House Rules: Fatepoints

by Jonas Steverud

Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 09:40:57 -0500 From: Jonas Steverud To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: [New Rule] Fatepoints in RM

[I promised on #rolemaster for a long time ago (> 6 month I believe) to post this, so here it is. Slighly delayed. :-) ]

This is an idea which I have stolen from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and adapted for Rolemaster. I have used it a little (don't play that much :-( ) and find them useful. Just a warning: if the GM gives them out too freely the PC's will become virtually inmortal/invinciable.

New rule: Fatepoints in Rolemaster.

In a realistic roleplayinggame like Rolemaster it is very common that the PCs dies or is serious wounded (otherwise it wouldn't be called /mortal/ combat ;-) ).

Sometimes the GM is in a good mood and changes the effect (the critical or whatever) or decides that you are allowed to reroll or let the PCs find herbs/healers.

This is a solution which I have nothing against but there is two major problems.

  1. The players who's result wheren't changed will feel mistreated.
  2. The gamebalance is in danger.

So how do we solve this problem, justice against survival? My suggestions is that we add something that's called Fatepoints (or FP for short).

All PCs (and *only* PCs, not NPCs) gets 3 FP when he is created at level 1 and receives one FP per level he increases thru the play (10:th lvl = 3+9 = 12 FP). A PC can also buy 1D2 FP as a backgroundoption. (If the GM feel that it is too many he can simply reduse the number the PC gets. But don't reduce them too much, they tend to be very useful...).

If a PC later in the game gets *serious* wounded or even killed he can *immediately* spend one FP. The GM then changes the result to the benefit of the player. The effect will still be serious, they won't disappear. A killing blow will be changed so the PC looses an arm or a leg, a hit that would cut off an arm will put the PC into coma for a while and so on. The fatepoints doesn't *remove* the effect, just make them lighter. The PC will survive, but that's all.

The player can only change rolls that are made *against* the PC, not those the PC rolls. If a foe hits the PC a FP can be used to save the PC but they can't be used so that the PC's counterattack makes more damage.

Only one FP can be spent at the time. The player isn't allowed to spend multiple FP's to turn a killing blow into a failure.

All FPs that is spent is forever lost. The don't come back and says "Hello, remember me?".

The idea with the fatepoints is to keep your beloved PC alive (but not necessarily in one piece). The FP can not only be used in combat but also in other situations. Like survive poison, find a oasis in the desert just before they die of thirst, succeed to grab that rope before he falls down 800 meters and so on. Exactly what happens to the PC is up to the situation and the GM. As pointed out above, the PC will survive but that's all.

An optional rule: The maximum of FPs a given PC can have is five (5).

An example: The PC Thor the Fearless, played by John, meets a troll. They start to fight and delivers horrible blows to each other. As the skillful fighter Thor is he cuts off the trolls left arm but since the troll is a NPC, not a PC, he can't do anything about it. Suddenly the troll has a really fortune blow that will kill Thor (36E, destroy foes head). John then decides to spend one of the FP that Thor has. The GM decides (in the disguise of Thors god) that the blow doesn't kills Thor but sends him into a eight month long coma (and a six month long recovery- period).

After this long period Thor decides to go hunting trolls (he wants revenge). He finds the troll and they start to fight each other again. The troll continues to be lucky (or skillfull) and delivers another mighty blow to Thors head. John tries to spend another FP but to his horror he discovers that he has run out of them! Since Thor hasn't learned his lession to stay out of trouble the god (read GM) decides that Thor will suffer from his foolishness and so falls Thor to the ground, only mourned by his closest friends and relatives.

Well, I hope you find some use for these rules.

Any comments?

/Jonas
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Who? Me?: Jonas Steverud                         | If All is One,      |
| EMail...: d4jonas@dtek.chalmers.se               |  is then One All?   |
| Home....: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/%7Ed4jonas |                     |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Back to the House of Rules.