Actions

Term

Belongs to the term

Ludic Action: A Ludic Action is a single act in a game - what happens: moving, jumping, hiding, observing, shooting, drawing a card, trading, building.

Stack

What it is about

The Actions stack collects individual actions: what happens in a game – moving, jumping, grabbing, shooting, observing, trading, building. Every action is a verb and brings about a change in the match. Where an entity says what is there, the action says what happens.

The 48 cards are ordered into eight impact domains, each with its own separator card and guiding question: Locomotion (How do agents move?), Manipulation, Conflict, Communication, Perception, Resource, Cognition and Transformation. Two guide cards belong to the stack: instructions and a card on operations.

An action rarely belongs to only one activity: shooting contributes to hunting, to fighting and to defending. And the same action is carried out quite differently depending on the form – a mouse click on screen, a dice roll in a board game, a flick in a dexterity game, a drawn bow in live-action role-play. This execution is called the operation; it is only fixed once the form has been chosen.

How to use it

Method: First choose the activities. Then ask for each activity: which actions does it need? Draw suitable cards or spread out an impact domain. Mark the core actions – without them the activity collapses – and separate the supporting actions from them. That an action occurs in several activities is not a mistake. Transfer the selection to the Ideation Worksheet (Actions field).

Test question: If it can be said as one verb and occurs in several activities, it is an action. If it contains several actions, it is an activity. If it depends on the form, it is an operation.

Time: 10 to 30 minutes, depending on how many activities the actions are determined for.

Sequence: after the Activities stack. The operations only once the form of the game has been chosen.

Relations

Actions are the building blocks of the activities: the fields of action are composed of them, and one action can contribute to several. The eight impact domains have their own overview page. Alongside the entities, the actions are the second bearer to which the determinations of a game adhere – regulation, appearance, ascription. An action can serve the fulfilment of a goal (Objectives). For the operations it is worth looking at the Capacitas: what a target group can perceive and carry out decides whether an operation becomes a hurdle.

cards

The cards

AC-01 To Move Changing one's own position in the play space, eventually in any direction and at any speed.

AC-02 To Walk Moving slowly and in a controlled way through the play space.

AC-03 To Run Moving quickly through the play space, at the cost of control, camouflage or resources.

AC-04 To Jump Overcoming a spatial barrier through vertical or horizontal movement.

AC-05 To Sneak Moving quietly and concealed to avoid detection.

AC-06 To Dodge Evading an impact through quick, reactive movement.

AC-07 To Teleport Reaching another location instantly, without traversing the space in between.

AC-08 To Grab Seizing an entity and bringing it under one's own control.

AC-09 To Place Positioning an entity at a particular location in the play space.

AC-10 To Push Exerting force on an entity to move it away from oneself.

AC-11 To Pull Exerting force on an entity to move it toward oneself.

AC-12 To Build Creating a new structure or entity in the play space from components.

AC-13 To Craft Transforming materials into a new object by a recipe or rule.

AC-14 To Combine Bringing two or more entities together to create something new or stronger.

AC-15 To Open/Close Granting or denying access to an area, container or piece of information.

AC-16 To Equip Assigning an entity to an agent related entity to change its abilities.

AC-17 To Rotate Rotating an entity around an axis to change its orientation, function or fit.

AC-18 To Attack Acting offensively on an entity or another agent to deal damage or force a state change.

AC-19 To Defend Mitigating or warding off an impact to minimize damage.

AC-20 To Block Barring a path, action or attack physically or by rule.

AC-21 To Parry Redirecting or countering an attack at the right moment: riskier than blocking, but more rewarding.

AC-22 To Shoot Firing a projectile or ranged effect at a target.

AC-23 To Talk Communicating verbally with other agents or figures of the game.

AC-24 To Signal Communicating non-verbally through gestures, markers or predefined signs.

AC-25 To Persuade Convincing other agents of an action or opinion through arguments, appeals or manipulation.

AC-26 To Show Visually presenting or revealing something to other agents.

AC-27 To Write Creating text-based content: messages, notes, creative texts.

AC-28 To Observe Perceiving the play environment visually and attentively to gain information.

AC-29 To Listen Consciously taking in auditory information: sounds, music, speech.

AC-30 To Scan Systematically analysing an area or object to uncover hidden information.

AC-31 To Aim Targeting an objective and focusing attention before an action is executed.

AC-32 To Zoom Switching the level of view: navigating between overview and detail to gain different information.

AC-33 To Collect Picking up individual objects and adding them to one's own inventory.

AC-34 To Harvest Extracting resources from natural or cultivated sources.

AC-35 To Trade Exchanging resources, goods or information with another agent or the game.

AC-36 To Heal Removing or mitigating a negative state in oneself or others.

AC-37 To Recharge Refilling a depleted resource or ability.

AC-38 To Throw Hurling an entity through the air as an attack, a handover or a play action.

AC-39 To Decide Making a conscious choice between available options, as a standalone, design-relevant move.

AC-40 To Deduce Drawing a logical conclusion from existing clues and rules.

AC-41 To Research Initiating a systematic discovery process that unlocks new knowledge or abilities.

AC-42 To Set Setting a value, configuration or condition in the game state.

AC-43 To Allocate Distributing limited resources across different options.

AC-44 To Gamble Risking a stake in the hope of a greater gain, with the possibility of losing everything.

AC-45 To Cook Combining and transforming ingredients by a procedure, with a temporal component.

AC-46 To Level Up / Unlock Unlocking a new state, ability or area as a reward for progress.

AC-47 To (De)activate Switching a mechanism, ability or state on or off.

AC-48 To Switch Switching between different states, equipment or identities.

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