The Gaming Den

Okay, first of all, a definition of terms:

When I say "Action Point" I don't refer to the D&D mechanic where you have a pool of points that you can spend to add a bonus to a die roll (alternatively called "Destiny" or "Fate" points in other systems).

I refer to the "Action Points" used in games such as Space Hulk, Jagged Alliance, Conflict of Heroes, and the like.

Basically, each character in the system has a pool of action points which refresh every round. In order to do some kind of action (i.e. movement, shooting), the character must spend action points.

In Space Hulk, for instance, a Space Marine gets 4 AP per turn. It costs 1 AP for them to move 1 space, 1 AP to fire their weapon once, 2 AP to fire the flamethrower, etc.

Now, I've been thinking of making an RPG that uses the Action Point system. I was just wondering though - what are the advantages and disadvantages of using the AP mechanic for RPGs? What have been good and bad implementation of the mechanic?

Off hand, the pros and cons of the system that I've thought of are:

Pros:

* APs offer greater flexibility for characters and monster. They're not just limited to moving and then whacking something anymore like in the Move/Standard/Full action system.

* More interesting resource management - i.e. mechanics can be introduced that allow you to carry over APs in future turns, abilities that grant bonus APs, etc.

* It can serve as a balancing mechanic between different classes - i.e. Wizards may have powerful spells but very low AP to cast them, while fighters get a lot of AP to play with.

Cons:

* More bookkeeping and added complexity.

* More prone to "broken" combos.

Any other inputs from the experts here at the Den?

If you use an action point system, couple it with initiative. Shooting your gun lowers your initiative count, if you go below zero you don't get to act again (and possibly get a penalty in the next round of combat). That way you avoid those sloooooooow turns and you can also put in reactions during opposing actions.

I don't know.. I've honestly never really seen action point systems that work very well. Generally handing out more actions to one side is a bad thing. Shadowrun is about the only system that does it semi-okay and that's because you only get your extra actions after everyone else has acted at least once. And in SR, generally one turn is all they need to kill you anyway.

In Rolemaster there's a version or two of this which counts off seconds for attacks or other actions. It looks good, but the perverse incentive is that the players want to spam attacks as quickly as possible and do as little else as possible for maximum effectiveness.

I didn't like it; the people I game with do more interesting things in-game if an interesting action makes their next attack -20 OB than if doing the interesting thing would delay their next attack.

The oldschool game UFO uses this system. In general, people get ranged attacks and spam them rather than moving.

The solution would be to give D20s Move action something fun you can turn it into that is movement and more than movement.... maybe a Press where you close with a person and get bonuses to attack.

Front Mission 4 has a system like that. You need to manage your "AP" in order to do things, the more important the thing the more AP it costs. Melee attacks and using a shield to block cost 1 AP, Mid ranged attacks cost anywhere between 3-5 AP, long range attacks and area attacks (nigh unavoidable) cost 9-12 AP and it cost 1 AP/square to move. In the game you'd also need to save AP to do things like counter attack, perform combos with team mates etc. Performing combos was often more effective then just attacking by yourself.

RandomCasualty2 wrote:I don't know.. I've honestly never really seen action point systems that work very well. Generally handing out more actions to one side is a bad thing.

There don't ever need to be more actions on one side of the time. Even if you have differing amounts of action points those can be tied to your level. Start with 4 AP per round at level 1, get another every 4 levels.

More importantly though, if you only get to have one action before your opponents, the effect of additional actions is diminished. And that is where an AP system coupled with initiative can shine. Shadowrun is a hybrid really. Feng Shui is an example of this kind of system done right.

It can be done well (Feng Shui) or really poorly (Everquest Pen and Paper). The key is that spending more Action Points is borrowing from the future, because it is longer before you get to act again. Where have we seen that before? Charge Casting of course. And like Charge Casting, it has easy traps it can fall into.

If the things that cost a lot of AP are probably going to end confrontations, then it doesn't matter what the low AP cost things do. People just let the dragon slave go off, and fuck the cool-down time.

If the things that cost a lot of AP are not going to end confrontations, then it really doesn't matter how much things cost. There's just an AP vs. Effect chart and people use whichever thing is most effective for the cost over and over again.

Things have to be on a razor's edge as regards to ending combat so that using the low AP cost / high efficiency moves are used until it appears to be tactically advantageous to leave yourself open to launch a super move. It's still a fairly simple tactical quandary, but coupled with additional tactical controls it can be part of a complete breakfast.

-Username17

The main issue with actions points is bookkeeping.

Fallout really set a gold standard for a game where tatical actionpoints are used. However, that system as pen and paper blows hardcore.

When the computer manages the bookkeeping action points are a fine idea. However, all the headaces that go along with them in pen and paper are usually not worth it.

One of the big things to remember is that people will be attacking multiple times in there turn unless you make attacking cost a rediculous amount. As frank pointed out, people are either going to unleash there mostexpensive/best attack every round they can afford it, or they are going to move to where they can best spam attacks and roll dice forever.

Also, while the players might get action points, you should REALLY consider a simplified scheme for most bad guys. AP's are really interesting when you are controlling only 1 thing. However, spending 6 ap for 8-10 cut and paste orcs is going to suck. Either decide that they always spend X on moving or attack twice or whatever but their actions will basically need to be determined in advance.

That's not an issue at all. Blatantly ripping off Feng Shui here:

Step 1: Initiative
Everyone rolls for initiative. Pick any system you like. To get a curve I am going to pick 3d6 + relevant stat (which should be something like +0 to +5) for my example. So everyone rolls 3d6+speed.

Step 2: Resolve next action
Get the character with the highest initiative. Have him pick an action. Every action has an associated cost. Resolve the action.

Step 3: Lower Initiative
Lower the character's initiative by the cost. If his initiative is lower than the cost, assign the remainder as a penalty to his initiative score for the next round of combat. Return to 2.

There is next to no bookkeeping at all. You roll for initiative once and you have a small counter or some glass beads or a die or something to tick down initiative. Then when your mook comes up you have him shoot an arrow at a player and turn his die from 12 to 8. And in return you get rid of most of the awkwardness involved with taking an entire turn's worth of actions all at once and you get to easily include reactions to other people's actions. The overall complexity is probably lower than a turn-based game.

Thanks for the loads and loads of inputs guys .

Just a few extra questions/observations:

Questions

1) Is Frank referring to Robin Law's Feng Shui?

2) There have been several comments about tying AP to initiative. Do most AP systems have characters spend one AP at a time in initiative order, or is it more like Space Hulk where each character gets to spend ALL their AP first, then move on to the next character? Which of the two is generally more successful?

Notes:

1) AP systems tend to encourage ranged weapons spam (K - based on experienced with UFO)

Not entirely sure how a system can resolve this, but I was thinking the options are...

a) Make ranged weapons weaker and make archers cry.

b) Make ranged weapons cost more AP to use and make archers cry some more.

c) Make some LoS rules that will encourage having a mixed party of shooters and defenders/meleers.

Option c) Sounds a bit complicated though, although I have some ideas (albeit that might be a whole new thread).

2) There should be a balance between high-AP high damage moves and low-AP, high efficiency moves. Or else people will keep just using one or the other.

The other thing I was thinking of is to have certain attacks confer various status effects, while follow-on attacks take advantage of these status effects. For example, the first attack could be a low-AP trick attack, followed by a "finishing blow" useable only against tripped characters.

3) Characters should have AP, but it might be better if monsters don't so the DM doesn't go insane.

I agree, albeit I was thinking of monsters that still have AP so that we don't have a 4E-like disconnect between monsters and the rest of the universe. Maybe monsters could simply have a specific "template" of actions that it will generally follow (i.e. Orcs are move-attack guys), and only bosses get to play with the full AP system?


Also... personal comment:

One of the big reason I'd like to have an AP-based system is to insert an element of "betting" to combats.

In the AP system that I'm thinking of, you can both use APs during your turn, and as a reaction to enemy actions.

However, the things that you can do as reactions is more limited and generally defensive in nature (i.e. Parry, Counter-attack, Shield Block, etc)

Thus, players have to choose between spending AP to move, to make offensive actions during their turn, or to save them for possible defensive reactions.

In order to offset the fact that simply attacking all-out is generally the better option in most RPGs, I'd like to tweak the math so that defending is actually the more efficient option in most cases. For instance, it make take 2 AP to launch an attack, but only 1 AP to have a +5 AC bonus for blocking.

Of course, that THEN leads to the next problem... if the numbers favor defense, what's to stop people from turtling? Well, here's where Magic comes in:

I was thinking of designing the system around the time it takes to cast an "uber" spell. Basically, spells in my proposed system are very, very powerful. Think "Fireball" at level 3. HOWEVER, they have a major disadvantage in that they take a minimum of 3 turns to cast (maximum of 6), and possibly longer in some cases. And generally speaking, there is no way to shorten the casting below this 3-turn limit.

Thus, most battles will run under a 3 to 6 turn clock. By the end of that time, one side has probably cast an uber spell and ended the battle.

*whew* Well now, I've gone from AP-> Defensive Games -> Uber Magic Spells as a time limit. Did people get what I'm trying to say, or is this all a convoluted mess? ^_^;;;

Murtak,

I actually like that system however that is not really an action point system.

Thats basically the core idea of exalted 2e action resolution system. Floating initiative and action cost systems do work on pen and paper.

However, I will say again that it works best when all players (including gm) are only controlling 1 thing. If the gamemater is doing floating initiave for say a dozen bandits the game slows to a crawl.

One of the cool things about this system is that you can use physical markers and have people put them on a track if you don't know what you want to do by your next move you just get skipped while you figure it out.


However, when somebody says action points I normally think of a system where actions have fixed costs and players have an alotment of points to spend them on.

So Moving costs 1/square. Fighting costs 3 for melee and 4 for ranged etc. You start with say 6 and take your turn.


The real advantage of the Move/Fight/Freebe action system is that its easy to work the the strings on the bad guys. The dozen bandits are going to move and fight. Whats more, most of the time thats what players are going to do. Move and fight.

If you have a list of 100 actions, and most of them cost fighting -1 to Fighting +1 its not like you really have 100 actions, you are saying that most of those actions are no different than fighting.

The biggest issue with action points, or even floating/ticking initiative systems is how often do you want to let people attack? Does fighting with a dagger cost 1 point and fighitnig with a sword cost 2, fighting with a two handed weapon cost 3 Or does fighting cost 3 regardless of weapon? The game can work either way, but it changes how you have to design other elemetns. If you can do 3 dagger attacks for every 1 greatsword attack you have a real issue. Are 3 dagger attacks supposed to equal a greatsword attack?

Determining how many action points to distribute is also very difficult. If you make fighting cost 3 and moving cost 1 and give people 6 points then most people will move to where they can hit the most things and take 2 attacks a round. If you keep the costs the same and give everybody 5 points most people will move to where they can fight and then try and back away so that as few as possible bad guys can counter attack. Can points be accumulated by not spending them?

The two issues I have seen araise in games with action points or ticking iniative are the "flurry superstars" who build characters who can take a dozen actions and then tornado their way through a combat and "gamemaster overload" where the game slows to a crawl because its hard for the gm to pick and spend all the actionpoints he has on his npcs without the players losing interestt. On the other hand if he doesn't then the play of the bad guys seems ineffectual compared to the pcs.

Keep in mind that while the X-Com games used APs, the attacks were actually a percentage of your total APs, so AP were really mostly used for things like movement and drawing weapons. Having more AP in one of those games didn't mean you got a ton of shots, it just meant you could move faster.

Zinegata wrote:
3) Characters should have AP, but it might be better if monsters don't so the DM doesn't go insane.

I agree, albeit I was thinking of monsters that still have AP so that we don't have a 4E-like disconnect between monsters and the rest of the universe. Maybe monsters could simply have a specific "template" of actions that it will generally follow (i.e. Orcs are move-attack guys), and only bosses get to play with the full AP system?

Oh yeah, this has to be a central part of play where important villians/foes get all the same stuff as players. They are the ones you care about spending there aps on. Even a couple of guys at a time is ok. The problem is when you have the boss, his bodyguard, and his pack of goons to play with.

Also, aps for important bad guys shouldn't be frozen to what made sense for basically humanoid heros. Dragons and Hive Tryants can move more than 1 square and ap or have lower/aternate costs for fighting with certain weaponry.


As to your question about which is more common: the adjusted iniative system is more common for pen and paper stuff because it works faster once people know it. Space hulk type action points are normally found in more wargame type games or on the computer where it can do all the managment.

souran wrote:I actually like that system however that is not really an action point system.

Why not?

souran wrote:However, I will say again that it works best when all players (including gm) are only controlling 1 thing. If the gamemater is doing floating initiave for say a dozen bandits the game slows to a crawl.

Why? I outlined why this is not an issue. Why should it be? What makes it harder to work with than other systems?

souran wrote:However, when somebody says action points I normally think of a system where actions have fixed costs and players have an alotment of points to spend them on.

So Moving costs 1/square. Fighting costs 3 for melee and 4 for ranged etc. You start with say 6 and take your turn.

Yes. This is what I said.

souran wrote:If you have a list of 100 actions, and most of them cost fighting -1 to Fighting +1 its not like you really have 100 actions, you are saying that most of those actions are no different than fighting.

Why would you have a list of one-fucking-hundred actions? More to the point, why do the same 100 actions work in a non-ap-system?

souran wrote:The biggest issue with action points, or even floating/ticking initiative systems is how often do you want to let people attack? Does fighting with a dagger cost 1 point and fighitnig with a sword cost 2, fighting with a two handed weapon cost 3 Or does fighting cost 3 regardless of weapon? The game can work either way, but it changes how you have to design other elemetns. If you can do 3 dagger attacks for every 1 greatsword attack you have a real issue. Are 3 dagger attacks supposed to equal a greatsword attack?

So you are telling me that the basic mechanics of the system influence the way the system as a whole works? No shit, Sherlock.


P.S.: Goddamnit did you just type a couple hundred words just to say "action point systems are scary and I don't know how to balance shit"? Is there any other content at all in that post?

RandomCasualty2 wrote:Keep in mind that while the X-Com games used APs, the attacks were actually a percentage of your total APs, so AP were really mostly used for things like movement and drawing weapons. Having more AP in one of those games didn't mean you got a ton of shots, it just meant you could move faster.

Again there is a clear bookkeeping issue. While a players primary attack will probably cost an amount he remembers this would need to be precalcualted for all the baddies.

Any player who picks up an improvised weapon or does a combat action they don't have prerecored is going to slow the game down. Especially where rounding will lead to the player having just enough ap left to do some sort of follow up or just shy.

Finally, if acting is going to cost a percantage of available action points then all the actionpoints are is movement squares. You have used action points to create a game that is functionally identical to the move/fight action games.

Murtak wrote: Why not?

Ok, did you not read the initial post? In games like spacehulk you get all your action points at once. You spend your action points till you have 0 then the next person gets his turn.

The system in Fung Shuei and Exalted and I think DP9 also uses the ticking initiative stuff. That is a cool system, it can work. However, its not really action points like x-com, or fallout, or space hulk etc.

Why? I outlined why this is not an issue. Why should it be? What makes it harder to work with than other systems?

Look at what you were talking about. Using dice or glass beads to count peoples remaining initiative ticks till their next action. That is REALLY AWESOME when you are a player. You sit there pratically foaming at the mouth waiting for the gamemaster to let everybody advance 1 step.

However, managing the glass bead pile or the dice for 6-12 baddies is a pain in the ass. Those dice piles take up space. If you don't remember to grab one from each on every tick the monsters become pushovers. If you use dice they get knocked around somebody picks them up and uses them for an attack. At somepoint there is going to be an arguement over what dice represents which baddie. IF you decide to use pen and paper then you spend a lot of time checking stuff off and rewritting values.

All of that is bookeeping. All of that is going to be slow and practice is only going to get you so far. Some games end up being slow and people feel like its ages between their turns.

So Moving costs 1/square. Fighting costs 3 for melee and 4 for ranged etc. You start with say 6 and take your turn.
Yes. This is what I said.

Actually, no its not. You described a system where the cost of an action is deducted from your iniative and then you move to the next highest initative. In an earlier post you talked about shadowrun being a hybrid and making sure that others get actions before people get their additional actions. In all of the systems you mentioned the controlling factor is the combat sequencing.

Why would you have a list of one-fucking-hundred actions? More to the point, why do the same 100 actions work in a non-ap-system?

I bet we could come up with a list of 100 things you might do in combat. However, what I was trying to get at is that action points as a system are when they let you get combinations of actions that would end up prohibiited in a single turn because of the restrictions of a move/fight action system.

If a guy with 10 ap can crawl 20 feet, come to a knee, open a door, pull out a hand mirror, peak around the corner and take a shot and a baddie in the room but a guy with 8 ap can do all that except the attack and most people have 8-12 ap thats probably interesting enough to be worth the time invested.

However, if the guy with 8 ap and the guy with 10 ap can both only really do the same things as a dnd guy with his move/standard/minor and the differeance is that the 10 ap guy moves 2 more spaces then its really worht asking is the time invested worth it?

So you are telling me that the basic mechanics of the system influence the way the system as a whole works? No shit, Sherlock.

Its more than that its that you probably don't want to tack an ap system on or try and subsititute one into an existing game without one because all the shit you have to run down to make one work takes time, and requires you answer a LOT of questions about where your system is going. So while its fairly obvious a lot of people think that they can just layer this sort of system on and it won't do anything. So yeah its not unfair to warn people that changing the turn sequence involves changing more that just when people get to act, it goes to how every weapon, piece of armor even how many hit points/wounds/whatever things should probably have.

souran wrote:

Murtak wrote:Why not?

Ok, did you not read the initial post? In games like spacehulk you get all your action points at once. You spend your action points till you have 0 then the next person gets his turn.

So. Fucking. What? Your foo game is red, I get that. That does not that mean all foo games are red, doesn't mean all red games are foo games and doesn't mean there aren't other colors.

From the original post:

Zinegata wrote:[When I refer to "Action Points" I mean to say] each character in the system has a pool of action points which refresh every round. In order to do some kind of action (i.e. movement, shooting), the character must spend action points.

souran wrote:

Murtak wrote:Why? I outlined why this is not an issue. Why should it be? What makes it harder to work with than other systems?

managing the glass bead pile or the dice for 6-12 baddies is a pain in the ass. Those dice piles take up space. If you don't remember to grab one from each on every tick the monsters become pushovers. If you use dice they get knocked around somebody picks them up and uses them for an attack. At somepoint there is going to be an arguement over what dice represents which baddie. IF you decide to use pen and paper then you spend a lot of time checking stuff off and rewritting values.

You don't ever have to touch anything except the counter for the acting character. Ever. If you can't be trusted to handle dice just put a bead or slip of paper on an initiative track. There are ways to handle even that level of incompetency. But That is not even the point. The point is why the fuck do you assume you handle 20 NPCs in any system when you are too braindead to keep a single number for every NPC? Don't you keep track of immediate and swift actions in DnD? Readied actions? That stuff is seriously harder than handling a single number.

souran wrote:However, if the guy with 8 ap and the guy with 10 ap can both only really do the same things as a dnd guy with his move/standard/minor and the differeance is that the 10 ap guy moves 2 more spaces then its really worht asking is the time invested worth it?

Read: "But what if you design a shitty system?" Answer: Then your system stinks.

souran wrote:

So you are telling me that the basic mechanics of the system influence the way the system as a whole works? No shit, Sherlock.

Its more than that its that you probably don't want to tack an ap system on or try and subsititute one into an existing game without one because all the shit you have to run down to make one work takes time, and requires you answer a LOT of questions about where your system is going. So while its fairly obvious a lot of people think that they can just layer this sort of system on and it won't do anything. So yeah its not unfair to warn people that changing the turn sequence involves changing more that just when people get to act, it goes to how every weapon, piece of armor even how many hit points/wounds/whatever things should probably have.

Of course it does you brainless fucker! Guess what - so does a turn-based system. So does AC, so does DR, so does soaking. What is interesting is how mechanics work together, what mechanics works better for what situation, how to ensure mechanic x has results z.

Murtak

The system you are talking about and the ones in the sample games discussed in the opening thread are not really similar.

Look at what the original post says. Don't stop reading till the ideas are finished:

I refer to the "Action Points" used in games such as Space Hulk, Jagged Alliance, Conflict of Heroes, and the like.

Basically, each character in the system has a pool of action points which refresh every round. In order to do some kind of action (i.e. movement, shooting), the character must spend action points.

In Space Hulk, for instance, a Space Marine gets 4 AP per turn. It costs 1 AP for them to move 1 space, 1 AP to fire their weapon once, 2 AP to fire the flamethrower, etc.

So, what is the original poster talking about? Games where you get all your action points at once and spend them. That is what is common to all those games.

The system you are talking about is actually the one I like the most from a game elegance point of view. The your actions cost an amount of time till you can act again adjusted initiative stuff is honestly the system I think makes the most sense.

However it IS NOT action points in the way that the poster is talking about them. Nor would layering your system on top of those action points keep that feel. For no simpler reason than you don't actually get to spend your action points all at the same time.

Like I said I don't mind discussing that other action resolution method. I actually like it and think that it will probably play better at the table than trying to adopt action points from a wargame (where going off the rails is a big no no) or a computer game (which can do assloads of bookkeeping nearly instanteously).

However, your idea is distinct from the initial idea he proposes.

You don't ever have to touch anything except the counter for the acting character. Ever. If you can't be trusted to handle dice just put a bead or slip of paper on an initiative track. There are ways to handle even that level of incompetency. But That is not even the point. The point is why the fuck do you assume you handle 20 NPCs in any system when you are too braindead to keep a single number for every NPC? Don't you keep track of immediate and swift actions in DnD? Readied actions? That stuff is seriously harder than handling a single number.

Each bad guy has to have a seperate set of counters because if they take different actions from their fellows even once then they end up with a different time between actions. If you have say 4 of them that go at the same time and taking basically the same action it coudl be quite easy to take from the wrong pile. If when the 20 guys come up they don't have a bunch of seperate little crap that has to be handeled it goes faster. The system you are presenting requires that those things be tracked independantly. EVERY game I have played that had this sort of turn sequence the complaint I always heard is that the gamemasters turn takes to long.

Read: "But what if you design a shitty system?" Answer: Then your system stinks.

The initial post asks for suggestions and thoughts on these systems. Its really easy to design shitty systems when you could just simplfy and have a system that actually works. Again remember that the intent of the thread is to discuss issues with action point systems and to help avoid creating a shitty system.

Of course it does you brainless fucker! Guess what - so does a turn-based system. So does AC, so does DR, so does soaking. What is interesting is how mechanics work together, what mechanics works better for what situation, how to ensure mechanic x has results z.

Its all of that and which mechanics are playable and how do they play, what does it causes your players to do and what still constitutes challenging. if you don't get anything unique from your system that you coudln't get in a simpler permutation its probably not worth playing that way at the table.

There is one other thing I would like to point out.

While I do like the D&D action system because it is easy to gamemaster its not actually the "lumped" actions system that I think is the best or gold standard.

Zine: if your building a game and actually want something that functions at the end look at descents gamemater/player action breakdown. The players actually have a fairly complex suit of possible actions, and many characters build on these actions.

The monsters, on the other hand, basically all take the games advance action each turn. although they too can get access to some of the useful player actions through GM powers that they are likely to use at opportune times.