Persona Points as Complications

[luke]

So I was brainstorming on the way home the other night: Not enough swords break in Burning Wheel. Swords broke all the time; I want to see a broken sword lying next to a smashed helmet and a tooth on the ground after a Burning Wheel fight.

Hm, I've been down this road before. Sword breaks on a failed test? No. Our philosophy is: Failure is punishment enough, why screw the player even further?

What about complicated mechanics surrounding Superb hits and damage points for weapons? Um... :roll: maybe not.

The only way a sword is going to break in this game, I thought to myself, is if a player wants his sword to break. When would a player ever want his sword to break? Hm, never seems a little often...

Wait. What if a player could choose to have his sword break as a way to get out of some bad shit? Sure, it's not realistic, but neither is not ever having a weapon break.

So then my little hamster brain took off running...

What if a player who fails a roll can use a Persona point to salvage his ass via a complication? Player determines if he's going to spend that point and what the complication is. A complication like having your sword snap in half as your enemies weapon hits it... as opposed to getting your opponent's sword through your chest. Hm.

Deeds points are hard to come by (at least they should be. :x ). Rerolling a terrible roll doesn't happen all too often (especially since it costs a Deeds and a Persona). What if there was an artha expenditure based on Persona points that redirected failure? The character still fails at what he did, but rather than getting killed or caught, the player can make some sacrifice to redirect the catastrophe, just to stave it off for a moment longer?

Just thinking. What are you thinking now?

-Luke

[Kaare Berg]

not thinking as much as chuckling evilly.

love the idea, but (yes there is a but),

What if a player who fails a roll can use a Persona point to salvage his ass via a complication? Player determines if he's going to spend that point and what the complication is. A complication like having your sword snap in half as your enemies weapon hits it... as opposed to getting your opponent's sword through your chest. Hm.

will this be a combat only mechanic? or will there be room for salvaging any roll by taking a complication.

Ranger fails stealth roll to sneak into bandit camp, Gm is about to narrate the story up until the point he gets caught when . . .
Player: I spend a persona point to get a complication.
. . . the ranger isn't caught but the something startles the bandits and raises the alert trapping the undetected ranger inside the camp. Not yet spotted but getting out is hard.

I think the idea has merit and consider it implemented in my game from now on. I'll let you know how it went.

[luke]

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. My only caveat would be that in order to not get hammered by failure, it has got to cost the character something. So when the player spends a Persona point to not get caught, his cloak/backpack/bow is hooked on a branch as he makes a quick get away.

As the bandits come out to investigate, they find a bow and quiver hanging curiously on a thin branch! Convinced that they are being spied on, they search the area around camp, forcing the ranger to take refuge in the cess pit in the camp in order to avoid detection.

The purpose of a mechanic like this would be to give the player a little control over their fate -- rather than just outright failure, they can spend a point to redirect the narrative with their failure. They still must fail, but perhaps not in the way the GM intended, and it must cost them something to escape this failure.

He thrusts with five successes. You were just standing there, so that's a Superb result.

I wasn't just standing there. I had a Block scripted. I, er, got no successes, though. Shit. Can I spend a Persona point?

Sure, you're dead otherwise.

Ok, I raise my sword quickly and prematurely, accidently jamming the point into the wall next to me and bowing the blade. His thrust glances off the base of the blade at an odd angle causing me to flinch and the blade to snap in two. However, his blow was knocked slightly aside by my ineptitude, merely cutting me instead of killing me. How's that?

That's fine. You're unarmed now...well, I suppose a pommel could be construed as a weapon. You've taken a B7 hit from the partially blocked strike. What's your Volley 2?

I'd like to Forfeit my actions from Volley 3 in order to Avoid in Volley 2.

Smart move, I have a hilt-strike scripted. Go figure!

For wounding, I would rule the IMS could only be reduced one step per Persona point. I'd like to playtest spending multiple Persona points on the rolls. Also, I would rule that, since armor already has save-your-ass/failure rules, players can't complicate it further with Persona points. But I am open to discussion on that one.

what do you think? Am I crazy?
-Luke

[Lxndr]

I absolutely love the idea. I do I do I do.

Another thought on sword-breakage in particular, and perhaps an expansion of this in general. I think this could go along with the Persona one.

* A player can, at any moment (with GM approval) complicate his character's life in some manner (like say, a sword breaking after hitting an enemy), and in return will get a Fate point.

With this, you have two ways for a sword-breaking: When a player wants to get out of bad shit that's happening RIGHT NOW (which requires PAYING a Persona), and when a player sees the possibility of needing to get out of bad shit in the future (which nets a Fate). A small reward for the player taking a dump on his own character.

This could also be used to - make a character temporarily ill (i.e. colds and stuff, penalties on actions), cause a sprained ankle, and anything else that could be attributed to "dumb luck."

[luke]

hey Lxndr! Long time, no see.

Can you give us an example of what you mean? Not just your minor complications, but where you see this being used in play?

-L

[Lxndr]

Yeah, I've been laid up sick for a lot of the past few weeks :cry: and when I wasn't sick, I was at work catching up for the time I missed :shock: Really, really annoying. :( And I think that's the most smileys I've ever used in a post. :P

Anyway... I'm seeing it used whenever a player wants to add a little complication to his character's life in situations where, y'know, there's no failure hammering the character. I'm certainly a player who'd go "y'know, I wouldn't mind having a Fate point right about now, hey, GM, what do you think of my character getting infected with a cold? +1 Ob to all tests for the day, no matter what kind." And the GM would go "make it two days" or something, and whee, my character crawls out of bed with a horrible head cold, and I have a Fate point. Or maybe I think it'd be neat if my character's horse throws a shoe while I'm traveling between point A and point B. Whee, it happens. Or, to use the original example, there I am in combat, and I've just drawn my sword, and... I think it'd be cool for the sword to break on the first blow. So I tell the GM "hey, no matter what happens in this exchange, I want the sword to break after this Counter I scripted in the 2nd volley." GM says "hey, cool, here's a fate point" and, whee, in the 2nd volley, my sword breaks. Maybe I hit him, maybe he hit me, it doesn't matter. Sword breaks, I get a Fate point.

I dunno. Maybe I'm the only one who'd hose my own character over that way. But I think it's veritably nifty.

[luke]

i gotta say, I like it.

well, let's try 'em out and see how they go. if we can get a little playtest in, we can get these rules into the annual.

thanks!
-Luke

[mike_ravenwood]

what about breaking an opponents sword? Obviously you can attempt to disarm, what if you lack the skil but just want to smash the crap out of and opponents weapon. Many differing designs of swordbreakers as off-hand weapons have existed. Similar to damaging objects, but a test to hit the weapon would be required. Also attempting to block larger (or SQ) weapons with smaller inferior weapons could result in a break. Maybe add a random element. If the PC's have been in poor conditions, weapons not cared for, strong hits could cause a break. Time to whip out my new official BW die of fate (not here yet, but soon), on a (1) time to check a Mark hit versus strength of the weapon. This way failure or success it could break, while success and a broken weapon might not be fair, it sound fun to me. Of course I run BW... and my group tries to survive.

[luke]

while you're absolutely on the right path for realism and player screwage using the shiny new DoF, I tend to shy away from such rules.

What I was trying to do with this rule was put the choice of "catastrophic failure" in the hands of the player and let him choose his fate. Should I suck it up and take the hit? Or can I sacrifice something (other than my dignity) and survive this?

on the other hand...

For attacking weapons, if you wanted to do it strictly by the rules, it would be a Disarm test (same type of action taking place here). And you could use the Mark result of the attack vs the Material Strength of the weapon, usually wood and steel. Weapons would only have an Integrity of 1 or 2, so a couple of lucky hits and its over.

From what I understand about weapon breakers, they were essentially defensive weapons. So perhaps some bonus dice to Counter-Disarm maneuvers and maybe a point of Power or two for determining Mark result vs Materials.

Or you could just roll the DoF. We like that, too!

:twisted:

get your players on the forum, if you can. I want to hear their feedback to your game. I don't want to find out you've been railroading them and screwing them all this time! ;)

-L

[mike_ravenwood]

get my players on here.... no no no no no they have all signed very secure nondisclosure agreements concerning all activities that transpire at game. I'm not as cruel a GM as I pretend. It's more of a running joke about my D&D games. Since it can be a little too easy on the PC's in my opinion, I have a tendency to run brutal D&D games. Everything follows the rules and the CR is always appropriate to their level but, they would show up with several extras characters all the same. 4 or 5 PC deaths is my record not that i'm excited to kill my friends but this way when they win they feel they've accomplished something, not just made it another 5% towards the next level. They have checked out the forums, and one player has bought the books, but they haven't posted...yet.

[Mad Hatter]

Speaking of long time, no see...

Hey, Abzu,

I love this idea. Very cool mechanic, and it saves the players from having to make up new characters every other session. (Not really, although it is certainly possible in BW!)

[eruditus]

This is very cool, and i am glad to see its going into the Revision along with the new Artha system (which i am using in my current campaign BTW).

I love the idea of giving the players opportunity to complicate their lives for Fate. this way its not like me being arbitraily difficult. of course the circumstance has to have weight.

And a Fate for anytime complications vs a persona for "need it right now" complications is great.