The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Action Exploits Review
By Nathan J. Hill

Brett Bernstein, head honcho of Politically Incorrect Games, recently contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in releasing Army of Judgement using his new Action Exploits diceless rules. I decided to look into it, since I offered Army of Judgement as a free download anyway. My inner gamer twitched and screamed at the words “diceless”, but I was determined to give it a fair shake. The review of the playtest version of Action Exploits is below.

What is it?

Action Exploits is a diceless game system from Politically Incorrect Games (www.pigames.net). It comes (in its current playtest form) as a 13 page PDF with a nice clear layout, character creation rules, task resolution rules, and combat rules. A character sheet is at the end of the document. This current version is free, although that may change in the near future once the playtesting phase finishes up. You can download a copy of the rules at the PI Games website.

The Meat

Action Exploits is diceless, and it works. Potentials, attributes like fitness and awareness, are rated with a positive or negative number. Obviously, 1 is good, and –1 is bad. Mutables, a set of attributes that change often during the game (like luck), are either given a starting score or begin at zero. Next, there are aptitudes and academia (skills), and they are rated as unskilled, basic, proficient, and expert. Finally, characters have gimmicks which give them special abilities or flaws.

To resolve an action, a character adds up all the factors involved in the task and compares them to a chart called “effort required to succeed”. If his point total is higher than or equal to the number on the chart, the action is a success. Everything else is a variation on this process, including special combat actions and contested action rules.

Since it is a diceless system, there is no random factor in the process. Most of the time, your character is either going to be able to do it or not. Luckily, you do get to pump up your final tally by adding in luck or using another of your mutable traits. In most instances though, if you aren’t good enough to do it in the first place, you aren’t going to get it done in the game.

To test the system, I built a starting character, a private investigator named Jack Malone. The strength of the system made itself very apparent – my investigator was a fairly average guy. If things were not going his way, he wasn’t going to be able to stand in the heat. At first, I was somewhat disappointed with this, but after I thought about it, I really took to it. I am a big fan of film noir, and I felt that this would be the system I used if I ran a noir game. It is very gritty and will keep your players thinking about ways to turn odds in their favor. Since actions are influenced not just by a character’s ability but by environment and other factors, Jack Malone would be forced to play it smart if he was going to solve his case.

The creator of the game, Brett Bernstein, informed that the playtest rules only cover average human characters. The complete version will continue information for above average and heroic level characters. Of course, I can fix this too by just upping the point value during character creation.

Overall

Action Exploits has promise. Sure, it is a diceless system, but I was very surprised to find that I liked it. The layout and well-defined charts set it heads and tails above most free or for-sale PDFs out on the market alone. Currently, the version has no examples and is not complete (several gimmicks were not defined). Since it is a playtest version, I didn’t find this degrading.

If you are looking to get involved on the ground level of what looks to be a fun system, go grab it from pigames.net. Otherwise, you still might want to take a look at it again in the future -- when it gets a bit more developed. Already, several settings are being prepared to take advantage of Action Exploits, including my own Army of Judgement.

For a 13-page free PDF, Action Exploits delivers the goods.

Action Exploits
Action Exploits Capsule Review by Nathan Hill on 17/06/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) A diceless system with promise.... Is it possible? Product: Action Exploits Author: Brett Bernstein Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Politically Incorrect Games Line: Cost: $0 Page count: 13 Year published: 2002 ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Nathan Hill on 17/06/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Science Fiction Modern day Historical Horror Far Future Space Comedy Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalyse Old West Vampire Gothic Asian/Far East Superhero Diceless Generic Live-action Other	Action Exploits Review By Nathan J. Hill Brett Bernstein, head honcho of Politically Incorrect Games, recently contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in releasing Army of Judgement using his new Action Exploits diceless rules. I decided to look into it, since I offered Army of Judgement as a free download anyway. My inner gamer twitched and screamed at the words “diceless”, but I was determined to give it a fair shake. The review of the playtest version of Action Exploits is below. What is it? Action Exploits is a diceless game system from Politically Incorrect Games (www.pigames.net). It comes (in its current playtest form) as a 13 page PDF with a nice clear layout, character creation rules, task resolution rules, and combat rules. A character sheet is at the end of the document. This current version is free, although that may change in the near future once the playtesting phase finishes up. You can download a copy of the rules at the PI Games website. The Meat Action Exploits is diceless, and it works. Potentials, attributes like fitness and awareness, are rated with a positive or negative number. Obviously, 1 is good, and –1 is bad. Mutables, a set of attributes that change often during the game (like luck), are either given a starting score or begin at zero. Next, there are aptitudes and academia (skills), and they are rated as unskilled, basic, proficient, and expert. Finally, characters have gimmicks which give them special abilities or flaws. To resolve an action, a character adds up all the factors involved in the task and compares them to a chart called “effort required to succeed”. If his point total is higher than or equal to the number on the chart, the action is a success. Everything else is a variation on this process, including special combat actions and contested action rules. Since it is a diceless system, there is no random factor in the process. Most of the time, your character is either going to be able to do it or not. Luckily, you do get to pump up your final tally by adding in luck or using another of your mutable traits. In most instances though, if you aren’t good enough to do it in the first place, you aren’t going to get it done in the game. To test the system, I built a starting character, a private investigator named Jack Malone. The strength of the system made itself very apparent – my investigator was a fairly average guy. If things were not going his way, he wasn’t going to be able to stand in the heat. At first, I was somewhat disappointed with this, but after I thought about it, I really took to it. I am a big fan of film noir, and I felt that this would be the system I used if I ran a noir game. It is very gritty and will keep your players thinking about ways to turn odds in their favor. Since actions are influenced not just by a character’s ability but by environment and other factors, Jack Malone would be forced to play it smart if he was going to solve his case. The creator of the game, Brett Bernstein, informed that the playtest rules only cover average human characters. The complete version will continue information for above average and heroic level characters. Of course, I can fix this too by just upping the point value during character creation. Overall Action Exploits has promise. Sure, it is a diceless system, but I was very surprised to find that I liked it. The layout and well-defined charts set it heads and tails above most free or for-sale PDFs out on the market alone. Currently, the version has no examples and is not complete (several gimmicks were not defined). Since it is a playtest version, I didn’t find this degrading. If you are looking to get involved on the ground level of what looks to be a fun system, go grab it from pigames.net. Otherwise, you still might want to take a look at it again in the future -- when it gets a bit more developed. Already, several settings are being prepared to take advantage of Action Exploits, including my own Army of Judgement. For a 13-page free PDF, Action Exploits delivers the goods.