Over in the FaD beta forums while talking about Force Power usage we got a little side tracked on the topic of how some people are afraid to have their "Lightside" characters use the option to flip their pips when manifesting Force Powers, and by extension the players hesitation to flip Destiny Points in general.

This gave me the idea for a set of "rules" that can be applied to any adventure with the intent of getting players and GM a little out of their comfort zone, and encouraging more active use of some of these mechanics, as well as just getting rid of some of the presumptions about how the game is supposed to work and a little sharper focus on how the game actually does work. This isn't something to apply to all games forever, just something to use for three or four sessions from time to time to encourage fuller use of the system.

It's still early draft mode, but here's where I'm starting:

1. Every major encounter should see the expenditure of at least 3 destiny points. It may be by either side of the table but the total expenditure must be 3 or more. A Dpoint spent to attempt to directly counteract another Dpoint negates both point expenditures when calculating the total.
2. "Light Side" Force using Player Characters must always do what is needed to activate a force power they commit to performing, even if this means calling on the darkside. Conflict should be tracked as normal. "Committing" shall be defined as announcing the power use attempt and rolling the dice. Once the dice have been rolled, you're committed, and must execute to the best of your abilities. If you can't generate enough pips to execute the intended action, you must instead perform an alternate action using the same power and die results. If there are not enough pips to manifest a power and no light side Dpoints are available, the power fails normally. If this occurs more then once in a single session the GM may apply a single automatic despair result to any player made check the round the power failed to activate or the following round. If flipping a pip will cost strain sufficient to exceed the players threshold, the power manifests, but upon completion of the action the player suffers the strain and all the normal effects of having his/her/its strain threshold exceeded.
3. If either side finds itself in possession of all the Dpoints, every effort should be made to expend at least one Dpoint at the earliest appropriate opportunity.

I'll be expanding this to work in Obligation/Duty/Conflict as well.

Objective is to have 10 or less "rules" for play, with minimal mechanical adjustments. I'm trying to make rules for the players and GM to follow to get them to use the rules and resources that are there, not to fix something perceived as broken.

In the mean time comments from the peanut gallery are welcome. Any mechanics you see people avoiding out of fear or laziness? Would you even consider trying a game that ran this for a session or three and then reverted back to normal play?

A little excessive background for those that are interested:

Seems a good rule of thumb.

We use a 'zen' system for the Force anyway, so nobody is bothered by spending a bit of strain to use DS points; we see this as a slightly-more-difficult-but-natural process anyway.

WIth regard to flipping Destiny points, I made it absolutely clear from the first game that I wanted this to emphasise the 'back and forth' nature of films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. The players got on board with this straight away, so thankfully I don't have to enforce it as a rule. But yeah, I agree destiny points should be 'use 'em or lose 'em'.

My players also seem reluctant to use destiny points. I try to encourage them to improve thier chances, but they always treat them like a precious resource they won't have at a crucial moment. I don't Hoard them as GM in an attempt to encourage usage, but they don't seem to respond, so I can see why you could feel the neccessity to create a rule set that forces thier use. I don't think it is a good idea to create rules that force players to do things. I like Maelora's approach of explaining her concept of Destiny. It is more in-line with the balance of the game.

In our game when players are feeling lazy they go with the mechanical ways to spend triumphs. Upgrade checks/give boost die and don't always go with the narrative way to spend the dice. A rule could be to use 'Do something vital to turn the tide of battle.' and add something to the narration.

After the first session or so to get a little bit of feel for the system, I stopped handing out the tables for spending advantages/triumphs. My group tends to stick with passing boost dice if they only have a couple advantages, but for triumphs or loads of advantages (4+) I always encourage them to find something epic to do with them.

For us, when you have a ton of advantages, it's almost a waste to just choose a slew of boosts/setbacks to pass around, when you have the chance to make something awesome happen in the situation.

Regarding DPs, the same thing goes. My players are fairly creative, and they often joking throw out wacky ideas of what could happen, mostly just for laughs. However, when the idea is somewhat plausible, I throw a sidelong glance at the DP pile, and they get the idea.

Also, I tend to give out a few extra XP for creative ideas for advantage/triumph/DP usage, thus giving them an extra incentive to not just play a numbers game.

cvtheoman wrote:

"Also, I tend to give out a few extra XP for creative ideas for advantage/triumph/DP usage, thus giving them an extra incentive to not just play a numbers game."

Love this.

edited to give credit where credit was due. (I broke the quote feature?)

edited to give credit where credit was due. (I broke the quote feature?)