There is a readied-action tag (101 questions tagged, 43 asked this year) with the following guidance:
An action "held" to react to an anticipated circumstance.
There is also a triggered-actions tag (only 12 questions tagged, only 2 asked this year) and no guidance.
Are these two tags distinct? If not, should one be a synonym of the other? Otherwise, if so, what should be the tag guidance for triggered-actions?
I think "readied action" is fine as-is, and "triggered-actions" could probably use a usage guide if it's meaningful. My gut says that it doesn't have meaning beyond "stuff happens when other stuff happens" and it's impossible to be a system-agnostic expert on the concept.
In other words, they are not synonyms, readied-action should stay, and triggered-actions should probably be removed unless someone can make a usage guide that merits keeping it.
A readied action is an action that a player would choose to hold onto until a trigger occurs, at which point the action is performed. They have to have the forethought to expect some circumstance that they wish to react to.
A triggered-action doesn't require that kind of forethought. It's an action that is effectively "always on stand-by" without you needing to do anything.
For many games, an attack of opportunity would be a kind of triggered action because you don't have to explicitly have to be on the look-out for a situation to arise to take one. An enemy moves out of your reach, or casts a spell in front of you, or drinks a potion while engaged with you and it triggers a response.
Triggered actions are actions that you take in response to some stimulus without having to explicitly anticipate that circumstance beforehand.
