Friday, October 9, 2015

Idea: reward system

After listening to the most recent design games podcast episode about reward cycles and reward systems I began thinking about applying some thought to houseruling the inspiration mechanic in 5E DND.The inspiration rule is written fairly open and laconic, essentially, "if the DM thinks you did something cool you get advantage on a roll sometime soon." This is a nice little side system that doesn't interfere with the primary reward mechanic in the game, xp/ levelling. Since I don't usually play with xp anyway inspiration might be a convenient way for me to reward specific behaviours at the table. One idea I had was to open up the table briefly before the session to set out narrative themes which if touched will give the players inspiration. For example, somebody says they want to see the theme of "cleverness beating strength" while someone else wants to see "forbidden knowledge leading to complication." The only major difference from conventional inspiration would be that the inspiration would be awarded before rather than after the roll in question. That is, the roll which furthers the story in the direction agreed upon before hand gets a little boost. 

Here are some examples of narrative themes:
"Lose the battle to win the war "
"Poetic justice "
"Sacrifice for the team"
"irony"
"the brink of disaster" 
"super cool mega heros save the day"
"don't trust respectable advisers"
"Trespass social norms to follow your heart "
"Redeem your past actions through selflessness "

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