Heroic Option...

[Sifu Blackirish]

I remember reading a thread a while back about handling cinematic effects in TRAVELLER. Pretty good, but no real numbers came to my head. So, I made a chart and...

BROWNIE POINTS
1-lifetime
2-campaign (3 adv modules)
3-two double adv
4-single adv)
5-session
6-encounter

While we're at it, how about tweaking characters?

CHARACTERS
1-none (2d6 in order)
2-3d6 in order
3-shuffle (2d6 X 7, drop lowest, use in order)
4-3d6 X 7 shuffle
5-No 1S (reroll any 1 on a d6 unless rolling for SOC)
6-double shuffle (2d6, drop lowest, place anywhere)

You know those dice have been sitting in a box too long.
You need to roll something.
...do it now...

 

[saundby]

One system I played under that I liked didn't tweak characters at all. Basically, if you did something exceptional, the ref would silently note it. If you came down to a situation where you needed to do the impossible, you called on "The Auditors" (ala Gordon Dickson's The Dragon and The George), and plead to get a pass (or even a roll) with a sort of brief "This is Your Life" episode where you'd try to make your case to bend reality.

Allowed the ref to encourage what he wanted in the game, limit its use, and keep players guessing to some degree. Usually you had to commit yourself to the action before the call. Jump off the cliff, take the shot, wrench the controls, whatever. Then hope the Auditors would listen.

Sometimes, if you'd really played heroically from an IG perspective, you'd be told to mark that you had a call on the Auditors on your sheet, so you knew you had one in the bank. The decision could still go against you, but you knew you'd get a favorable hearing unless you were being a .

 

[ShapeShifter]

I'm all in favour of extending the UPP's to include a LUCK attribute (1D only).
A luck point can be spent to halve (incoming) damage (to shrug off injury), doubling parry numbers, allow a reroll, or kick in a feature like 'exploding dice' to boost various mechanics, receive 1 clue from the ref, &c. These things might help to make a more 'heroic' and less gritty campaign, for all those players who hate having to go through chargen all over again.

 

[Cryton]

how about when you spend one, you roll 3d for a task and keep the results of the best two dice.......

 

[aramis]

I'm all in favour of extending the UPP's to include a LUCK attribute (1D only).
A luck point can be spent to halve (incoming) damage (to shrug off injury), doubling parry numbers, allow a reroll, or kick in a feature like 'exploding dice' to boost various mechanics, receive 1 clue from the ref, &c. These things might help to make a more 'heroic' and less gritty campaign, for all those players who hate having to go through chargen all over again.

I'd make Luck a 2d stat, and have it be a per-session pool of ±1 DM's usable after rolling.

Burning a point of luck permanently gets stronger stuff like "mistakenly left for dead" and "No roll needed critical success"....

 

[Fovean]

Weird!

I've been toying with a Luck stat as well, DEX+INT/2 (thinking about adding 1D6 to this...)

Use it like JoT skill to pull off 'cinematic' actions but every use permanently reduces it by 1.

 

[Icosahedron]

I'm toying with the system from Chain Reaction, where characters have a 'star rating', a sort of cinematic ranking ranging from Level-0 (mooks) to Level-6 (legendary heroes) this ties in neatly with skill ranks.
It links to initiative, and one key point with the system is that nobody can be killed by a character lower down the 'cast list'.
Needs some work, but I like it.

 

[ShapeShifter]

I'm toying with the system from Chain Reaction, where characters have a 'star rating', a sort of cinematic ranking ranging from Level-0 (mooks) to Level-6 (legendary heroes) this ties in neatly with skill ranks.

Sounds like a nifty mechanic. Care to provide a little more detail?

So far, this thread has rattled loose a few neat ideas. Keep 'em coming!

 

[OjnoTheRed]

I remember the James Bond Role Playing Game (by Victory Games) had a "Hero Point" system (and corresponding "Survival Point" for the bad guys).

It was closely tied to the task system. The results of the task system were always rated as to quality of result - basically instead of a single "succeed / fail" roll, there was a table split between something like fail, marginal success, good, very good, and excellent. Whenever a player spent a hero point, they could raise a result from one quality result to the next better one. So fail becomes marginal success, very good becomes excellent, etc. Some tasks (e.g. interpersonal tasks) required very good or excellent results to practically get what the players needed - e.g. persuading Goldfinger to turn off that laser creeping up the solid gold table towards the crotch of the agent chained to it. In these situations, barring a bit of luck, the players needed to ensure they had a supply of hero points.

Hero points were earned by the players for every "excellent" result they scored on any non combat task. Published adventure material also provided role-playing opportunities. One good device was a message using a basic cipher - a prop supplied the actual ciphered message. The players had the option for rolling a standard task using a skill to solve it (with a reasonable chance of earning a HP for an 'excellent' result), or if they nutted it out themselves to earn 2 HP's.

It's this latter use that I think could be applied here. Basically it's a device for the Referee to have some currency to reward the kind of play he or she likes, and to set it up so the players still have key decisions.

One simple idea (scaled down from Hero Points) is something like the Brownie Point idea from the Mega Traveller - which is only used during the character creation process. I am assuming a Classic Traveller throw, UGM or a Mega Traveller UTP-like system with a target number on 2D determining difficulty.

It would work something like: whenever a character gets an exceptional success result (without spending brownie points) on a non-combat and non-vehicular operations task, they earn a brownie point. They can spend a Brownie Point for a +1 DM to the throw on any task. Additionally, the Referee can target other things during play to award Brownie Points.

A similar currency can be used in AT points in Mega Traveller. While the rules are straightforward - determine skills that were used during the session and then award 1 AT point with some restrictions in game-time - the referee can get creative about awarding AT points for, e.g. tactics skill where the players show imagination during combat.

 

[Icosahedron]

Sounds like a nifty mechanic. Care to provide a little more detail?

So far, this thread has rattled loose a few neat ideas. Keep 'em coming!

Check out whatever you want for yourself, the rules are free.

http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/CR3.0.htm

The general rules make for a quick and dirty skirmish set, too. Not particularly detailed for the gearhead side of me, but on the whole, I'm impressed.

Makes for a good 'Enter the Dragon' or James Bond finale type scene. The normal Traveller rules would have your PCs coming out of those in wooden boxes, which is a realistic but not very satisfying end to your game.

 

[fiat_knox]

Makes for a good 'Enter the Dragon' or James Bond finale type scene. The normal Traveller rules would have your PCs coming out of those in wooden boxes, which is a realistic but not very satisfying end to your game.

That made me laugh.

 

[BlackBat242]

I'm toying with the system from Chain Reaction, where characters have a 'star rating', a sort of cinematic ranking ranging from Level-0 (mooks) to Level-6 (legendary heroes) this ties in neatly with skill ranks.
It links to initiative, and one key point with the system is that nobody can be killed by a character lower down the 'cast list'.
Needs some work, but I like it.

"Immunity to lesser creatures" in Traveller makes Grandfather cry.
:nonono:

 

[JAFARR]

I assume that below average PCs will stay home where they are safe and secure. So, I allow players to roll 1d6 + 6 for all stats except Education and social status. This gives a minimum stat of 7 and an average of 10.5 for the physical stats and intelligence. With those stats you can survive a very low Ed or SS.

As for a "Luck" stat, there used to be one of those low budget SiFi RPGs (Half page booklet that looked like it was mimeographed and stapled together. Chock full of typos) that gave you (the PC) a luck stat of 6. When you moved to another area, you rolled 2d6 for incounters (had to get a 7 to re-stock anything and everything) and the random incounters rolled 1d6 to resolve. Unless specified, each encounter took 6 hours so you could get in 3 encounters a day + 6 hours of sleep. It could take 2 weeks in a starport just to make contact with a supplier to refuel your ship. Meanwhile, you had used up half the month without being able to move somewhere to make money to make your ship payment. The basic objective was to pay off your ship before you went broke. If you won the game, you lowered your luck by 1. If you lost, you added 1 to your luck. Don't think I ever got my luck down to zero. You used the luck to offset or negate bad results somehow. Don't remember just how that worked.

Edit. Just found it. Called "Star Smuggler", and they called it Cunning, not Luck. Roll Cunning or less to succeed when given that option.