Reroll Token
We now step mostly out-of-character for a House Rule that applies not to the characters or world, but to the real life people!
Loki Orinson is very excited about the options available to a creative soul in this setting.
I wouldn't worry about what he is doing.
Surely it's pleasant and harmless.
For all of this work to be worth GM Sparkly's effort, he is best served by a group member who displays interest and appreciation and curiosity. His work is valued when a player uses what he has created and builds on it:
Reroll Tokens are physical objects, purchased by this specific GM. They become gifts in appreciation for a specific piece of assistance. Usually they are jewelry beads from one of two specific bead strings, not available in mass market form.
We all know that, of course. We also know that, as in any other part of life, some people are naturally inclined to contribute a greater share of the creative work. They craft story threads meant to improve other group member's overall enjoyment. They create character portraits, or write up location descriptions, or copyedit articles, or record audio files. They research options for a problem the GM will have to solve later, making an easy to follow list with links and "Pro and Con" summaries for quick comparison. Other people have their own reasons for not contributing more than the universal requirements of our group's participants. So long as they pitch in a certain amount, the whole group has a chance at fun; this is fine. The result is that the low-contribution members get back only a comparable amount of behind-the-scenes work done to serve their interests. Everyone is still in this group, still showing up for adventure night. We-the-group must be getting this mostly right!Every adventure to cross our physical or virtual gaming table
can only succeed
when all participants each contribute some portion of the work involved.
GM Sparkly Wolf
and the
Exponential Positive Feedback Loop
and the
Exponential Positive Feedback Loop
C. B. Ash has been known to spend more than twenty-five hours in a given week on GM work, plus creating nifty-looking styling tools and layouts and die rolling buttons, all from raw code.
He created a lot of genre-appropriate text containers for anyone in our group to use, for instance!
I wouldn't worry about what he is doing.
Surely it's pleasant and harmless.
- Integrate it into a character's story on their Profile and Adventure Journal.
- Offer to create a visual representation, a digital miniature or a doctored real life photograph or a blueprint or a costumer-type prop.
- Use it as a component in an in-world recipe.
- Create an mp3 of ambient sound for that location or event.
- Write up the Session Report, separate from a character's Adventure Journal, with highlights of Clues Revealed and Shenanigans Enacted.
- Invent a conlang, with grammar and pronunciation guide.
- Learn enough of a conlang that he created to write out new phrases or even sentences.
Further the story, in other words.
The reward for supporting this GM is that he is happier. When he is happier, he shapes the story on his side to better fit the interests of the player who made him happy. A happy GM may award extra Hero Points, arrange a chance at niftier Gadgets, add a useful Contact or other Advantage for no charge, or fudge a die roll behind the Gamemaster's Screen.GM Cranky Catgirl
and the
Enticing Bribe
and the
Enticing Bribe
Jarissa has been known to spend every spare hour of every day for an entire month on GM work, flop for a few days of rest, then do it for another couple of weeks. Again, and again, until either the project is worth presenting for the group's enjoyment, or until she can no longer see any value in any of it.
For all of this work to be worth her effort, she is best served by a group member who volunteers -- unprompted -- to take on some of the fiddly bits for her.
unhappy cat in SeaBase Alpha by Jarissa
Do check in with me about your volunteer intentions first, mind.You may need some parameters.Nobody needs me to stop the work in progress while I bail out a flood of unexpected tweaks.
This GM drowns faster from "unplanned work to fix the other thing" than she does from "wow I assigned myself HOW MANY props to make?"
Examples of contributions:
- Set aside an afternoon and a podcast queue to do the mind-numbing task of creating sixty Map Pins, each with a unique name, each pointing at the same Pin Group and Map Layer, each one linked to its relevant Article. (Bonus points if the overall naming scheme is funny!).
- Load up a character portrait resource like Hero Forge or Champions Online Character Creator or Second Life and make a variety of screenshots for an NPC group, then use a graphics editor to replace the background or blur it out.
- Build a table full of all the business names on the streets of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, and then occasionally write a (landmark) article for one of them.
- Test out the most recent How To Guides. Report back on any rule loopholes.
- Do some Voice Acting for an NPC encounter that some other member of the party will encounter.
- Test some of GM Jarissa's more complicated BBCode creations for her, on multiple devices. If the results are not what she wanted, help her figure out why.
The reward for supporting this GM is that she hands over a Reroll Token.
A what, now? Please be specific!
It is absolutely, blatantly, a situation of mutual bribery. You bribe me by taking some of the labor off my head. I bribe you into participating in behind-the-game creative work.
Token Restrictions
Lots of restrictions apply.
I understand from the inside how awful it feels to do story description for an action that ought to be effective, maybe even impressive, but most of all "my character is competent" -- and have the random die roll come up dishearteningly lousy.
I also remember watching other members of my earliest gaming group blatantly cheat on their die rolls. And get away with it, because the GM of that group was more invested in this other person having a good time even if it meant coddling them.
(Obviously, once I understood that my options were to be fine with it or to find another group, I found another group.)
But I never forget about that sinking, story-ruining feeling.
We can't be glorious successes all of the time; there would be no challenge worth telling a story, if there were no real risk of a regrettable outcome. On the other hand, the people who pitch in the work deserve an emergency escape hatch. One extra chance to know that they matter. A finite option -- above-board, clearly deserved thanks to past load-sharing -- to "cheat" past that badly timed pathetic roll, that's a great resource to have in reserve.
So I devised the Reroll Tokens, and a set of parameters to earn them.
I do have to put some tight limits on their use -- but if you think about it, most of these limits are for the Token earner's protection.
Only when Jarissa is the Gamemaster
, a Player may opt to return one Reroll Token immediately after that Player has made a roll they wish to redo.
This will replace the
entire
previous roll. It cannot be used during a sequence of Doubles to replace only the last bit of reroll-and-add.If the replacement roll is less pleasing than the original roll, it is
not possible to revert
to the previous roll. Either another Reroll Token can be expended to try again, if the same Player has multiples to invest, or the new roll can have its unfortunate results.Reroll Tokens are
not transferable
to other PCs or NPCs.Reroll Token usage is
never the decision of anyone but the owning Player
. The rest of the gaming group, including the GM, might suggest it once if the Player seems distressed. Otherwise, it's a jerk move for the rest of us to push anybody into a decision about their own character.Any roll by the Token-using player is eligible for being deleted via Reroll Token, including Double Ones, also including Initiative, until GM Jarissa describes the in-game result of the roll.
Reroll Tokens are not tied to a specific character, nor to a specific game. They are tied only to the relevant group member and to this particular GM.
Reroll Tokens are not taken into account when designing a plot point or challenge in an adventure. Reroll Tokens have no Hero Point value. They also do not wipe out the effects of Hero Points (and villain points!) applied to the roll, nor do they in any way affect the Column Shift adjustments that GM Jarissa applies based on storytelling description given before rolling the dice.
They only reset the dice themselves
. by Kummer_Wolfe
The Reroll Tokens are physical objects. Some group members prefer to keep their earned Reroll Tokens in the dice box with their d10s.
Someone who prefers to keep his original die roll no matter its result is welcome to repurpose his Reroll Tokens if he would like. They are fully functional jewelry beads, ready to be strung. They might make nice components for other artistic projects, too -- you have either jasper, or ocean jade, depending on which custom-made supply I had handy when you earned a Reroll Token.
I think they should be big enough to insert a binder ring (from an office supply store) through one or three of the beads, then connect the ring to a zipper's slider, so it is easier for tired hands to operate the zipper.
Jasper has a 6.5 or so on the Mohs Hardness Scale, so you could probably set these in translucent resin to make "planets", provided you do something to disguise the hole. Chip of ivory soap to make an ice cap, maybe?
Item type
Service
Current Quantities
| Player | Unused Tokens |
|---|
