Fate Tokens
  1. Notes

Fate Tokens

Rules

The story unfolds whether you choose left or right. The world spins regardless of the choice. However, this is a story told by the perspective of the player characters, and they are the main characters. Why them? Is it destiny? Is it fate? Or just random chance? What made them the main characters? Whatever it is, they are clearly on the spotlight and being on the spotlight comes with few perks!

Fate Tokens are tokens awarded to players as an attempt to implement their “destiny” or “favorable luck” in mechanical terms. Similar to DM’s inspiration, but triggered by different factors.

What are they used for?

They can have the following uses:

  1. Expend 1-4 before an attack roll, harvesting attempt, complication contest, ability check or saving throw to add up to +4 to the upcoming result.

  2. Expend 9 to create a Flashback Scene*.

  3. Expend two to gain Xd4 gold coins where X is your highest class level.

  4. Expend 30 (as a group) to reduce complication severity by one “!” .

  5. Exchange 9 for Heroic Inspiration

  6. Exchange 50 (as a group) to communicate with a relevant higher power briefly.

  7. Expend 7 to reroll a complication result.

  8. Expend 10 to reroll a death saving throw with a +2.

  9. Expend 5 to get a clue about a puzzle or confusing situation.

  10. Each player can spend 2 to change many individual checks into a group check (in some scenarios it might not apply).

How long do they last? 

Fate Tokens last until the end of a campaign arc (usually that is a span of around 6–8 levels). 

How many can I have?

You can have a maximum of 10 Fate Tokens.

How do you get them?

They are earned through the following ways:

  1. A player who writes session notes for the previous session, as journals, earns 5 fate tokens.

  2. A player who roleplays a lot during the session, keep metagaming to a minimum or plays a believable character earns up to 2 FT at the end of the session.

  3. A player who does the session recap earns 3 if it's not the same as the player who wrote notes. If it is the same player, the amount is reduced from 3 to 1.

  4. A player, who is adding new content as entities here, earns 1-10 FT.

Can I lose them?

Disruptive metagaming and talking over other players or the DM can result in loss of FT. Regardless of Fate Tokens, you shouldn’t be doing such things!


*Flashback Scenes
This is an optional mechanic that each group separately can agree to use or not.
A Flashback Scene is a scene that happened in the *near* past, where a PC did something that was not explicitly described or mentioned during active gameplay. The Flashback scene aims to help the group with a problem they are facing.
An example of a flashback scene is: "The group reached the door of the vault but realize that they cannot lock pick it. They need to know the password, but nobody thought of asking their client about it. A player initiate a flashback scene, saying "Could I have asked the client, whether they know password or a clue about it?" The DM and the player describe how the flashback scene played out and why the PC indeed knows the password."
The flashback scenes have the power to be disruptive to the immersion, though, thus they require limits and restrictions. Those are:
  • The scene needs to be in the near past, based on how many events happened in between.
  • The flashback scene cannot change the nature of the situation, it can only add information, some minor items or some minor actions the PC could have easily done.
  • The DM must confirm that the specific flashback scene is possible.
  • The flashback scene cannot involve more than one PC in any way. It has to be something one PC did by themselves.
  • There's no cancelling the flashback scenes once described.

Despite the restrictions, some groups might find the flashback scenes not to their liking, and that's fine. It's an optional mechanic for Fate Tokens that each group can vote on.