.

Anonymouswizard
2019-01-08, 06:25 AM
An AP system would definitely fail with a decision heavy RPG like D&D.

But in another system where the tactical decisions are light (e.g. all swords are “swords” and all do the same damage, and an attack magic spell level 3 does 3d6 damage) then an AP system can work.

Its about how and where the game designer puts granularity into their system.

Sure, which is why I suspect they work better in wargames where players are less likely to care about each individual thing. I've met players who very much care that they're using a broadsword, not a longsword (I mean, I'm even one of those players). Although my preference is Tick systems mainly because they have what I see as the best of AP systems (actions cost different 'amounts') and Turn systems (you can't take another action immediately after this one).

I think they'd also work well as an abstraction of crew of a vehicle. So X crew give you Y AP which your can spend too use systems. Although there I'd fudge every ship that isn't a player one, just giving them a certain number of actions and docking one per hit to the crew.

Erloas
2019-01-08, 02:21 PM
I could see it taking a while when the system is new, but I wouldn't expect it to be much longer after some adjustment.

Most characters would be built around their likely actions based on AP. So you've basically picked your most likely combat actions during character creation. Most AP system I've seen are about 5-10 points with most actions falling into the 2-5 range. So in practical terms it's really only 1-3 actions. And even in the case where a really fast character gets 5+ actions, that's only going to happen if they repeat the same small action (usually attack) a bunch, which would resolve rather quickly.

Florian
2019-01-08, 04:31 PM
To expand a bit on what The-Not-So-Anoymus-Wizard-Anymore said: A Fallout-style AP system might be extremely fine-granular in its own way, but it´s still geared towards a single player style. Chained actions are far more important than reactions and results of actions, something that is important in a multi-player game, especially when it is based on teamwork.

Pauly
2019-01-08, 07:30 PM
To expand a bit on what The-Not-So-Anoymus-Wizard-Anymore said: A Fallout-style AP system might be extremely fine-granular in its own way, but it´s still geared towards a single player style. Chained actions are far more important than reactions and results of actions, something that is important in a multi-player game, especially when it is based on teamwork.

In TT wargames my experience has been that it increases teamwork options. The ability to choose between attack-move or move-atrack is very powerful especially with ranged weapons. Much more so than all characters move then they attack which is the traditional standard.

When you pair it with the ability to split turns and expend APs when needed your tactical granularity explodes when you have multiple characters.

JeenLeen
2019-01-09, 09:40 AM
As some noted, 'tick' systems try to emulate something similar. Exalted 2nd edition did it so that any actions in-combat take so many ticks (with some free movement), but (in my limited experience) it mostly came to "do weaker attacks more often" or "do powerful attacks less often".

Riddle of Steel doesn't use AP, but you do have a pool of dice you allocate to either attack or defense (or in some other complicated ways.) So each combat round you have X points to allocate between attacking your enemy and keeping yourself from being attacked, or to spend on fancy attacks/defensive moves. Its combat system might be a good inspiration even if not exactly what you want, though I find it a bit too crunchy once you get past basic moves.


What are people's experiences with using action points, is it too much book keeping or hard to balance? Why is regular actions so prevalent? Convention or merit?

I like the idea, but I think I'd find it too crunchy in practice. And that is bad to me since it tends to increase the time it takes per round (more time to make decisions, more time doing math, more time consulting charts/tables).

That said, I don't think balancing it would necessarily be harder than balancing any other element in a game. It is another thing you'd have to balance, though, so in that sense it might make more work for game design.

AP's bookkeeping and time-taking is the main 'bad thing' to me. I think simply using an Action system is simpler, and that simplicity makes for games that move at a faster (and, for me at least, more fun) pace.

Quertus
2019-01-09, 10:22 AM
In TT wargames my experience has been that it increases teamwork options. The ability to choose between attack-move or move-atrack is very powerful especially with ranged weapons. Much more so than all characters move then they attack which is the traditional standard.

When you pair it with the ability to split turns and expend APs when needed your tactical granularity explodes when you have multiple characters.

Just to check, you're saying that D&D 3e, with choice of the order in which you move vs attack, and White Raven Tactics, should produce better teamwork than Battletech, with its rigid "move then attack" structure?

Personally, I've seen good and poor teamwork in both systems, so I'm uncertain if they're casually related. Similarly, I've seen great tactical challenges in both, and I've seen both approached in a "beer and pretzels" style.

I suspect - buy have not tested - that AP will have limited appeal to or compatibility with a "beer and pretzels" style.

Max_Killjoy
2019-01-09, 10:58 AM
In working on my homebrew system, I am deeply tempted to use a system that is based on action points, but somehow makes players who can fit in multiple actions wait until everyone has taken their first action, etc, or something along those lines.

I'm trying to find something that allows multiple actions, but isn't like D&D's massive upgrade from one attack to two attacks, or oWoD Vampire Celerity -- systems that default at a single action per "turn" but then allow some characters to take multiple actions give a HUGE advantage to the characters who can.

RedWarlock
2019-01-09, 05:16 PM
I feel like there’s a couple of different concepts being thrown around here that are being assumed. When I read the OP, I didn’t get any impression that he was talking about a system that affected the initiative order, or time tracking. Ticks seem to be more about that, whereas I remember an extensive homebrew system, based on the MechWarrior clix game, called Solaris VII. Individual turns still happened independently as with 3.X style initiative, but individual units had their movement as their number of action points. Making an attack cost 4 out of the average of 8-12 or so movement, but have a high speed and you can attack multiple times easily. Other actions had particular costs. (I mostly remember it because I tried to hybridize a pseudo-D&D from the MageKnight Dungeons game at the time. My first big foray into homebrew systems.)

You can kind of see the same thing in how movement is spent in the 3.X systems. You “spend” 5ft of movement to hop a ledge, or double the cost of movement when tumbling. (I seem to recall 5e does a similar thing where you spend 5ft to open a door?)

Florian
2019-01-09, 06:03 PM
@RedWarlock:

The reason why people with experience with Tick systems dismiss a computer game style AP system is because of the interaction. Once you really get down to it and assign a precise action cost, you also have to deal with reactions, passive abilities and repercussions, as well as out-of-turn abilities and how those affect the AP economy.

Fallout is actually quite a good example here: Quit your turn with enough AP for a snap shot and you might trigger an reaction, this is a Snap Shot. Hurray.

In any system that uses more complex actions that just inflicting damage, that gets more complicated. Ok, what would actually happen when the triggered reaction would be something like a trip attempt? The you'd have to recalculate the whole AP sequence based on the result.

As such, continuous Initiative with clear action costs are better at resolving more complex action-reaction-chains.

Pauly
2019-01-09, 07:05 PM
Just to check, you're saying that D&D 3e, with choice of the order in which you move vs attack, and White Raven Tactics, should produce better teamwork than Battletech, with its rigid "move then attack" structure?

Personally, I've seen good and poor teamwork in both systems, so I'm uncertain if they're casually related. Similarly, I've seen great tactical challenges in both, and I've seen both approached in a "beer and pretzels" style.

I suspect - buy have not tested - that AP will have limited appeal to or compatibility with a "beer and pretzels" style.

The potential for teamwork in 3e D&D is higher. Why it often isn’t
- the mentality of playing a character as opposed to controlling a team.
- the complexity of other tactical decisions such as spells to use, abilities to activate often reduce the player’s time thinking about co-operation.
- the other tactical decisions are often more powerful in determining combat outcome so teamwork gets less consideration.

In D&D the potential for teamwork is greater, but the rewards for individual action are greater. In Battletech the rewards for teamwork are greater than the rewards for optimized individual actions.

If you’ve ever seen wargamers play RPGers in Battletech it isn’t pretty. The RPGers get hosed bafly almost every time.

Malphegor
2019-01-10, 06:17 AM
That tick system seems interesting. So say if you're casting... let's use D&D as our example for this...

You have a wizard who casts Fireball. Fireball has a speed of... 5 or so. That means it takes 5 ticks for fireball to take into effect once cast. This works out as some quantity of seconds that means the fireball takes into effect after the wizard's turn.

The barbarian's turn, seeing the fireball coming, uses their actions to move out of the way of the fireball on the 4th tick, then uses their remaining move speed to move back in.

It'd be very micromanagey and possibly a bit too finnicky for something like D&D, but I can imagine that working nicely for some kinds of game.

Like, each turn is that player's moment to react to the things that are in play, and the actual units of time spent are the ticks that compose X amount of time ina turn.

Like if you had D&D 3.5 split down into swift actions as the smallest increment.

Pelle
2019-01-10, 07:36 AM
It'd be very micromanagey and possibly a bit too finnicky for something like D&D, but I can imagine that working nicely for some kinds of game.


Could be cool for a board game I reckon. It reminds me of Gloomhaven. I see lots of people loving it, but looking at youtube-videos it looks oh so slow, and not at all what I want out of rpg combats.

Lapak
2019-01-10, 07:43 AM
That tick system seems interesting. So say if you're casting... let's use D&D as our example for this...

You have a wizard who casts Fireball. Fireball has a speed of... 5 or so.
This is almost how Ad&D initiative was designed to work, with the wrinkle that everyone was supposed to declare what they were doing before they rolled initiative and then everything played out after the roll based on speed adjustments. So not a tick system exactly, but a system that recognizes some actions as taking longer to execute than others.

olskool
2019-01-14, 09:37 PM
I have this question about the pros and cons of two systems of dealing with turn-based combat and action economy. The two systems being "Action Points" vs "Actions" (for a lack of a better name). The "Actions" one being used in nearly all games, you have a set number of actions you can do per turn (like standard and move in D&D) and the "Action Points" being used AFAIK only in the CRPGs Fallout 1 & 2 from the 90s where each turn a character gets a number of action points and any given action uses action points.

Are there any tabletop systems that use the action point system and how does it compare with the normal system of just having actions?

What are people's experiences with using action points, is it too much bookkeeping or hard to balance? Why are regular actions so prevalent? Convention or merit?

The first system I ever played with an "Action Point" style system was AD&D 2e with everything having a speed in Segments. You would add up the segments and determine who went first based on low score to high score. It was unwieldy and often abandoned.

The second system to use the AP Economy was Twilight2013. It used the TICK System and was equally unwieldy. Each TICK was a fraction of a second and scores could run into the 20's. The adding and subtracting of TICKS was the system's undoing.

I guess Runequest/BRP's STRIKE RANK System could be an AP Economy system and was useable as it counted upwards from 1 to 12 for a 12-second combat round.


I used a homebrewed AP Economy for Twilight2000 V2.2 where there were 6 initiative steps that were 1 second's worth of time each. The characters would roll a 1D6 and add it to their INITIATIVE SCORE (which was also 1 thru 6) then DIVIDE BY 2 (rounding up). This would give them a mildly randomized score from 6 down to 1. Think of each point of that INITIATIVE as ONE SECOND'S worth of ACTIVITY. ACTIONS would cost X number of AP based on how long it took to do in real time.

The players would then declare their actions from highest modified INITIATIVE SCORE to lowest during The DECLARATION PHASE and I'd plot those ACTIONS on a chart. The ACTION would then be resolved from highest to lowest during The RESOLUTION PHASE. In a modern game using modern firearms with varying ranges and rates of fire, this system allowed the exchange of gunfire in an orderly fashion. It was slower than 5e or Mythras (whose system is a favorite of mine) but very TIME PRECISE. It would allow you to track time to the second without being too slow. Different ACTIONS had different time costs and we used real-world times in a lot of situations. For example, an average pistol magazine reload would take about 3 seconds/ACTION POINTS for an average Character. An Expert Pistol Shooter could do that reload in 2 seconds/ACTION POINTS. A draw would often take 2 seconds/ACTION POINTS and a unit of movement would take 1 second/ACTION POINT with multiple moves possible. Firearms had 4 RANGE BANDS (short, medium, long, & extreme) and it cost 1 second/ACTION POINT per Range Band (ie 1 at short, 2 at medium, 3 at long, & 4 at extreme range) to shoot to.

I am still using this system in a Merc2000 campaign and it works fairly well.

D-naras
2019-01-17, 03:08 AM
I made a homebrew system that started by using Action Points. In theory, they offer many advantages, the most prominent being a way to actually make faster characters (and not just with higher movement speeds), solid difference between large and smaller weapons (why swing a dagger if a hammer costs the same action points and deals more damage?).

However, playing with it, it was really fun for tactical minded players but horrible for me as a GM to use. Most of the time I fudged the amount of Action Points NPCs had, simply because I couldn't track it all. That's why I ended up axing it. Actions are simply faster and more practical to use.

Max_Killjoy
2019-01-17, 09:53 AM
I made a homebrew system that started by using Action Points. In theory, they offer many advantages, the most prominent being a way to actually make faster characters (and not just with higher movement speeds), solid difference between large and smaller weapons (why swing a dagger if a hammer costs the same action points and deals more damage?).

However, playing with it, it was really fun for tactical minded players but horrible for me as a GM to use. Most of the time I fudged the amount of Action Points NPCs had, simply because I couldn't track it all. That's why I ended up axing it. Actions are simply faster and more practical to use.

Like I noted earlier, to me, the big appeal is that it allows for added actions without a giant gulf between those with one action, and those with multiple actions.

With simple actions per turn / round, even adding a single action is a 100% increase, a doubling.

With something like HERO's segment/phase setup, there's no variation, characters are locked into when the take their actions with utter predictability in every combat.

As you note, action point pools can create a lot of overhead, especially for the GM.

So the question becomes, how does a game design solve all three problems at the same time?

OverLordOcelot
2019-01-17, 01:52 PM
I think the last bit illustrates that one of the problems with Action Point systems is that they work really different on paper with one person tweaking things than in practice. When you're theorycrafting or if you're one player testing to see how it works, you have everything memorized or are fiddling with it, you know all of the rules, and combat zips along. When you actually try to put it into a real game, you have an overloaded DM trying to remember a dozen different AP totals and action costs, one 'champion fighter' player who can't ever get the fiddly stuff right on the first try, and one system mastery dude who is suddenly playing superman because he is abusing an action and recovery combo that the theorycrafter mistakenly thought was forbidden.

If you have a small number of people who are really into it and a DM who is super into it then it probably works fine. But if you have half a dozen players, some of whom don't get the system, playing in a pickup game with a DM who's OK with it but not memorizing NPC action info then it's going to be a headache and/or a disaster.

Slipperychicken
2019-01-17, 04:46 PM
If you have a small number of people who are really into it and a DM who is super into it then it probably works fine. But if you have half a dozen players, some of whom don't get the system, playing in a pickup game with a DM who's OK with it but not memorizing NPC action info then it's going to be a headache and/or a disaster.

To be fair, six players + GM in a pickup game where most aren't solid on the rules isn't really going to go that well in any roleplaying game. Except maybe the really short ones.

In mythras, I've found that physical tokens help a lot with action points. It's very easy to tell who has how many left.

Pauly
2019-01-18, 01:38 AM
To be fair, six players + GM in a pickup game where most aren't solid on the rules isn't really going to go that well in any roleplaying game. Except maybe the really short ones.

In mythras, I've found that physical tokens help a lot with action points. It's very easy to tell who has how many left.

If you are using APs physical tokens should be mandatory. It helps everyone, for example if the marksman in your party has run out of AP, you won’t sidestep to give him a clear shot at an enemy fighter.

OverLordOcelot
2019-01-20, 04:01 PM
To be fair, six players + GM in a pickup game where most aren't solid on the rules isn't really going to go that well in any roleplaying game. Except maybe the really short ones.

I've seen it go fine plenty of times. You don't need an in depth understanding of 5e rules to successfully play a low-level pickup game, because you really only need to understand 'which of these abilities do I want to use'. Call of Cthulu is even easier, since there really aren't any maneuvers or special abilities for the players, you just shoot a gun or swing a weapon or cry in the corner and roll a simple percentile chance. Rules light systems like Teenagers From Outer Space don't have enough rules to not be solid on them in the first place. But once you start introducing complex action rules, things get much, much harder to do simply, and you either end up simplyfing the game so that it's effectively just 'actions', or bogging things down a lot.