Luck

[bender42]

I'm attempting to cook up a sort of luck mechanism for an RPG. The base idea, is that each player has a certain "luck" value, which is periodically replenished. It tells how many times the luck can be used. The characters are asssigned a die value, which can be upgraded, (D3, D4, D6, etc.) If you fail a roll, you can choose to roll the dice and add that value to your roll. E.G. You attack a robot and roll the D20 and add your attribute, and miss by 2. You could then choose to rollyour die and ad that value to your original roll, and hopefully hit. Would this be workable? I want to add some sort of karmatic consequences, such as taking a low strength hit after using your luck, so the players have to seriously consider whether it is worth it. Again, is that viable? Or should I just ditch the whole thing?

[vulpinoid]

There was something like this in the Stargate RPG (based off modern d20), if I remember correctly.

It actually worked pretty well, with bigger heroes in the setting getting better fate points/luck dice.

I hope I'm remembering right, it might have been another game.

I just remember thinking it was pretty cool and wanting to incorporate it into something else.

Go for it.

[Rob Lang]

Totally workable. I think what will give the game flavour is how luck is replenished. However you decide you want luck to be replenished will indicate how the game is to be played.

[bender42]

[kylesgames]

It could be interesting to make a game in which exceptional successes were rewarded by the ability to roll another die later and use up some of that success later, especially if you have a flat fail/succeed game like D&D as opposed to something like Shadowrun where more success actually means a better outcome.

[Rob Lang]

I would have luck replenished based on the decisions of the players. If you have luck replenished by dice rolling or time then really, the mechanic is doing nothing other than skewing the probability mathematically. Luck is much more interesting than that.

For example, you might give out luck if someone has a fun idea. Having fun ideas is what you want from your players, so rewarding them with luck points will reinforce that behaviour. The players will offer more fun ideas because the system rewards for it. You might reward a player with luck if they choose to fail an action. For example, in some games, rather than rolling dice, you can choose to fail an action. You might miss the target, slip off the cliff edge, fall out of a moving car etc. Choosing to fail means that you should be rewarded with luck as failing often makes the game more interesting; everything going to plan is not nearly as fun as the plan going wrong!

What sort of player behaviours do you want to encourage at the table? Whatever they are, reward luck for those. Do it instantly so they get to use the dice on their next turn.

[Lejonel]

I am using a 'luck' dice pool that for my game. It is filled up with x dice/player and any player may later draw from this collective pool when they have failed an attempt of some sort. The new luck dice are rolled, added to the old result and then discarded from game for the remainder of the session. A way of refilling the pool that I intend to use (but has not yet tried) is to let players change a successful result into a failed attempt and by doing this negative use of luck return one out of game luck die to the collective pool.

I shall try it out next time we game and can feed back the results if you are interested. However, holidays and vacations are wrecking havoc on our gaming group and next session will be in august...