I gradually developed a more expansive approach to Luck - so much so that anybody who treated it like a dump stat would be a fool, a fool I tell you. Luck in my Cyberpunk 2020 games became, essentially, a primitive form of FATE point, giving the players a kind of control over the narrative: if a player asks me something and I don't know the answer and feel like making one up would be arbitrary on my part ("Is there a CCTV camera nearby?", "Is there a stapler in the office?", "Is there a taxi passing by?") I have them roll a d10. If the result is less than their luck, they get the answer they wanted. If not, they don't. I might also use luck if I can't think of a way to resolve something (there's a car crash and the players didn't decide in advance who was in the passenger seat - they all roll a d10 and add their luck and the lowest is the unfortunate one who gets thrown through the windscreen).
I've always liked this approach, because it makes me feel like it aids my objectivity (I'm neither giving players what they want nor deliberately refusing them what they want) and I enjoy the thought that luck is an actual 'thing' that has real-world effects; there's not only an element of luck in the things that you do as a player (rolling dice to see if you succeed), there's also an actual, almost physical phenomenon in the world which shapes the destinies of the people in it. And because it tends only to be used for things that are relatively trivial ("Is there a taxi nearby?") but which could literally be the hinge between life and death, it feels true as an accurate reflection of the rather random nature of life.
Sounds reminiscent of BRP's Luck roll, which I adore for all the same reasons you enumerate.
ReplyDeleteI take it that in addition to your spin on the attribute you still allow Luck to be spent for die roll bonuses?
Yeah, you can still spend the points. I've also experimented with allowing luck points to be spent for re-rolls.
DeleteThis is an issue of retrospection. The story game approach to gaming is more faithful to fairytales and myth stories with their ludicrous degrees of luck and preposterousness. Both ill and good luck it has to be said. Luck should be an exaggerator of events and not merely determine benign fortune imv.
ReplyDeleteIt is not that James Bond, say, is 'lucky' but that we are telling *his* story in retrospect in book and film because we already know that he came through. 013 who was not so successful did not have films made about him but no film producer would bet on either 007 or 013 up front. The thrill of the film is fake. In that sense a D&D film hasn't been made because random scenes (already filmed) would need to be linked in while we watch and I think it could be fun to emerge from the cinema asking 'what happened in your version?'
I have to say that as a mathematician that when you say,
>>luck is an actual 'thing' that has real-world effects; there's not only an element of luck in the things that you do as a player (rolling dice to see if you succeed), there's also an actual, almost physical phenomenon in the world which shapes the destinies of the people in it>>
there is no such thing outside of retrospection. All that is available to a DM is the predetermined hero story game or the honest we are all nobodies game.
Yes, I think it could concievably be more intersting to have a mechanic that incorporated hideous bad fortune when the Luck stat roll fails.
DeleteBut then again that is often implicit anyway. Imagine in a Cyberpunk 2020 style game the players have just killed somebody in a hotel room and want to get away before the body is discovered. They don't have a getaway car. They look around in the hope there is a taxi nearby. One of them rolls for luck. If they're lucky there is one, and that's good. If they're unlucky there isn't one, and that's bad. There are both positive and negative consequences inherent in the roll.
I use luck pretty much exactly the same way in NGR, and I too find it makes me feel more objective about rulings.
ReplyDeleteIn the homebrew post-apocalyptic ruleset I'm working on, Luck works similarly to how you describe (particularly aiding objectivity), and also adds to the atmosphere of instability I'm trying to design into the game. After a combat, a moderate Luck check is made to see if you still have ammo; at the end of the day, a moderate Luck check determines if you still have supplies. It serves to retroactively abstract all the moments in the day when you may have dropped something, or fell on it, or found a bit more, or what have you.
ReplyDeleteI've just never seen Luck in a system, tabletop or computer, that felt like actual luck. Yes, we roll the dice, and that is its own kind of luck, but making it work is pretty satisfying. Very nice to see others have been using similar ideas before me.
Have you played Apocalypse World? That's sort of a bit like that.
DeleteI have to say I prefer the logistics of counting ammo and supplies, because it makes the planning side of things more interesting, but obviously YMMV.
it's a cool mechanic, very quick to use on the table, but I'd personally rather figure out a % chance with the players based on reason and logic than using a luck stat. If it's really a trivial thing I'd rather just say, yea dude, there's a stapler on the desk, it's an office. If the presence of a stapler is crucial for whatever reason, I'd let the player roll to search for one giving them a favorable bonus since they are in an office.
ReplyDeleteWell yeah, the stapler thing perhaps wasn't the best example - you have to use your intuition to work out when to just say "yeah" and went to require a luck roll.
DeleteYes, this is almost exactly how I use Luck in Call of Cthulhu. I also liked the LUCK mechanic in Fighting Fantasy, in particular the way it reduced the more often you used it.
ReplyDeleteVery clever. I'm going to steal it.
ReplyDeleteI like this for WFRP. Roll a D6 or D4 against a player's remaining Fate points. It would almost be like a character's luck running dry as he/she tempts Fate (burns Fate points) more and more - save extraordinary acts (DM granted Fate poitns) that prove the Gods are on his/her side.
ReplyDeleteAnd using something other than the usual WFRP D10 would just show off that this is Luck/Coincidence/Chaos we're dealing with, not the everyday randomness of a skill test.