Keys (ala Lady Blackbird) 1

One of my favorite parts of Lady Blackbird was the "Keys" system. It was the first personality mechanic I ever saw that didn't suck. I think there were several reasons for this: the keys were fairly specific instead of maddeningly vague; they triggered off of actual events in-game instead of internal monologue; and they had these cool buyoff conditions so that you weren't locked in to a personality mechanic you didn't like but you couldn't just change your personality any time you wanted, either.

And I've been frustrated by D&D 5e's "characteristics" system (traits, bonds, ideals, flaws). Each character has 5 traits so in a group of 4 that's 20 different characteristics that the DM has to watch out for. And the characteristics vary between obvious and significant, to small things that you role-play continuously. So the characteristics may have some value in helping people role-play but I don't think they're super useful as a way to hand out inspiration.

So I tried to port the Keys to D&D, by stealing ideas from the Blackbird Companion, Savage Worlds, and of course the characteristics in chapter 5. My emphasis was on keys that had a fairly clear trigger; that would relate to meaningful events in the game; that would occur often enough to be worth considering; and that fit the D&D genre (by which I mean, I tried to think back to the kinds of stuff I've seen players do to portray their characters). There's some trade-off between these things. Like Key of the Wilds won't happen very often, so the standard for "meaningfulness" is lowered to compensate; but I included it because I've seen so many players do this instinctively as an easy way of role-playing.

I really want to use Keys as an alternate XP system, but I included this only as an optional variant because it's so different from the default assumptions of D&D. These XP numbers (actually, all the numbers in the document) are pretty wild guesses. Using keys for madness, and demonic madness, is also not as satisfying as I'd like. I considered a single Key of Madness but that seemed like a weak option too. I also struggled to create a Key of Law, Key of Chaos and Key of Neutrality -- since these are classic D&D personality mechanics -- but they are such broad concepts I couldn't figure out how to phrase them (which may be why they've always been so contentious).

This is very much a work-in-progress so please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions!

One of my favorite parts of Lady Blackbird was the "Keys" system. It was the first personality mechanic I ever saw that didn't suck. I think there were several reasons for this: the keys were fairly specific instead of maddeningly vague; they triggered off of actual events in-game instead of internal monologue; and they had these cool buyoff conditions so that you weren't locked in to a personality mechanic you didn't like but you couldn't just change your personality any time you wanted, either.

And I've been frustrated by D&D 5e's "characteristics" system (traits, bonds, ideals, flaws). Each character has 5 traits so in a group of 4 that's 20 different characteristics that the DM has to watch out for. And the characteristics vary between obvious and significant, to small things that you role-play continuously. So the characteristics may have some value in helping people role-play but I don't think they're super useful as a way to hand out inspiration.

So I tried to port the Keys to D&D, by stealing ideas from the Blackbird Companion, Savage Worlds, and of course the characteristics in chapter 5. My emphasis was on keys that had a fairly clear trigger; that would relate to meaningful events in the game; that would occur often enough to be worth considering; and that fit the D&D genre (by which I mean, I tried to think back to the kinds of stuff I've seen players do to portray their characters). There's some trade-off between these things. Like Key of the Wilds won't happen very often, so the standard for "meaningfulness" is lowered to compensate; but I included it because I've seen so many players do this instinctively as an easy way of role-playing.

I really want to use Keys as an alternate XP system, but I included this only as an optional variant because it's so different from the default assumptions of D&D. These XP numbers (actually, all the numbers in the document) are pretty wild guesses. Using keys for madness, and demonic madness, is also not as satisfying as I'd like. I considered a single Key of Madness but that seemed like a weak option too. I also struggled to create a Key of Law, Key of Chaos and Key of Neutrality -- since these are classic D&D personality mechanics -- but they are such broad concepts I couldn't figure out how to phrase them (which may be why they've always been so contentious).

This is very much a work-in-progress so please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions!

One of my favorite parts of Lady Blackbird was the "Keys" system. It was the first personality mechanic I ever saw that didn't suck. I think there were several reasons for this: the keys were fairly specific instead of maddeningly vague; they triggered off of actual events in-game instead of internal monologue; and they had these cool buyoff conditions so that you weren't locked in to a personality mechanic you didn't like but you couldn't just change your personality any time you wanted, either.

And I've been frustrated by D&D 5e's "characteristics" system (traits, bonds, ideals, flaws). Each character has 5 traits so in a group of 4 that's 20 different characteristics that the DM has to watch out for. And the characteristics vary between obvious and significant, to small things that you role-play continuously. So the characteristics may have some value in helping people role-play but I don't think they're super useful as a way to hand out inspiration.

So I tried to port the Keys to D&D, by stealing ideas from the Blackbird Companion, Savage Worlds, and of course the characteristics in chapter 5. My emphasis was on keys that had a fairly clear trigger; that would relate to meaningful events in the game; that would occur often enough to be worth considering; and that fit the D&D genre (by which I mean, I tried to think back to the kinds of stuff I've seen players do to portray their characters). There's some trade-off between these things. Like Key of the Wilds won't happen very often, so the standard for "meaningfulness" is lowered to compensate; but I included it because I've seen so many players do this instinctively as an easy way of role-playing.

I really want to use Keys as an alternate XP system, but I included this only as an optional variant because it's so different from the default assumptions of D&D. These XP numbers (actually, all the numbers in the document) are pretty wild guesses. Using keys for madness, and demonic madness, is also not as satisfying as I'd like. I considered a single Key of Madness but that seemed like a weak option too. I also struggled to create a Key of Law, Key of Chaos and Key of Neutrality -- since these are classic D&D personality mechanics -- but they are such broad concepts I couldn't figure out how to phrase them (which may be why they've always been so contentious).

This is very much a work-in-progress so please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions!

One of my favorite parts of Lady Blackbird was the "Keys" system. It was the first personality mechanic I ever saw that didn't suck. I think there were several reasons for this: the keys were fairly specific instead of maddeningly vague; they triggered off of actual events in-game instead of internal monologue; and they had these cool buyoff conditions so that you weren't locked in to a personality mechanic you didn't like but you couldn't just change your personality any time you wanted, either.

And I've been frustrated by D&D 5e's "characteristics" system (traits, bonds, ideals, flaws). Each character has 5 traits so in a group of 4 that's 20 different characteristics that the DM has to watch out for. And the characteristics vary between obvious and significant, to small things that you role-play continuously. So the characteristics may have some value in helping people role-play but I don't think they're super useful as a way to hand out inspiration.

So I tried to port the Keys to D&D, by stealing ideas from the Blackbird Companion, Savage Worlds, and of course the characteristics in chapter 5. My emphasis was on keys that had a fairly clear trigger; that would relate to meaningful events in the game; that would occur often enough to be worth considering; and that fit the D&D genre (by which I mean, I tried to think back to the kinds of stuff I've seen players do to portray their characters). There's some trade-off between these things. Like Key of the Wilds won't happen very often, so the standard for "meaningfulness" is lowered to compensate; but I included it because I've seen so many players do this instinctively as an easy way of role-playing.

I really want to use Keys as an alternate XP system, but I included this only as an optional variant because it's so different from the default assumptions of D&D. These XP numbers (actually, all the numbers in the document) are pretty wild guesses. Using keys for madness, and demonic madness, is also not as satisfying as I'd like. I considered a single Key of Madness but that seemed like a weak option too. I also struggled to create a Key of Law, Key of Chaos and Key of Neutrality -- since these are classic D&D personality mechanics -- but they are such broad concepts I couldn't figure out how to phrase them (which may be why they've always been so contentious).

This is very much a work-in-progress so please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions!

One of my favorite parts of Lady Blackbird was the "Keys" system. It was the first personality mechanic I ever saw that didn't suck. I think there were several reasons for this: the keys were fairly specific instead of maddeningly vague; they triggered off of actual events in-game instead of internal monologue; and they had these cool buyoff conditions so that you weren't locked in to a personality mechanic you didn't like but you couldn't just change your personality any time you wanted, either.

And I've been frustrated by D&D 5e's "characteristics" system (traits, bonds, ideals, flaws). Each character has 5 traits so in a group of 4 that's 20 different characteristics that the DM has to watch out for. And the characteristics vary between obvious and significant, to small things that you role-play continuously. So the characteristics may have some value in helping people role-play but I don't think they're super useful as a way to hand out inspiration.

So I tried to port the Keys to D&D, by stealing ideas from the Blackbird Companion, Savage Worlds, and of course the characteristics in chapter 5. My emphasis was on keys that had a fairly clear trigger; that would relate to meaningful events in the game; that would occur often enough to be worth considering; and that fit the D&D genre (by which I mean, I tried to think back to the kinds of stuff I've seen players do to portray their characters). There's some trade-off between these things. Like Key of the Wilds won't happen very often, so the standard for "meaningfulness" is lowered to compensate; but I included it because I've seen so many players do this instinctively as an easy way of role-playing.

I really want to use Keys as an alternate XP system, but I included this only as an optional variant because it's so different from the default assumptions of D&D. These XP numbers (actually, all the numbers in the document) are pretty wild guesses. Using keys for madness, and demonic madness, is also not as satisfying as I'd like. I considered a single Key of Madness but that seemed like a weak option too. I also struggled to create a Key of Law, Key of Chaos and Key of Neutrality -- since these are classic D&D personality mechanics -- but they are such broad concepts I couldn't figure out how to phrase them (which may be why they've always been so contentious).

This is very much a work-in-progress so please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions!