User:Spazalicious Chaos/The Book of Splendid Performance (3.5e Sourcebook)/Plot Points

Plot Points

While the random access point that allows characters to perform special actions has existed in countless forms throughout RPGs, here it is again, this time strictly as a narrative device.

What Are They?

Plot Points are a game mechanic to represent serendipitous events that tend to alter the course of events either to throw obstacles or to improve the circumstances of a protagonist. These events happen in stories, often ammounting to twists and turns in an otherwise linear plot. However, since chance is already a factor in RPGs, Plot Points can instead be used as a stabiltiy factor to insure novel events. For example, in RPGs as they stand, if something is a one in a million chance, it remains one in a million regardless of how fitting it would be. But it is a common literary device for near impossible events to occur despite the odds. Thus, a plot point may bring about the next to impossible to make a better story.

Using Plot Points

Wait a minute...

It may come to the attention of some that Magic Limit can be used as an effective bypass to the Fiat immunity. First, Fiat must be used only for the most important characters anyway, as the below opening for Fiat demonstrates. No one should be able to just "skip" a fight with the Big Evil Bad Guy, or be able to just trounce him. That is bad story telling. Only Big Evil Bad Guy Jr. should be bypassed in a single stroke. Second, if Fate is used, players start out with Fiat, thus the only challenge for them is a Fiat creature anyway. Regardless fo whether Fate is used or not, players should start out with Fiat. Plot Points in the hands of an already powerful GM who is command of the entire world is a deadly tool, but player with Fiat can limit that power to an extent at which they could stand as equals. Wht is the point of trying to fight the BEBG if he can just one-hit kill you? Finally, Magic limit, while potentially far more damaging that any DPP, can be resisted and is much more versatile than any list of story twists could be. Maybe the fighter is strong enough to break the spell in a single sword strike (dispel magic), or could strike a distant for with the pure force of his blade (any ranged attack spell), or his wound is not as bad as it seems (cure moderate wounds).

Each player (including the GM) has one Plot Point per story. In the case of interwoven stories, each player has one plot point per story weaved in, but may only use one plot point in any given story. For example, if a love story, a suspense mystery story and a heros quest were all interwoven, each player would have 3 Plot Points but could only spend one to affect the noir story, one to affect the love story and one to affect the quest. Plot Points are awarded per player, not per character. Thus, the GM cannot have effectively limitless Plot Points, but neither can a player just show up with a new character each game to cash in, regardless of the legitimacy of said new character (like the players previous character dying last game or leaving the party.)

Once the number of Plot Points is determined (which is a direct function of how many stories are interwoven, players take heed) Plot Point uses can be divided into two categories- Detrimental and Benefitial Plot Points.

If a Plot Point is used to cause an unfortunate turn in events in the story, it is Detrimental. While DPP can not solve every problem (see Fiat) it can definately make short work of secondary characters or throw obstacles in their path:

• Finishing Blow- On any target you successfuly hit with half it's health or less remaining you may declare a Finishig Blow, which resolves the attack as if it were a Coup de Grace.
• Crippling Blow- On a target you successfully hit you may afficlt your choice of one of the following conditions permenantly- Blind, Deaf, Dazed, Slowed, Fatigued or Nauseated. Any spell that can remove curses AND heal permenant drain in a single casting can remove the condition.
• Capture the Soul- A target you kill can not be ressurected by any means until your death.
• Haunt Yer Ass- Upon your death you aquire the Ghost template. You haunt the thing that killed you. If destroyed, you resume haunting the victim on midnight of the next day. You can finally rest only when the victim is dead.
• Take It With You- Upon your death, events conspire to remove your corpse and all your possessions from the scene, be it falling over a cliff into a yawning abyss or the room (or mountain) collapsing as you fall. Your body and possessions can never be recovered barring a Wish or Miracle spell.
• Sealed Fate, Malevolent- State an event that you wish to have come about that will ruin the lives of those around you. Events will conspire to present the means by which your goal could come about, though if you see your chance and seize it is entirely up to you.

If a Plot Point is used to create serendipitous and uplifting effects, it becomes a Benefitial Plot Point. BPPs work regardless of the presence of Fiat, thus can definitely be used as escapes and safety messures:

• Escape Death- If an effect would kill you, you instead fall to 0 hit points in a death-like state. You are impossible to differeniate from a corpse by any means, and can remain in this state until healed.
• Magic Limit- You cast one spell you could not otherwise have access to. This can be any spell a caster of half their level in the appropriate class could cast.
• Second Wind- You regain half your maximum hit points and uses of any limited use ability, like spells, rage, ki, rebuke undead, etc. Limited use magic items, like wands, are not affected, but can be targeted specifically by this BPP, regaining half its uses or charges but with no effect on it's owner.
• Sheilded Life- One attack or ability that allows a save fails against you, also preventing the aggressor from taking any more actions that turn.
• Divine Interception- Events conspire to allow your unscathed escape, whether it is finding a trap door by chance or an architectural flaw causing a collapse at an opportune moment.
• Sealed Fate, Benevolent- State an event that you wish to have come about that would improve the lives of those around you. Events will conspire to present the means by which your goal could come about, though if you see your chance and seize it is entirely up to you.

Plot Points can be used by anyone, but once used are lost. A new story can bring with it a new Plot Point, but it can never be used in a previous story. Also, ending a story with unused Plot Points will result in the disappearance of those Plot Points.

Plot Points are not limited to use by the activating character. Once some one elects to spend a Plot Point, he may declare another person the befitiary. However, each player may only spend one Plot Point per scene, and it should awlways be obvious in game who spends the Plot Point. For example, if a players character dies, while he could activate Escape Death for himself, and thus come sputtering to life in the next scene, another player could spend their own Plot Point to spare his life, their characters actions of grief (crying, first aid, snide comment for rivals, etc.) somehow calling the character back to life, or the GM could spend one of his Plot Points and arrange for cloistered mountain monks or some other cliche to happen across the character and nurse her back to health.

Fiat

There are some creatures that stories just can not simply screw over. Some villains that must be confronted. Some heros that will not die. Some rivals that do not simply go away. Some friends and lovers that cannot be separated for long. All of them benefit from Fiat.

Fiat is a not-quite template that can be applied to anything with stats, from the greatest villain to the lowliest dagger. The only game effect Fiat has is immunity from Detrimental Plot Points. While still able to benefit from Benefitial Plot Points of others, creatures with Fiat cannot be targeted by Detrimental Plot Points unless an additional Plot Point is used by the same character to override Fiat. Thus, to target a character with Fiat with a harmful narrative device the target and action must be significant to two separate but interwoven story lines. This expenditure is the only exception to the rule of "one Plot Point per scene" rule.

For example, a paladin is facing off his rival, a black guard, as a part of his personal vengence quest while his companions rush to destroy the black guards ARMEGEDON Device to finish the heros quest. The paladin has saved both Plot Points from the stories, and wishes to end the conflict now with a Finishing Blow. Normally this would be impossible, as both the black guard and the paladin both have Fiat. However, since such an action is fitting to two story arcs that are interwoven through the scene, the paladin may use both his Plot Points to enact the Finishing Blow.