The game uses actions to govern how much you can do at one time. You can take only one action at a time. This principle is most important in combat, as explained in “Combat” later in “Playing the Game.” Actions can come up in other situations, too: in a social interaction, you can try to Influence a creature or use the Search action to read the creature’s body language, but you can’t do both at the same time. And when you’re exploring a dungeon, you can’t simultaneously use the Search action to look for traps and use the Help action to aid another character who’s trying to open a stuck door (with the Utilize action).