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Let's talk about the action economy in The Snarl, the weird fantasy RPG we are currently working on! 🧵↓

We went through many iterations of the rules before settling on a 3-action economy for The Snarl. In other words, on your turn, your character has 3 actions to spend. The specific things you can do are defined as moves, and each move costs a specified number of actions.

Most moves use a single action, more complex ones cost 2 actions, and something that consumes your entire turn takes 3.

If you’ve played Pathfinder 2 you are familiar with this kind of economy. Ours is similar, and it’s nothing new or groundbreaking on its own, but it does include some twists to fit with our other mechanics.

We chose it over systems that broke down your actions into different types (like D&D’s action/movement/bonus actions, or Draw Steel’s main action/move/maneuver) because we preferred its more open-ended aspects.

We’ve talked before about how we handle positioning and movement with zones in combat. In our system, movement is tied into you the moves you make. More on zones: snarlrpg.com/blog/zones

If you want to take a Disengage move and switch from the engaged zone to the skirmish zone, that costs 1 action — and your opponent can use their reaction to make a free attack. If you instead take a withdraw move, costing 2 actions, you move from engaged to skirmish with triggering an attack.

In combat, you can choose to spend all of your actions making attacks. However, each attack after the first is more difficult and inflicts a _jolt_ upon you, so it comes with a cost, as you are opening yourself to attacks. (Read about jolts: snarlrpg.com/blog/jolts)