deus ex machina points?

[markkrawec]

Upon re-reading a couple of Conan stories on the Gutenberg site, a couple of things become clear. First, that mass combat plays an integral role in those early stories - they regularly involve fields littered with thousands of corpses from every nation - & second, the game cries out for deus ex machina points. Conan just happens to dream of a wizard who scribes a magic symbol on his sword. The guy Thoth-Amon is watching just happens to have stumbled across the ring that was stolen from him twenty years ago. A guy just happens to bring a sword down to the dungeon where Conan is being held with nothing but his skivvies, then just happens to get bitten by a gigantic poisonous snake.

What about allowing players to use their luck points to edit in useful items or helpful NPCs? Cost would be based on how much aid the person/item can render, or how dire the PC's situation is at the moment. ("You find a piece of wire to use to pick your manacles? Hmm. A half-dozen Kivari guardsmen are on their way to take you to the headsman. Is finding a wire worth four points to you?")

[thegreyelf]

Once again, great idea, but not for the first, initial draft, which we want to keep as close to the original rules as possible.

Though isn't there something similar to that already implicit in the use of Luck points?

[markkrawec]

Kind of. You can get a re-roll or reduce damage, or try something "that could only succeed by luck". This is even more meta than that - actually writing stuff into the scene.

But you're right, anything along those lines should be for a later expansion, not the core document.

[The Evil DM]

markkrawec said:

Kind of. You can get a re-roll or reduce damage, or try something "that could only succeed by luck". This is even more meta than that - actually writing stuff into the scene.

But you're right, anything along those lines should be for a later expansion, not the core document.

Great idea though. more crunch for the Scrolls!