This is a mechanic that borrows heavily from Serenity: The Roleplaying Game, by Jaimie Chambers and Margaret Weis. I re-tooled it for the d20 System, specifically for a varient that I’m working on right now. I’ve edited the below entry to make it more generic and less specific to my varient. Disclaimer: this mechanic will afford the PCs more power than the core d20 System does. You may have to adjust your encounters accordingly.
Story Tokens
Story tokens are a mechanic to allow players greater control over the game world, and their characters’ destiny. Each character starts the game with 3 story tokens, and gains additional tokens during play. Story tokens may be spent in a variety of ways. Note that only player characters have access to story tokens.
Gaining Story Tokens
The GM may award a player story tokens for the completion of a goal, for role-playing particularly well, or for performing a dramatic and important action. There are no specific guidelines restricting story token awards; however, a player may never have more tokens than 10 + her character level.
Spending Story Tokens
Story tokens may be spent at any time, for a variety of purposes. Spending story tokens is never an action, but often accompanies an action. A player may spend story tokens on behalf of another player, but may not give story tokens to another player. Story tokens may be spent in the following ways:
Fudge the Dice: A single story token may be spent in order to gain a +3 bonus to a single die roll. You may spend up to 4 story tokens at a time in this manner, for a maximum bonus of +12. You may also spend 8 story tokens in order to automatically and instantaneously take 20 on a single roll, regardless of whether or not you would normally be able to take 20 on that roll. Taking 20 in this manner does not use any extra time.
Cheat Death: You may spend 2 story tokens in order to automatically stabilize when your hit points have been brought down to negative numbers. You may also spend 6 story tokens any time you would take enough damage or suffer an effect that would cause your death; doing so negates the damage or effect completely.
Swap Tokens: You may, at any time, trade in story tokens for tokens of any other type, on a one-for-one basis. (This particular use of story tokens is designed for games that use other types of tokens, such as Monte Cook’s Iron Heroes.)
Call in a Favor: Story tokens may be spent in order to call in favors from NPCs in the world. Note that you must be able to justify this expenditure; that is, you must be able to explain why that NPC owes you a favor of that magnitude.

• 4 tokens buy you a minor favor, such as the loan of a small amount of money, a free piece of relatively inexpensive equipment, or a bit of useful information.
• 6 tokens buy you a moderate favor, such as a guard looking the other way when you’re caught in the act, the loan of a large sum of money, or a small sum of money, no strings attached.
• 8 tokens buy you a major favor, such as a pardon from the local magistrate, a free horse, or the loan of a huge sum of money.
• If you are calling in a favor from an NPC with moderate power or influence, such as a local governor or lord, a moderately powerful fence or crime boss, or a minor warlord, add 2 tokens to the cost of the favor.
• If you are calling in a favor from an NPC with a high degree of power or influence, such as the king of a nation, the high priest of a major religion, or the commander of a very large army, add 4 tokens to the cost of the favor.

Stroke of Luck: This is perhaps the most potent, and potentially useful, application of story tokens. Players may spend tokens in order to alter the game world in some ways; however, any alterations must be approved by the GM, and must be justified by the player. For example, a PC could spend tokens in order to say that a friend of his lives nearby when the party is in need of a place to rest and recuperate, but saying that his friend is actually the king of the land would be a bit of a stretch. This use of story tokens also requires a fair amount of GM adjucation; the cost of this ability can range from a single story token when the thief suddenly realizes that, yes, she does have an extra set of lock picks in her backpack to replace the ones that just broke, all the way up to 30+ tokens for extremely significant changes to the game world, such as a PC realizing that he is, in fact, the legitimate heir to the throne of the recently deceased king.
Break the Rules: If a PC wants to do something that isn’t normally allowed by the rules—such as running up a wall or opening a locked chest with a swift kick, she may spend story tokens in order to effectively make the action legal, just this once. Depending on just how outrageous the action is this could cost anywhere from 1 story token to 30+. The GM, however, has the final word.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 9:51 am and is filed under Gamecrafting, House Rules. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.