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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5721487" data-attributes="member: 21169">1979.That year precedes the two movies you referenced but I mention it because it is, I believe, the very first published attempt to make D&D more closely resemble the source fiction, Doug Green's article "Rewarding Heroism In D&D", in Dragon Magazine #29. One of the rules he suggests is a sort of early Hero Point mechanic - a PC fighting alone for the good of the party, ie being a hero, receives a major boost to his combat capabilities (attack as a character of double level, take half damage, 20% boost to everything else).One major difference is that Doug's "heroic act" is not under the control of the player. The player doesn't choose to spend a hero point to get the temporary stat increase, it happens whenever a PC is in the appropriate situation.Later Hero Point mechanics, in games such as James Bond 007 and Mutants & Masterminds, are under the player's control. They can be used to boost a PC's capabilities briefly, simulating action movie stunts and comic book heroes suddenly accessing a new power (which they never use again in subsequent issues), and even alter, or, it might be more correct to say determine, or pin down, details completely outside the PC's control. The example in James Bond 007 is of the player spending a hero point to have a gold brick happen to be lying nearby, which he can use as a makeshift club to thwack Oddjob.Narrative control points often seem to be associated with games that are more interested in simulating adventure fiction than D&D has historically been. (As far as I'm aware, the only fiction-sim rules in D&D are 4e's minions and, arguably, the saving throw mechanic.) It's worth considering why this should be. Adventure fiction is replete with lucky, and unlucky, coincidences that get the hero out of, and into, peril. One obvious way to go is to allow the player to determine when he gets a lucky coincidence, while the GM determines the unlucky ones. This makes the fiction-sim also work as a game, in which the player only has a limited number of 'lucky coincidence' points. It's also beneficial because it gives the player more agency, and in general people like to have agency. Though I note that upthread several people have expressed a dislike of this because it breaks immersion.Another way to go would be to have the lucky and unlucky coincidences controlled by the system, presumably by dice roll. Perhaps something pretty close to the critical hit/fumble idea, where a 1 or a 20 mean something extraordinary happens. However in the fiction, the coincidences do seem to be a lot less random than this. That could also conceivably be built in, by using some measure of how much peril the PC is currently in. If he's in no peril at all, then it's very likely something bad, or at least adventure-inducing, will occur. If he's in a lot, then he's almost certain to get a lucky break. And so the endless roller coaster continues.</blockquote>

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