Mike Mearls and "Action Economy"

[Garthanos]

So on Mike Mearls' Happy Fun Hour stream on Tuesday, he mentioned his thoughts on Action Economy briefly.

"If this phrase comes up as part of the design process, we have probably done something wrong. If we're thinking of actions as an economic resource that are being spent, I think we've made the game too complicated."

This is interesting to me, though perhaps not surprising given we know Mike's distaste for bonus actions. To me, action economy is something that pretty much cannot be avoided. Even if you only have one type of action - lets call it, for example, an "Action" - you still have to weigh up what you do with it, since now everything uses that resource. What you do with your action is your decision point during the turn.

If perhaps you're looking at action economy in relation to groups of creatures, it's also still relevant. A part of 4 players vs 4 orcs means each team has the same number of actions, but a party of 4 players vs 10 orcs, even if still balanced (higher level characters for example), means you have to consider the number of things the orcs can do on their turn. When there are only 4 orcs, maybe the best thing they can do is attack. But with 10, you can spare a couple to spend there actions grappling the fighters while the remaining orcs skirt them and run for the back line. I've always considered it an important feature of asymmetrical games which is a good idea to consider, especially for important battles. We all know what happens when you stick a party up against a higher CR creature that doesn't have legendary actions - parties will frequently stomp all over what should theoretically be a hard or balanced fight due to the amount of stuff they can do.

I'm interested to hear other people's take on this, especially people who might agree with Mike on this stance. Why does thinking about Action Economy mean the design team have failed?

Not thinking in terms of an action economy for developers is a serious failure

 

[Yaarel]

I think there are definitely some bonus actions that could done away with. Offhand attacks could be merged into the attack action, second wind and rage could have the bonus action requirement removed. It's not something that will happen unless homebrewed but I agree with Mearls that bonus actions aren't needed for the game.

It is reasonable to count the offhand attack as a flourish. It is literally a minor component that elaborates the main attack action.

In other words, if using the flourish for an off attack, one couldnt use it for an object interaction. Seems fair.

Then a ‘bonus action’ is really a ‘bonus’ where some extra action is done that cannot be normally done.

 

[Wiseblood]

Oh, there's always been 'action economy,' just like there've always been 'three pillars,' just no one was call'n 'em that yet.

Segments were, BTW, 6 seconds: 10 of em to the 1-min round. Turns were 10 rounds, so 10 min. Turns were used in exploration, and if a combat didn't take a number of rounds evenly divisible by 10, the remainder of that turn was considered to be spent binding wounds, cleaning weapons, repairing armor & the like - ie, in a short rest (just not called that, yet).

Everything new is old again.

Think of them as old-school segments.

Of course you're right about action economy. IDK what I was thinking there. I think I meant action types....who knows. Brain.exe has crashed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

. Brain.exe has crashed.

another victim of the M34RL$ virus.

 

[Sunseeker]

OK I tweeted him. I think we're both wrong in our interpretation, but I'd put it closer to yours than mine. Here is what he said:

Maybe. I appreciate the clarification, but I think that's misguided considering the type of RPG that D&D is and pretty much always has been, not to forget the fact that it is born from a tactical miniatures game.

There are plenty of narrativist systems out there but I wouldn't count D&D among them not any edition.

So if that's their goal...they're a long way from home Toto.

Conceptually, even narrativist games have an "action economy" but to an extent, this is often more thought of as "good role-play ettiquitte" or "not god-moding". Understanding how much you can do in a turn, what the reach and what the limits of your available options are is necessary in order to make any sort of informed decision (and this is a truism of real life too). In purely narrativst play, the only thing stopping the game from being Calvinball is that we've all agreed to not play Calvinball. Beyond that the burden is on the player to keep their actions within the realm of their own capabilities.

I think what people miss is that an "action economy" exists in real life too. We just call it "opportunity cost". There are a limited number of hours in a day, days in a year, years in a life, with them we must make our best efforts to maximize them to "get the most out of life". We don't have to of course, just like we as players don't have to maximize our action usage in-game. But I think one of the problems with narrativist play (and one of the attractions of hard-rule systems like D&D to me at least) is that the rules mirror what we fundamentally understand as humans: we have a limited number of choices, a limited amount of time, and a limited ability to use those options within that time.

Beyond that, D&D's biggest stumbling block to being a narrativist game is the d20. You really can't tell a story (in a narrativist fashion) if you demand the story be beholden to a random number generator.

 

[Yaarel]

D&D is a blend of (1) things that the rules make clear that you can do, plus (2) free imagination that requires DM adjudication.

If you do standard stuff, both you and the DM share the same expectations, and you normally dont need DM permission. But if you do nonstandard stuff, you do need DM permission, and anything goes.

 

[Ratskinner]

Honestly, despite what many on this thread have said, an "Action Economy" or even combat rounds aren't necessary to operate an rpg, even a tactical one. Dungeon World does fine without one, and IME, provided a much more dynamic combat than D&D ever has.

I think this is one area where D&D's wargame history works against it a little bit. While war games are certainly entertaining in their right and in their own way, "cinematic" isn't exactly high on the list of descriptors for the gameplay. (Even if the characters/figures involved are doing awesome stuff, taking an hour to resolve 1 minutes worth of action takes a that edge off for the players.)

While I recognize that getting rid of combat rounds and action economies would risk making the game "not D&D", I do wish for a simpler combat system. I just ran a 13-round combat and it took like 2.5 hours, even with Mearlsian Initiative.

 

[mrpopstar]

I guess that'd be a jargon meaning w/in that discipline.
Obviously, not how it's used around here, though the parallels are obvious.

It would be considered jargon if its use and meaning changed with context, but its use and meaning remains the same in this instance. (I was actually exposed to immersion and transportation theories in library school, funny enough. Most library and information science programs offer courses on storytelling at the graduate level—even those embedded in colleges of computing and informatics.)

I've performed the due diligence to determine that the use and meaning of "immersion" around here (i.e. EN World) is generally consistent with its definition. It's discussion of what breaks immersion that appears to go sideways (seemingly due to the knee-jerk reaction of people feeling like game elements they desire to maintain are being threatened in some way by a shared opinion on the matter, or due to the argumentative temperament of your average poster. [The two of us excluded, of course. Heh.])

You mean the ambiguity of natural language, or the shades of meaning - connotations - that words can take on? Both I suppose...

Connotation. The associations implied by the verbs used to speak to the definition of immersion in contrasting terms are negative. That's a limitation because it implies that anything that draws you away from absorbing involvement in the narrative is negative.

It is possible for a violinist to be ‘at one’ with the violin, or an athlete in ‘the zone’.

But when I say ‘immersion’, I specifically mean the ability to conjure the scene, sort of like watching a movie − but even better than a movie, because you are in the scene and can interact with the scene, and the scene is all around you. So by definition, it is first person.

Third person is something else.

Does this mean that the Dungeon Master cannot be immersed? The DM's perspective is generally third-person.

Video game designers use terms like tactical immersion, strategic immersion, spatial immersion, etc, in addition to narrative immersion, all in attempts to draw players into a virtual world and have them make decisions influenced by their absorbing involvement. There are a great many video games with a third-person perspective.

I wonder if the breakdown in communication on this topic can be reduced to the difference between understandings of immersion in the first-person versus third-person.

Heh, that reminds me. Having a great conversation, and navigating while driving, seem to require the same parts of the brain. A conversation is conducive to missing an exit.

TRUE!

 

[mrpopstar]

Not thinking in terms of an action economy for developers is a serious failure

I think what Mearls is ultimately trying to say is that he wants action in the game to be viewed in terms of opportunity (able to act versus unable to act) instead of in terms of economy (management of action/bonus action opportunities). Seems semantic, but it's actually a pretty huge change!

 

[Tony Vargas]

It would be considered jargon if its use and meaning changed with context, but its use and meaning remains the same in this instance.

They seem different, to me. The definition you're using seems more observational, the sorts used here, experiential...

. It's discussion of what breaks immersion that appears to go sideways

Nod. "_________ breaks my immersion" is a convenient complaint since it can't be objectively challenged ( though, of course it also can't be supported), and, it evokes more sympathetic connotations than "________ makes it harder for me to monopolize the DMs attention" or "_______ reduces the impact of my system mastery" because....

Connotation. The associations implied by the verbs used to speak to the definition of immersion in contrasting terms are negative. That's a limitation because it implies that anything that draws you away from absorbing involvement in the narrative is negative.

Nod.

The other place discussing immersion goes sideways is the flip side of that. You can defend something from valid criticism by asserting that it's necessary to promote immerssion.

I think what Mearls is ultimately trying to say is that he wants action in the game to be viewed in terms of opportunity (able to act versus unable to act) instead of in terms of economy (management of action/bonus action opportunities). Seems semantic, but it's actually a pretty huge change!

That does seem merely semantic in the sense of using action economy as a descriptor or concept. As I alluded, before, action economy has always been there and won't go away, it was just articulated at some point, and, from that point could be considered in more systematic or disciplined ways. So, maybe he wants to get away from that and back to designing, from, I suppose a place of innocence or intuition?

Not as easy as it sounds.