Feedback appreciated! Especially regarding the Keys, since I've never used these before and might well have messed up the process of making my own.
Looks great! Your Keys do exactly what I want them to do, which is to provide me with guidelines for the kind of stuff you want your character to do.
The Keys are a neat idea. I would suggest using them as a story-award bonus, kind of like Hero points. Each point you earn allows you to re-roll a miss, skill check etc... but for [X] amount of XP, you can basically write a scene in the story, influencing the events and making it an interactive experience. How that would work, or if it would work, is up in the air, I think.
I didn't add any sort of bennie point/FATE point/action point thing, because I didn't want to put too many house rules up there, but I usually use one. At the table, I have a bag of golden d4s, and give one to a player when he does something awesome. He can roll that d4 at any time to add to any d20 roll, but once used, it loses its charge. He can then give it to another player for doing something awesome, and that player gets one use of it. I tend to have 3 or 4 bouncing around the table by the end of the session, and they all go back in the bag at the end of the session.
However, I don't think that'll work quite as well in a PbP game, since it relies on physical tokens. I also don't want to use experience points as a bennie, because then they tend to get horded and never used outside of extreme circumstances (at least, that's been my experience with systems that do that). If you guys are up for it, I'd like to try a system from the new Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition, modified slightly for this game:
Proxy Points
Proxies are the servants of deities and other Powers, imbued with divine power. For being a good player, the Power of Games (that's yer DM, berk) will make you his Proxy every so often.
Players start with 1 Proxy Point. They can gain a Proxy Point for being entertaining, clever, or interesting, writing well, or just generally being excellent.
Proxy Points can be used to:
- Edit a scene. Want there to be an antique sword hanging on the wall that you manage to grab and use to defend yourself? Want to meet a certain somebody in the Lady's Ward? Make it happen in your post, then let us know you've spent a point in an sblock beneath it. Please play nice with your godlike powers.
- Temporary feat. Gain the use of any feat until the end of the scene. Must make a certain amount of sense in context.
- Improve a roll. Take any d20 roll that came up 10 or less, and add 10 to it. This can get you a natural twenty, if you want it.
- Inspiration. Get a hint from the DM.
- Recover. Go from dying to 0 hit points and stable. You character regains consciousness, but still suffers all the negative effects of the disabled condition.
Sound good? I'll add it to the OP's House Rules section if you guys are interested in using it.