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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 8075467" data-attributes="member: 32164">Randomness, Action Points, and Narrative Control:One truism of games is that we're always trying to balance random chance with giving players a degree of narrative control. Some groups take the attitude of letting the dice fall where they may, whereas others prefer a cooperative storytelling game where NOTHING is random. And as usual, many (most?) people's ideal is somewhere in the middle.In my opinion, the ideal system would give players some degree, but not complete, control over their characters' fate. One way to do this is to create a system that is "fair," and then deliberately create things that tilt the odds in favor of the PCs, who are, after all, heroes in this scenario. If these dials exist and are explicitly spelled out, a group that prefers "grittier" outcomes can simply remove some of the things that give the PCs more control over their fate. So, what should we do to balance this?The first is a way to offset the inherent randomness of the basic determinator - for example, one could give Player Characters (and important NPCs) a permanent +1d6 to all checks - exactly what "Action Points" did as an option. This is great way to set heroes (and significant villains) apart from "ordinary people." Why are these people special? Simple. Because they're the scenario's important characters. Personally, I don't think that Stormtrooper #6 should have as much control over the outcome as, say, Han Solo, but Boba Fett probably should. YMMV.Another thing is to provide some kind of Luck Points, by whatever name you want to call them, that are a limited resource, spendable by the player, to gain a little more control over the game's outcome. This can be a delicate balancing act - give too many and the game ceases to be a challenge, but if there are too few, the players can start to feel like they have no control. Note that this metric is entirely capable of being dialed to whatever level suits a particular group. Do you want your players to be a little more "favored by the gods" and/or be able to do more wild stuff? Just give them more Luck Points. As an aside, Savage Worlds suggests giving out more Bennies (its version of this) for good roleplaying, making the game fun, or even for being clever, heroic, or particularly imaginative. Finally, let's talk about wounds. Personally, I like a mechanic that lets PCs survive being hit more times than the average bad guy, but I'm not sure if I need or want to have to track conditions like that for every single NPC. I'm not 100% sure where the sweet spot is, but in principle, I kinda like how Savage Worlds does it.If a character is hit, absent spending a Benny (the SW version of Luck Points), they can be either okay, shaken or wounded (to varying degrees). The mechanic works like this:On a successful hit, roll damage vs. Toughness (Armor provides a bonus to Toughness - DR in D&D terms).Success - The target is Shaken.Each "Raise" - The target takes a wound.A "Shaken" target who is shaken again (but has no wounds) takes a wound...and is still Shaken. This is a way of representing the ability for multiple small hits to wound. A "Shaken" character can either make a successful Vigor check as a free action to try to recover, or spend a Benny to lose the condition at any time.In many ways, the Savage Worlds system works exactly like the Damage Track from Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds. In essence, the core of both systems is: the result of a die-roll vs a Target Number results in one of a number of conditions.In my next post, I'll cover "Conditions," injuries, and take my first stab (heh) at a damage track/system.</blockquote>

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