One post topic I wanted to revisit as we get closer to the Kickstarter launch, especially for people who may have missed it the first time around is the revised action system for the Second Edition. There is a fine balance between too crunchy and not crunchy enough when it comes to actions in an RPG, and I have always felt like FAL rides that fence pretty well. That said, the actions in the original FAL have long bothered me because I came to feel they lacked elegance. In the First Edition, different actions used different amounts of action points. For example, an attack might use 2 actions while sheathing a weapon might use one. Casting a spell might use three or more. This has always seemed fiddly and overly complex for a game like FAL (especially with opponents who have 8,9,10+ Actions). How many actions to get up after a fall? How many to cartwheel down these stairs? It’s tedious for the sake of tedium. Live and learn.
Granularity can add some nuance and strategy to combat (how will I spend my points?), but in the 2nd Edition, actions have been simplified. Most PCs begin with 2 actions and basic things like an attack, bluff, grapple, shove, etc. use a single action while more complex things like spells, aiming a shot, complicated tasks, etc., use two or more actions. The main goal in this revision was to simplify the action system so that players and GMs no longer needed to reference a chart. Less referencing leads to faster gameplay and FAL is meant to be fast. Strategy still exists in combat without the referencing and math required to keep track of multiple actions and costs.
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