Bribing players to involve characters

Bribing players to involve characters

I’ve been reading a lot of information about moving the story along with specific player input. I’ve been kicking around this idea that I think I’ll suggest to my fellow gamers this Saturday.

Each of them will get a set number of points (I’m thinking based on the people in attendance, like 3 points per person present) that they can use to influence another character to behave in some way or take some course of action. The player being influenced can refuse the bribe at any point even if the bribe is being applied to an NPC. These points are simply added or subtracted to a dice roll for an event. These points can be applied to an NPC in the scene or to a player. If negative points are given to a player character then the player being affected gets an equal amount of points back on the positive side. A player cannot spend points on their own character. The point is to encourage players who aren’t on scene to think about interesting twists and developments for characters who are on the scene. They stipulate what they want, and it has to somehow vary from what the original intent is. They reward or penalize with as many or as few points as they choose with the only stipulation being that there has to be a reason behind the points.

Example: Lilia walks into a stable to get her horse and finds a close friend dead on the ground with a warforged standing over the body. As a GM I describe that the warforged is trying to apply bandages but Jeremy suggests that Chris should have Lilia roll for alertness to actually tell what the warforged is doing and that the roll should get a -4 penalty so that there is a good chance she doesn’t notice. Jeremy proposes something along the lines of “I think it would be cool if Lilia didn’t notice the bandages before she started reacting.” Then Eric chips in with “I’ll give you 8 points to spend in combat as you see fit if you just fly into a rage and attack the warforged”. Chris can refuse either offer as he sees fit.

Links:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jhkimrpg/17595.html
http://www.spaceanddeath.com/sin_aesthetics/2006/01/push-vs-pull.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tigerbunny_db/1503.html