Mechanics: Telling Time
Most of the time that passes in-game flows at the pace of storytelling. However, once things get stressful, such as in combat, it may become important for everyone to keep track of what happens when, and who can act at which times.
When this happens, play is tracked in rounds. A round is an abstraction of time in which all the players in a scene get to do a few things. Each character in play gets one turn every round. During their turn, a character can perform a small number of actions, usually three or fewer. Once everyone has acted, a new round begins and everyone gets another chance to act.
There are four types of actions that a character can take: Long actions, Medium actions, Short actions, and Reflex actions. These designations are abstractions of how much time and attention a given action demands. In one turn a character can perform either; a Reflex action, a Short action, and a Medium action; or a Reflex action and one Long action. Regardless of what other actions are taken, a character can always take one Reflex action in a turn. In addition, you can always use a slot allotted for a longer action to perform a shorter one. For instance, instead of performing a short and a medium action, you could do two short actions.
It is possible to spend more or less time on a given action, but there are costs to trying to do too much too fast. A Medium or Long action can be performed as if it were the next category smaller, but any rolls involved are Minorly Hindered. For instance, if you are climbing (normally a Medium action) but also want to attack (another Medium action), you will have to do one of the two as a Short action and it will be Minorly Hindered.
Alternatively, you can perform any action as longer one. This represents taking extra care with your effort to the exclusion of other possibilities. When you extend an action, any rolls involved in that action are at +1 Precision. An action can only benefit from being extended once. A Short action can be turned into a Medium action, but does not receive the bonus again if it is instead extended to a Long action.
Reflex actions are the only actions that can be taken out of turn, and then only under special circumstances. Certain abilities allow you to use a Reflex action when it is not your turn, but they use up your Reflex action on your next turn after it.
