Sunday, December 23, 2007

Birthday Luck

This is an idea for gamemasters and storytellers that has come to me on my birthday. Have the players in your games come up with birthdays for their characters. On and around these days, have interesting effects take place that help the character along. Visitations by long dead relatives that provide information or simply receiving a +1 on all attack rolls help add a layer of superstition and birthright to the game.

In addition, you may consider the opposite day on the calendar, and those days around it, to be a sort of anti-luck period. Perhaps reverse the bonuses you give the characters, and have more disinformation find its way into their ears.

You could even use the signs of the zodiac for inspirational forms of spiritual and dream visitations, or if you use the eastern zodiac, perhaps the animal that represents the year of birth. It's up to you; just make it fun!

1 comment:

Adam A Thompson said...

Another fun idea we've used sometimes revolves around the phases of the moon. We'll keep casual track of it so that we can decide how dark the nights in the game are, but it can easily be used as a varying luck item as well, giving +1 during full moons and -1 on new moons on various rolls (not everything of course, but just a few things, like confirming critical fumbles, or caster level checks).