Game with actions pool?

Jimmy_631

First Post
I was thinking of a game mechanic where you had, say 10 actions each turn and it cost 1 action to move a few feet or 5 actions to swing your fantastic sword. Is there a popular game on the market like that, or has there been? Thanks in advance for your reply!
 

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The FASA Doctor Who game was like that; each character had a number of Action Points which they could use to move, attack, or do other actions. I don't think it's alone... but it does turn out to be a clunky way of doing things.

Cheers!
 

I seem to recall some games using a variant of this, whereby your chosen actions will drop you a certain number of points down the initiative track, and you get to act again when your new initiative number comes up. I want to say Feng Shui, but I can't recall whether it uses variable initiative steps for different action types.
 

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but d6 Star Wars (and other d6 games?) applied penalties to your pool for each extra action you wanted to do. So, you could shoot once at 6 dice, twice at 4 dice (each), three times at 2 dice (each), etc.

That somewhat mimics what you're looking for ... maybe? :)
 

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is the SPECIAL system used in the Fallout 1 & 2 video games.

There was an unofficial table top version of it. I have never played the table top version, but the computer game was fun.
 

I seem to recall some games using a variant of this, whereby your chosen actions will drop you a certain number of points down the initiative track, and you get to act again when your new initiative number comes up. I want to say Feng Shui, but I can't recall whether it uses variable initiative steps for different action types.

Exalted uses variable initiative steps for different actions. However, that sort of system is quite a bit different from one that grants each combatant a number of action points in a lump. HERO also grants characters different numbers of actions in a turn based on Speed, and splits them up.

Spycraft and some other d20 variants used half actions, instead of move and standard actions. So you could move and shoot, or shoot twice. It's an AP system, just with only 2 action points.

I think that the sort of thing under discussion is used much more commonly in video games.
 

I seem to recall some games using a variant of this, whereby your chosen actions will drop you a certain number of points down the initiative track, and you get to act again when your new initiative number comes up. I want to say Feng Shui, but I can't recall whether it uses variable initiative steps for different action types.

Feng Shui was like this from what I remember playing at cons. Really really fun game.
 

Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but d6 Star Wars (and other d6 games?) applied penalties to your pool for each extra action you wanted to do. So, you could shoot once at 6 dice, twice at 4 dice (each), three times at 2 dice (each), etc.

That somewhat mimics what you're looking for ... maybe? :)

I thought you took a -1d penalty for each additional action, so I could shoot once at 6d, twice at 5d, and three times at 4d? It's been a while, so the memory maybe rusty.
 

Pair O' Dice (completely obscure game from the late 90s, never published, played by less than a dozen people) had a really convoluted "real time" initiative system like that.

Basically initiative was tracked on a piece of ruled paper.

At the beginning of combat you roll for your reaction and place your token at the appropriate mark on the track on paper.

A current time token is slid up the track to the lowest player token.

That player declares his action and rolls initiative + the cost of the action and moves his token up the track that many marks.

The current time token is then moved to the next lowest token.

After declaring an action, you complete the action when the current time token reaches your token and then you can declare a new action.

The track is circular and wraps around once you reach the end for continuous use.
 


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