Story Points Instead of Hit Points

[Onix]

This is a simple idea but it struck my fancy, this may have been done before. I was thinking of a game mechanic that used 'Story' (or maybe a different name, I just went with something simple) an attribute. Story is a measure of how important the character is to the game narrative.

On the one hand Story is a damage mechanic. It doesn't mean that the character is being injured, but the character's death is expected more and more in the story as people try and harm him (or her).

So not terribly interesting yet so let's move on. The player also uses Story as an attribute and a spendable resource. When something happens to the character in game either good or bad, the player can roll against Story. If they pass, the event becomes a pivotal event in the story. Something like "Because you passed your charm test, not only does the king like you, the king's daughter has a crush on you." or "Because you failed your pick lock skill roll the homeowner saw that the door was forced and called the police before entering. Now there are five squad cars outside."

If you use Story for a failure you get to restore points to Story. If you use it for success you have to spend Story Points.

If the character is running low on Story and the character is taking damage, some (maybe half?) of the damage can be shunted to other attributes to simulate wounding.

I'm also wondering about the option of GMless gaming using Story as a story arbiter.

I know there are similar ideas using elements of this, but I haven't seen them put together in something like this. Maybe it's already been done. If you know, let me know.

[Onix]

It occurs to me that, as stated, the Story attribute of a character represents how much a character is expected to die. That being the case, a character could be narrated to death by NPCs or other characters by them explaining how the character's death was inevitable. "You cannot possibly defeat me! I have survived thousands of years and just as many fools like you!" might effect Story? Maybe that's a Story to Story attack? It's weird but opens up fun possibilities.

I don't want this to be the only mechanic but it could be a powerful one when used at the right time.

[Chris Johnstone]

This is a neat little mechanism and I suspect it'd work quite well.

It reminds me a bit of some luck systems where luck can be lost or gained to influence the outcome of a roll. You could perhaps gear it such that a character could gain an extra point of Story if the player narrates some complicating aspect of backstory into the result, regardless of whether the result was good or bad.

You succeed on your charm, impress the king and the daughter has a crush on you now... but... all this attention at the court catches the ear of someone you crossed a while ago... they are not pleased to hear you are doing well.

Or something like that. It might become unwieldy difficult to manage with too many layers, so perhaps a simpler more straightforward mechanic is better.

Chris

[Onix]

I like it, I'm not a narrative guy expert so this is new for me. I tend to want concrete terms, I think narrative games work better with more mature players so I worry about people acting like we did when we were kids. I don't know how a narrative game deals with rules lawyering (guilty), sabotage and people being unreasonable. I think "narrating in some back story that applies to the situation" should be concrete enough for most. You might also include "narrate a strong emotion that your character is feeling". But what if they do it badly or without any style so that it becomes boring or mechanical? Does the GM say "Nope not good enough, no SP for you."? Or is that simply the player's fault and they're a bad player?

[vulpinoid]

I've pointed two of my games toward this concept.

In "The Eighth Sea", the character's integrity could be viewed as hit points, but it could also be used to measure how important the character is in the grand scheme of things. The regular person who has not stepped out of the timestream has a minimal integrity, when time flows around them they are caught up in whatever changes occur. But when a time travelling pirate is hit by temporal waves, they understand the universe well enough that they can resist these changes. The same applies to damage and other negative story effects they might wish to avoid.

I should rewrite a better version of that game some day.

In "FUBAR", characters can be wiped out of the story any time they receive a triple negative trait (whether that is from injury, illness, becoming "too wanted" by the police, insanity, or just about anything else). In this game system there is a side effect that inter-relates to this, when you work toward your story goals you gain influence and agency within your own narrative, when you just flounder in the events around you, the story gains more influence over you.

I'm sure there are better ways of putting this...

...but to put it simply; Yes, I have been considering this idea for a while....and yes, it's worth pursuing further.

[GSLamb]

Hit points, to me, seem viable only in confrontational (PC vs PC; PC vs GM) games. Most games are turned upside-down with the permanent death of a character, so I dislike taking that amount of story control out of the game master's hands.

[Onix]

But if the GM isn't reducing story points then no death occurs, unless the player is spending them and then it's their choice. One thing that I was thinking was that a character wouldn't die if they went down to 0 Story automatically, only that they're on the edge. It would take another player or the GM to push them over that edge.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

I think I've run across discussions of something like this on some design blog, but I don't recall which one. Possibly the same place I saw HP renamed "Miss Points" - and it was a measure of how lucky you were, and when the HP ran out, the sword actually took a chunk out of your hide.

At one point I tried to use a story system - in the game "" (sitting unfinished on Google Documents - yes, I know I should try to finish games before the sun burns out). As it turns out, the interplay of three story point attributes was one of the sticking points. In short, you have Legend, Reality, and Fate. Legend grants you fame and the ability to borrow things from others - people like to be a part of great stories. Reality is a measure of speed, and how many scenes you sit out at a time for recovery - ie the descent from an archetype to a real person. Fate is a more traditional - when this runs out, the story ends. These points could be lost via damage or used for story editing.

There are a few reasons to defend traditional HP. For one, its a little more visceral to see declining health. Systems that have death spirals or bleeding out add drama to the situation. Taking fate out of everyone - including the GM's - hands adds risk and weight to actions. Otherwise you have the RPG planning problem - describing how you want to do something is identical to how you are doing, barring unforeseen elements.

This feeds into the great debate on random roll vs designed characters. Do you want to play a persona you've built from the ground up a certain way, or accept the challenge of someone with initially unforeseen strengths and weaknesses, and see how they evolve? I actually kind of like to suit myself to the character given from time to time.

Or to drag out the old GNS theory debates - we can look at gamist (limited resource) vs Narativist (chose character's death as dramatic). My of game consequences might also have a place where story points fit in. (ie freedom from consequence on one axis vs level of conflict)

So what kind of games or genres do you people think story points would be best for?

[Onix]

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

OK, that was one of those things that made a bit more sense in my head than written down. What I was aiming for is the question of players having total control of their fate through the use of story points versus SP simply being a different explanation of the Hit Point phenomenon.

Perhaps its one of those "brain bugs" that refuses to go away, but in almost all games, combat damage is random. AFMBE allows for set numbers to speed up scenes with lots of zombies, and DP-9 games hate a set damage multiplied by margin of success which is a bit more predictable. Otherwise, it just takes a few lucky rolls on behalf of some minor enemy to harm a player character grievously.

Its kind of a zugzwang where once the dice hit the table a single bad spin of the roulette wheel can make everything fall like a house of cards. (Most tortured gaming metaphor ever... ) The GM can try to scale the encounter to the player's level, or give a story reason why the enemy suddenly shows mercy and withdraws at the last moment - but damage is not limited the way other story elements are. Best laid stories can be ended by a bad combat, but that is also where the excitement and chance lies because even the GM can't be too sure. I'm suddenly thinking of the GM as Dr. Manhattan - life and timelines mean little when you can see all time at once, its uncertainty and the random human element that makes things interesting again.

The same applies to the question of critical hits and failures. Its exciting to see a dramatic finishing move, and a good hit at the right time can help speed up combat. But without control it can lead to anti-climatic fights over too quickly, player deaths, killing someone you need to keep alive, or making the gradual build up of damage and advantage seem boring compared to a bit of luck.

I like that USSR metaphor, both since I have an interest in the old Soviet Union, and that is how I feel about narrative games as well.

Story points sounds like a good idea, as does the concept of trading attributes for SP rather to simulate wounds and give players dramatic control with consequence. I'm just playing devil's advocate that you can have too much control in a game.