Big Damn Heroes

Mal: Well, look at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?
Zoe: Big damn heroes, sir!
Mal: Ain't we just.

Tonight we are in a session where we know (as gamers and as our characters) that these events are going to determine the fate of the entire Galaxy -- for good, or for ill!

For this upcoming session, be careful of when you pick up your dice. Every time you roll your dice, you are gambling components of the story we are all building together. Your characters are the ante; now we are all together betting your motivations and your character development and your achievements into the pot of clues, of obstacles to overcome, of your subplots and your stakes. And we're all being opposed in this story by the antagonists' red herrings, plot twists, cruel tricks, and outright traps.

Will tonight's story be a heroic triumph over malevolent plots? Or a tragedy that threatens two unknowing universes?

To find out:

• Amazing successful rolls on your dice are still, as always, amazing successes.
• Normal successful rolls on your dice are still, as always, normal successes. They might be opposed by, for example, dodging.
• Normal failed rolls on your dice are still, as always, a "not quite" or a "near miss".

• A one on the wild die is a moment of Plot Complication.

  • If you told me what you were doing before you rolled, then you had a normal success, not a nice one, but it does qualify as a success.
  • Meanwhile! Unfortunate Simultaneous Event complicates the situation. You got the hangar bay doors unlocked -- meanwhile, Baymax got wedged into the aperture of the interdimensional portal. You shot that guy so go ahead and roll damage -- meanwhile, a Librarian figures out how to trigger a full reboot of Paladin Ship Muinmos and uses the party's comms system to do it.
  This will also apply to the GM's rolls; and if it was an antagonist's roll that came up with a botch, that means the "Unfortunate Simultaneous Event" will pop up in favor of the heroes' goals.

This rule is only applicable when the players and the characters know that the upcoming events have the highest possible stakes, not just for themselves, but for the course of the future. In the Vorkosigan series, "The Mountains of Mourning" would not count because in its Climax, Miles knows he is changing the immediate area but has no clue how that will trickle out into the rest of Barrayaran civilization over the next thirty years.

Often that means that this can only apply to the Climax of a critical chapter in the course of a campaign: it would affect the orbital confrontation in Cetaganda (because the stakes were truly epic, and everyone knew it), but not out at the Waste Heat Management facility in Komarr (because the person controlling the protagonist had not ramped the tension up anywhere near that high).

In Flare Comp, events in the Osiris Branch Library have ramped up to Epic status all around. The Librarians are trying to gather and preserve knowledge. The Major Antagonist is looking to wine and dine not one galaxy, but two. The priests of Triune are trying to serve their god. And the heroes are trying to make it possible for a million million people they will never know to HAVE a future beyond "harvestable goods"....