How many story points?

[Stormcrow]

I seem to remember a discussion in one of the rule books about how many story points to grant various sorts of characters—depending on whether they're generic characters or important ones. I can't find it in my 10th Doctor GM's guide. Am I imagining this or do these guidelines exist somewhere I haven't found?

[jeffrywith1e]

It looks like the 10th Doctor GM Guide talks about it in the box on page 94.

The Primeval RPG book says a bit more, though. On page 109... It states that most NPC don't have Story Points. Named NPCs might have a few, but never as much or more than the PCs. The examples they state was one NPC having 3. They also say that some major creatures have Story Points, too. Again, 3 or 4, I'd say.

[Stormcrow]

May 25, 2014 0:36:11 GMT jeffrywith1e said:

It looks like the 10th Doctor GM Guide talks about it in the box on page 94.

The Primeval RPG book says a bit more, though. On page 109... It states that most NPC don't have Story Points. Named NPCs might have a few, but never as much or more than the PCs. The examples they state was one NPC having 3. They also say that some major creatures have Story Points, too. Again, 3 or 4, I'd say.

I don't think that's what I was thinking of. It's not specific enough.

I don't know anything about Primeval, but all characters in the Doctor Who game, even generic extras, seem to have story points in the published adventures.

[Escher]

May 24, 2014 19:20:12 GMT Stormcrow said:

I seem to remember a discussion in one of the rule books about how many story points to grant various sorts of characters—depending on whether they're generic characters or important ones. I can't find it in my 10th Doctor GM's guide. Am I imagining this or do these guidelines exist somewhere I haven't found?

I kind of remember this too. Could be somewhere on here or Aliens & Creatures?


There's also this from Pertwee:

Well, the most important thing to remember is to let the Story Points flow like the tide. You don't need to give them out willy-nilly, where would be the tension in that, but the players shouldn't end up completely tapped when the finale rolls around either.

Here is my formula for Story Points:

1. You should award Story Points for the use of Bad Traits (at minimum a number equal to the Trait value) to improve the story or move it along, but only once per Bad Trait. For instance, Susan was really bad about tripping or twisting her ankle in the first series, which we could call the Clumsy Trait, so a player could earn a Story Point by having her trip and fall, possibly more than one if she took some damage from it (let's say 1 for 1 in this case), like a twisted ankle.

The catch is to not let them do it unless it is dramatically important. In other words, you can't just walk around your bedroom inside the TARDIS and fall down and then get back up with a shiny new Story Point. You need to fall down and drop an important item, or twist your ankle, or lose ground in a chase or even get captured. Something that makes for a dramatic moment.

Finally, you should really restrict the use of Bad Traits in this manner to once per session or 'episode.' After all, Susan was clumsy, and over the course of her time on the show she tripped and fell a lot, but never more than once an episode. Think like a television viewer in this case and ask yourself 'would this seem like poor writing if I saw it on the show?'

2. Self sacrifice is a great reason to hand out huge chunks of Story Points, but the threat has to be real and critical. Throwing your Time Lord in front of a Dalek firing squad, using up a regeneration to save your companions might end a life, but it should also earn you a mess of Story Points to conquer the vicious pepper pots in the end. A good use of this would be a season finale, where the whole universe is at stake and the solution will be so difficult it will require at least 9 Story Points, probably more, to resolve. At some point, the characters will have to sacrifice something to earn enough Story Points to solve the problem: the dramatic bit is what the sacrifice and how they recover from it.

3. Award Story Points for really great moments that make the game extremely fun. Great speeches at critical moments, innovative uses of skills, lines that make you fall off your chair laughing, any thing that really makes the game fun should get at least a single Story Point. Again, this should be a once per session reward, unless the group is really on fire and having so much fun that tension from the possibility of failure isn't even a factor.