How do you encourage players to make interesting story choices?
Imagine a mechanic that encourages delayed gratification, that frequently poses this question: Should I get what I want now, or ensure I’ll get what I want later?
We can accomplish this with a simple in-game economy of tokens to represent this delayed gratification: coupons that players can earn and trade in for success.
Let’s include a simple randomizer: the six-sided die. This implies some weighted odds for success.
So, let’s imagine a few rules:
- Describe your character as specifically as possible. You do not need to stat your character, but you’ll want to be clear to the other players.
- Any time you want to accomplish something difficult, roll a six-sided die. 1. You can make the roll Easy or Hard. 1. On an Easy roll, you get what you want if you roll a 2 or higher.
- On a Hard roll, you get a Plot Point and you get what you want if you roll 5 or 6.
- If playing with a GM, the GM can declare a task Troublesome for you. If playing without a GM, the group can declare a task Troublesome. This usually happens when a character attempts a task particularly unfit for that character (a weak character attempting to arm-wrestle a hulk). 1. A Troublesome task requires a roll of 3-6 (Easy) or 6 (Hard).
- You can trade in a Plot Point to bypass a die roll and automatically get what you want.
Thoughts?
(And I hereby release this under a CC-BY-3.0 license, so expand and play with it as you wish. I’ll continue to ruminate on this and post as I get more ideas.)
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