RPG Design Patterns

Provide a scarce resource to players that they can spend to dramatically alter the outcomes of fortune-based contests after the fact.

Fate Points, Luck Points, Force Points, Karma, Hero Points, Possibilities

Resource

The Safety Valve gives players a resource that they can spend to significantly modify the outcome of a contest after the dice have been rolled (or cards drawn, etc.) in a fortune-based contest. The resource is generally very scarce, so players will only spend it when events go far askew from what they would like to see.

You should consider the Safety Valve pattern if you want players to have limited veto power over random chance to keep the story flowing in a direction they enjoy (usually for “self-preservation”).

There is nothing inherently wrong with adding a Safety Valve to a game, but it may be a strong indicator that your game has a design flaw elsewhere. For example, adding a Safety Valve to help prevent character death introduces a contradiction in your game design. On the one hand, you have rules allowing the possibility of character death. On the other, you have rules preventing it. If you find yourself adding a rule to block the consequences of some other rule, then you may need to re-think that other rule. If you seek to prevent character death, for example, then character death is likely opposed to what you envision your game to be about. If that is the case, you need to seriously consider eliminating character death as a possibility rather than tack on an additional rule to prevent it.

The Safety Valve pattern does a decent job at what it sets out to do. It gives players more control over their character’s destiny by allowing them to alter rolls that are entirely out-of-whack with their goals. It essentially becomes part of a game’s contest rules. However, adding a Safety Valve complicates a system by adding an exception to the normal game flow.

Safety Valves are generally designed for judicious use. The goal is usually accomplished by giving players a resource that is extremely scarce, or alternatively, by using the resource for more than one purpose, such as character advancement. If a player must decide between spending the resource now for immediate gain or saving it for long-term gain, an inherent conflict is created which can increase tension for the player (if not the character).

If the resource is sufficiently scarce, a player may be able to overturn only a handful of rolls throughout a character’s career. Thus, players will naturally want to hoard their Safety Valve resource for moments of extreme urgency. The problem with this is that the scarcity of the resource and the desire to hoard it means that a rule is added to a game, complicates it, and receives inordinate amounts of player attention all for something that rarely has an impact on anything. One way to keep players from hoarding their Safety Valve resource is to refresh the resource periodically and not allow any “left over” resource points to be carried over from one refresh to another. For example, you could give each player one re-roll per scene: they either use it or lose it.

Let’s design a Safety Valve that encourages player use, but which is scarce enough that its use will make a strong statement about what players want to see:

One time per game session, each player is given the option to influence “Fate” one time. When a die roll goes against the story line that a player would like to see, he can use his Fate and force a re-roll. Note that this rule allows any player to Fate any roll, including those of the Game Master or other player. If the re-rolled result is contrary to what another player desires, that other player may use his Fate (if he has not yet used it) to force yet another re-roll. This may continue until all possible Fates have been used. Unused Fates cannot be carried over from one session to the next. They are either used or lost.

HARP gives characters “Fate Points,” which is a scarce resource their players can spend to alter a contest’s results significantly. A roll can either be made much more potent or injuries can be greatly reduced. Characters start with 3 Fate Points and more can be bought by spending Development Points, which are used to advance the character’s effectiveness. One Fate Point costs 5 Development Points (which is quite expensive).

TORG gives characters a resource called “Possibilities.” This resource is used to increase character effectiveness by raising attribute and skill ranks. TORG also allows players to spend Possibility points as a form of Safety Valve. Spending one Possibility allows a player to add a second die roll to an unsatisfactory die roll. If the new d20 roll is less than 10, it counts as a 10. Thus, spending a point of Possibility significantly boosts a character’s immediate effectiveness. Possibilities can also be used to immediately reduce damage received by a character.

Warhammer gives characters a “Fate Points” resource that acts as a Safety Valve. Spending a Fate Point allows a character cheat death. For example, it can significantly lessen the effects of critical hits so that a killing blow becomes a minor injury. Or, a character could walk away from a cave-in that would ordinarily have left him crushed to death.