Hero Points Reimagined - Homebrew
I’m a big proponent of stealing great ideas and reshaping them to fit your game and story you want to tell. I like looking at other RPGs and seeing what I can grab from them to fit into my own games and one of my favorite things I’ve taken recently are my Hero/Villain points that I utilize for one of my Dungeons & Dragons groups.
A note before we begin, this won’t work for every table and with every player. This is for groups that are invested in consequences in the world.
The Mechanics
This is an inspiration mechanic inspired from the Star Wars FFG Destiny Points. In that game, players roll a special die to determine how many Destiny Points are available during that session and can use it to influence events, increase the odds of success and be an active part of the story. The GM uses those same tokens to increase challenges and help provide key narratives. These tokens have two sides to them, a light and a dark side and the players use light side points, which get flipped to the dark side. The GM uses the dark side, and upon using a dark side point, it gets flipped to the light side.
Star Wars Destiny Points. Left side represents the light side and the players can use, the right side represents the dark side and the GM can use.
This is a fun mechanic where you have physical tokens on the table, one side represents the light side and the other the dark side. Players and GM get to flip these tokens and it’s a great physical representation of the light and dark side and their influences moving back and forth in a game. For those who want to be play a narrative and cinematic game, and you enjoy Star Wars, I highly recommend it.
How I’m Stealing It
Now, I can’t steal this mechanic point by point. In D&D, if the GM had a coin they could flip to impose disadvantage, it feels a lot more mean than in something something like Star Wars where its built into the system. But then again, I can’t just give out handfuls of Inspiration and let players abuse that as they will without some sort of consequence mechanic.
And that is my idea. Give my players a way to be heroic, to have a way for them to succeed and… find a way to make their heroics meaningful in a world where they have to stop the Big Bad.
I created tokens for my players that do not reset at the start of a game, but rather persist throughout the campaign. I have 7 tokens, one for each player plus an additional one with a blue side. These are the hero points, and my players are free to use them as they will. Want advantage to show off to some bar maid? Go for it. Want advantage on that Inflict Wounds spell you really want to go off so you don’t feel like you wasted a spell slot? Please do. Or maybe, you have a really tricky death saving throw and you need a win. Please, grab a token and reroll your d20.
Thse are all tokens for the players and when they use them, they flip it to the other side. These are my villain points. These are for the GM and the players no longer get to use those points.
Tokens I created for the players. The blue fist represents an unused point, when it is flipped the players can no longer use that inspiration.
Now, these points aren’t anything the GM uses during the game. I don’t get to flip coins for my monsters, I don’t get to make my players fail an important skill check with the King. I instead hoard these points, and wait. Biding your time, you wait for all the hero points, the points that players can spend, to have been spent, to no longer be available to the party. That’s when you take those points and something bad, something no good happens. The villain has grown in strength, while the heroes have been growing stronger and stronger, the villain has been growing stronger and stronger as well.
When the tokens have all been spent by players, this is a cue for the GM to introduce something bad that the villain has been working on. This should be an important story moment and this moment should be highlighted by the GM taking each spent point and reflipping it so that the players can use them again. I like to punctuate my descriptions of whatever horrible event my players are seeing by slowly, one by one, flipping each token while I’m describing the event. Is there a big smile on my face while I do it? Probably.
In Practice
So, how does this look like in practice? In my campaign, these inspiration tokens are treated like big deals and it might be three or four sessions before a token gets used. Another bonus about this is that the player’s are self governing about who uses these tokens. Because each player is relying on the pool of points, no one wants to be the one that spent all their points on trying to seduce the bar maid, this keeps the frivolous points from being spent and creates a greater importance to the players. It’s gotta be really important, like someone trying to land a clutch spell or persuade the king in a time of need, to get player’s to flip a token for a reroll.
In my campaign, my players flipped tokens for hitting with a spell, for death saves, for making sure that my boss didn’t crit someone to insta-death, to ensure that they could persuade the king, and other pivotal moments. But, they used those points and it came time that the last one was used and the pivotal moment was upon them. I had told them ahead of time that it might take multiple sessions before the tokens would ever get flipped back to the light side, but it so happened that I could fit in the horrible event in the same session they flipped the last one.
The moment the last token was flipped, it came time for my plans. I knew what event would be happening, and my BBEG was working on a breaking away the seals to a horrifying mcguffin that would allow him to open a portal to the Abyss. He was the benefactor of the party, and was paying the party piles of gold and platinum to help him, every time they flipped a token, he was able to break another seal protecting the world from the Abyss. The last token flipped, and he had the way to break the last seal. He contacted the party and they helped him break the final seal, and as I began describing this portal forming in front of them, the figure shrugging off his human skin for the fur of a Rakshasa, I started flipping the coins from villain to hero. This was when they realized that maybe the price of advantage was a bit much when the portal opened and the first of many demons began pouring forth, heading for their city just a few days away.
Now, not every event has to be so monumentous, but the players should face consequences for being such big damn heroes. Just as the heroes get stronger, so too should the villains. Their plots should unfold, and the players should always be aware that the word of their deeds are creating greater and greater oppositiion for them.
Instructions
To create your own Hero Points Reimagined system, all you need is a number of tokens equal to the players plus one. These tokens should have two distinct sides and you should explain to your players ahead of time that these tokens are free for them to spend on their d20 rolls as Inspiration. It is up to them to police how and what they are spent on and that there are consequences for when they are all used. That these tokens represent the growing influence of their heroics and that as they use these tokens, their deeds and fame are growing inside the world.
Once all of the tokens have been spent, this signifies that opposing forces have noticed the party and that their plans are unfolding. This could mean a portal that the cultists have been working on has opened, or that the King is launching an attack on the party or the party’s allies. Whatever it is, this should move the story forward but with the villains having some sort of upperhand. Maybe they got access to a powerful magic item that could be very dangerous to the players, or that they were able to get more allies than the players originally thought they could get too.
At a point in the session where the characters can witness these events, the GM should then begin flipping each token back to the player side. This signifies that the consequences of heroic deeds has come to fruition and that the opposition is answering the heroes.
This event shouldn’t just be the normal consequences that players are used too, but something should be added. If the story was leading to the evil King to attack the village, then the consequences for the players shouldn’t just be the King attacking the village. The King could have new allies, or has a necromancer in his legions and the village is brutally attacked by the undead horde. Whatever event happens because the tokens get flipped over should include something extra that the players were not expecting.
On the other hand, the consequences shouldn’t be that a level 1 party is attacked by an ancient dragon. The consequences should be reasonable and exciting, not just a death sentence. You want to create a joint narrative with the players and to make them want to use these tokens at important times. You want them guessing what will happen if they flip all the tokens, and you can even use a few of those ideas for the consequences.
Last Few Things
Now, there are a few things that you could say against this. Those parties who don’t care about consequences in the game world will easily abuse this system, but those who take the world too seriously might never use them for fear of making things worse. These are extreme cases, and typically parties are made up of players from all different viewpoints.
With the onus on the players, it could be that there is very little governance on them. If you think the players use these tokens too quickly, you can hold off on how quickly they are ‘recharged’ with the triggering event. If it moves too slow, you could offer to the players on failed rolls the token so that they can reroll, just a gentle reminder that they could get a second chance at success, reminding them of these tokens in times of crisis.
If you think this system is no difference than the GM just advancing the story that they had planned and that the tokens aren’t adding anything new, talk to your players outside the game. Explain that because the tokens were used, this event happened as opposed to the other event. I’ve explained that the Rakshasa that betrayed the party to open a portal was never going to open that portal until the last token was swtiched. So if they never used those tokens until they were level 15, well they were going to be far better suited for it. That I have several different plot points, and when they use the next tokens I have plans for what will happen next but their actions will inform what consequences will happen.
These tokens should be a way for them to be heroic, to push their deeds far and wide. When the tokens are flipped, this is the opposition, the party’s opposition, rise to power. Their plans coming to fruition far better than villain could’ve hoped for.
Like what we are doing here?
Support us on Patreon!
You’ll get early access to deep dives, our Homebrew Hoard, our extras podcast and more!
Follow us on Twitter to keep up to date on everything we talk about!
