Just thought of an idea for blending the Fate mechanic to an RPG. In the past I have played with Hero dice, destiny points, etc. What if you start with Fate points?

When you spend a fate point you get a massive bonus to your roll or two rolls or something.

But when you run out of fate points stuff starts to happen. You take extra damage and/or are married off to manage a small farming plantation.

That way the player can pick their blaze if glory.

As a GM you just have to have a couple rules. You will have to be very flexible as players always mess with the wrong stuff. And the GM should be ready to charge Two fate points for certain effects. Also coming up with odd third options so that the situation changes but they still get the result they wanted. Like a monkey's paw.

11 minutes ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

Just thought of an idea for blending the Fate mechanic to an RPG. In the past I have played with Hero dice, destiny points, etc. What if you start with Fate points?

When you spend a fate point you get a massive bonus to your roll or two rolls or something.

But when you run out of fate points stuff starts to happen. You take extra damage and/or are married off to manage a small farming plantation.

That way the player can pick their blaze if glory.

As a GM you just have to have a couple rules. You will have to be very flexible as players always mess with the wrong stuff. And the GM should be ready to charge Two fate points for certain effects. Also coming up with odd third options so that the situation changes but they still get the result they wanted. Like a monkey's paw.

Sounds a bit like Aspects from Dresden files/FATE system. It could be a fun addition.

54 minutes ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

Just thought of an idea for blending the Fate mechanic to an RPG. In the past I have played with Hero dice, destiny points, etc. What if you start with Fate points?

When you spend a fate point you get a massive bonus to your roll or two rolls or something.

But when you run out of fate points stuff starts to happen. You take extra damage and/or are married off to manage a small farming plantation.

That way the player can pick their blaze if glory.

As a GM you just have to have a couple rules. You will have to be very flexible as players always mess with the wrong stuff. And the GM should be ready to charge Two fate points for certain effects. Also coming up with odd third options so that the situation changes but they still get the result they wanted. Like a monkey's paw.

There's the bones of a very cool idea there.

Would Fate Points be something that comes back regularly (like Void Points) or would they be something that has to last for the entire campaign?

13 minutes ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

There's the bones of a very cool idea there.

Would Fate Points be something that comes back regularly (like Void Points) or would they be something that has to last for the entire campaign?

Other systems often give one per session, or as a reward for good Roleplay. One system used them to bribe players with a future success at a time when you want them to fail.

As for L5R, to emphasize mono no aware using them would be your character's literal fate. When they are gone your character should be ready to move on. I think something should try to kill him. And the final victory is dying a great death or retirement.

So I think they should be start around 5 and almost never recharge. That is not to say that they can't come back if the story has a good reason for it, but each time you spend one your character is taking another step to their final destiny. It could even be used to take extra damage or lower defense as your literal plot armor wears away.

Oh another example. The FFG Star Wars destiny points are s integral as every time you spend one you give one to the GM to use against you.

3 minutes ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

So I think they should be start around 5 and almost never recharge. That is not to say that they can't come back if the story has a good reason for it, but each time you spend one your character is taking another step to their final destiny. It could even be used to take extra damage or lower defense as your literal plot armor wears away.

Oh another example. The FFG Star Wars destiny points are s integral as every time you spend one you give one to the GM to use against you.

That sounds interesting - if you had a pool of Fate that represented your life. When your character would fail a crucial role, or die, you would spend a fate and create a story for what happened in spite of the dice. A sort of player fudge / storyteller mechanic that can give them a moment of super power but they only get it so many times... and then they die or otherwise become completely lost as a character once the last point is spent.

That sounds very thematic and exciting! I think I'll steal it ^_~

Just now, shosuko said:

That sounds interesting - if you had a pool of Fate that represented your life. When your character would fail a crucial role, or die, you would spend a fate and create a story for what happened in spite of the dice. A sort of player fudge / storyteller mechanic that can give them a moment of super power but they only get it so many times... and then they die or otherwise become completely lost as a character once the last point is spent.

That sounds very thematic and exciting!

Right!? Like just the idea got me thinking of starting an L5R campaign of my own. Also when my brother found out about the Yasuki he wanted to immediately join your campaign.

1 hour ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

So I think they should be start around 5 and almost never recharge. That is not to say that they can't come back if the story has a good reason for it, but each time you spend one your character is taking another step to their final destiny. It could even be used to take extra damage or lower defense as your literal plot armor wears away.

Oh another example. The FFG Star Wars destiny points are s integral as every time you spend one you give one to the GM to use against you.

Considering the next iteration will probably be NDS, the SW destiny system (or an equivalent) could very well be part of it.

19 hours ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

So I think they should be start around 5 and almost never recharge. That is not to say that they can't come back if the story has a good reason for it, but each time you spend one your character is taking another step to their final destiny. It could even be used to take extra damage or lower defense as your literal plot armor wears away.

Oh another example. The FFG Star Wars destiny points are s integral as every time you spend one you give one to the GM to use against you.

Along these lines, is it practical? Would your group spend them or just save them until the end/Never use them? It is really hard to spend something that you know you will almost never get back. I could see saying it along the lines of "Instead of dying, you lose 1 fate and are at N-1 wounds", but the reward for spending it would need to be pretty vast, and I'm not sure you want something so unbalancing. And if by spending your fate, you somehow get weaker, then players will not spend it, since that weakens them.

Also, there absolutely is an Advantage that sort of does this, where the character can't die until they fulfill it. I want to say its something Destiny, but I don't have the book with me.

See: Deadlands Fate Chips, Numenera XP in general, Drama Dice from 7th Sea, where there are both permanent and temporary uses for those rewards. My experience is that players use them for the permanent ones, not the temporary or low-impact ones.

17 minutes ago, Mirith said:

Along these lines, is it practical?

No, not really, its bonuses are often meager or up to player abuse, while the GM can do a lot more bad things with them. In my experience, they are almost never spent or are used to "nuke" a roll/scene. They are effectively worse Void Points. Also, as the Gm spends his own Destiny Points, he gives them back to the players, so it is a continuously renewing resource (kinda).

3 hours ago, Mirith said:

Along these lines, is it practical? Would your group spend them or just save them until the end/Never use them? It is really hard to spend something that you know you will almost never get back. I could see saying it along the lines of "Instead of dying, you lose 1 fate and are at N-1 wounds", but the reward for spending it would need to be pretty vast, and I'm not sure you want something so unbalancing. And if by spending your fate, you somehow get weaker, then players will not spend it, since that weakens them.

Also, there absolutely is an Advantage that sort of does this, where the character can't die until they fulfill it. I want to say its something Destiny, but I don't have the book with me.

See: Deadlands Fate Chips, Numenera XP in general, Drama Dice from 7th Sea, where there are both permanent and temporary uses for those rewards. My experience is that players use them for the permanent ones, not the temporary or low-impact ones.

I think it is practical in the point of injecting mono no aware into the game setting. By giving these to the players I am telling them, as GM, that they will die. They may get lucky with dice rolls, but as GM I am free to press them with riskier situations they may not exit unscathed. The players are also free to employ their own greater fantasy into the setting by crafting their own solution to the problems. The way I envision this playing out is that a player can spend this when they fail a story-critical roll. Maybe they are in a duel and their character would have just died, or they were trying to convince some lord to take their position against a rival npc, and failure in this roll would mean failure as a group, failure in the story. Rather than fail they can spend this point to succeed anyway. Maybe they win the duel, but get a nasty scar across their chest, or lose an eye. Maybe the lord is swayed by their position, but their family becomes destitute fulfilling their part of the agreement, whatever it is the story can become successful again, the players can live... this time... but it shows that they are transient and it lets them tell the story of their own scar they've earned to win.

This can actually fix a troubling issue that comes up in RPGs which is that IF characters are truly given a critical roll, then we are giving the story up to chance. Imagine they are in a crunch for time and they have to complete this roll to disable some explosion before all is lost - great tension, classic climactic moment... but if they fail, BAM mission over. OR the GM fudges the roll, or it turns out to not be the real climactic role, or you just let them power up to where the TN is meaningless... The suspension of disbelief is at risk of being broken for the sake of the story. Instead they can spend their fate and tell the story of how they took the bomb and threw it to safety but caught themselves in the blast and have scars from the burns across their hands and arms.

8 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I think it is practical in the point of injecting mono no aware into the game setting. By giving these to the players I am telling them, as GM, that they will die. They may get lucky with dice rolls, but as GM I am free to press them with riskier situations they may not exit unscathed. The players are also free to employ their own greater fantasy into the setting by crafting their own solution to the problems. The way I envision this playing out is that a player can spend this when they fail a story-critical roll. Maybe they are in a duel and their character would have just died, or they were trying to convince some lord to take their position against a rival npc, and failure in this roll would mean failure as a group, failure in the story. Rather than fail they can spend this point to succeed anyway. Maybe they win the duel, but get a nasty scar across their chest, or lose an eye. Maybe the lord is swayed by their position, but their family becomes destitute fulfilling their part of the agreement, whatever it is the story can become successful again, the players can live... this time... but it shows that they are transient and it lets them tell the story of their own scar they've earned to win.

This can actually fix a troubling issue that comes up in RPGs which is that IF characters are truly given a critical roll, then we are giving the story up to chance. Imagine they are in a crunch for time and they have to complete this roll to disable some explosion before all is lost - great tension, classic climactic moment... but if they fail, BAM mission over. OR the GM fudges the roll, or it turns out to not be the real climactic role, or you just let them power up to where the TN is meaningless... The suspension of disbelief is at risk of being broken for the sake of the story. Instead they can spend their fate and tell the story of how they took the bomb and threw it to safety but caught themselves in the blast and have scars from the burns across their hands and arms.

My only issue with this philosophy is the whole "Everything hinges on this one roll". Sure there are important fights, but those fights rarely hing on a single roll. Even a Duel is 2 rolls, or possibly more if it is to the death. But story-wise, does it make sense to hinge your entire story on making sure your Daimyo does a thing with a single roll? Is that fun if you then fail? Does everyone then die/fail/dishonor and commit seppuku when you don't make this roll?

I see your point as allowing this to negate that point, but does it make sense to include them at all?

12 minutes ago, Mirith said:

My only issue with this philosophy is the whole "Everything hinges on this one roll". Sure there are important fights, but those fights rarely hing on a single roll. Even a Duel is 2 rolls, or possibly more if it is to the death. But story-wise, does it make sense to hinge your entire story on making sure your Daimyo does a thing with a single roll? Is that fun if you then fail? Does everyone then die/fail/dishonor and commit seppuku when you don't make this roll?

I see your point as allowing this to negate that point, but does it make sense to include them at all?

It typically doesn't make sense to include them at all because you don't want the main characters of your story to really be able to fail. We have hit points, and when you run out you lose. Then you run out, but you're not dead it just means you're unconscious, or that you just need to drink a healing potion. How much better would the tension be if you could allow it to come down to 1 roll! Life or death, success or failure and the player knows the finality of it. How sweaty will the hand be that rolls those dice...

It depends on how you see RPGs though. To some they are tactics games, and we need to "win" by typically gaining enough power to overcome the obstacles safely. We construct situations with several rolls so that chance plays less of a part, why bother rolling at all if we remove the element of chance? Do players not want to be the guy disarming the bomb, red wire or blue wire? Think quick! You don't know? Can't remember? Close your eyes as you make the cut!

To me RPGs are stories co-oped between the story teller, and the players who each take a starring role. By pressing mono no aware into the game with fate this way what I see is that I can show the players as a GM not just that they will die, but that they can live through experiences where they maybe would have died or failed and they can keep going. I feel this can give a much more realistic world where they understand the grim consequences of their actions because they'll see that it is a very real possibility. When they have no more fate left they will certainly KNOW that they will die more than any other point in the game... and I feel at that point they may be perfectly fine signing over their character to an amazing death fit for samurai legends.

This can also be a great story teller's aid as it can show the story teller who was pressed and who wasn't. If a character has all of their fate left - they might not be receiving enough focus or spotlight. I think giving everyone a fixed amount of fate at the beginning, maybe 2 each would set a solid tone, allow them to use it, and allow them to run out and play a climax unlike any RPG.

7 hours ago, Mirith said:

My only issue with this philosophy is the whole "Everything hinges on this one roll". Sure there are important fights, but those fights rarely hing on a single roll. Even a Duel is 2 rolls, or possibly more if it is to the death. But story-wise, does it make sense to hinge your entire story on making sure your Daimyo does a thing with a single roll? Is that fun if you then fail? Does everyone then die/fail/dishonor and commit seppuku when you don't make this roll?

I see your point as allowing this to negate that point, but does it make sense to include them at all?

When I play D&D I am usually saving the world. I usually only v save the world because nobody else can.

How often will it come down to just one dice roll? Often enough. The very best moments are when everyone's actions matter. As a GM I have given my players time limits. And I have walked away from the table for half an hour to let them plan.

What I think it comes down to is.

When I play D&D I want a hero with a strong story and a strong purpose.

When I play L5R I want my character on the brink of death struggling to have a life with meaning.

I have had D&D with meaningful deaths, and I have had L5R characters who lived the whole game. But those are not my norm.

This adds to a character making the world a little bit more their own. This lets the GM play rough. And it is by no means a good fit for most RPG's.

But it is the only way I can think of to make mono no aware fun in an RPG.

Unhallowed Metropolis has a mechanic where a character possesses a Corruption, a villainous trait that compels them forward when nothing else would. This is entirely appropriate in a neo-Victorian game of horror and survival, but an adaptation of a thought similar to this could be applied to L5R RPG.

A character starts with 5 Fate, period. At any point, even after dice have hit the table, the player can spend a character's Fate point to be successful in an action. Perhaps that means winning a duel. Perhaps that means solving the puzzle. Perhaps that means catching the killer. Alternatively, when a character is reduced to 0 Wounds and would die, they lose a Fate and they survive through the intervention of fate and destiny.

This lasts until a character runs out of Fate. Once a character runs out of Fate, their story is nearing its conclusion. Once they are out of Fate, they can be killed by simply damage.

At any point, the player may elect to state "This is where I die," and is given the opportunity to narratively resolve how their character dies. For every Fate point they currently have, they can make a statement about their character's final scene which is true. For every Fate point they have spent, the GM can make a statement about their character's final scene which is true. Together, the GM and the player construct the final scene of the character's story, ending with their death.

Sometimes all you need to inject a theme into something is good aesthetics. Yasuo from League of Legends is *all* about mono no aware, even though the game as a whole is extremely heroic. It's achieved both by fantastic voice acting, backstory and visuals, but also by having his character rely on a gameplay focused around "fleeting moments" - windows of opportunity, which come and go; if you don't seize them when they appear, you will lose.

Where I'm going with this, is that you could totally do a relatively heroic and player-strong L5R rpg without having to rely on killing off player characters to capture the mono no aware. But figuring out how to do this...is why game designers get paid for what they do :P.

11 minutes ago, WHW said:

Where I'm going with this, is that you could totally do a relatively heroic and player-strong L5R rpg without having to rely on killing off player characters to capture the mono no aware. But figuring out how to do this...is why game designers get paid for what they do :P.

Less than elementary school teachers in the United States?

/runs away from the rising tide of vitriol!

7 hours ago, sndwurks said:

Less than elementary school teachers in the United States?

/runs away from the rising tide of vitriol!

Well, at least it's more than doing it for free

I've been thinking about this a little.

As well as having mechanics based on mono no aware, a game needs player buy-in. This may be hard because players grow to love their characters and, even in games like Call of Cthulhu, don't want to lose them. I've seen players depart from games rather than have their characters die. Some players (like myself) really enjoy a high body count, but I think we're in the minority. Decades of RPGs have been conditioning players to believe that while a game may have a very high NPC body count, they should expect their PC to survive. In order to overcome this, the game needs to reset player expectations. It needs to do it very clearly and it needs to do it with every part of the game.

You know which game did this right? Paranoia. People playing Paranoia know that their character is doomed and they not only expect it but look forward to it. Paranoia is less about survival than it is about framing the perfect vignettes of character death. Because this is baked into the game on every page, players know and expect it, and have a great time with it.

Therefore, if we want a game which incorporates mono no aware, we should learn from Paranoia.

Firstly, the game cannot have the intricate sort of character generation that L5R players have grown to know and love. If a player spends ages going through the Advantages list to find the precise ones they want and then carefully combines them to make a vivid whole, this makes it difficult to persuade them that this character is going to only be in the game briefly. A game with mono no aware needs chargen which is simple, archetypal and fun. We'll know we've succeeded when players start talking about what their next character will be like after this one.

Secondly, the game cannot have an intricate levelling-up system. L5R's XP system is really nice and it's great fun to play with. It makes character survival fun, and by extension makes character non-survival less fun. The whole Insight system and school-rank system assumes that PCs will survive and level up, which is the opposite assumption to what we're looking for. A game with mono no aware needs to be focused on character change, rather than character growth. We'll know we've succeeded when players talk about "no longer needing" a particular skill or Advantage.

Thirdly, the game cannot have complex game-state trackers. The Honour, Glory, Status and Taint trackers are a lovely mechanic for a game in which PCs are expected to persist over long periods of play. By having these mechanics, we encourage players to think of their characters as being persistent, and we make it less fun to have a character that doesn't persist. Does this mean that we can't have them? No. The presence of the concepts adds greatly to the richness of L5R. A game with mono no aware just needs them to be simplified down as far as possible. We'll know we've succeeded when players no longer talk about their character gaining or losing honour, but about them becoming honoured or dishonoured.

These are my thoughts. I have some further ideas about how to implement them, if anyone's interested.

@Kitsu Seinosuke That is great advice! Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to incorporate that when I put this to an L5R campaign. I was already considering using a modified FATE system, which starts characters fairly powered up - but I think I should create some character templates ahead of time that the players can pick to largely create their character, and they can just add a few finishing touches. Since most of the people I run an L5R RPG with aren't actually L5R fans they might appreciate my hand writing a good amount of their character to help them fit in. In a conversation with a player I can typically feed into a narrative with them to mostly develop a character anyway so it won't be totally foreign to them, but it can take away a lot of the time in character building.

I wonder what I could do to let them think about what character they may play next though... Maybe I should put together a template for each family in each clan so they can see lots of options to choose from - this way as we build the character, they may start out selecting a character to use "this time" rather than starting from a blank sheet. I guess that means I should write at least 2 arcs designed to play this deadly game with... so that I can at least reward their ambition with another go round lol.

1 minute ago, shosuko said:

@Kitsu Seinosuke That is great advice! Thank you for sharing. I'll be sure to incorporate that when I put this to an L5R campaign. I was already considering using a modified FATE system, which starts characters fairly powered up - but I think I should create some character templates ahead of time that the players can pick to largely create their character, and they can just add a few finishing touches. Since most of the people I run an L5R RPG with aren't actually L5R fans they might appreciate my hand writing a good amount of their character to help them fit in. In a conversation with a player I can typically feed into a narrative with them to mostly develop a character anyway so it won't be totally foreign to them, but it can take away a lot of the time in character building.

I wonder what I could do to let them think about what character they may play next though... Maybe I should put together a template for each family in each clan so they can see lots of options to choose from - this way as we build the character, they may start out selecting a character to use "this time" rather than starting from a blank sheet. I guess that means I should write at least 2 arcs designed to play this deadly game with... so that I can at least reward their ambition with another go round lol.

Wow, I admire your rpg work ethic.

This kind of has me wanting to try something in the same vein as Kobolds Ate My Baby. Low level characters doomed to suffer while the players have a good time getting 3-4 deaths in a session. Oni Ate My Crab, anyone?