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What is a turn

In Nazarax, events happen based on a system of “rounds” and “turns”. A round is a grouping of turns, once every currently active player and NPC has finished taking their turn, a round ends. Whenever a new round starts, the time-of-day changes, the weather has a chance to change, and every group will have to pass a new encounter check during their first player’s turn. There are 20 rounds in a day. A turn is the time during which a specific character can take initiative to do something. There are no strict rules surrounding what is defined as enough to fill an entire turn, but as a general rule of thumb doing one “action” will fill an entire turn, so while getting to a shop and buying items will only take 1 turn if you instantly find the shop (luck or intelligence check), if you fail and have to look for the shop first, it will count as two actions, and thus, take two turns. Things like conversations only take one turn, and while generally, depending on the actions you try and take, having higher stats can allow you to do more things in a turn, some actions will always take a full turn like swapping the item you are holding mid-fight or using an attack or skill (with some exceptions in the case of skills). But whatever the case, it is up to the DM to determine what is permitted within a single turn and exceptions can always be made to allow games to move faster or to flow more naturally. While your own turn is technically the only time where you can take initiative to do something, reacting to things does not require you to expand your turn, so, if someone talks to you, their turn is used, not yours, or if you block an attack with an agility or luck check, the attacker’s turn is used, not yours.

Turn Order

The turn order is, as the name implies, the order in which turns are taken. The turn order is first determined at the start of a game session and can be anything really, the only rule regarding it is that players in the same party need to play their turns one after the other with no one else in between. The only time the turn order is ever changed while in game is when a player is added to a group or a new group is formed and requires the turn order to be changed to allow each player in that group to take their turn one after the other1.

Player Group APlayer Group BPlayer Group CPlayer 1Player 2Player 3Player 4Player 5Player 6

Encounters (or event) checks are done once every round before the turn of the first player that gets a turn in each group unless an encounter is already ongoing.

When an encounter check leads to NPCs spawning, depending on the situation, the newly spawned character group will either take their turn(s) before the player group or after them. The NPCs will take their turn(s) before the players if the situation makes them take initiative first (the players didn’t notice their approach, or didn’t have time to act before the enemies already started doing something), while players would take their turn(s) before the NPCs if they noticed them first, or were able to approach them without being noticed.

Durations

Some items and skills have a duration, which is the amount of turn their effect lasts. A duration only starts going down once the “effect” first has a chance to come into play and reduces whenever one of these chances come, even if the effect is blocked or left unused, the fact the effect could’ve come into play means its duration will go down. The next page contains a few diagrams to help visualize this principal.

Combat Example:

  • There are 5 players.
  • Player 1 is alone shopping.
  • Player 2 is alone reading.
  • Player 3-4-5 are in a group.
First TurnEnd of this round of turnsTime of day and weather are recalculatedSecond TurnEnd of this round of turnsTime of day and weather are recalculatedThird TurnEnd of this round of turnsTime of day and weather are recalculatedPlayer 1's turnBuying itemsPlayer 2's turnReading a bookPlayer 3-4-5's group moves tilesRandom encounterPlayer 3's turnCombatPlayer 4's turnCombatPlayer 5's turnUses a buff on his entire party that lasts 1 turnPlayer 1's turnBuying itemsPlayer 2's turnReading a bookPlayer 3-4-5's group are still in combatRandom encounterPlayer 3's turnCombatPlayer 4's turnCombatPlayer 5's turnCombatPlayer 1's turnBuying itemsPlayer 2's turnReading a bookPlayer 3-4-5's group are still in combatRandom encounterPlayer 3's turnKills the first banditPlayer 4's turnKills the second and third banditPlayer 5's turnBandit 1's turnCombatBandit 2's turnCombatBandit 3's turnCombatBandit 1's turnCombatBandit 2's turnCombatBandit 3's turnCombatBandit 1's turnCombatBandit 2's turnCombatBandit 3's turnCombat  Encounter fails to beginEncounter fails to beginRandom encounter beginsBandits notice the player group and the designated player for the luck check to notice the bandit failsA buff is usedEncounter fails to beginEncounter fails to beginThe turn order stays the sameBuff duration is reduced by 1 (now 0)Encounter fails to beginEncounter fails to beginRandom encounter beginsBandits notice the player's groupDoesn't take combat actionIs allowed to move a tile with his teamTakes combat action

  1. Players who have already had a turn during the current round won’t get a second turn even if, after being added to a party, the turn order is changed in a way that makes it so they should have a turn again during the same round. ↩