"Coolness" Bonuses

Saw this post over at Tower of Zenopus about City of Heroes and it got me thinking.

I used to like to give out FATE points, Fudge points, Bennies, etc. to players when they did something "cool."  When they took a risk or made everyone laugh or caused a roar from the crowd.

Awhile back, I bought these Old School Bonus Cards at RPGNow.  I haven't used them yet.  Mostly because I don't have any thieves in my game.  That's not really a good excuse, but it eliminates 25% of the deck...

Here's my idea.  (This is untested, but I think I'll be trying it out ASAP)

Get out a deck of cards.

Spades = Combat

Hearts = Healing

Diamonds = Treasure/Certain Skills (lockpicking, find traps, find secret doors)

Clubs = Social/Reaction/All Other Skills

Take out the face cards, leaving just the Ace through 10's.

Anytime a player does something cool with their character, give them a card.  They can have as many cards as they want, but there's only one deck.  If all the cards are in the hands of the players, no one else can get one.

I'd let players trade cards anytime during the game.  If they are in the middle of something, like combat or a social encounter, I'd make them explain HOW they use one of their cards to help their buddy.

I probably will only allow the use of two cards MAX per action; one of yours and one from a buddy (to encourage teamwork).

So, here's how the cards work.  You give the DM the card you want to use and you roll a d12.

• If you roll LESS THAN BUT NOT EQUAL TO the number on your card, you get a +1 or +5% bonus to what you are doing.
• If you roll EXACTLY THE NUMBER ON YOUR CARD you get a +2 or 10% bonus to what you are doing.
• If you ROLL A 12 you get a +3 or 15% bonus.
• If you ROLL AN 11 (Snake Eyes) you get nothing.

For Hearts, I might allow the use of the bonus as extra dice or rerolls --

• +1 = reroll the healing attempt and take the better result OR roll an extra d6
• +2 = reroll the healing attempt OR roll an extra d8
• +3 = reroll the healing attempt OR roll an extra d12

I plan to implement this system right away in my CotMA game.  We'll see how it goes.

Relationship Maps

Over at Hack & Slash, -C posted a relationship map.  I haven't read his entire post (yet) but that map triggered an impulse in me to GO FIND THIS MAP!!!

Here it is.  It's from a FATE-based game that I started and never finished about 5 or 6 years ago.  I really had grand plans for a kind of guided-sandboxy thing, with a big reveal at the end if the heroes ever found out the big secret...  :)

Enjoy!

click to embiggen

A Couple of OSR Additions to My Collection

I've printed and bound (into little paperback books) two great resources from out there in the blogosphere.

Hill Cantons Compendium has some alternate character generation rules and some class options.

Pars Fortuna - Basic is a new "retro clone" with a charm all its own.

Check them out and make your own books.  You won't regret it.

I remember when ROLEplaying wasn't ROLLplaying...

Watch this clip starting at around 3:00.



Don't get me wrong.  I love Wil Wheaton and there are parts of the scenario that I enjoyed.  I just don't like the part where Chris tells the players that they'll be rolling Streetwise.  Get 2 successes.  Good?  Done.  Now roll Intimidate or Diplomacy.  Get 2 successes.  Good?  Done.

I like the creative part with the Arcana skill.  I'd probably do the same, but when is it that the players get to come up with ideas?

How do they want to find poor Aeofel?  How did they know that they should go beat up some NPCs if the DM didn't tell them?  What about being in character?  What about actually asking the NPCs questions?  What about dead ends?  Wrong questions?  Lies and half-truths?  What about actually acting out the intimidation?

The whole "rollplaying" part seems like a railroad to me...

Then there's the part about making an Arcana check to figure out how the portal works (cop out!), and don't get me started about 1 hp minions...  It took poor Wil five minutes to describe a freaking zombie...  Ugh.