NARRATIVE ideas help for luck-based character?

[Snapdragyn]

TL;DR: Need narrative (not rules-based) ideas for specific luck-based manifestations of magical talent in a low-point campaign. Does not have to be based on luck dice pool; could be anything with 'luck' as the fluff.



I'm about to be starting a new campaign w/ my old Heroes group. The guy DMing this one has given us the following info:

- Low power level (I forget the match of terms with points range, but thing 'hero', not typical 'superhero').

- Urban fantasy - magic exists, but is not widely/known recognized. Characters work for an 'in the know' private corporation interested in investigating/acquiring reports of magical phenomena/items.

- DM DESIGNS CHARACTERS - this is the biggy. We're supposed to provide an entirely NARRATIVE description of what our character does, with NO reference to rules - so no 'uses song to buff allies through Change Environment'.

The trouble I'm having is that I keep getting either too general in my description (like 'buffs allies' - what does that mean? what does it do?) or too specific/rulesy (the aforementioned 'Change Environment' when I was trying to say that he would proved everyone in the group a better chance to avoid being hit). I've got that my guy is Irish-American, with the 'blood of the bards' (uses music as his ability for whatever spell-casting he does) & the 'luck of the Irish' (his magical talents are all luck-based, at least in fluff - not all, or even any necessarily, based on luck dice).

So, anyone have some suggestions of specific-but-narrative manifestations of 'luck' that a buff/debuff-focused, support/5th wheel role character could have? Here's what I managed to come up with so far & had emailed to the GM, but I'm not sure it's really quite enough (& doesn't go much into the buff/debuff stuff, which is a bit of a miss from what I really wanted for the concept):

There's a feel of the general 'lucky fellow' - like the person who always has perfect parking karma. The 'extra lucky' - like searching a desk or bookshelf & just close his eyes and grab just what he was after, or flip a book open on the page that contained exactly what he needed.

That last part could even get into a bit of luck-based divination, which I like but it shouldn't be his main focus - he's not really 'the information guy', he's 'the lucky guy'. He'd be more likely to assist 'the information guy' if we have one by asking what they needed - then putting his finger right on it (or throwing a lucky dart at it - which would be cool for hardcopy, but lol if it's on a computer; still, maybe a fun thought.).

He definitely has a bit of a rough background, and may play the 'tough' role in the party. From a role perspective, in fact, that's probably his strongest fit - although you know my preference for jack of all trades/support characters, & I think this lends well to that. Definitely some room for stealthing, too, either by walking through areas right as guards look away/go on break/have a camera fritz out (think the mall scene in Minority Report, but luck-based instead of precognition-based) or just using a bit of charisma to bluff his way through.

I have this vision of him leading the team up to the desk of a guard nervous at seeing us all walk in after hours, & when questioned replying 'Us? Oh, we're just here to take THAT elevator up to the executive suite, where my friend <actual name a> here will blow the vault after <actual name b> disables the mechanical AND magical alarms - oh, didn't you know they had magical alarms? - & then we'll smash out the window & climb into the helicopter which our buddy <actual name c> will be flying for us (he's not here, obviously; probably already got the whirlybird fired up & ready, though)... yeah, that or we're the HVAC crew here to fix your air conditioning system' - and, you know, by the strangest coincidence the previous guard DID mention that there was a problem with the air, so the guard just laughs off his weird sense of humor & buzzes them all up. I think the best part of this luck manifestation would be making it work ONLY if he tells the ABSOLUTE truth.

Music is how he channels & focuses the general luck into the specific outcome or target or (in a not-entirely-specific way) intent. Parking spot luck is just natural. Enemy's get-away car running over a nail & blowing a tire (though the intent was probably not THAT specific; more 'we need to catch them/they can't get away') - that takes focus, will power, an effort on his part (in whatever game terms that gets reflected). Same with the luck that makes his otherwise standard bar-room brawler fighting skills into something that allows him to hold his own against a black belt - if he stopped (humming, whistling, whatever) while fighting, the black belt would trounce him

Spreading the luck to allies should be a greater challenge than focusing it just on himself - basic magical concepts there, as it's going past the natural affinity his own magic would have to work on himself and getting it to work on others, but only the specific others he chooses (& if it's the whole team at once, spreading it wider - & perhaps thinner, as well). Perhaps he crafts lucky talismans for his allies, or trades out items every few days which he's kept on himself to gain a bit of his 'essence', which can then make it easier for him to bring his power to bear on those who hold them? That could be a magical tap back to his power, too, so potential risk there if enemies were to acquire one. I kinda like that idea.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When you each in your pocket, you have just enough cash to pay for what you're buying. Just.

When your flashlight does, you have book of matches from a nightclub with a couple paper matches left in it, or maybe a bic lighter running on fumes.

Or maybe machines work for you of you give them a hard whack- that flashlight would operate for a little longer, for instance.

You have a tendency to duck at just the right moment. Or be in just the right place to overhear something.

You are..."Shamrock" Sean O'Malley, the luckiest man in the world.

 

[Celebrim]

To begin with, if you want narrative justification, write a background as narrative. Tell a story about your character illustrating how his luck comes into play in his life. In general, such a character is an 'unconscious caster'. He doesn't realize that he's doing anything, things just work out for him. Mechanically, I'm not sure I would represent him like a caster, but I'm not familiar enough with the HERO system to know how it handles being lucky. Lucky isn't a specific power.

I have a rules light system I use called SIPS, and one characters 'super power' was 'Fairy Luck', which was described simply as, "Things just work out in the characters favor." Mechanically this meant that any time that the player could narrate how their luck was helpful in this situation, they could apply the super power dice to the proposition (it's a basic is X+Y > difficulty type system). As a GM, I tend to use this to mean that, any coincidental thing that happened in the narrative (and game narratives are full of them) tended to have the PC as its epicenter.

As for the sort of things that happen if you are lucky:

a) You can find any sort of small resource you happen to need either lying around or in your pocket provided that a reasonable justification can be provided. Note though that if your system has a 'scrounging' mechanic or skill, this is just an enhancement of that skill.
b) Any skill you attempt has an additional chance of success, and you can attempt pretty much anything untrained. You try to open a lock - only to find the lock was already open. You try to hack into a computer, and easily guess the root password or find the administrator left session open. You try to be stealthy, and the guard just doesn't look in your direction or is distracted by a phone call at the critical moment. You try to pilot an airplane, and just have beginner's luck. In general, this is just a nearly universally applicable boost to all your skills - not a spell like ability that you conjure.

In D20, I'd equate 'luck' to widely applicable luck bonuses and a daily number of generally applicable rerolls. Many systems have something like 'Destiny Points'. Being lucky could mean just having a lot of those. In 5e, a character who was lucky would be something like, "X times per day you gain advantage on any roll."

For something like 'Buffs Allies', this represents an additional power - the ability to confer luck onto others. It's just donating to someone else whatever you can mechanically do yourself.

All of this is to say that I think the reason you are having problems going from mechanics to narrative is that Luck is a 'do anything' sort of power. There are no real boundaries to it. Your 'narrative', the purple text, is focused on the mechanics you want to have as a character and trying to figure out how to force the GM to give you those particular mechanics. I think that defeats the purpose. Tell a good story about the character, and don't worry as much about the implementation.