Mount Zion Ryan

A little Background:

A friend Jason and I were discussing asymmetrical parties in RPGs, movies, and literature. By asymmetrical I mean that the individual party members are not ‘balanced’ in the traditional RPG definition. Many movies and books that would serve as inspirational sources for RPGs feature this lack of party balance. I think party balance is overrated and would enjoy playing a game where the little guy has as much story power (as opposed to actual combat effectiveness) as the big guy.

A classic example is The Fellowship of the Ring. If played as a traditional RPG with rules that force “balanced” characters you either end up with Gandalf the Mighty 1st level push-over or Super Sam, Titan of Shire.

The basic idea:

Jason had the idea of Story Points. The number of story points available to a character is inversely proportional to how powerful they are. Story Points (SPs) can be used to automatically succeed a task, do max damage, or change the scene in a significant way (did I hear Eagles).

For example:
Gandalf is a badass demi-god magician and has 0 Story Points.
Aragorn is a superhuman fighter-soon to be ruler of everyone has 1 SPs.
Frodo has the ring but he’s still a hobbit so he gets 3 SPs.
Sam, Merry, and Pippen don’t have shit mechanically, but they have 5 SPs.

So a Merry can scamper around Pelennor Fields, avoiding orcs and such, then (spend an SP) deal a deadly blow to the Lord of the Nazgul.

I really liked the idea and decided to see how I could implement it in Savage Worlds (as yet untested).

Here goes:

1. Begin with 5 Story Points
2. Each story point may be exchanged for an advance (i.e. 5 Experience Points). Once spent for XP, they are gone forever.
3. After Chargen, SPs may be exchanged for 5 xp anytime there is “training time” in the game. Once spent for XP, they are gone forever.
4. Any story points not converted to XP may be used during play in the following ways
   1. To roll the maximum face for your roll. You may then continue rolling to see if they explode again. If trying to hit a parry of 10. You roll d8 & d6. Spend an SP to start at 8 and 6 then roll again to add. If you rolled a 7 and 5, your final total would be 15, hit with a raise!
   2. Narrate some significant change. This only only effect gear and the environment, not an enemies abilities or weaknesses.
   3. Regain all spent bennies.
   4. Out for the count. Reduce all damage from a Incapacitating blow, but still incapacitated.
5. Story Points regenerate at the beginning of an Adventure/Chapter.

I haven’t really checked to see how well these jive with canon uses for Bennies, but I’d like to give it a try.

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