After Dungeon Mastering For A Year, Here’s What I Added To My Games.

I started my journey into the world of Tabletop Roleplaying Games two years ago, and out of necessity for my kid and friends, I became a Dungeon Master (DM). I didn’t think I would become a DM so quickly but I jumped right into the thick of things and I’ve actually really enjoyed it so far.

But I have noticed a few hurdles in my games that I wanted to try to improve. Things like, “Am I giving out enough Inspiration? Am I spreading it out among the table?” or “Should I add more consequences to a Critical Failure (natural 1)?” “How can players add more narrative to their characters?

So I’ve created some optional elements that I’ve added to my tables (my players vote on them to approve impelmenting them). So I thought I would share with you all what I’ve added.

Want to watch instead of read? Check out the YouTube video below.

TTRPG News

Here’s some recent news in the tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG) world that has happened recently that I wanted to share with you.

What I’ve Added To My Games

Below is what I’ve added to my games, word for word. Feel free to use this and adjust as you need. The elements below are mostly experiences I’ve had at other tables that I really enjoyed but I modified them a bit so they support each other. Although I have more elements than what are listed here, I thought these are some great standouts that anyone could enjoy and benefit from. If you want to have a more detailed break down of each of these elements, I would recommend watching the YouTube video above.

Pool Of Heroic Inspiration

There are instances where players are given the chance to add a token to the Pool of Heroic Inspiration, which is a pool of tokens that anyone can use and expend to use Heroic Inspiration on a die roll. Some of these instances include “Heroic Failure” and |”Leveling Up Narrative”.

Here are some rules and conditions with the Heroic Inspiration Pool:

Rules regarding Heroic Inspiration applies to this pool.
When a token is added to the pool by a player, then Heroic Inspiration cannot be used in the same players’ turn when it was added. This includes any token that was already in the pool or if a player has a Heroic Inspiration to expend.
The maximum capacity for the pool is capped at one less than the number of players in the campaign.
The Inspiration pool is its own separate pool. Individual Heroic Inspirations does not count against the Pool’s maximum capacity.

Heroic Failure

If a player rolls a Critical Failure (Natural 1), it is an automatic fail – no other consequences applies.

However, players have the option to add to their critical failure in exchange for adding a token to the [[#Pool of Heroic Inspiration|Pool of Heroic Inspiration]].

There are a number of ways that a player can add to their critical failure. In order to achieve this, the player must do the following:

narratively describe in detail what happens in that moment of that critical failure
add a consequence as a result of that critical failure that fits with the narrative. Examples include (but not limited to).
- Taking your weapon/spell attack damage (without modifiers)
- Failing at picking the locks resulted in fumbling through your Thieves’ Tools, dropping and losing 75% of what remained in your inventory.
- The failure of your Saving Throw gives you a Condition that ends at the end of your next turn or if someone uses the Help action on their turn to help you.
- A siginificant item such as shield, weapon, armor, magic item, or something else of that nature gets damaged, making it ineffective or causes you to have Disadvantage (or some other consequence) when you use it until it gets repaired.
- The Weapon Mastery Property of the weapon you used has now been applied against you.
- The spell you cast goes awry and is unpredictable. You roll a d12 for a random negative effect on the [[Spell Mishaps]] table.

The DM will work with you to ensure that the narrative is sound and the consequence is significant enough to earn a token to add to the Pool of Heroic Inspiration. If for whatever reason that cannot be achieved, then the character will simply take the automatic fail.

Leveling Up Narrative

Although leveling up is a mechanical benefit, you can gain Heroic Inspiration or add a token to thePool Of Heroic Inspiration at leveling up if you create a narrative way on how and/or why your character now have their newfound abilities. This should be detailed, character-driven, and character-focused. Work with the DM on this as they can help you if you are running into challenges in coming up with a narrative for leveling up. Once they give approval, you can share this with your party to earn the benefit at the start of your next session.

Luck Points from Tales Of The Valiant

Another option I’ve seen used is something called Luck Points, which is from Kobold Press’s Black Flag system that is used in their game, Tales of the Valiant. Basically it allows players to gain luck points whenever they fail an attack or saving throw, then they can use those points to add onto a d20 roll. They can only have 5; once they have 6, they roll a d4 to see how many points they have as a way to make sure they use it.

Personally I am not someone that enjoy this. I tried out Tales of the Valiant at GenCon last year and it was something that was easy to forget to add. I try to avoid something that requires constant tracking at my games, but I’ve heard a lot of people enjoy it.

If you’re interested in learning more about this feature, check out this article from Sly Flourish about Luck Points.

Conclusion

What elements have you added to your D&D or TTRPGs? I’ve love to hear them and your thoughts about these rules I’ve added to my games as well.

After Dungeon Mastering For A Year, Here’s What I Added To My Games.

TTRPG News