Earn and spend “inspiration points” to tell your own character's story.
To earn inspiration, you must do something that thickens the plot: make a scene more complicated, suffer an injury, succumb to temptation, etc.
Earning enough inspiration will lead to a crisis scene that advances your character's arc.
Injuries are abstract - some injuries can be caused by physical violence, others can be caused by losing social standing, or financial burden, or emotional trauma. Injuries have three degrees of severity: Light, where the injury has little effect; severe, where the injury needs medical attention or it will get worse; and mortal, where the injury represents an immediate threat of death. When an injury increases in severity, it is 'aggravated'. When an injury decreased in severity, it is 'healed'.
Earn:
- Aggravate an injury (increase severity)
- Succumb to a scar
- Accept a critical failure when attempting a task
- Add a complication to a scene - Such as
- Setting of an alarm
- Getting caught by authorities
- Using a perk
- Burn a perk
Spend
- Turn a failure into a success
- Heal an injury (reduce severity)
- Using a perk
- Ignore a scar
- (2) Restore a perk
The core mechanic of this system is using a limited resource - 'Inspiration Points' - to negotiate narrative power. In many tabletop games, the players can alter the story if and only if their characters' abilities allow them to do so. In this system, players can earn and spend inspiration points that allow them to alter the story even beyond their characters' abilities.
the acquiring and spending of 'Inspiration'. When a player chooses to have their character fail at a task (e.g. by succumbing to a character flaw, or suffer the negative effect of a disability, or adding a complication to a scene), they gain one inspiration point. Inspiration points can be spent to change a failed attempt at a task into a successful one, or to mitigate an injury taken.
DEV NOTE: Earning inspiration represents indulging in a habit, hobby, or vice; or succumbing to failure. Spending inspiration represents those times when you are especially motivated, inspired, joyful, righteous, vindicated, exceptional, etc. This mechanic is meant to represent the tensions that characters experience in dramatic stories. It is also meant as a means of incentivizing action and suffering misfortunes. It also is meant to act as a means of negotiating narrative power - spending inspiration represents taking more narrative agency.
On their turn, a player is allowed to do each of the following:
- Use their action points
- Move their character
- Earn one inspiration point by activating an ability
- Spend one inspiration point
Action points can be used to do the following:
- Cast a spell
- Attack a target
- Increase the distance that they are allowed to move their character
- Interact with an object (open/close a door, drink a potion, etc.)
- Put their character into a defensive stance
Inspiration can be earned and spent in a wide variety of ways.
How to be a GM
- Host
- Performance artist
- Show the players a good time
- “Yes, and…” and “Yes, but…” and “Yes, if…”
Design goals of this system
- Permissive
- Player-driven story
- Diversity of character build options
TIPS:
- characters from movies and TV that you can impersonate
- binder for scenes, loose prep and notes during
- pull from movies and TV, (and folklore and mythology) scenes and challenges
CREATING A CHARACTER
Backstory
- Upbringing
- Education
Obligation
- Love
- Vengeance
- Debt
- Reputation
Flaw
- Greed
- Bad Temper
- Insecure Personality
- Coward
Disability
- Physical
- Mental
- Emotional
Humiliation Marginalized Outlaw