Most of the game systems I’ve enjoyed over the years have had a little fudge factor built into them to get the player around the cold, hard curve of probability.  Some of my players have the preternatural ability to roll crappy….all the time.  The one player it doesn’t matter if it’s dice, his HP scientific calculator programmed to do random rolls, or a dice program on his PDA…luck dumps in his pie.  Usually at the worst time.

My first encounter with “hero points” was the James Bond: 007 system from the early ’80s.  This allowed you to skew the result of a roll, or lower damage taken (in a system that could be especially deadly, I might add.)  DC Heroes, the Cortex system, Hollow Earth Expedition, Savage Worlds, and many others now utilize this “get out of death” feature.  Figuring out how to award and use them, however, is occasionally tricky for new players and GMs.

A few recent incidents in our play has given me a few new insights to awarding and using points.  So I’m passing the savings on to you, faithful (or feckless) readers…  (I’m going to just use the term “plot points, for simplicity sake.)

Player-awarded plot points:  a lot of GMs are iffy about ceding some power to the players.  I’m finding increasingly, it aids in the fun when players can say “he should get a point for that!” as they did last night.  A crusty old pilot character snapped off a completely period-appropriate, and totally sexist, comment to the female character.  Brilliantly done, I might add.  That was the response from everyone.  So I awarded a point.  When players think another player is worthy, it’s usually because what they did is worth the award.  (I rarely respond to a player saying “I deserve a plot point…”)

I award the points for good roleplaying on the spot.  And fantastic ideas they come up with.  Or setting appropriate maneuvers like “I want to leap off the wing of our Catalina and into the Amazon canoe, while shooting at the monster.  Can I do that?”  Hell, yes!

A bit more R-rated, I had a guy playing a playboy character who wanted to make sure his “equipment” was up to snuff.  Can I give a point to be well-hung?  Absolutely.  And I gave him a point last night for rescuing an Amazon at great risk to himself…all so he could help her onto a canoe, by grabbing her ass.  Appropriate for the character.  Have a point.  His girlfriend got pissed and cut him off for the night, causing him other troubles and making the group a bit less cohesive.  Point to her; completely in character.

In Battlestar Galactica, one player had a Cylon involved with another main character who spent most of his plot points to get her pregnant.  Why?  The Cylons are trying to breed.  Also, it’s giong to cause lots of trouble for both characters in the now to distant future.

Give points out liberally.  If the players think it’s a great idea, and you think it’s going to up the ante on fun, go for it.  It gets the players to use their flaws and character design for something other than beating up the monsters or bad guys, and make play more fun all around.  They should sped them liberally, too, to make the best of their character schitcks, be they something as shallow as “looking awesome.”

Another use I recently found for plot points.  Sometimes, there’s something in the script that really needs to happen.  You don’t want to railroad the characters, but you really want to now have to rewrite things on the fly.  Last weekend, I had a spy game going where the players were really short handed, had captured and questioned the major henchman, and had to stage a raid where they could only leave one guy to watch him.  It would have to be an NPC.  We all know where this is going — I need the baddie to escape and draw the players to the big final action sequence.

They know this, but they want to 1) knock him out, 2) coup de grace him, 3) formulate some other idea that will take 20 minutes of game time to plan/explain.  So I offered them all a plot point to just get on with it, leave him with the NPC, and let things proceed apace.  One of the player’s later responses:  the GM bribed us to let the bad guy get away.

Bribe them.  “It’s not railroading if they agree,” as Uncle Bear says.