Designing a better Action Point system.

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Dominicius
Knight
Posts: 491
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:28 pm

Designing a better Action Point system.

Post by Dominicius »

Hello again.

I want to ask the people for advice on what to do when creating a narrativist action point system and what you think about such systems in general.

I want to give my players abilities to affect the narrative by giving them access to DM tools, encourage roleplaying by rewarding contributions to the game and give extra protection to the PCs to prevent the narrative from collapsing due bad die rolls.


Here is a rough draft of what I have so far

Players gain action points for attending sessions (or for posting in this case). At times a player who does something extremely cool/delivers good roleplay can be awarded up to 5 points.

I have a few ideas on how to use them:

You can spend one point to stabilize your character to prevent him from dying.
You can spend five points in a situation that would kill your character (either due to damage or a save or die effect), your character falls unconscious instead.
You can spend three points to direct a conversation with an NPC or NPCs. In essence, you are allowed to roleplay what the NPCs say as long as it is in character and it makes sense at the time. This does not allow one to insta win social skill checks.
You can spend 15 points to make a minor event happen. Either create a distraction for a crowd or have a few guards hear the commotion when you are fighting thieves in a warehouse. It must make sense within the scene and it must not be completely random.
You can spend 25 points to restart a scene, with the consensus of the other players. This is basically a save game but only goes back a single scene.
You can spend 35 points to make your character more powerful for a single scene to make sure that they get the spotlight. You gain levels equal to 2 + 1/for every 5 HD you have.
You can spend 50 points to do anything within the confines of a single scene as long as it makes sense. In essence you are allowed to Magic Tea Party your way out of a fight or a problem.
(most of these benefits are up to DM discretion)


How do you feel, does this system fulfill the above goals and is it inherently flawed?
Last edited by Dominicius on Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jilocasin
Knight
Posts: 389
Joined: Mon Nov 02, 2009 12:28 pm

Re: Designing a better Action Point system.

Post by Jilocasin »

First thing that springs to mind is that I've never liked rewarding individual players with bonus XP/action points/whatever. In the case of rewarding posters for showing up, that seems to be all well and good. However, some players will always be better at coming up with something interesting than other players and those players should not essentially be penalized for being less imaginative. You could do something where if one player does something action point reward worthy every player gets the reward (my preferred option), or you could do something where everyone gets a reward but the person who made it happen gets a bigger one. This way everyone has an incentive to do awesome stuff and it helps the whole party and gives them the tools to do what you want them to do in the first place.
Dominicius wrote:You can spend one point to stabilize your character to prevent him from dying.
You can spend five points in a situation that would kill your character (either due to damage or a save or die effect), your character falls unconscious instead.
You can spend three points to direct a conversation with an NPC or NPCs. In essence, you are allowed to roleplay what the NPCs say as long as it is in character and it makes sense at the time. This does not allow one to insta win social skill checks.
You can spend 15 points to make a minor event happen. Either create a distraction for a crowd or have a few guards hear the commotion when you are fighting thieves in a warehouse. It must make sense within the scene and it must not be completely random.
You can spend 25 points to restart a scene, with the consensus of the other players. This is basically a save game but only goes back a single scene.
You can spend 35 points to make your character more powerful for a single scene to make sure that they get the spotlight. You gain levels equal to 2 + 1/for every 5 HD you have.
You can spend 50 points to do anything within the confines of a single scene as long as it makes sense. In essence you are allowed to Magic Tea Party your way out of a fight or a problem.
Looking specifically at your rewards, well I have no idea how many action points a character is supposed to have at any given time or over the course of gaining a level so I can't really judge the numbers.

I'm a bit leery of restarting a scene if only because other players might think it went well (or well enough) but they capitulate because they don't want to rock the boat.

Gaining levels is just a bad idea. Immediately the game halts for 15-30 minutes while the player levels up the character without actually levelling up the character. This might not be a huge problem with pbp but it would be just as easy to break it down into smaller, quicker to adjudicate abilities. Things like not expending a memorized spell or not using up a casting or automatically getting a crit or doing max damage with an ability or adding some amount to the DC of an ability or some discrete use that brings the spotlight down on you without taking a long time to figure out.
fatmonkey13
1st Level
Posts: 41
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 3:31 am

Post by fatmonkey13 »

I could not agree more that gaining levels is just a bad idea.
Restarting a scene sound like a bad idea as well.

What I would do is alow points to be spent to get a bonus on a roll, reroll a roll, or avoid character death.
Dominicius
Knight
Posts: 491
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 8:28 pm

Re: Designing a better Action Point system.

Post by Dominicius »

Jilocasin wrote:First thing that springs to mind is that I've never liked rewarding individual players with bonus XP/action points/whatever. In the case of rewarding posters for showing up, that seems to be all well and good. However, some players will always be better at coming up with something interesting than other players and those players should not essentially be penalized for being less imaginative. You could do something where if one player does something action point reward worthy every player gets the reward (my preferred option), or you could do something where everyone gets a reward but the person who made it happen gets a bigger one. This way everyone has an incentive to do awesome stuff and it helps the whole party and gives them the tools to do what you want them to do in the first place.
I... really like this. This is the kind of thing that really encourages teamplay.


Looking specifically at your rewards, well I have no idea how many action points a character is supposed to have at any given time or over the course of gaining a level so I can't really judge the numbers.
My bad. Right now I am considering a max of 60 points with one point gained every three posts. A piece of imaginative roleplay could earn something from 3 to 5 points.
I'm a bit leery of restarting a scene if only because other players might think it went well (or well enough) but they capitulate because they don't want to rock the boat.
I see what you mean. What if I make it cost 32 points that is split between the players participating in a scene? I think this facilitates both self-interest and teamplay at once.
Gaining levels is just a bad idea. Immediately the game halts for 15-30 minutes while the player levels up the character without actually levelling up the character. This might not be a huge problem with pbp but it would be just as easy to break it down into smaller, quicker to adjudicate abilities. Things like not expending a memorized spell or not using up a casting or automatically getting a crit or doing max damage with an ability or adding some amount to the DC of an ability or some discrete use that brings the spotlight down on you without taking a long time to figure out.
I know that leveling would cost time and is a bad idea but the alternatives are seriously lackluster. Getting a bonus to a roll, critting for max damage, not wasting a spell, those things are really boring. They don't make the character more interesting, they just make him stronger and that is not the point. All you did was move numbers around.

Above all else, a heroic surge should make a character a hundred times more interesting for a short while with power being secondary.
Last edited by Dominicius on Mon Oct 25, 2010 3:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
fatmonkey13
1st Level
Posts: 41
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 3:31 am

Post by fatmonkey13 »

What about allow an extra action?
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