System Mechanics: Luck Points Revisited:

At the beginning of this blog I wrote about determinism vs random in terms of how actions and choices have a huge influence on how well an action works, as well as how random things can greatly influence things as well.  Chaos theory dictates that everything is linked and that there is a chain of even minor changes that can affect seemingly unrelated events.  As such, someone buying an item in a shop may find that it is key to bypassing a temple guardian or some other coincidence that eases actions or makes them even more difficult than if one did not have it.  With a GM on the pen and paper version each item or action can have as much influence as they so desire, and on the eventual computer version the algorithms will work behind the scenes to keep everything moving with or without player involvement in an area to ensure things simulate life within the system.  All that said, luck points were touched on briefly as being able to be spent from a positive or negative pool, but little detail was put on how they were used or how they were gained.

Luck Points, or LP, are used when a character or creature's attempted action is taken if one chooses to burn it, adding a 1d6 potential out outcomes to it:  1) -/+1d6 penalty, 2) 0 change, 3) +/-1d4 bonus, 4) +/-1d6 bonus, 5) +/-1d10 bonus, and 6) +/-1d20 bonus.  As one can see, burning LP can greatly benefit or even hinder a player when taking an action.  Players burning positive LP will gain the first of two possibilities per outcome [positive except 1) being negative and 2) being no change], and players burning negative LP will gain the second possibility [negative except 1) being positive and 2) being no change].  In this manner, if a player knows that their action is about to fail, they can burn positive LP to improve its chance of succeeding, or if successfully landing burn positive LP to do the task with an even better result.  Conversely a player can burn negative LP for the opposite, having a higher chance of failure in order to get rid of some of their negative LP.

A character  that is superstitious gains positive or negative LP due to actions that their culture believes bring good or bad luck, in addition to their karma choices.  They, and all other characters, gain LP based on their actions, positive for any action that helps an individual and are selfless, and negative for those that only help the character or another individual selfishly without regard for others involved.  Actions done out of self-defense such as in combat initiated by someone or something else, do not affect LP unless a character is superstitious and harming the foe brings positive or negative luck according to their culture.