truemane
2023-05-02, 03:18 PM
PRE-AMBLE
I've been playing D&D since the early 80's. And I've been trying to graft narrative-focused mechanics to the basic D&D chassis for almost that long. I tried dozens of variations with wildly varied results. It's one of those things I can't seem to get right but can't seem to let go. This is a completely new version with some fresh influences and ideas. I've taken it for a couple of limited test-runs, to generally positive reviews. I'd love to get some wider feedback.
The purpose of the Guided Narrative System is to provide a simple, flexible, modular set of guidelines to help GM's and players manage traits and developments that the system doesn't model well (or at all). It's basically an attempt to codify the Rule of Cool: what's cool enough to trigger it? How often? Under what conditions and limitations? To what impact?
I want the Guided Narrative System to perform some combination of the following.
1. Let a character exist in the game the way the player wants them to, even if the mechanics don't reflect it.
Sometimes the narrative weight of an ability does not match its mechanical implementation. Let's say my character, Trusty McForthright, is a con artist. he grew up on the streets, scamming anyone and everyone he could to survive. I reflect this with the Criminal Background and the Rogue Class, with Expertise in Deception. Awesome. Depending on my attribute spread, Trusty might have a +5 or +6 to Deception. Meanwhile, Goober McRustic, the Hermit Sorcerer, gets +3 or +4 just for waking up in the morning. Which means that, in the run of a day, Trusty (the lifelong, expert conman might) has about the same chances to lie successfully than a guy who's never spoken to a single human being before walking into the tavern.
And this is fine during encounters. It's the way Bounded Accuracy works and I'm all for it. But off the battlemat, out in the world, it means that it's hard to move through 'the fiction' in the way your traits say you should when the implementation of those traits doesn't match. So I'd like to have a way to say some things about my character and have those things born out in the fiction (I'm not going to overuse that phrase, I promise).
2. Provide limited, metered opportunities to let me take limited, metered control over limited, metered portions of the game or story (generally to make things more interesting or dramatic).
If you imagine two theoretical, arbitrarily extreme positions: The dice are the story. The game is basically (in the immortal words of Randall Monroe) a weighted random number generator from whose outputs you craft a narrative. If Frodo gets to Mount Doom and Gollum fails his Grapple check and Frodo claims the Ring and Sauron kills him and rules the world, well that's just the story now.
The game is a story. The game is a means of creating a satisfying narrative and the dice are useful when they facilitate that aim and ignored when they don't. If Luke turns off his targeting computer, uses the Force, and gets one last shot at that exhaust port, thereby saving the Rebellion and claiming his Jedi birthright... maybe we don't even make him roll for that. Maybe we just say he gets it done.
I think most of us are somewhere between those two. Too strict an adherence to the rules or the dice can make everything feel like a video game (which, as much as I love D&D, is not as good at being a video game as video games). Too little adherence, however, and we lose the tension and uncertainty that the dice provide and wind up just playing Let's Pretend all night.
Now, generally speaking, I come to the table because I want the dice to tell me what happens next. And the 'story' is what we do with what the dice tell us. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want something dramatic to pay off in a satisfying way and I don't want the dice to tell me no. But I only want to be able to when it's dramatic, awesome, and really important to my character (or to the story).
3. Provide tools for managing narrative traits that lie outside the system's usual (or reasonable) reach (such as reputation, contacts, political office, etc).
You don't have to play D&D as an endless, incremental, reiterative combat simulator, but the farther you move from 'violent nomads kill things and steal their stuff to get better at killing things and stealing their stuff' the harder it gets for D&D to model what you're doing (and the more you have to wing it). Because a D&D character has finite resources (levels, Feats, spells, etc) and because the game's default assumption is that various choices need to be balanced against each other (and against a baseline proficiency in killin' and stealin'), it's not very good at dealing with story-based traits.
For example, let's say I want to be the king's childhood friend. That's way better than being the king's enemy, right? Being the king's childhood friend feels like it should cost something, and being his enemy should give you something, but what? A Feat? A Proficiency? Advantage on some rolls and Disadvantage on others? And if you did trade a Feat to be the king's childhood friend, what happens if you guys fight and you become his enemy? Do you get your Feat back? Or do you just get a new, king-equivalent friend instead?
This is really only weird because the traits "King's Childhood Friend" and "King's Enemy" need to somehow balance against each other, and against Lucky or Fae Touched (or, at the very least, +2 to your main stat). Take numbers and dice out of it completely, however, and being a king's friend and a king's enemy are both different, but potentially equal, kinds of fun.
Okay. Let's get to it.
THE GUIDED NARRATIVE SYSTEM
General Notes All of this is meant to apply outside of encounters. This system implies a fairly strict division between encounters (any discrete, metered, formal resource-expending scene) and the fluffy scenes in between.
All flippant references to 'combat' or 'rolling initiative' or being 'on the battlemat' can be taken to mean 'encounter' in the broad sense, as above.
I mostly talk about using this with D&D because that's mostly what I've been doing. But this could be used with any system-based game (or even freeform games), with few changes. However, if those systems already have mechanics to deal with some of this stuff (World of Darkness games, for example), this will bump awkwardly up against them. And provide diminishing returns.
I know that all of this can be solved by just making it up as I go along, but in the words of Rich Burlew himself, "I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want." If you read all this and think What idiot needs rules for this stuff? The answer is this idiot, me, truemane. You can tell me I don't need all this, but the ship sailed on that some time ago.
In brief: the Guided Narrative System involves assigning each character a number of story-based traits (Aspects), which are used as guidelines for taking actions that earn a narrative resource (Tokens), and actions that require expenditure of that resource.
ASPECTS
An Aspect is a short, evocative phrase describing an important narrative trait. Ideally, they're less about your character's skills and more about their story. Less like Class Abilities and more like specific conflicts or obstacles or themes you want to confront. Less about things you can do and more about things you are. "The greatest swordsman since the Wizard of Corsica" is okay. "Will stop at nothing to find the six-fingered man" is better. "Spent his entire like preparing for the day he would avenge his father's murder" is better still.
The 'standard' Aspect list is: two or three Aspects combined from the categories of Physical, Mental, Spiritual Traits; one or two from Circles (social traits); one or two Knacks (miscellaneous resources or abilities); and the Character Sheet.
However, the list of Aspects can be customized for any given game to put more emphasis on particular elements. A more customizable list might be: One or two Aspects that describe your character's place in the world. Standing, Resources, Special Knowledge, Family, Fame, Position.
One or two Aspects emerging from your character's internal life. Ethics, Wounds, Trauma, Goal, Fear, Secret Desire.
One Free Choice, which can be just about anything within the scope of the game in question. Maybe you want to double up on another category, or want something that doesn't fall into one of the others. This could be a singular mental or physical or spiritual trait, a magic item so powerful it exists on the narrative rather than the mechanical plane, a great destiny (or grim fate), a blessing (or curse), or the like.
Your character sheet. Anything on your sheet can, in theory, be used to drive the story as though it were an Aspect. If you've optimized for stealth, for example, you don't also need the Aspect "Sneakiest sneak who ever snuck." You've got that covered already.
Finally, if appropriate for the game in question, players may be asked to tell one or two stories or anecdotes about one or more of the other players. This could represent either shared ties or widely known information (for the sake of categorization, I refer to these as 'Legends').
TOKENS
Tokens are the narrative resource gained through your Aspects. There is a short list of actions that earn Tokens and a short list of actions that cost Tokens. As rule, Tokens are earned by adding things to the game (complications, history, complexity, depth, etc) and Tokens are spent to take control over a defined piece of the game for a defined time.
In order to be considered valid, any Token-based action must always BOTH*: Emerge organically from, and have some direct impact on, the current scene; and
Be related to one or more of your Aspects*Unless the action specifically says otherwise.
Gain 1 Token whenever you: Offer further information or details about the game world ("Speaking Lore").
Tell the table about a personal connection you have to a place, person, or group.
Complicate or delay something important to the party in order to tend to something important to you.
Complicate or delay something important to you in order to tend to something important to the party.
Fail when you should have succeeded and tell the table why or how.
Accept Lore from another player. (see *1* below)
Spend 1 Token to: "Speak Lore" about something not covered by one of your Aspects.
Take the spotlight for one Story Beat. Tell the table what you do and then what happens.
Present an effective solution to an obstacle.
Succeed at something when you should have failed and tell the table why or how.
Offer Lore to another player (see *1* below).
Give an NPC a name, tell the table one or two things about them, and "Bring them forward" into the current scene (see *2* below).
*1* In the event that you want to Speak Lore about another player, instead of paying a Token, you offer them a Token and tell them what you want to say, which they may then accept or refuse.
*2* Depending on circumstance, you may be permitted to pay another Token to "pick up" an NPC (place them under your control) and "hold" them (control them) until you "put them down" (release them from your control). Holding an NPC longer than one scene, removing them from their original setting, or otherwise making extensive use of them, requires the GM's permission and may cost additional Tokens.
Like Aspects, the list of actions can be customized to fit a particular game. Combined with customized Aspects, a few custom Token actions will help keep the game focused on particular elements of the world or game or story.
And that's it.
Aspects come from FATE, FUDGE, and a number of other games. I first came across the idea in the one-page RPG Aspect Only FATE by Michael Moceri.
Speaking Lore comes from the game Fellowship by Jacob Randolf.
Bringing an NPC Forward comes from Star Trek Adventures by Mophidius Press.
Picking Up and Holding NPC's, as well as the general shape of the Token system, come from the No Dice No Masters Engine in the games Dream Askew and Dream Apart by Buried without Ceremony (although I first came across them in Wanderhome by Jay Dragon).
A 5E game called Hardknock Life, about members of a global confederation of battle-hardened mercenaries, veterans from a generation of war, now trying to survive in a hardscrabble world that's lost its patience for soldiers (but not its need), might have the following Aspects:
Rep - a descriptor of how your character is perceived within the fraternity of mercenaries.
Shame - something in your character's past that they deeply regret and will never forgive themselves (and/or be forgiven) for.
Specialty - your character's primary skill or talent. What they're known for.
Code - the line your character won't cross or the standard they hold themselves to or the lesson they only had to learn once.
Free Choice - it's all you, buddy. Whatever you want.
Legend 1, Legend 2 - two other PC's will each tell one commonly known story about you. You start the game with a Token for each story you decide is true.
Your Character Sheet - operates as an Aspect when applicable.
Depending on the focus of this game, there could be an Aspect for reputation with non-mercenaries. Specialty and Rep could be combined. If struggling with ethical lines is not important, Shame and Code could be combined (or even eliminated). In a game more concerned with gaining power and resources, there could be one or more Aspects specifically for assets or contacts or debts or liabilities.
Gain 1 Token whenever you: Tell the table what happened last time you encountered this town, these people, this group.
Complicate or endanger the mission to attend to something personal that just can't wait.
Turn away from something personal because the mission comes first, and tell the table about the fallout.
Step over the line you swore you wouldn't cross.
Hold the line no matter the consequences.
Let another player tell you about something you did in the war. Tell the table what really happened.
Spend 1 Token to: "Speak Lore" about something not covered by one of your Aspects.
Take the spotlight for one Story Beat. Tell the table what you do and then what happens.
Have something planned for this exact situation.
Cause someone to re-consider their opinion of you.
Cause someone to re-think their ethical stance (or lack thereof).
Tell another player something you heard about something they did in the war.
Give an NPC a name, tell the table one or two things about them, and "Bring them forward" into the current scene.
The generic list covers most of the above material as is, but sharpening the language, or narrowing the triggering, can really keep the story focused on what the game is about. If that's your thing.
The key additions to this new version are the strict division between encounters and everything else (crunchy scenes and fluffy scenes) and the the requirement that a Token-generating action be both organic to the scene and related to an Aspect. While this system will not survive bad faith engagement, these two elements do a lot to focus player creativity where it belongs, and stops a lot of the fluff-to-crunch creep that plagued prior versions.
Having the Character Sheet function as an Aspect incentivizes player choices that are not strictly combat-focused. And also allows strictly combat-focused characters (martials) to use their abilities outside of combat.
Offering and Accepting Lore can have two layers: the player can accept or reject it and/or the player can decide whether or not it's true. So a player could accept Lore (which means it exists in the game world) but decide it isn't true (or is only partly true, or whatever). I've found this additional wrinkle especially useful in games where reputation is a dominant theme (like a global confederation mercenaries, for example).
If you add the option "one combat Action" to "Take the spotlight" you can allow some cross-over between the narrative and the mechanical without completely sinking the ship. Additional controls may be required depending on the table (once per Long Rest, only by DM permission, only during Boss Fights, only one PC can do this per combat, etc). This is great for cinematic finishing moves, but is more easily abused than the rest.
The 'overcome an obstacle' action, in my experience, is more of a blank cheque to the DM than the players. If you know that your players can burn a Token to narratively solve a non-encounter problem, you suddenly have enormous freedom in the scope and variety of the problems you can present off the grid. There's no roll or spell for a party to get a town to rise up against a cruel oppressor but it's the sort of thing a Bard with the 'Dedicated rabble-rouser' Aspect and a spare Token would do.
Giving an NPC a name is the key part of that action. Again, the system will not survive bad faith engagement, but without that limitation, players could validly take control of major NPC's and just circumvent the whole story. Restricting that ability to un-named NPC's takes most of the edge off. Still this can easily cause lots of problems if you're not prepared for it and can be just left out entirely.
The implementation of a strict encounter/non-encounter paradigm will generate some complexity when it comes to some scenes. Do you roll Persuasion to talk your way past a guard or spend a Token to be his favourite third cousin? What about extended stealth scenes? What if you're in a dungeon but not in initiative this very moment? I don't think this is a bad thing, and it tends to be very case-by-case, but it's worth noting the near inevitability of the conversation.
One of my main goals was to make both earning and burning Tokens interesting and entertaining. I didn't want players to have to sacrifice one cool thing to get a cool thing. Instead, players should be able to do a cool thing, and so gain the ability to do a different kind of cool thing. At the same time, the whole thing needs to be simple and flexible enough to not become just more bookkeeping.
The biggest hole in this thing, from my personal perspective, is that getting Aspects just right is vital for making the whole thing work. Aspects define the scope, tone, genre and mood of how you earn and burn Tokens. And workshopping Aspects and refining them so they're working for you rather than against you is a bit of an art. I've been doing it a long time and I'm pretty good at it, but I've never been able to articulate exactly how.
Similarly, I've found that it's hard to get players away from using Aspects as backdoor Class Abilities. And it's equally hard to get them away from always choosing 'positive' Aspects. Because they're the means by which you generate Tokens, "Everyone Hates Me" is just as useful an Aspect as "Everyone Loves Me" (arguably more useful). But there's a persistent paradigm at work that takes some effort to pierce. Any advice to help with these last two points would be especially appreciated.
Thoughts and notions of all kinds appreciated.
I've been playing D&D since the early 80's. And I've been trying to graft narrative-focused mechanics to the basic D&D chassis for almost that long. I tried dozens of variations with wildly varied results. It's one of those things I can't seem to get right but can't seem to let go. This is a completely new version with some fresh influences and ideas. I've taken it for a couple of limited test-runs, to generally positive reviews. I'd love to get some wider feedback.
The purpose of the Guided Narrative System is to provide a simple, flexible, modular set of guidelines to help GM's and players manage traits and developments that the system doesn't model well (or at all). It's basically an attempt to codify the Rule of Cool: what's cool enough to trigger it? How often? Under what conditions and limitations? To what impact?
I want the Guided Narrative System to perform some combination of the following.
1. Let a character exist in the game the way the player wants them to, even if the mechanics don't reflect it.
Sometimes the narrative weight of an ability does not match its mechanical implementation. Let's say my character, Trusty McForthright, is a con artist. he grew up on the streets, scamming anyone and everyone he could to survive. I reflect this with the Criminal Background and the Rogue Class, with Expertise in Deception. Awesome. Depending on my attribute spread, Trusty might have a +5 or +6 to Deception. Meanwhile, Goober McRustic, the Hermit Sorcerer, gets +3 or +4 just for waking up in the morning. Which means that, in the run of a day, Trusty (the lifelong, expert conman might) has about the same chances to lie successfully than a guy who's never spoken to a single human being before walking into the tavern.
And this is fine during encounters. It's the way Bounded Accuracy works and I'm all for it. But off the battlemat, out in the world, it means that it's hard to move through 'the fiction' in the way your traits say you should when the implementation of those traits doesn't match. So I'd like to have a way to say some things about my character and have those things born out in the fiction (I'm not going to overuse that phrase, I promise).
2. Provide limited, metered opportunities to let me take limited, metered control over limited, metered portions of the game or story (generally to make things more interesting or dramatic).
If you imagine two theoretical, arbitrarily extreme positions: The dice are the story. The game is basically (in the immortal words of Randall Monroe) a weighted random number generator from whose outputs you craft a narrative. If Frodo gets to Mount Doom and Gollum fails his Grapple check and Frodo claims the Ring and Sauron kills him and rules the world, well that's just the story now.
The game is a story. The game is a means of creating a satisfying narrative and the dice are useful when they facilitate that aim and ignored when they don't. If Luke turns off his targeting computer, uses the Force, and gets one last shot at that exhaust port, thereby saving the Rebellion and claiming his Jedi birthright... maybe we don't even make him roll for that. Maybe we just say he gets it done.
I think most of us are somewhere between those two. Too strict an adherence to the rules or the dice can make everything feel like a video game (which, as much as I love D&D, is not as good at being a video game as video games). Too little adherence, however, and we lose the tension and uncertainty that the dice provide and wind up just playing Let's Pretend all night.
Now, generally speaking, I come to the table because I want the dice to tell me what happens next. And the 'story' is what we do with what the dice tell us. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want something dramatic to pay off in a satisfying way and I don't want the dice to tell me no. But I only want to be able to when it's dramatic, awesome, and really important to my character (or to the story).
3. Provide tools for managing narrative traits that lie outside the system's usual (or reasonable) reach (such as reputation, contacts, political office, etc).
You don't have to play D&D as an endless, incremental, reiterative combat simulator, but the farther you move from 'violent nomads kill things and steal their stuff to get better at killing things and stealing their stuff' the harder it gets for D&D to model what you're doing (and the more you have to wing it). Because a D&D character has finite resources (levels, Feats, spells, etc) and because the game's default assumption is that various choices need to be balanced against each other (and against a baseline proficiency in killin' and stealin'), it's not very good at dealing with story-based traits.
For example, let's say I want to be the king's childhood friend. That's way better than being the king's enemy, right? Being the king's childhood friend feels like it should cost something, and being his enemy should give you something, but what? A Feat? A Proficiency? Advantage on some rolls and Disadvantage on others? And if you did trade a Feat to be the king's childhood friend, what happens if you guys fight and you become his enemy? Do you get your Feat back? Or do you just get a new, king-equivalent friend instead?
This is really only weird because the traits "King's Childhood Friend" and "King's Enemy" need to somehow balance against each other, and against Lucky or Fae Touched (or, at the very least, +2 to your main stat). Take numbers and dice out of it completely, however, and being a king's friend and a king's enemy are both different, but potentially equal, kinds of fun.
Okay. Let's get to it.
THE GUIDED NARRATIVE SYSTEM
General Notes All of this is meant to apply outside of encounters. This system implies a fairly strict division between encounters (any discrete, metered, formal resource-expending scene) and the fluffy scenes in between.
All flippant references to 'combat' or 'rolling initiative' or being 'on the battlemat' can be taken to mean 'encounter' in the broad sense, as above.
I mostly talk about using this with D&D because that's mostly what I've been doing. But this could be used with any system-based game (or even freeform games), with few changes. However, if those systems already have mechanics to deal with some of this stuff (World of Darkness games, for example), this will bump awkwardly up against them. And provide diminishing returns.
I know that all of this can be solved by just making it up as I go along, but in the words of Rich Burlew himself, "I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want." If you read all this and think What idiot needs rules for this stuff? The answer is this idiot, me, truemane. You can tell me I don't need all this, but the ship sailed on that some time ago.
In brief: the Guided Narrative System involves assigning each character a number of story-based traits (Aspects), which are used as guidelines for taking actions that earn a narrative resource (Tokens), and actions that require expenditure of that resource.
ASPECTS
An Aspect is a short, evocative phrase describing an important narrative trait. Ideally, they're less about your character's skills and more about their story. Less like Class Abilities and more like specific conflicts or obstacles or themes you want to confront. Less about things you can do and more about things you are. "The greatest swordsman since the Wizard of Corsica" is okay. "Will stop at nothing to find the six-fingered man" is better. "Spent his entire like preparing for the day he would avenge his father's murder" is better still.
The 'standard' Aspect list is: two or three Aspects combined from the categories of Physical, Mental, Spiritual Traits; one or two from Circles (social traits); one or two Knacks (miscellaneous resources or abilities); and the Character Sheet.
However, the list of Aspects can be customized for any given game to put more emphasis on particular elements. A more customizable list might be: One or two Aspects that describe your character's place in the world. Standing, Resources, Special Knowledge, Family, Fame, Position.
One or two Aspects emerging from your character's internal life. Ethics, Wounds, Trauma, Goal, Fear, Secret Desire.
One Free Choice, which can be just about anything within the scope of the game in question. Maybe you want to double up on another category, or want something that doesn't fall into one of the others. This could be a singular mental or physical or spiritual trait, a magic item so powerful it exists on the narrative rather than the mechanical plane, a great destiny (or grim fate), a blessing (or curse), or the like.
Your character sheet. Anything on your sheet can, in theory, be used to drive the story as though it were an Aspect. If you've optimized for stealth, for example, you don't also need the Aspect "Sneakiest sneak who ever snuck." You've got that covered already.
Finally, if appropriate for the game in question, players may be asked to tell one or two stories or anecdotes about one or more of the other players. This could represent either shared ties or widely known information (for the sake of categorization, I refer to these as 'Legends').
TOKENS
Tokens are the narrative resource gained through your Aspects. There is a short list of actions that earn Tokens and a short list of actions that cost Tokens. As rule, Tokens are earned by adding things to the game (complications, history, complexity, depth, etc) and Tokens are spent to take control over a defined piece of the game for a defined time.
In order to be considered valid, any Token-based action must always BOTH*: Emerge organically from, and have some direct impact on, the current scene; and
Be related to one or more of your Aspects*Unless the action specifically says otherwise.
Gain 1 Token whenever you: Offer further information or details about the game world ("Speaking Lore").
Tell the table about a personal connection you have to a place, person, or group.
Complicate or delay something important to the party in order to tend to something important to you.
Complicate or delay something important to you in order to tend to something important to the party.
Fail when you should have succeeded and tell the table why or how.
Accept Lore from another player. (see *1* below)
Spend 1 Token to: "Speak Lore" about something not covered by one of your Aspects.
Take the spotlight for one Story Beat. Tell the table what you do and then what happens.
Present an effective solution to an obstacle.
Succeed at something when you should have failed and tell the table why or how.
Offer Lore to another player (see *1* below).
Give an NPC a name, tell the table one or two things about them, and "Bring them forward" into the current scene (see *2* below).
*1* In the event that you want to Speak Lore about another player, instead of paying a Token, you offer them a Token and tell them what you want to say, which they may then accept or refuse.
*2* Depending on circumstance, you may be permitted to pay another Token to "pick up" an NPC (place them under your control) and "hold" them (control them) until you "put them down" (release them from your control). Holding an NPC longer than one scene, removing them from their original setting, or otherwise making extensive use of them, requires the GM's permission and may cost additional Tokens.
Like Aspects, the list of actions can be customized to fit a particular game. Combined with customized Aspects, a few custom Token actions will help keep the game focused on particular elements of the world or game or story.
And that's it.
Aspects come from FATE, FUDGE, and a number of other games. I first came across the idea in the one-page RPG Aspect Only FATE by Michael Moceri.
Speaking Lore comes from the game Fellowship by Jacob Randolf.
Bringing an NPC Forward comes from Star Trek Adventures by Mophidius Press.
Picking Up and Holding NPC's, as well as the general shape of the Token system, come from the No Dice No Masters Engine in the games Dream Askew and Dream Apart by Buried without Ceremony (although I first came across them in Wanderhome by Jay Dragon).
A 5E game called Hardknock Life, about members of a global confederation of battle-hardened mercenaries, veterans from a generation of war, now trying to survive in a hardscrabble world that's lost its patience for soldiers (but not its need), might have the following Aspects:
Rep - a descriptor of how your character is perceived within the fraternity of mercenaries.
Shame - something in your character's past that they deeply regret and will never forgive themselves (and/or be forgiven) for.
Specialty - your character's primary skill or talent. What they're known for.
Code - the line your character won't cross or the standard they hold themselves to or the lesson they only had to learn once.
Free Choice - it's all you, buddy. Whatever you want.
Legend 1, Legend 2 - two other PC's will each tell one commonly known story about you. You start the game with a Token for each story you decide is true.
Your Character Sheet - operates as an Aspect when applicable.
Depending on the focus of this game, there could be an Aspect for reputation with non-mercenaries. Specialty and Rep could be combined. If struggling with ethical lines is not important, Shame and Code could be combined (or even eliminated). In a game more concerned with gaining power and resources, there could be one or more Aspects specifically for assets or contacts or debts or liabilities.
Gain 1 Token whenever you: Tell the table what happened last time you encountered this town, these people, this group.
Complicate or endanger the mission to attend to something personal that just can't wait.
Turn away from something personal because the mission comes first, and tell the table about the fallout.
Step over the line you swore you wouldn't cross.
Hold the line no matter the consequences.
Let another player tell you about something you did in the war. Tell the table what really happened.
Spend 1 Token to: "Speak Lore" about something not covered by one of your Aspects.
Take the spotlight for one Story Beat. Tell the table what you do and then what happens.
Have something planned for this exact situation.
Cause someone to re-consider their opinion of you.
Cause someone to re-think their ethical stance (or lack thereof).
Tell another player something you heard about something they did in the war.
Give an NPC a name, tell the table one or two things about them, and "Bring them forward" into the current scene.
The generic list covers most of the above material as is, but sharpening the language, or narrowing the triggering, can really keep the story focused on what the game is about. If that's your thing.
The key additions to this new version are the strict division between encounters and everything else (crunchy scenes and fluffy scenes) and the the requirement that a Token-generating action be both organic to the scene and related to an Aspect. While this system will not survive bad faith engagement, these two elements do a lot to focus player creativity where it belongs, and stops a lot of the fluff-to-crunch creep that plagued prior versions.
Having the Character Sheet function as an Aspect incentivizes player choices that are not strictly combat-focused. And also allows strictly combat-focused characters (martials) to use their abilities outside of combat.
Offering and Accepting Lore can have two layers: the player can accept or reject it and/or the player can decide whether or not it's true. So a player could accept Lore (which means it exists in the game world) but decide it isn't true (or is only partly true, or whatever). I've found this additional wrinkle especially useful in games where reputation is a dominant theme (like a global confederation mercenaries, for example).
If you add the option "one combat Action" to "Take the spotlight" you can allow some cross-over between the narrative and the mechanical without completely sinking the ship. Additional controls may be required depending on the table (once per Long Rest, only by DM permission, only during Boss Fights, only one PC can do this per combat, etc). This is great for cinematic finishing moves, but is more easily abused than the rest.
The 'overcome an obstacle' action, in my experience, is more of a blank cheque to the DM than the players. If you know that your players can burn a Token to narratively solve a non-encounter problem, you suddenly have enormous freedom in the scope and variety of the problems you can present off the grid. There's no roll or spell for a party to get a town to rise up against a cruel oppressor but it's the sort of thing a Bard with the 'Dedicated rabble-rouser' Aspect and a spare Token would do.
Giving an NPC a name is the key part of that action. Again, the system will not survive bad faith engagement, but without that limitation, players could validly take control of major NPC's and just circumvent the whole story. Restricting that ability to un-named NPC's takes most of the edge off. Still this can easily cause lots of problems if you're not prepared for it and can be just left out entirely.
The implementation of a strict encounter/non-encounter paradigm will generate some complexity when it comes to some scenes. Do you roll Persuasion to talk your way past a guard or spend a Token to be his favourite third cousin? What about extended stealth scenes? What if you're in a dungeon but not in initiative this very moment? I don't think this is a bad thing, and it tends to be very case-by-case, but it's worth noting the near inevitability of the conversation.
One of my main goals was to make both earning and burning Tokens interesting and entertaining. I didn't want players to have to sacrifice one cool thing to get a cool thing. Instead, players should be able to do a cool thing, and so gain the ability to do a different kind of cool thing. At the same time, the whole thing needs to be simple and flexible enough to not become just more bookkeeping.
The biggest hole in this thing, from my personal perspective, is that getting Aspects just right is vital for making the whole thing work. Aspects define the scope, tone, genre and mood of how you earn and burn Tokens. And workshopping Aspects and refining them so they're working for you rather than against you is a bit of an art. I've been doing it a long time and I'm pretty good at it, but I've never been able to articulate exactly how.
Similarly, I've found that it's hard to get players away from using Aspects as backdoor Class Abilities. And it's equally hard to get them away from always choosing 'positive' Aspects. Because they're the means by which you generate Tokens, "Everyone Hates Me" is just as useful an Aspect as "Everyone Loves Me" (arguably more useful). But there's a persistent paradigm at work that takes some effort to pierce. Any advice to help with these last two points would be especially appreciated.
Thoughts and notions of all kinds appreciated.