jonathans last blog post..Open Game Table: The 2008 Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs

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jonathans last blog post..OPEN GAME TABLE SUBMISSION FORM

Each players starts the session with 3 bennies. At any time during the game, a player can spend a bennie to force the GM to add another layer of narrative detail to an encounter. So if the players are chasing a band of raiders through a jungle, the thief can spend a bennie to make sure that there’s an assortment of thick vines for him to climb, thereby allowing his thief to get the drop on the raiders.

The same holds true for the GM…s/he can “spend” a bennie (effectively giving it to one of the players) to require that player to further describe a particular action or response. So if a player is trying to fast-talk the Nazi guards outside a barracks, the GM can burn a bennie to make sure the player has to craft a really complex, layered fabrication that might backfire at some point later in the campaign.

This turns bennies into a free-flowing game currency, a pool of narrative resources that’s constantly moving from players to GM back to players. The point of bennies isn’t to hold onto them; it’s to keep them moving to enrich the game.

I think I’ll expand on this a little more over on my blog…

PatrickWRs last blog post..More on Failure

@Felonius: You raise a good point regarding how action points transform at higher levels thanks to paragon pathes. I suspect most of us are playing 4E at the heroic, rather than paragon level, and thus haven’t had a chance to see how some of those extra action point options come into play. It’s one of the reason why I want to conclude my 4E playtests with paragon and epic one shot games, just to see how those levels play out.

Overall, I like the idea of doubling the number of action points, and then allowing them to be spent either for their standard use, or as a story edit. I might try that hack in my next game and see how it goes.

I actually think Felonius has one of the better ideas, actually. Spend an AP, add a condition to the power.

Note, as well, that I’m not against giving a bonus when they use an AP to try a stunt. I just don’t like it being a bonus to a power flat out.

It’s the difference between “I use Power X and spend an AP for +2″ and “I try a cool stunt, and spend an AP for +2″. It’s a fine line, but it’s a cinematic line. It makes players more willing to try new and cool stunts.

Of course, no one has used it yet, but we’ll see. Several bennies were spent last night on the basic re-roll and that was just against zombies. I can’t wait until they run into… but, no. >;)

I tend to not care about the uniqueness factor, I tihnk, because I tend to feel that most powers should be like that. I understand that on some level it’s about resources, and deciding when to pull out the tricks. But it still bothers me. I dislike the feeling of “I pull out the big gun! *sound effects of the Millennium Falcon’s drive failing* DAMN IT!”. So I feel spending an AP to get a chance to counter that is fair enough. APs are still “Rare” enough in play (as far as I’ve seen at least) that you won’t be doing that with every power or every time one fails.

And… I’m slightly confused. You say earlier you think a mechanical expenditure should net a mechanical bonus, but then later say you don’t like them giving a straight bonus to rolls… if not giving a bonus to the roll, what sort of mechanical bonus would you like to see?

I don’t think there should be any extra benefit (like a +2 to attack rolls or some such) provided to using an action point, unless the player has a feat or ability which specifies that they can. I think it would throw the balance off a bit as there are feats and class abilities which make specific use of what happens when a point is used.

It’s also worth noting that there are danger in adding extra features. For example, someone suggested using them to regain an encounter power. Well, that reduces the value of the Wizard of the Spiral Tower, which specifically adds this ability. There are other examples… Look over the paragon paths. The paragon paths specifically add options to the action points, and if you start making those default options then you weaken the paragon paths.

I think that where the APs could be most useful would be allowing players to do things that aren’t normally part of RAW. Perhaps allowing access to a power they don’t normally have (but is still on their class list), or adding an effect to an existing power (a la ‘called shots’), such as allowing a player to ‘target the eyes’ to blind, or ‘cut a hamstring’ to ’slow’ an opponent.

Perhaps that would best handled via a different mechanic… I haven’t seen enough 4e combats to say whether difficult encounters would be too dependent on the players having APs in order for them to survive…

In fact I currently see it as a restrained way of breaking the rules for people who just aren’t as imaginative as those Rule of Cool windmills players.

As I read the comments, maybe action points could be left as is in their boring role and a DM could assign style points.

And I don’t want to mix stunts with alternative/creative use for powers. I originally saw the spending an action point as trading a resources to obtain an advantage that is approx. equivalent in effect to an extra action.

Sure, but in that case, the Rogue is getting the same benefit they would normally get from using his action point: the ability to use the power in the first place. The action point isn’t allowing anything special.

BTW: Spending an AP to reroll a failed roll is a common one, but IMO detracts from the uniqueness of the Fighter’s “Reliable” powers.

As for a straight bonus to rolls, I’m kinda glad they removed that. Systems like d20 Modern, where an AP adds 1d6 to a roll, frequently become a numbers game on normal rolls (“Crap, a 15! I need 16! Action Point!”) instead of using them to try normally impossible things, which was the point. In place of that, I personally often give bonuses on stunts with or without APs, if they’re creative enough.

However, in general I\’ve always been lenient, and preferred my players to do cool things so I tend to encourage that when possible. I do wish that APs (and were I running, they probably would) give some sort of bonus to rolls. Or allow rerolling a failed roll, so that you get another shot at the special power working.

One of the things that disappointed me about 4E is how stingy and simplistic action dice were. After playing games like Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft and Serenity/Battlestar Galactica (Cortex) and enjoying how much more dynamic they made the game, I was really hoping for more from D&D 4E.

As is, they work alright, but they don’t feel intrinsic to the system the way that action dice do in Spycraft and Cortex.

For my own part, I’ve been bouncing some ideas around in my head; I was going to turn this into a post, even, but you beat me to it.

My biggest gripe is that sometimes people will come up with really cool ways to use their encounter or daily powers, and then they miss. It’s kind of a big letdown!

I worry a little bit about the balance of extending this to any roll, but at the same time, I think it’d be interesting to use action points to offer the player some amount of narrative control or insurance. Perhaps it should be like what Ninetail suggests above, with a substantial bonus (+5 to +10, depending on how awesome it would be).

For me, I think dramatic editing is a little far afield for my style, but that might just be because I associate this concept much more intimately with pulp along the lines of the Mummy or the Rocketeer, for some modern examples.

I will have to think more on this!

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