Belief, Fate, and Destiny (3.5e Variant Rule)

=Beliefs, Fate Points, and Destiny Points=

This is a mechanical concept largely taken from the Burning Wheel system to add an element of narrativist bent on the game and to encourage players on focusing on the dramatic development of their character.

The central theme behind this is the player defines their character, and is in turn rewarded for playing to the effective portrayal of that character as well as the narrative growth of the character.

Belief System
When writing up your character, you have to generate 3 beliefs for the character. These 3 beliefs will act as the guiding principle to the character's actions. The purpose of limiting it to 3 is so that players can focus on the more important aspect of their characters personality.

Tips on writing beliefs
A well written belief generally has the following characteristics: 1. Beliefs should be action oriented and suggest an agenda or goal 2. Beliefs should be give a brief rationale towards that agenda or goal. 3. Beliefs are generally fairly short.

A good format for writing a belief could be something like: "I believe in A, therefore I will do B".

It is generally advised that players not write beliefs that are selfish such as "I always look out for number 1". The reason being that such characters tend to not take too many actions and this makes for a pretty boring game as the player would generally not get into combat, not get into conflicts, and not go out of their way to do anything.

In general, when writing beliefs, it is entirely acceptable, if not encouraged, that the player goes into some meta-game thinking for a second and write down beliefs based on what the PLAYER wants to see happen in this game, not what the CHARACTER might want. Doing so helps the player get engaged and invested in the beliefs written down.

Fate Points and Destiny Points
Fate points and destiny points are points that you can use to alter a single roll and turn the events towards your favor.

Fate points can be spent on a single roll to give you a +2 unnamed bonus to a single roll.

Destiny points can be spent to either assume that you've rolled the best possible results on a single roll, or used to "cheat death".

Earning Fate Points
You can earn fate points by playing to your beliefs. Whenever your in game actions conform to further the goal of your beliefs, you mark the belief off and at the end of the session you gain a single fate point for that belief. As such, you are limited to earning ONE fate point PER belief PER session. (Meaning that you can in one session, earn 3 total fate points in this manner)

You can also earn fate points at the end of the session for fulfilling one of the following criteria:

Right Skill, Right Time: You happened to have the right skill/item/whatever that nobody else has which allows the story to move forward. Awards one fate point to a single player.

Work Horse: this is for the guy who has done all of the work in the background, and despite not getting a lot of the glory, is an integral part to the success of the team. one fate point.

MVP: this is for the guy who has managed to make the largest amount of contribution to the success of the team for this session. One fate point.

Earning Destiny Points
Destiny points, by virtue of being more powerful, are a little harder to earn. In order to earn a destiny point, you must fulfill or resolve a belief. Resolving a belief either requires you have fulfilled the belief's goal, or that through play, you have come to allow your character to grow in a fashion that while might not fulfill the goal, allows you to resolve this belief into something new.

You earn one destiny point per belief you resolve. You can only earn up to 3 destiny points per session in this fashion. You may only earn an additional destiny point through the following.

Moldbreaker: This is for when you managed to play out your internal conflict in a way that awes the other players. Best used when one of your beliefs is at odds with what you're doing at the time. Being able to successfully resolve this belief in a fashion that is believable and yet awe inspiring is what will win you the point. One destiny point.

How does belief interact with the system
Any kind of mind-based magic (this includes arcane, divine, psionics, what have you) that fundamentally changes how a character acts alters the belief structure. This means, all spells that changes alignment, the dominate spells, and a large number of other spells will generally result in a shift in at least ONE belief. Beliefs that are changed in this fashion do not count as being resolved and rewards no destiny points.

While things like diplomacy and other social skills can change attitudes and such, they cannot alter beliefs themselves unless the player feels it is appropriate. These skills are not mind control techniques, just mundane methods. As such, a player controlling the character will have the final call on how a social skill roll might alter a belief, if at all.