Thanks Jamey, this was one of the sunday sitdown topics that provided a bigger insight for me into your thoughts and views on game design, even more than in the other videos where you talked about mechanisms. I think often in games turns and your actions within (should) come naturally. So for many games I have to make a step back and think about how turns even flow from a perspective that I normally don't have while I am playing, because in manz good games I 'just know' what and how many things I can do, and like you said, i like when the game let's you just 'feel' when a turn is over. When it comes to that, I thought about what you mentioned about bonus actions. I love them, if they are transparent enough (and fast enough) that every player notices it right away. Hence they can be a bit tricky. For example I love the simplicity in Ora et Labora that when you build a building (and this is the only thing you do on your turn) normally it would be the next players turn but if you have your special worker available, then you can use the building right away as a bonus on your turn. I love that because it is clear to everyone at the table when and why the bonus happens and by putting the worker on the building card there is even a visual representation of that. I consider it the perfect 'bonus action' design (if there is such a thing :)) As always, thank you for your thoughts on game design, Jamey!
I've been working on a single-player+ game where players receive a single free action but are able to buy additional actions. There is a list of actions they can take, but it's a small list (currently only 4 items), and the game is good at making those choices relevant. The player can take up to 5 actions (1 for free, then all four again for a cost), so the economy of the game determines the pace. The only downside of this is the bookkeeping, which we are working to make smoother.
I don't know how exactly you would classify Roll for the Galaxy in terms of Multiple-Action Turns, but I played it today and love the variable nature of each turn based on how many dice you're getting to roll. And then, even though you only really choose one single 'action' do to yourself (along with the dice assigned underneath), your other dice might end up getting played/assigned as well depending on what the other players choose to do for their primary action/activation! Finally, players don't get bored waiting for other players turns, because the dice then get put into play one phase at a time, and it's not like you have to wait for each person to do all their stuff in a row! It works great! :)
Played Tikal over the weekend, the new Super Meeple verison; anyway I had forgotten how good it was with the 10 Action Points per turn. Game ended with all four of us within 5 points and first second, third were all one point behind each other.
Great points! Another point I find enjoyable about the multiple actions per turn in brass is how it pairs with the turn order mechanic to create some marvellous opportunities. What I'm talking about is how one can manipulate turn order that If you're last for one round and set yourself to be first the next round, you have 4 turns in a row which can be very powerful if planned correctly. Something I find very satisfying and rewarding
I think my favorite multi action game at the moment might be Raiders of the North Sea. I love how the pace a worker then pick up a worker makes every turn feel like I can accomplish at least one of my goals, even if the other action is underwhelming.
Vital is notorious for bonus/executive actions. I tend to like them but I also agree with you that it presents problems especially for new players. How do you feel about chained or combo actions like in Castles of Burgundy? I'd love a video on chained action mechanics and what challenges that presents for designing/playing/teaching
Indeed, he loves his bonus actions. :) As for chained/combo actions, they can be very satisfying, and I think they work if there isn't much thought in each part of the chain (rather, you're just collecting a series of benefits).
Lisboa was the game that came to mind when I watched the video. You basically do a single action (play one card), but it unfolds into a long chain of events. How would we classify that as? Single action? Bonus actions? Chain actions?
The engine in Gizmos lets you trigger more actions as it grows, leading to some convoluted turns. You can also get quite long triggered chains going in Ganz Schön Clever in the right circumstance.
Good timing! I was pondering quick multiple actions all week :) In the end I decided that I find them as good as single actions, however I strongly dislike games that have variable number of actions based on luck, e.g Player A rolls two dice and gets to do 10 actions, then Player B rolls and gets to do 3 actions. I can't continue a game like that, I have to house-rule it. Bonus and chained actions works well if the bonus-triggers are clear and obvious to other players like placing certain buildings in Castles of Burgundy, or playing a second bonus visitor in your game, Viticulture. Downtime Player Engagement. That could be another video. Scythe handles it impressively with enlist and what's happening on the board.
You should really try Hermetica. It's an abstract, think Hive and Santorini. You get 3 actions on your turn, which include moving your pieces or two actions to spawn more pieces. It's my favorite abstract in a really long time. The way the pieces interact is just fantastic.
One issue my group ran into when playing Terraforming Mars yesterday was the confusion/assumption on when a turn had passed to the next player. I in particular had planned to do two actions, but because the first action was so substantial it somehow made the player to my left assume I was done and doing that distracted me from my planned second action, which was to build a greenery. This wouldn't usually be a big problem, except the player to that person's left played a card that let them remove three plants and chose me as a target for it. I couldn't really enact a do-over on my part since it affected their action, but it left me feeling a little bit bitter as I had pretty much waited the entire game to have enough plants to build that single greenery, and as a result of that sabotage, I actually did not once get to build a single greenery from my plants, not even at the end of the game. I really think there needs to be a clear constructive way in a multiple-action turn games to allow the whole table to keep track of number of actions (like for instance Quests of Valeria had players give the next player action tokens 1 and 2 as they took the actions) and for the player to actively signal the rest when they are done. Otherwise it could easily end up creating the kind of bitter moments like the one I described. You don't run into this kind of confusion in a game like Scythe, because of how the actions are constructed, and the top to bottom enactment. But with Terraforming Mars, some actions means you both change things around on your player board as well as put things onto the map and then gain resources, points and maybe trigger other bonuses, while other actions merely are a quick tapping of a card and you don't necessarily register that that they did an action. It can easily get confusing.
Definitely, that's a great point. I really think it helps when the game allows for a clear delineation between turns so you don't need to reply on the previous player to tell you.
One of the games with multiple actions that I think really works well is Raiders of the North Sea. I really like placing one worker and then picking up the second worker to take your second action. It guarantees that you are never locked out of a specific spot, but having to place first and pick up second can still affect how your plan plays out.
Kind of like Wendake’s action pre-selection, choosing a line of 3 in a 3x3 grid of action tiles, then activating them one by one (in player’s choice of order, together with selection of turn order). The grid then rotates, tiles flip to “ritual” sides, and tiles can be upgraded to better tiles which themselves offer 2-3 actions. Linking 2-3 things together in a sequence to maximize rewards is really satisfying. Didn’t like the area control stuff as much, but the action selection for me was a combination of Concordia/transatlantic and great western trail.
"Linking 2-3 things together in a sequence to maximize rewards is really satisfying." I agree! Especially if those three choices don't result in long turns. :)
I have two types that I like with this: Vinhos and Clans of Caledonia. Vinhos has limited actions and reset until a specific time, so you can do multiple actions, but on your next turn, you probably can't do them. Clans of Caledonia has the reward mechanism, to have a new action. Like finishing a column or placing a factory next to an opponent. I think if the multiple actions don't generate a lot of downtime then it's good.
@@jameystegmaier which is why The Gallerist is bad in that matter. Sometimes as a 4 player, you are the last player and can be up to 15 mins before you can actually do something. And all because of the bonus actions you can do if they bump you.
Conversely, I like Gallerist for this because you can stay active in the game even when it's not your turn. I tend to play Gallerist at 2 or 3 players and shy away from games where 5+ people are at the table so this would certainly change the timing on Gallerist. I think it would work just as well if your bumped worker was placed into an area where you got a bonus action ON your turn rather than in between. I'd almost have to try it and see if that changed the speed of the game. I think bump actions should be automatic and would be better if there were no decisions made that would slow down the game play. :) Just thinking out loud on this...
Components sounds like a cool topic. I like in shadows over Camelot how you first of all perform an evil action then a heroic action, BUT additionally have the option to perform a second action by losing a life point. I find it a clean system and the downtime doesn't affect my play, the fact that it is a coop game helps too
I'm not sure I even knew about that rule! Or maybe it's just been a while since I've played Shadows Over Camelot (it used to be one of my favorite coops).
I agree with you about Terraforming Mars. The key thing in TM is when you are out, you are out permanently. That's very cool - you can take 0, 1, or 2 actions, but if you take 0, you are done for that generation. There have been several times where I was taking just 1 action, hoping I had enough to do to stay in as long as I needed to before pouncing. Another thing I like there is that there are times when you need to take 2 actions at once to get a big benefit. Say we're 2 temperature ticks from the free ocean kicking in. I have 8 heat and a card that allows me to raise temperature, but I don't have enough money for that card. So the first time around I take one action: sell cards to raise the money I need. If I use the second action to play the card, I'm out of actions and can't also play the heat. That might be okay - it might come back to me - but by doing 2 things I've made it more likely for my opponents to get the bonus. So instead I only generate the money and wait to play my 1/2 punch on temperature the next cycle. I love when you have a little flexibility on timing of your actions.
Having a free move action and free action is common in Role Playing Games. This is used in dungeon crawls but not many other games. This could be used in an exploration game. If you choose to I would maybe suggest having a power attack or more powerful action that would remove the move and or free action. This may be search a room, investigate a puzzle. This may improve or guarantee a follow up action. In role playing games combined efforts speed up actions with a great modifier.
I guess i'm not that familiar with action menus, but now that I think about it, I think Mexica had one. And you could do multiple things on your turn and you had a way to save your action points for a future turn if you needed it... but the actions aren't that many and they are all quite simple to understand that it works fine and turns are often fairly quick moving. As far as having meaningful turns, in playtesting my prototype awhile back, that was a big problem. Some turns could be meaningful, some not so much, but it had nothing to do with the amount of actions allowed (I have 3 currently, I forgot how much were in place back then, probably 2-3 and each move has a value based on the character). But during that time I had movement penalties and much more restrictive movement, so there were turns where a player would just be traveling somewhere and that's it, and it would slog in that way. Those turns would be super quick, but very unsatisfying. With that said, I think whatever amount of actions you assign is all about balancing a particular design. Are the actions complex/elaborate? Do they require a lot of planning to pull off? Should the player space be more focused on the overall objective rather than how to overcome steps to get to the overall objective? I think multiple actions are especially fine if the available actions are a reasonable amount and they are fairly easy to understand. That has been my struggle, over complicating certain available actions as I had been somewhat rooted in game systems such as war gaming and TCGs and RPGs where some of the game systems were elaborate to account for all of these factors. So it was a matter of figuring out what was fun in the design and stripping back the ideas that, while fun in theory, just didn't work in execution. I rather enjoy Terraforming Mars and the fact that sometimes you only want to use 1 action, but it is good to have the option of 2 in many turns that you want to combo a couple things together. I also liked this aspect of Brass Birmingham (I played that for the first time a couple weekends ago). I'm not sure I agree with the game being required to give an indicator for a turn to end. It is good if the game system allows for a clear indicator, but that just doesn't work in many cases and forcing a clear indicator would I think lesson the design of it. Take The Manhattan Project. The main board action is fairly straightforward, but then you have your personal board. Sometimes, you just need a moment to maximize what you are doing. If you are the next player, you probably should be watching for an indicator to go, anyway, and whether that be a piece going down or not, it shouldn't matter. And the times I've played Scythe, I put the piece down, but I still have to decide sometimes whether or not to use the 2nd action. I'm generally fairly quick on my turns, and I still sometimes just need a moment on some turns just to be like, ok, that is definitely the way I'm going or maybe I should do this. Yes, that's good.
I agree with bonus actions for the most part. I’ve experienced a bunch of times where you wait for no reason because you think someone is planning on doing a bonus action. One game where I felt the bonus system was alright was council of 4. We knew who had the possibility to take a bonus based on who had servants which we found were far and few between. I’m curious on what your thought are if the bonus action has semi high cost so the odds of people taking it are lower? Do you find that speeds up the game or still the same where confusion exists on if someone finished their turn or not? What if the bonus action could only be taken before the primary action?
Matthew: We actually had the same thing happen in Council of Four, but we found a house rule that works well: Instead of drawing a card at the beginning of turn, draw it at the end of your turn--thus there's a clear signal to the other players that you've finished, and you can prepare for your next turn. Changing the order, as you suggested, can help. If a bonus action has a high cost, I'd rather it just be the action itself, as it may stop feeling like a bonus.
Through the Ages: A new story[...] is an engine builder with APA system that let's you have up to 6-8 actions on your turn, but more powerful stuff costs way more actions - not a bad system, but it drags so much. I love how the fixed 4 actions in Pandemic (Legacy) work. Competitive games in general do an awesome job at that. I've never seen anyone want to have a single action in Pandemic before the infection step :) :) Aren't action menus just shrunk down player boards? Does it matter if your turn feels less substantial if your next turn is in less than a minute due to quick flow of the game? The game I worked on moved several time from APA to one-action-per-turn, than to action menu, than to player mat, than to one-per-turn again, so this is a very interesting topic for me to hear your thoughts on! :)
Action menus are in a way player boards, but I'd much rather use a proper player mat (especially if it has some interesting constraints like I use in Scythe), as they tend to visually guide the player in a much better way than action menus. That's my personal opinion, of course. :) I think you can have quick actions (Charterstone has them) as long as you can feel like you made progress on your turn. In fact, I really like that system.
ABC in Dominion is Action, Buy, Cleanup. Which is likely why you couldn't remember what C meant - It's discarding the played cards and unplayed cards in your hand, and drawing a new hand of five cards while the next player starts their turn - between turn upkeep stuff - rather than anything you actively do. I think for a co-op in the Pandemic oeuvre (player takes turn, bad stuff happens) would need either really substantial actions (I think Shadows Over Camelot does this?) rather than the small step actions that you typically see (move is an action, remove a disease cube is an action, and so forth), or something like 'players are piloting a Power Rangers-esque giant robot together' so it makes sense for each player's one action to all use the same pawn so you could then have the Bad Stuff happen after the round. And I'm not sure how you'd make it so that it felt satisfying rather than like a solo game where you can split a turn between players as I hear Nemo's War feels when doing it co-op. (Each player has a hand of cards rather than an action menu, maybe? Maybe the deck the hand comes from is different based on right leg vs head, with other differences smash-up style so if you're using a T-Rex based robot for the right leg different combinations of stuff will come up? But that's just theory crafting.) One class of games that usually do multiple action turns you didn't mention is the dueling deck genre - CCGs, LCGs, and the like. Sure, at the start of a game of Magic you'll be doing one action - you only have a couple of mana - and maybe an attack, but by the end you'll likely be playing multiple cards or doing multiple things that cost mana with cards you've already got out. This tends to work just fine, in two player games particularly with a lot of direct interaction I'm very invested in what you do on your turn. However, it's definitely not the only way of doing it. One such alternate model is Ashes, which... Yes it's 2 actions - a main action and a side action - but by CCG standards, those always feel like part of a turn rather than a full turn, at least from the mid-game onwards. You roll your mana dice and draw at the start of a round, then you do what for the most part feels like part of a turn. Attacking, playing a card from hand, tapping a single card for an ability. Then the other player takes their turn, and so on until both players pass in a row at which point the round ends and you reset by drawing to five cards and rolling your dice. From what I recall of it, turns that short in that genre feel really nice for game pacing. (And, of course, several solo games do this without (m)any of the disadvantages you mention - if you're the only one playing, downtime is by definition not an issue, neither is signalling your turn is over)
Cleanup! Thank you. :) Yeah, I thought about mentioning Magic, and perhaps I should have. Turns in Magic somehow go super fast despite the variety of things you can do on them.
On the dueling deck games with multiple actions, Netrunner is one that works really well because while you have multiple actions a turn, your opponent often has to respond in someway so they stay invested in your turns.
i'm not opposed to multiple action, but elegant implementation is the key, so in general i would avoid it. probably more interesting to me than a game where you have to do A,B,C each turn is a game where you can do one or more actions, but it's at your discretion, and the options are simple but it's all about tactical or strategic timing. ty
It would help, yes. Though I would prefer if there's some sort of visual guide to the bonus actions (like, they're cleanly displayed on your player mat, and you move a token onto one of them and also onto the action you choose, perhaps with some interesting constraints or bonuses added from turn to turn if you use the same or different actions).
I have to ask, what do you think of the Raiders of the North Sea system? You do get two actions, but there is a clear point when the second worker is removed where you know the turn ends.
I'm surprised you didn't talk about how easy it is for a player to get lost in their own turn when they have multiple actions to do. This is where games like Pandemic and Through the Ages can falter, almost more than downtime. It's especially problematic if people want to "redo" their turns. "Oh, actually let me do this instead, so now I can do..." Multiple actions can often lead to this reaction, since you essentially need to plan out your whole turn before taking any of your turn makes sense.
Thanks Jamey, this was one of the sunday sitdown topics that provided a bigger insight for me into your thoughts and views on game design, even more than in the other videos where you talked about mechanisms. I think often in games turns and your actions within (should) come naturally. So for many games I have to make a step back and think about how turns even flow from a perspective that I normally don't have while I am playing, because in manz good games I 'just know' what and how many things I can do, and like you said, i like when the game let's you just 'feel' when a turn is over. When it comes to that, I thought about what you mentioned about bonus actions. I love them, if they are transparent enough (and fast enough) that every player notices it right away. Hence they can be a bit tricky. For example I love the simplicity in Ora et Labora that when you build a building (and this is the only thing you do on your turn) normally it would be the next players turn but if you have your special worker available, then you can use the building right away as a bonus on your turn. I love that because it is clear to everyone at the table when and why the bonus happens and by putting the worker on the building card there is even a visual representation of that. I consider it the perfect 'bonus action' design (if there is such a thing :))
As always, thank you for your thoughts on game design, Jamey!
I've been working on a single-player+ game where players receive a single free action but are able to buy additional actions. There is a list of actions they can take, but it's a small list (currently only 4 items), and the game is good at making those choices relevant. The player can take up to 5 actions (1 for free, then all four again for a cost), so the economy of the game determines the pace. The only downside of this is the bookkeeping, which we are working to make smoother.
Components and to bling out your normal game components with upgrades is cool.
I don't know how exactly you would classify Roll for the Galaxy in terms of Multiple-Action Turns, but I played it today and love the variable nature of each turn based on how many dice you're getting to roll. And then, even though you only really choose one single 'action' do to yourself (along with the dice assigned underneath), your other dice might end up getting played/assigned as well depending on what the other players choose to do for their primary action/activation! Finally, players don't get bored waiting for other players turns, because the dice then get put into play one phase at a time, and it's not like you have to wait for each person to do all their stuff in a row! It works great! :)
Played Tikal over the weekend, the new Super Meeple verison; anyway I had forgotten how good it was with the 10 Action Points per turn. Game ended with all four of us within 5 points and first second, third were all one point behind each other.
Great points!
Another point I find enjoyable about the multiple actions per turn in brass is how it pairs with the turn order mechanic to create some marvellous opportunities. What I'm talking about is how one can manipulate turn order that If you're last for one round and set yourself to be first the next round, you have 4 turns in a row which can be very powerful if planned correctly. Something I find very satisfying and rewarding
Absolutely! The turn-order mechanism is something I really enjoy in Brass, and I like how you get get 4 turns in a row (or close together).
I didn't realize it was Sunday until I saw this in my feed. Thankfully it's a 3 day weekend.
I think my favorite multi action game at the moment might be Raiders of the North Sea. I love how the pace a worker then pick up a worker makes every turn feel like I can accomplish at least one of my goals, even if the other action is underwhelming.
Vital is notorious for bonus/executive actions. I tend to like them but I also agree with you that it presents problems especially for new players. How do you feel about chained or combo actions like in Castles of Burgundy? I'd love a video on chained action mechanics and what challenges that presents for designing/playing/teaching
Indeed, he loves his bonus actions. :) As for chained/combo actions, they can be very satisfying, and I think they work if there isn't much thought in each part of the chain (rather, you're just collecting a series of benefits).
I think I completely agree... it's fast, simple and gives a great sense of reward
Lisboa was the game that came to mind when I watched the video. You basically do a single action (play one card), but it unfolds into a long chain of events.
How would we classify that as? Single action? Bonus actions? Chain actions?
I like "chain actions".
The engine in Gizmos lets you trigger more actions as it grows, leading to some convoluted turns. You can also get quite long triggered chains going in Ganz Schön Clever in the right circumstance.
Good timing! I was pondering quick multiple actions all week :) In the end I decided that I find them as good as single actions, however I strongly dislike games that have variable number of actions based on luck, e.g Player A rolls two dice and gets to do 10 actions, then Player B rolls and gets to do 3 actions. I can't continue a game like that, I have to house-rule it. Bonus and chained actions works well if the bonus-triggers are clear and obvious to other players like placing certain buildings in Castles of Burgundy, or playing a second bonus visitor in your game, Viticulture. Downtime Player Engagement. That could be another video. Scythe handles it impressively with enlist and what's happening on the board.
You should really try Hermetica. It's an abstract, think Hive and Santorini. You get 3 actions on your turn, which include moving your pieces or two actions to spawn more pieces. It's my favorite abstract in a really long time. The way the pieces interact is just fantastic.
One issue my group ran into when playing Terraforming Mars yesterday was the confusion/assumption on when a turn had passed to the next player. I in particular had planned to do two actions, but because the first action was so substantial it somehow made the player to my left assume I was done and doing that distracted me from my planned second action, which was to build a greenery. This wouldn't usually be a big problem, except the player to that person's left played a card that let them remove three plants and chose me as a target for it. I couldn't really enact a do-over on my part since it affected their action, but it left me feeling a little bit bitter as I had pretty much waited the entire game to have enough plants to build that single greenery, and as a result of that sabotage, I actually did not once get to build a single greenery from my plants, not even at the end of the game.
I really think there needs to be a clear constructive way in a multiple-action turn games to allow the whole table to keep track of number of actions (like for instance Quests of Valeria had players give the next player action tokens 1 and 2 as they took the actions) and for the player to actively signal the rest when they are done. Otherwise it could easily end up creating the kind of bitter moments like the one I described. You don't run into this kind of confusion in a game like Scythe, because of how the actions are constructed, and the top to bottom enactment. But with Terraforming Mars, some actions means you both change things around on your player board as well as put things onto the map and then gain resources, points and maybe trigger other bonuses, while other actions merely are a quick tapping of a card and you don't necessarily register that that they did an action. It can easily get confusing.
Definitely, that's a great point. I really think it helps when the game allows for a clear delineation between turns so you don't need to reply on the previous player to tell you.
One of the games with multiple actions that I think really works well is Raiders of the North Sea. I really like placing one worker and then picking up the second worker to take your second action. It guarantees that you are never locked out of a specific spot, but having to place first and pick up second can still affect how your plan plays out.
I agree, I think the dual actions work well in that game. They don't take long.
Kind of like Wendake’s action pre-selection, choosing a line of 3 in a 3x3 grid of action tiles, then activating them one by one (in player’s choice of order, together with selection of turn order). The grid then rotates, tiles flip to “ritual” sides, and tiles can be upgraded to better tiles which themselves offer 2-3 actions. Linking 2-3 things together in a sequence to maximize rewards is really satisfying. Didn’t like the area control stuff as much, but the action selection for me was a combination of Concordia/transatlantic and great western trail.
"Linking 2-3 things together in a sequence to maximize rewards is really satisfying." I agree! Especially if those three choices don't result in long turns. :)
I have two types that I like with this: Vinhos and Clans of Caledonia. Vinhos has limited actions and reset until a specific time, so you can do multiple actions, but on your next turn, you probably can't do them. Clans of Caledonia has the reward mechanism, to have a new action. Like finishing a column or placing a factory next to an opponent. I think if the multiple actions don't generate a lot of downtime then it's good.
I like those examples, and I agree if you keep downtime in mind, they can work.
@@jameystegmaier which is why The Gallerist is bad in that matter. Sometimes as a 4 player, you are the last player and can be up to 15 mins before you can actually do something. And all because of the bonus actions you can do if they bump you.
That's a long time between turns. :)
Conversely, I like Gallerist for this because you can stay active in the game even when it's not your turn. I tend to play Gallerist at 2 or 3 players and shy away from games where 5+ people are at the table so this would certainly change the timing on Gallerist. I think it would work just as well if your bumped worker was placed into an area where you got a bonus action ON your turn rather than in between. I'd almost have to try it and see if that changed the speed of the game. I think bump actions should be automatic and would be better if there were no decisions made that would slow down the game play. :) Just thinking out loud on this...
@@Davearmstrong42 that's why I only play The Gallerist of 3 players. 4 players has a lot of downtime
Components sounds like a cool topic. I like in shadows over Camelot how you first of all perform an evil action then a heroic action, BUT additionally have the option to perform a second action by losing a life point. I find it a clean system and the downtime doesn't affect my play, the fact that it is a coop game helps too
I'm not sure I even knew about that rule! Or maybe it's just been a while since I've played Shadows Over Camelot (it used to be one of my favorite coops).
I agree with you about Terraforming Mars. The key thing in TM is when you are out, you are out permanently. That's very cool - you can take 0, 1, or 2 actions, but if you take 0, you are done for that generation. There have been several times where I was taking just 1 action, hoping I had enough to do to stay in as long as I needed to before pouncing. Another thing I like there is that there are times when you need to take 2 actions at once to get a big benefit. Say we're 2 temperature ticks from the free ocean kicking in. I have 8 heat and a card that allows me to raise temperature, but I don't have enough money for that card. So the first time around I take one action: sell cards to raise the money I need. If I use the second action to play the card, I'm out of actions and can't also play the heat. That might be okay - it might come back to me - but by doing 2 things I've made it more likely for my opponents to get the bonus. So instead I only generate the money and wait to play my 1/2 punch on temperature the next cycle. I love when you have a little flexibility on timing of your actions.
Well said, Steven! You said it much better than I did--that's exactly why I like the choice in Terraforming Mars.
Having a free move action and free action is common in Role Playing Games. This is used in dungeon crawls but not many other games. This could be used in an exploration game. If you choose to I would maybe suggest having a power attack or more powerful action that would remove the move and or free action. This may be search a room, investigate a puzzle. This may improve or guarantee a follow up action. In role playing games combined efforts speed up actions with a great modifier.
You will find this concept in an overwhelming majority of tabletop wargames. RPGs are really just single model wargames at the heart of it.
Fantastic! You got to play Birmingham :)
I guess i'm not that familiar with action menus, but now that I think about it, I think Mexica had one. And you could do multiple things on your turn and you had a way to save your action points for a future turn if you needed it... but the actions aren't that many and they are all quite simple to understand that it works fine and turns are often fairly quick moving.
As far as having meaningful turns, in playtesting my prototype awhile back, that was a big problem. Some turns could be meaningful, some not so much, but it had nothing to do with the amount of actions allowed (I have 3 currently, I forgot how much were in place back then, probably 2-3 and each move has a value based on the character). But during that time I had movement penalties and much more restrictive movement, so there were turns where a player would just be traveling somewhere and that's it, and it would slog in that way. Those turns would be super quick, but very unsatisfying.
With that said, I think whatever amount of actions you assign is all about balancing a particular design. Are the actions complex/elaborate? Do they require a lot of planning to pull off? Should the player space be more focused on the overall objective rather than how to overcome steps to get to the overall objective? I think multiple actions are especially fine if the available actions are a reasonable amount and they are fairly easy to understand. That has been my struggle, over complicating certain available actions as I had been somewhat rooted in game systems such as war gaming and TCGs and RPGs where some of the game systems were elaborate to account for all of these factors. So it was a matter of figuring out what was fun in the design and stripping back the ideas that, while fun in theory, just didn't work in execution.
I rather enjoy Terraforming Mars and the fact that sometimes you only want to use 1 action, but it is good to have the option of 2 in many turns that you want to combo a couple things together. I also liked this aspect of Brass Birmingham (I played that for the first time a couple weekends ago).
I'm not sure I agree with the game being required to give an indicator for a turn to end. It is good if the game system allows for a clear indicator, but that just doesn't work in many cases and forcing a clear indicator would I think lesson the design of it. Take The Manhattan Project. The main board action is fairly straightforward, but then you have your personal board. Sometimes, you just need a moment to maximize what you are doing. If you are the next player, you probably should be watching for an indicator to go, anyway, and whether that be a piece going down or not, it shouldn't matter. And the times I've played Scythe, I put the piece down, but I still have to decide sometimes whether or not to use the 2nd action. I'm generally fairly quick on my turns, and I still sometimes just need a moment on some turns just to be like, ok, that is definitely the way I'm going or maybe I should do this. Yes, that's good.
I agree with bonus actions for the most part. I’ve experienced a bunch of times where you wait for no reason because you think someone is planning on doing a bonus action. One game where I felt the bonus system was alright was council of 4. We knew who had the possibility to take a bonus based on who had servants which we found were far and few between.
I’m curious on what your thought are if the bonus action has semi high cost so the odds of people taking it are lower? Do you find that speeds up the game or still the same where confusion exists on if someone finished their turn or not? What if the bonus action could only be taken before the primary action?
Matthew: We actually had the same thing happen in Council of Four, but we found a house rule that works well: Instead of drawing a card at the beginning of turn, draw it at the end of your turn--thus there's a clear signal to the other players that you've finished, and you can prepare for your next turn.
Changing the order, as you suggested, can help. If a bonus action has a high cost, I'd rather it just be the action itself, as it may stop feeling like a bonus.
Through the Ages: A new story[...] is an engine builder with APA system that let's you have up to 6-8 actions on your turn, but more powerful stuff costs way more actions - not a bad system, but it drags so much. I love how the fixed 4 actions in Pandemic (Legacy) work. Competitive games in general do an awesome job at that. I've never seen anyone want to have a single action in Pandemic before the infection step :) :) Aren't action menus just shrunk down player boards?
Does it matter if your turn feels less substantial if your next turn is in less than a minute due to quick flow of the game? The game I worked on moved several time from APA to one-action-per-turn, than to action menu, than to player mat, than to one-per-turn again, so this is a very interesting topic for me to hear your thoughts on! :)
Action menus are in a way player boards, but I'd much rather use a proper player mat (especially if it has some interesting constraints like I use in Scythe), as they tend to visually guide the player in a much better way than action menus. That's my personal opinion, of course. :)
I think you can have quick actions (Charterstone has them) as long as you can feel like you made progress on your turn. In fact, I really like that system.
The action menúes turn me off, but ironically I liked every game that I play with that thing (like Tikal for example)
ABC in Dominion is Action, Buy, Cleanup. Which is likely why you couldn't remember what C meant - It's discarding the played cards and unplayed cards in your hand, and drawing a new hand of five cards while the next player starts their turn - between turn upkeep stuff - rather than anything you actively do.
I think for a co-op in the Pandemic oeuvre (player takes turn, bad stuff happens) would need either really substantial actions (I think Shadows Over Camelot does this?) rather than the small step actions that you typically see (move is an action, remove a disease cube is an action, and so forth), or something like 'players are piloting a Power Rangers-esque giant robot together' so it makes sense for each player's one action to all use the same pawn so you could then have the Bad Stuff happen after the round. And I'm not sure how you'd make it so that it felt satisfying rather than like a solo game where you can split a turn between players as I hear Nemo's War feels when doing it co-op. (Each player has a hand of cards rather than an action menu, maybe? Maybe the deck the hand comes from is different based on right leg vs head, with other differences smash-up style so if you're using a T-Rex based robot for the right leg different combinations of stuff will come up? But that's just theory crafting.)
One class of games that usually do multiple action turns you didn't mention is the dueling deck genre - CCGs, LCGs, and the like. Sure, at the start of a game of Magic you'll be doing one action - you only have a couple of mana - and maybe an attack, but by the end you'll likely be playing multiple cards or doing multiple things that cost mana with cards you've already got out. This tends to work just fine, in two player games particularly with a lot of direct interaction I'm very invested in what you do on your turn. However, it's definitely not the only way of doing it.
One such alternate model is Ashes, which... Yes it's 2 actions - a main action and a side action - but by CCG standards, those always feel like part of a turn rather than a full turn, at least from the mid-game onwards. You roll your mana dice and draw at the start of a round, then you do what for the most part feels like part of a turn. Attacking, playing a card from hand, tapping a single card for an ability. Then the other player takes their turn, and so on until both players pass in a row at which point the round ends and you reset by drawing to five cards and rolling your dice. From what I recall of it, turns that short in that genre feel really nice for game pacing.
(And, of course, several solo games do this without (m)any of the disadvantages you mention - if you're the only one playing, downtime is by definition not an issue, neither is signalling your turn is over)
Cleanup! Thank you. :)
Yeah, I thought about mentioning Magic, and perhaps I should have. Turns in Magic somehow go super fast despite the variety of things you can do on them.
On the dueling deck games with multiple actions, Netrunner is one that works really well because while you have multiple actions a turn, your opponent often has to respond in someway so they stay invested in your turns.
i'm not opposed to multiple action, but elegant implementation is the key, so in general i would avoid it. probably more interesting to me than a game where you have to do A,B,C each turn is a game where you can do one or more actions, but it's at your discretion, and the options are simple but it's all about tactical or strategic timing. ty
Kind of like the Terraforming Mars model? I like that too.
awww! What an adorable cat!!! XDDD
That's Biddy. :)
If the bonus actions were all done BEFORE the standard action, would that solve the problem for you?
It would help, yes. Though I would prefer if there's some sort of visual guide to the bonus actions (like, they're cleanly displayed on your player mat, and you move a token onto one of them and also onto the action you choose, perhaps with some interesting constraints or bonuses added from turn to turn if you use the same or different actions).
I have to ask, what do you think of the Raiders of the North Sea system? You do get two actions, but there is a clear point when the second worker is removed where you know the turn ends.
Josh: I think it works well because the actions are typically quite fast.
I'm surprised you didn't talk about how easy it is for a player to get lost in their own turn when they have multiple actions to do. This is where games like Pandemic and Through the Ages can falter, almost more than downtime. It's especially problematic if people want to "redo" their turns. "Oh, actually let me do this instead, so now I can do..." Multiple actions can often lead to this reaction, since you essentially need to plan out your whole turn before taking any of your turn makes sense.
That's a great point!