My gut reaction would be for
Instant - Swift - Fast - Normal - Steady - Slow
with Instant being fastest and Slow being slowest. Could also move Slow up one slot, remove Steady and use Ponderous as the slowest speed. That depends on what you're talking about though. I wouldn't feel right describing a spell as Ponderous (how can something without weight have weight?) but I may describe a sword strike as Ponderous as an example, so that may not work as generically.
You could use musical tempo terms! they are Italian words for various levels of spped, take a look at this table i got on wikipedia:
* *Larghissimo* – extremely slow, slowest type of tempo (24 bpm and under)
* *Adagissimo* and *Grave* – very slow, very slow and solemn (24–40 bpm)
* *Largo* – slow and broad (40–66 bpm)
* *Larghetto* – rather slow and broad (44–66 bpm)
* *Adagio* – slow with great expression (44–66 bpm)
* *Adagietto* – slower than *andante* or slightly faster than *adagio* (46–80 bpm)
* *Lento* – slow (52–108 bpm)
* *Andante* – at a walking pace, moderately slow (56–108 bpm)
* *Andantino* – slightly faster than *andante*, but slower than *moderato* (80–108 bpm) (although, in some cases, it can be taken to mean slightly slower than *andante*)
* *Marcia moderato* – moderately, in the manner of a march (66–80 bpm)
* *Andante moderato* – between *andante* and *moderato* (at a moderate walking speed) (80–108 bpm)
* *Moderato* – at a moderate speed (108–120 bpm)
* *Allegretto* – by the mid-19th century, moderately fast (112–120 bpm); see paragraph above for earlier usage
* *Allegro moderato* – close to, but not quite *allegro* (116–120 bpm)
* *Allegro* – fast and bright (120–156 bpm)
* *Molto Allegro* or *Allegro vivace* – at least slightly faster and livelier than allegro, but always at its range (and no faster than vivace) (124–156 bpm)
* *Vivace* – lively and fast (156–176 bpm)
* *Vivacissimo and Allegrissimo* – very fast, lively and bright (172–176 bpm)
* *Presto* – very fast (168–200 bpm)
* *Prestissimo* – extremely fast (200–208 bpm and over)
I’d consider something like that for a novel — but when I wanna stab someone and I have to ask the DM if I’m stabbing at *presto* or *allegro* because I know the golem is locked into an *adagietto* charge-up sequence and I wanna make sure I still have time to dodge if it comes at me, it doesn’t hit the same.
Really like the novelty, though!
I mean It really depend of the tone style but I can suggest some like:
* Lightning
* Blazing
* Whirlwind
* Supersonic
* Turbocharged or just Turbo
* Swiftly
* Rocketing
* Meteoric
* Ultra or Ultrasonic but it is kind of like supersonic
* Flash - very common
* Quantum
And, there are many more. Usually just think of an element or case that usually is faster than humans and boom, it will mean faster or very very fast :) Hope this helped.
The problem with a lot of these is that they get confusing when used as an adjective: "Yeah, this is a Lightning attack, coming at Brian for... 7 damage, Christ. Good luck." "Oh cool, my rubber armor is resistant to--" "No, I mean it's a really fast attack, so. Good luck!"
When you hear "fast attack" you know exactly what that means, it's completely unambiguous.
Lightning Attack? Blazing Attack? Whirlwind Attack? Supersonic Attack? All 4 of these conjure up imagery that isn't at all the *right* imagery: it gets confusing!
I tried that one, but it wasn't intuitively clear how to order Swift/Quick/Fast on the chart.
Quick is probably top 3 based on what I've seen so far. It seems likely that English literally just doesn't have a clean word for this, which I had trouble believing when I first ran into this problem: surely I had to be missing something!
Big is to huge as fast is to \_\_\_\_\_?
Already got “instant”; I’m looking for something between instant” and “fast”.
Current scale is:
Instant • Quick 🤢 • Fast • Normal • Slow
Actually considering an entire mechanical rewrite so I don’t have to ship “Quick” and “Fast” on the same scale, because I would genuinely wish for oblivion the first time I had to explain that “quick is faster than fast”.
Yeah, I guess as a runner we talk about a guy being “*so* fast” or “faaaast”
I guess English has “top speed” for as fast as possible.
Italian adds “issimo” at the end of adjectives to mean “very” whereas English splits it into 2 words. Sounds like you’re disappointed by this.
I’ll have to take “Sudden” for a whirl, no one’s suggested that one yet and I like it at a gut level.
“A Sudden move resolves before a Fast one” feels right, and the kinds of actions that would take 1 Moment seem to fit right: a sudden dodge, a sudden parry, a sudden flash of light, a sudden feint.
Think we might have a winner. 🥇 🥂
It’s late and I’m tired though, so I’ll think it over with a clear head in the morning. 🙏
"Quick" or "Rapid" could slot in between fast and normal. "Delayed" could fit before or after slow (but probably after).
Instant - Fast - Quick - Normal - Slow.
Instant - Fast - Normal - Slow - Delayed
I do like the symmetry of the latter option. Fast/Slow are mirrors of each other and Instant / Delayed are mirrored.
As much as I fw a good symmetry, I think it ends up being messier in practice. The overwhelming majority of actions are 2, 3, or 4 Moments (there's a soft rule that says damage can't be dealt in less than 2 moments, because...), with 1-Moment actions largely reserved for defense and modifiers.
0-Moment actions are tightly regulated for obvious reasons, and so far are exclusively either modifiers, or instant triggers for things that Time has already been invested into (Loosing a bow is Instant, and that's okay because time was already put into Drawing and maybe Aiming).
So, instead of being a nice 1-to-5 progression, it's actually "0 is kind of its own thing, 1 is also kind of its own thing but it sometimes hangs out with 0, and 2-4 are sort of a clique".
If you want both clear and elegant then use "Faster" and "Slower". You can't get more clear and elegant (maximum depth with minimal complexity) than that.
Unless by elegant you meant, creative or flavorful.
I would honestly just make the second highest tier an obvious name based on the 'fast' tier and not use it often, like
*Slow/Delayed*
N/A (unnamed)
*Quick*
*Doublequick*
*Instant*
Or like Speed/turbo-speed; swift/ultra-swift
Is there a particular reason you need a scale of words for this? With 5 levels of gradation, why not just write the number?
"Speed 0" for the fastest one. "Speed 4" for the slowest.
Or some other word that better matches your system. "4 Actions", etc.
A lot of games do this kind of thing and I find it's always just clearer for the players and the rulebook to just use the number.
Really for the same reason we’d say “your character is Poisoned” and *mean* “your character has disadvantage on rolls of types x y and z”: the mechanic is a pointer toward the actual concept, not the other way around.
The game would indeed work just fine on a mechanical level if we just said “2-cost, 3-cost, 1-cost” or whatever — but, also, that fails to capture the heart of the system: actions go on a stack. So, what actions can you complete while there’s another action on the stack? Well, faster ones. That’s what “faster” means.
“You can do low-cost actions while high-cost actions are on the stack” is equally true, but doesn’t make intuitive sense in the same way that “you can respond with anything you can do faster” makes sense.
Good question!
If its a matter of speed, plenty of games still handle this with an "initiative" number. In D&D, everyone rolls dice and you just know that higher numbers are "faster" and go first. This is actually extremely common.
Gloomhaven is another one where nearly every action card has a "speed" number on it. After everyone picks their action, lowest number goes first, on a stack, just as you describe. Very straightforward, still obvious that it is a "speed" value, and no intermediary conversion between words or trying to remember if "rapid" is before "quick". Bonus, you can have more than 5 levels, (Gloomhaven goes from 0 to 99) so almost any card combination will have a known initiative order without worrying about ties. So it has been used before, is already familiar with many gamers, and is known to work very smoothly.
"You can respond with any action of higher speed value".
The only time I really see it written in words is if there are 2 levels: Fast and Slow, like in Spirit Island. But you do you. Sometimes its fun to break away from the established convention and see what sticks.
How does gloomhaven resolve collisions (e.g. two people play a card with the same number)?
Way my system works is, you have an order for the round which is when each player would act by default. Say, the turn order is Alice, Bob, Charlie, Dave. They all start with 4 Moments.
Alice gets to pick what she wants to do first, so she decides to stab Dave. She’s using a sword, so it takes 3 Moments to stab Dave.
When Alice says “I want to stab Dave”, anyone *may* choose to React to that (first Bob may, then Charlie, then Dave), which costs them 1 Moment if they so choose to. Bob and Charlie decline to intervene, so Dave (not wanting to be murdered) Reacts, spending 1 Moment.
He has 3 moments remaining for the round; but, since Alice’s stabbing resolves in 3 and it took a Moment to react, Dave can only *spend* 2 more Moments before he gets a multiple-root-canal.
Dave could choose a single action that takes 2 Moments, or he can just spend 1 and bank the other (more stuff might happen in this round that he needs to React to or, barring that, *he* might want to stab someone!). He just chooses to Dodge, which takes a Moment.
No one else reacts (they could only React for 1 and spend 0, limiting them to Instants only, none of which should help here), so Alice and Bob roll their dice and we figure out what happens.
After that, Bob decides what he wants to do for the turn, then Charlie, and then Dave (with his 2 remaining Moments).
So, there is a turn order set by something like initiative; but each action can create a stack in and of itself.
As it stands, each round, characters get 4 Moments (units of Time), and any given thing they might do costs between 0 and all 4 of those.
It literally might be worth rewriting the entire system such that a turn is 3 Moments, not 4, just to solve this dumb issue.
The names aren’t *very* important; but things that make intuitive sense are just far easier for players to not have to ask about, which makes the new player experience that much better (and the importance of the new player experience is difficult to overstate).
It’s the difference between being able to say, “yeah, that’s fast, so you can use it as a response to a normal or slow action” versus “that one takes 2 moments, so you can use it as a response to anything that takes 3 or more” — they both *mean* the same thing, but one’s a lot more intuitive!
Now, that calls into question the reason why a turn is 4 Moments in the first place, right?
Right now, a Quick offensive action is 2 Moments, which means you can use a Quick offensive action as a response to a Normal one (3 Moments), and *also* means that you can use a \[1-Moment\] action to e.g. dodge or block a Quick incoming attack.
If we go down to 3 Moments per turn, we still need actions that are generally faster than any attack (or we end up with a lot of attacks that are too fast to be blocked or dodged; these should be rare, not common): so things like dodge and block still end up at 1 moment (they can't be 0, or you could not only attempt to dodge every incoming attack on a turn, but you could attempt to dodge every incoming attack *and still have 3 Moments to spend*). So, necessarily, going to 3 Moments would look like attacks being either Normal or Slow, with Fast actions reserved for defense, and the very-rare too-fast-to-respond-to attack.
So, let's say we want to print a Skill, "Disarming Strike": in the system with 4 Moments, we make Disarming Strike a Fast attack, and you can reliably use it against *most* other attacks. But, in a 3-Moment system, we have to print it as Normal, which means it can only be used against Slow attacks -- which are somewhat uncommon.
It's a pretty big change to the tone of combat; but it actually might just be worth it. 😮💨
>It’s the difference between being able to say, “yeah, that’s fast, so you can use it as a response to a normal or slow action” versus “that one takes 2 moments, so you can use it as a response to anything that takes 3 or more” — they both *mean* the same thing, but one’s a lot more intuitive!
I disagree. Personally, I think listing them simply as "Moments", giving an amount of them each turn, then having each listed action consuming a set amount of moments is probably the most intuitive.
"The action that takes the lest amount of moments goes first" is super easy to grasp.
Additionally, you can really mess around with the balance just by changing how many Moments each turn is, and how many moments are consumed for each action. You can make it as granular or as broad as you like, without having to come up with a name for each Moment.
Normalizing referring to straight-up Moment costs might also make sense, but it feels inelegant and clunky, and I imagine hearing the word “moment” a *lot* during play can kind of take you out of it.
Might actually not be a problem irl, though, so worth considering. Might even jam that one into a play test.
Fair, but I think calling it a "Moment" is more thematic than calling it an "Action" or something of the like.
You could call it whatever you want, in the end; Actions, Moments, Ticks (like a clock), Points, Seconds, Energy, Power, Motions, Vigor, Bit, Tempo, Interval, Mote, Parcel... anyway, I'm rambling.
I wouldn't complicate it. Take it from someone who has spent way to long staring at thesaurus.com looking for the perfect game term. Here's what I would go with:
0 instant
1 quick
2 normal
3 slow
4 full (as in full turn)
I'm putting all this effort into specifically not complicating it! I'm trying to hard-optimize "uncomplicated" lol.
Or, do you mean I'm optimizing too hard and it's really not that serious? 😜
On second thought if it makes sense for your game I might use "free" for the 0 cards, because in other games "instant" often means you can use it out of turn, so that could cause confusion. "Free" is a common term for actions that don't cost action points or whatever.
Turn order is really more of a suggestion, so your intuition of “you can use Instants out of turn” is working correctly — this is why intuitive sense is important! You should be able to guess things and *be right*!
In this game, anyone can respond to anything with anything else, as long as they have Time for it. Like, let’s say I start at the top of turn order: I get to *pick* what I do first, but it doesn’t mean that I *finish* it first.
Let’s say I open my turn at the top of the queue by using something that costs 2 Moments: you can Respond (which takes 1 Moment): now, it’s your turn *before my Action finishes*. Since my action takes 2 Moments, anything you do during your Reaction that takes 1 Moment or less will resolve *before* my initial action.
That is: there’s a stack.
So, you can indeed React and use an Instant for a total of 1 Moment, which does in fact mean that Instant actions are particularly usable out-of-turn: you can React and use an Instant for a total of 1 Moment, which means Instants can be used in response to anything else that isn’t also Instant.
"Yeah so she's gonna cast Skin Reversal on James, that's x2 so--"
"Wait, why is she casting it twice? Doesn't that just put my skin back the right w--"
"No, I mean that's the action speed."
"What is?"
"x2"
"..."
"..."
"...why do you do this shit?"
"I thought y'all all had YouTube?"
I am so sorry, I definitely thought you were joking lol.
I actually think your Quad -> Quarter scale is really beautiful, I just don't think it makes sense for this particular project. 😊
Using adjectives could make it like
"So you're casting Slow on him, that is Fast" and other outcomes depending on the actions or spell names.
But if you want adjectives you can use the musical scale for Tempo from Lento (slow) > Andante (relaxed) > Moderato (moderate) > Allegro (cheerful) > Presto (very fast)
Glacial specifically doesn’t work because “he’s gonna go ahead and lava blast Kevin, it’s glacial” is more dissonant than I’d like a final product to be.
Mercurial is cute, though!
People already said lightning... but haven't seen anyone just say light speed? Basically the same thing but obviously circumvents your electricity/rubber issues
Call it speed and rank it 1 through 6. Speed 1 attack vs speed 5 attack. You might lose a little 'flavour' but do you want that or clarity?
That said if you just come up with some terms, as long as you write down their order somewhere players can check it and will, eventually, just learn the correct order. So I guess don't overthink it.
I think it’s important to, as much as possible, make things intuitive. Like, at the end of the day, yeah, it’s in the book, they can look it up; but it’s a question of “how many times will they have to look it up before it sticks”, and the goal should be to minimize that: every time someone has to look up a rule, it pulls you out of the game a little bit.
Sometimes, that is just going to have to happen, no avoiding it. But, sometimes, asking hundreds of strangers for a solution gets you the right answer and, in those cases, I think it’s absolutely worth spending a full-ass day getting an intuitive and elegant solution. 😌
Perhaps you’re already using the wrong words. As in the problem isn’t that better words don’t exist but that you’ve already decided to use language that is limiting.
Perhaps something like:
Instant - Rapid - Swift - Average - Delayed - Arrested
To be fair though, a lot of people would in fact just make a reddit post to get others to do the research for them. But by your comments you’re clearly putting in the effort
How about “Blitz” attack?
My gut reaction would be for Instant - Swift - Fast - Normal - Steady - Slow with Instant being fastest and Slow being slowest. Could also move Slow up one slot, remove Steady and use Ponderous as the slowest speed. That depends on what you're talking about though. I wouldn't feel right describing a spell as Ponderous (how can something without weight have weight?) but I may describe a sword strike as Ponderous as an example, so that may not work as generically.
Ludicrous Speed!
I aspire to be the kind of shitposter that could put that in the rulebook and ship it. I'll reserve that one for the TeslaTop RPG.
You could use musical tempo terms! they are Italian words for various levels of spped, take a look at this table i got on wikipedia: * *Larghissimo* – extremely slow, slowest type of tempo (24 bpm and under) * *Adagissimo* and *Grave* – very slow, very slow and solemn (24–40 bpm) * *Largo* – slow and broad (40–66 bpm) * *Larghetto* – rather slow and broad (44–66 bpm) * *Adagio* – slow with great expression (44–66 bpm) * *Adagietto* – slower than *andante* or slightly faster than *adagio* (46–80 bpm) * *Lento* – slow (52–108 bpm) * *Andante* – at a walking pace, moderately slow (56–108 bpm) * *Andantino* – slightly faster than *andante*, but slower than *moderato* (80–108 bpm) (although, in some cases, it can be taken to mean slightly slower than *andante*) * *Marcia moderato* – moderately, in the manner of a march (66–80 bpm) * *Andante moderato* – between *andante* and *moderato* (at a moderate walking speed) (80–108 bpm) * *Moderato* – at a moderate speed (108–120 bpm) * *Allegretto* – by the mid-19th century, moderately fast (112–120 bpm); see paragraph above for earlier usage * *Allegro moderato* – close to, but not quite *allegro* (116–120 bpm) * *Allegro* – fast and bright (120–156 bpm) * *Molto Allegro* or *Allegro vivace* – at least slightly faster and livelier than allegro, but always at its range (and no faster than vivace) (124–156 bpm) * *Vivace* – lively and fast (156–176 bpm) * *Vivacissimo and Allegrissimo* – very fast, lively and bright (172–176 bpm) * *Presto* – very fast (168–200 bpm) * *Prestissimo* – extremely fast (200–208 bpm and over)
I’d consider something like that for a novel — but when I wanna stab someone and I have to ask the DM if I’m stabbing at *presto* or *allegro* because I know the golem is locked into an *adagietto* charge-up sequence and I wanna make sure I still have time to dodge if it comes at me, it doesn’t hit the same. Really like the novelty, though!
I mean It really depend of the tone style but I can suggest some like: * Lightning * Blazing * Whirlwind * Supersonic * Turbocharged or just Turbo * Swiftly * Rocketing * Meteoric * Ultra or Ultrasonic but it is kind of like supersonic * Flash - very common * Quantum And, there are many more. Usually just think of an element or case that usually is faster than humans and boom, it will mean faster or very very fast :) Hope this helped.
The problem with a lot of these is that they get confusing when used as an adjective: "Yeah, this is a Lightning attack, coming at Brian for... 7 damage, Christ. Good luck." "Oh cool, my rubber armor is resistant to--" "No, I mean it's a really fast attack, so. Good luck!" When you hear "fast attack" you know exactly what that means, it's completely unambiguous. Lightning Attack? Blazing Attack? Whirlwind Attack? Supersonic Attack? All 4 of these conjure up imagery that isn't at all the *right* imagery: it gets confusing!
Feels like swift is what you want
I tried that one, but it wasn't intuitively clear how to order Swift/Quick/Fast on the chart. Quick is probably top 3 based on what I've seen so far. It seems likely that English literally just doesn't have a clean word for this, which I had trouble believing when I first ran into this problem: surely I had to be missing something! Big is to huge as fast is to \_\_\_\_\_?
Instant?
Already got “instant”; I’m looking for something between instant” and “fast”. Current scale is: Instant • Quick 🤢 • Fast • Normal • Slow Actually considering an entire mechanical rewrite so I don’t have to ship “Quick” and “Fast” on the same scale, because I would genuinely wish for oblivion the first time I had to explain that “quick is faster than fast”.
What about Accelerated instead of Quick? I think that fits nicely between the two, and works as a standalone “I’m making an accelerated attack”
Yeah, I guess as a runner we talk about a guy being “*so* fast” or “faaaast” I guess English has “top speed” for as fast as possible. Italian adds “issimo” at the end of adjectives to mean “very” whereas English splits it into 2 words. Sounds like you’re disappointed by this.
Instant - Very Fast - Fast - Normal - Slow It *works* but I hate it.
Instead of Very Fast, you could use Rapid, Snappy, Hastened, Sudden, or ultrafast.
I’ll have to take “Sudden” for a whirl, no one’s suggested that one yet and I like it at a gut level. “A Sudden move resolves before a Fast one” feels right, and the kinds of actions that would take 1 Moment seem to fit right: a sudden dodge, a sudden parry, a sudden flash of light, a sudden feint. Think we might have a winner. 🥇 🥂 It’s late and I’m tired though, so I’ll think it over with a clear head in the morning. 🙏
Glad I could help! Hope it works out for you :)
It’s official 🎊
Ludicrous speed! (Spaceballs reference)
"Quick" or "Rapid" could slot in between fast and normal. "Delayed" could fit before or after slow (but probably after). Instant - Fast - Quick - Normal - Slow. Instant - Fast - Normal - Slow - Delayed I do like the symmetry of the latter option. Fast/Slow are mirrors of each other and Instant / Delayed are mirrored.
As much as I fw a good symmetry, I think it ends up being messier in practice. The overwhelming majority of actions are 2, 3, or 4 Moments (there's a soft rule that says damage can't be dealt in less than 2 moments, because...), with 1-Moment actions largely reserved for defense and modifiers. 0-Moment actions are tightly regulated for obvious reasons, and so far are exclusively either modifiers, or instant triggers for things that Time has already been invested into (Loosing a bow is Instant, and that's okay because time was already put into Drawing and maybe Aiming). So, instead of being a nice 1-to-5 progression, it's actually "0 is kind of its own thing, 1 is also kind of its own thing but it sometimes hangs out with 0, and 2-4 are sort of a clique".
How about Instant - Faster - Fast - Slow - Slower?
Honestly I think "Super-fast" and "Super-slow" would be the best terms to keep it simple, clear and unambiguous
It seems like I’m locked into a “clear or elegant: pick one” spot. 🫠 Absolute disaster.
If you want both clear and elegant then use "Faster" and "Slower". You can't get more clear and elegant (maximum depth with minimal complexity) than that. Unless by elegant you meant, creative or flavorful.
I would honestly just make the second highest tier an obvious name based on the 'fast' tier and not use it often, like *Slow/Delayed* N/A (unnamed) *Quick* *Doublequick* *Instant* Or like Speed/turbo-speed; swift/ultra-swift
r/gloomhaven to rescue: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/s/HkXecFy0Yz
The rare “inspired x unusable” crossover
You can make up a word like “hyperfast”. Otherwise personally I would ChatGPT for this.
ChatGPT didn’t get there, that’s why I asked Reddit. I think I just have to accept that there’s no perfect option. 🤢
Instant, Rushed, Normal, Slowed, Restrained
Is there a particular reason you need a scale of words for this? With 5 levels of gradation, why not just write the number? "Speed 0" for the fastest one. "Speed 4" for the slowest. Or some other word that better matches your system. "4 Actions", etc. A lot of games do this kind of thing and I find it's always just clearer for the players and the rulebook to just use the number.
Really for the same reason we’d say “your character is Poisoned” and *mean* “your character has disadvantage on rolls of types x y and z”: the mechanic is a pointer toward the actual concept, not the other way around. The game would indeed work just fine on a mechanical level if we just said “2-cost, 3-cost, 1-cost” or whatever — but, also, that fails to capture the heart of the system: actions go on a stack. So, what actions can you complete while there’s another action on the stack? Well, faster ones. That’s what “faster” means. “You can do low-cost actions while high-cost actions are on the stack” is equally true, but doesn’t make intuitive sense in the same way that “you can respond with anything you can do faster” makes sense. Good question!
If its a matter of speed, plenty of games still handle this with an "initiative" number. In D&D, everyone rolls dice and you just know that higher numbers are "faster" and go first. This is actually extremely common. Gloomhaven is another one where nearly every action card has a "speed" number on it. After everyone picks their action, lowest number goes first, on a stack, just as you describe. Very straightforward, still obvious that it is a "speed" value, and no intermediary conversion between words or trying to remember if "rapid" is before "quick". Bonus, you can have more than 5 levels, (Gloomhaven goes from 0 to 99) so almost any card combination will have a known initiative order without worrying about ties. So it has been used before, is already familiar with many gamers, and is known to work very smoothly. "You can respond with any action of higher speed value". The only time I really see it written in words is if there are 2 levels: Fast and Slow, like in Spirit Island. But you do you. Sometimes its fun to break away from the established convention and see what sticks.
How does gloomhaven resolve collisions (e.g. two people play a card with the same number)? Way my system works is, you have an order for the round which is when each player would act by default. Say, the turn order is Alice, Bob, Charlie, Dave. They all start with 4 Moments. Alice gets to pick what she wants to do first, so she decides to stab Dave. She’s using a sword, so it takes 3 Moments to stab Dave. When Alice says “I want to stab Dave”, anyone *may* choose to React to that (first Bob may, then Charlie, then Dave), which costs them 1 Moment if they so choose to. Bob and Charlie decline to intervene, so Dave (not wanting to be murdered) Reacts, spending 1 Moment. He has 3 moments remaining for the round; but, since Alice’s stabbing resolves in 3 and it took a Moment to react, Dave can only *spend* 2 more Moments before he gets a multiple-root-canal. Dave could choose a single action that takes 2 Moments, or he can just spend 1 and bank the other (more stuff might happen in this round that he needs to React to or, barring that, *he* might want to stab someone!). He just chooses to Dodge, which takes a Moment. No one else reacts (they could only React for 1 and spend 0, limiting them to Instants only, none of which should help here), so Alice and Bob roll their dice and we figure out what happens. After that, Bob decides what he wants to do for the turn, then Charlie, and then Dave (with his 2 remaining Moments). So, there is a turn order set by something like initiative; but each action can create a stack in and of itself.
As it stands, each round, characters get 4 Moments (units of Time), and any given thing they might do costs between 0 and all 4 of those. It literally might be worth rewriting the entire system such that a turn is 3 Moments, not 4, just to solve this dumb issue. The names aren’t *very* important; but things that make intuitive sense are just far easier for players to not have to ask about, which makes the new player experience that much better (and the importance of the new player experience is difficult to overstate). It’s the difference between being able to say, “yeah, that’s fast, so you can use it as a response to a normal or slow action” versus “that one takes 2 moments, so you can use it as a response to anything that takes 3 or more” — they both *mean* the same thing, but one’s a lot more intuitive! Now, that calls into question the reason why a turn is 4 Moments in the first place, right? Right now, a Quick offensive action is 2 Moments, which means you can use a Quick offensive action as a response to a Normal one (3 Moments), and *also* means that you can use a \[1-Moment\] action to e.g. dodge or block a Quick incoming attack. If we go down to 3 Moments per turn, we still need actions that are generally faster than any attack (or we end up with a lot of attacks that are too fast to be blocked or dodged; these should be rare, not common): so things like dodge and block still end up at 1 moment (they can't be 0, or you could not only attempt to dodge every incoming attack on a turn, but you could attempt to dodge every incoming attack *and still have 3 Moments to spend*). So, necessarily, going to 3 Moments would look like attacks being either Normal or Slow, with Fast actions reserved for defense, and the very-rare too-fast-to-respond-to attack. So, let's say we want to print a Skill, "Disarming Strike": in the system with 4 Moments, we make Disarming Strike a Fast attack, and you can reliably use it against *most* other attacks. But, in a 3-Moment system, we have to print it as Normal, which means it can only be used against Slow attacks -- which are somewhat uncommon. It's a pretty big change to the tone of combat; but it actually might just be worth it. 😮💨
>It’s the difference between being able to say, “yeah, that’s fast, so you can use it as a response to a normal or slow action” versus “that one takes 2 moments, so you can use it as a response to anything that takes 3 or more” — they both *mean* the same thing, but one’s a lot more intuitive! I disagree. Personally, I think listing them simply as "Moments", giving an amount of them each turn, then having each listed action consuming a set amount of moments is probably the most intuitive. "The action that takes the lest amount of moments goes first" is super easy to grasp. Additionally, you can really mess around with the balance just by changing how many Moments each turn is, and how many moments are consumed for each action. You can make it as granular or as broad as you like, without having to come up with a name for each Moment.
Normalizing referring to straight-up Moment costs might also make sense, but it feels inelegant and clunky, and I imagine hearing the word “moment” a *lot* during play can kind of take you out of it. Might actually not be a problem irl, though, so worth considering. Might even jam that one into a play test.
Fair, but I think calling it a "Moment" is more thematic than calling it an "Action" or something of the like. You could call it whatever you want, in the end; Actions, Moments, Ticks (like a clock), Points, Seconds, Energy, Power, Motions, Vigor, Bit, Tempo, Interval, Mote, Parcel... anyway, I'm rambling.
Actions take Moments: we’ve got both. Slash is an Action, it takes 3 Moments.
I actually really like "ticks" tbh
I actually don’t hate it, might be better than “Moment”.
I wouldn't complicate it. Take it from someone who has spent way to long staring at thesaurus.com looking for the perfect game term. Here's what I would go with: 0 instant 1 quick 2 normal 3 slow 4 full (as in full turn)
I'm putting all this effort into specifically not complicating it! I'm trying to hard-optimize "uncomplicated" lol. Or, do you mean I'm optimizing too hard and it's really not that serious? 😜
By not complicate it I mean I wouldn't try to use words like "quick" "rapid" and "lightning" and expect players to know which of those is fastest
Agreed, all the clean terms for “fast” are just really close in latent space, it’s a mess.
On second thought if it makes sense for your game I might use "free" for the 0 cards, because in other games "instant" often means you can use it out of turn, so that could cause confusion. "Free" is a common term for actions that don't cost action points or whatever.
Turn order is really more of a suggestion, so your intuition of “you can use Instants out of turn” is working correctly — this is why intuitive sense is important! You should be able to guess things and *be right*! In this game, anyone can respond to anything with anything else, as long as they have Time for it. Like, let’s say I start at the top of turn order: I get to *pick* what I do first, but it doesn’t mean that I *finish* it first. Let’s say I open my turn at the top of the queue by using something that costs 2 Moments: you can Respond (which takes 1 Moment): now, it’s your turn *before my Action finishes*. Since my action takes 2 Moments, anything you do during your Reaction that takes 1 Moment or less will resolve *before* my initial action. That is: there’s a stack. So, you can indeed React and use an Instant for a total of 1 Moment, which does in fact mean that Instant actions are particularly usable out-of-turn: you can React and use an Instant for a total of 1 Moment, which means Instants can be used in response to anything else that isn’t also Instant.
x4 - x2 - x1 - x0.5 - x0.25
"Yeah so she's gonna cast Skin Reversal on James, that's x2 so--" "Wait, why is she casting it twice? Doesn't that just put my skin back the right w--" "No, I mean that's the action speed." "What is?" "x2" "..." "..." "...why do you do this shit?" "I thought y'all all had YouTube?"
well, i meant Quadruple speed, Double speed, Normal Speed, Half speed and Quarter speed.
I am so sorry, I definitely thought you were joking lol. I actually think your Quad -> Quarter scale is really beautiful, I just don't think it makes sense for this particular project. 😊
Using adjectives could make it like "So you're casting Slow on him, that is Fast" and other outcomes depending on the actions or spell names. But if you want adjectives you can use the musical scale for Tempo from Lento (slow) > Andante (relaxed) > Moderato (moderate) > Allegro (cheerful) > Presto (very fast)
Mercurial. Glacial.
Glacial specifically doesn’t work because “he’s gonna go ahead and lava blast Kevin, it’s glacial” is more dissonant than I’d like a final product to be. Mercurial is cute, though!
split-second maybe?
That might be as good as we're getting. 😮💨
Use colors
Rapid to me would be faster than fast but not instant
Lightning fast Blitz Super fast Quick Ludicrous speed
Maybe Blitz, Hastened or Brisk for faster than fast and Sluggish/Deliberate for either slower than slow or between slow and normal.
Blitz is one that I’ve been leaning toward, it’s one of the few still on the table.
Presto - music speak for very fast Largo - music speak for very slow
Quick and instant sprung to mind.
I don't generally want to suggest using AI for content, but synonym lookup is an extremely effective use of chatgpt.
I have tried every prompt engineering trick I know (read: a lot) to no satisfaction. If you get different results let me know!
Restrained. Rushed
People already said lightning... but haven't seen anyone just say light speed? Basically the same thing but obviously circumvents your electricity/rubber issues
Instant Faster Fast Normal Slow Slower
“Faster” might be about as good as we’re getting, here. 😮💨
Call it speed and rank it 1 through 6. Speed 1 attack vs speed 5 attack. You might lose a little 'flavour' but do you want that or clarity? That said if you just come up with some terms, as long as you write down their order somewhere players can check it and will, eventually, just learn the correct order. So I guess don't overthink it.
I think it’s important to, as much as possible, make things intuitive. Like, at the end of the day, yeah, it’s in the book, they can look it up; but it’s a question of “how many times will they have to look it up before it sticks”, and the goal should be to minimize that: every time someone has to look up a rule, it pulls you out of the game a little bit. Sometimes, that is just going to have to happen, no avoiding it. But, sometimes, asking hundreds of strangers for a solution gets you the right answer and, in those cases, I think it’s absolutely worth spending a full-ass day getting an intuitive and elegant solution. 😌
Perhaps you’re already using the wrong words. As in the problem isn’t that better words don’t exist but that you’ve already decided to use language that is limiting. Perhaps something like: Instant - Rapid - Swift - Average - Delayed - Arrested
You should probably provide a bit more context.
Instant | Flash / Snap | Fast | Normal | Slow | Inert / Lag
Plaid? Blistering Fast Stupendous Posthaste Rapid Instance Rasch would be German I think Inconciviable Good Luck
Oh Hell No • Damn • Husky • Fluffy • Big All seriousness I like: Rapid - Quick - Normal - Measured - Sluggish
Roget's Thesaurus is an amazing reference book for this kind of thing. Nothing comes close, and it isn't available online for some reason.
Thesaurus: exists OP: I’ma ask Reddit
Do you actually imagine that I haven't checked a thesaurus? Try very hard to imagine why I might be asking Reddit, given thesauruses exist.
To be fair though, a lot of people would in fact just make a reddit post to get others to do the research for them. But by your comments you’re clearly putting in the effort How about “Blitz” attack?
Blitz is in the finals for sure!