Let Them Find the Secret Door

Lately, I have not been asking for many search-type checks. Sometimes I have asked everybody to roll a d6 and hope for a 1. Sometimes we are playing Dragonbane and I want to reward having that skill. But really tho, I have found straight up success, especially at finding doors, to be good for the feels of the game. 

Each time the PCs devote time to searching for doors or whatever, they're gonna find them, but I am going to loudly roll encounter dice (or happenings dice). Players know there is a risk. That's fun. They find the things and that's fun too.

Now then, finding a secret door does not mean you know how to open it. I usually have a super-dooper simple trick to opening it in mind. In a library: notice the floor marks from the swinging shelf, but you have to find a likely book and pull it to open the latch holding it closed. Looking at baas-relief dwarven carvings? You find one with a hammer shaft that has to be worked to open the way.

Have you tried poking its eye?

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Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.

HP Burn

Almost all games I run now use HP burn.

Sacrifice a couple HP to raise (or lower) the results of one of your rolls. Will that burn come back to bite you? Maybe! Risk vs Reward, baby!

HP works well as a meta-resource like Luck or bennies. After all, it doesn't make much sense as Health or Hit Points when you really look at it, but feels perfect as Hit Protection or Heroic Perserverance.

So what if a PC burns down to 0HP? Well, I'm also a fan of ill-advisedly fighting on when you should give up. I didn't hear no bell!  

If using CON or STR score as true health, HP burn works great. If using something like 5e Deeandy on Dragonbane, consider letting the PC fight while making death saves, but no more burn. If using VtM, I am really confused how you are burning HP...

Try it in your next game. Crom!

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Share good posts with good goblins. Claytonian at the gmails.