Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[...m...]

...mister T was a core mechanic...

 

[Bill Zebub]

The problem I always saw with that is I know a fair number of people (I might even be one of them) that would just sit on Hope forever and never use it.

Agreed, and it could have used some tweaking, but they over-tweaked and ruined it (imo).

But that's also the basis for my opinion about before- vs. after-the-fact mechanics. I see the same thing with Inspiration in D&D, not because it's "precious" but because so many people keep saving it for an important roll, hoping they will succeed anyway, and then they save it for so long they forget about it. Whereas if you could use it after the roll (to re-roll) you would be more likely to spend it.

Which is exactly what happens when I house-rule Inspiration to be usable for a re-roll. (And then Shadowdark came along, and that's exactly how Luck tokens work.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

...mister T was a core mechanic...

Sounds like a background for a Star Wars character. "I used to work on cores, then I joined the resistance."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed, and it could have used some tweaking, but they over-tweaked and ruined it (imo).

But that's also the basis for my opinion about before- vs. after-the-fact mechanics. I see the same thing with Inspiration in D&D, not because it's "precious" but because so many people keep saving it for an important roll, hoping they will succeed anyway, and then they save it for so long they forget about it. Whereas if you could use it after the roll (to re-roll) you would be more likely to spend it.

Which is exactly what happens when I house-rule Inspiration to be usable for a re-roll. (And then Shadowdark came along, and that's exactly how Luck tokens work.)

Yeah, its essentially the same problem a lot of people have with not-easily replaced consumeables.