I really dislike the episode/act structure described in the Tome of Adventure. It doesn't really fit my more improvisational style of gamemastering, and I have a hard time getting my head around what should be an episode, and what should be an act, and all the examples in the book really aren't helping. I can easily see myself wasting a lot of my mental bandwidth during a game trying to figure out how to break down what's going on into acts.

I could just drop it, but the problem is that the Rally Point mechanic is tied in to it, and dropping Rally Points looks like it could upset the balance of the game, making things significantly harder for the players.

Fortunately, I've thought of an alternative: save points. Some of the examples given of determining the end of an act include things like transitioning to a different area, and facing the big boss. In video games these points are often where the game does an autosave. I've decided to try introducing Rally Points whenever a save point would appear if the RPG I'm running were instead a video game. It's a structure I can more easily wrap my head around without having to spend too much time thinking about it.

I thought I'd throw the idea out there in case it helps anyone else who's having difficulty with the episode/act structure.

I think save points are the exact wrong analog for rally points. A save point is a point in the story where you can turn the TV off and come back to the game next week. A rally point is a point in the battle when you can push pause, stand up and take a bathroom trip.

Use rally points to break up battles. Instead of just fighting a mob of beastmen in one big blob, spread them out into waves, with a rally step between waves. If you're fighting the climactic battle against the chaos cultists, have a rally step when a bolt of lightning strikes the altar and everyone pauses in shock. Use a rally step when the PCs are negotiating to buy a rare painting on behalf of their employer and suddenly a new buyer enters the bidding.