Plot/Hero/Drama/Force Points in RL

[Dominique]

A question similar to this one may have been asked before, but if so, I missed it . . .

I just finished looking over the Serenity RPG book (if anyone's wondering, the source material is great and the system is a little clunky but could probably get the bugs worked out through a playtest or two), and they had a pretty neat system in there called Plot Points--the GM awards them for good roleplaying, and PCs can spend them to add dice to a crucial roll or avoid taking major amounts of damage. (They can also spend them to adjust plot points--"turns out that dock worker we're trying to bribe is an old school chum of mine!"--but that strikes me as a little ridiculous and I'm probably going to ignore it completely if I ever run a Serenity game.)

I like the idea of being able to add that extra "oomph" to a critical roll, and I really like having a reward system other than additional XP (it starts getting silly when your best roleplayer is level 6 while the rest of the party is still level 3!) My question is, has anyone ever tried adapting something like this to RL, and has it worked? I had a GM who tried to transfer d20 Modern's Hero Points system over to Iron Kingdoms, but it turned out to be too unbalancing; and I'm not sure how unbalancing it would be to award something like Star Wars' Force Points (which give you a +d6 to any roll when you spend them) on a "good roleplaying" basis rather than a "one per level" basis. Any thoughts?

[JinnTolser]

It seems to work well enough in Star Wars. Very handy when you just miss a saving throw. If you're smart in handing them out, it would probably work in the 'Loft too. If one player gets so much more than all the others, then either you can't use ANY roleplaying-based rewards (not a good choice) or you need to help the others get better at roleplaying.

I dunno how it works in Serenity, but if you wanna adapt the Star Wars force points rule, you'll need to redesign it a bit. After all, there's no distinction between Force-sensitive and non-force sensitive. OH! IDEA! You could use the Light-side force-sensitive table for heroic characters, and convert the dark side table to calling on the power of evil (Act of Ultimate Darkness, I suppose).

[Undead Cabbage]

An epic moment bonus, maybe?

When the blessed Paladin jumps to save his beloved family from the breathe weapon of a shadow dragon, he gets a little something since he cares more. Whereas the CN rogue who wasn't paid by the Paladin's family to save their butts, wouldn't recieve that bonus.

It sounds like something thats hard to quantify. More like a judgement call on the part of the GM.

[Kel-nage]

This kind of thing has been done in the RPG system "Dead Inside". It's a PDF only thing though and at the moment I've lost the PDF so I'll have to go search for my printed copy. If there's anything in there that I felt would translate to Ravenloft though, I'll let you all know.

[DamienJ]

Isn't that almost the same thing as Spycraft Action Die?

[The Lesser Evil]

Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved has some rules on Hero points.

Dynasties and Demagogues has Personality Feats, which basically awards a player an action point whenever the PC achieves something significantly challenging or makes a sacrifice in accordance to conduct his feat goes with. It requires a lot of DM discretion and uses d20 Modern action points, but requires a specific mechanical investment reflecting a characters personality and limits the gains of Action Points to one specific behavior.