Fate Points - Their history & implementation

[talysman]

as a sort of counterpoint to the purely metagame Fate Points, here's an early quasi-metagame example: wishes in The Fantasy Trip: Advanced Wizard (Metagaming, 1980):

   A magic wish is a way of influencing probability. There are specific things that a wish is good for:

   (1) A wish can add 1 to any attribute of any character, as long as it does not raise that attribute over 16.

   (2) A wish can control any one die-roll if the wish is used BEFORE the dice are rolled. The player tells the GM that he is making a wish. He then dictates the die-roll result. For instance, a player wearing a wish-ring strikes at a dragon. Before he swings, he makes a wish for triple damage. He does not have to make his "to hit" roll; he is automatically granted a roll of 3 and gets his triple damage, A wish can be used to affect ANY die roll made by any player or by the GM . . . it can insure a saving roll, make a weapon break, guarantee good reaction, etc.

[NOTE: in TFT, a roll of 3 on 3 dice is an automatic hit with triple damage, hence the example.]

   (3) A wish can also ERASE any one die roll that has just been made. If an unfavorable roll is made, a player can use his wish to set time back a second so that the roll may be made over again. This can also apply to any roll made by another player or the GM -- but it must be a roll that has JUST been made. Example: A figure wearing a wish-ring is attacked by a swordsman. The swordsman makes his "to hit" roll and rolls again for damage. The ring-bearer does not use his wish. The swordsman rolls a 10 -- enough to kill the ring-bearer. Immediately (with his dying breath?) the ring-bearer uses his wish. The swordsman's roll of 10 is erased; he must make his damage roll over again. Since the wish was used AFTER the roll, the figure who made the wish cannot dictate what the new roll will be -- he only gets to erase the old one.

   (4) A wish can bring one figure back to life if that figure was killed with the last hour of game time, and if the body is reasonably intact (see DEATH) and available to the wisher. The figure brought back to life will have ST 1 (that is, he will be unconscious). In addition, he/she must lose a total of 5 from his/her attributes, they may be taken off ST, DX, IQ, or any combination thereof.

   (5) A wish will grant its user one true answer to any yes-or-no question, from the GM.

   (6) A wish will heal all of a LIVING character's wounds, diseases, etc., bringing him back to full ST and health.

   (7) A wish will counteract another wish that has just been made.

   A referee may, at his option, allow wishes to be used for other things. However, wishes should not be too powerful. Wishes should NEVER be allowed to grant treasure or magic items, to grant more wishes, to bring back a long-dead character, to magically kill some other character, or perform other such super-powered feats.

most of this is kept very in-game in strict Simulationist fashion: you can't resurrect a character that's been dead too long, resurrected characters start out unconscious, etc. however, the two options to alter die rolls have no real in-game explanation other than "he made a wish"... although it's interesting to note the slightly terrified Sim interjection of "with his dying breath?" in the example that cancels a roll that caused a character's death.

I think this is an important transitional point in history between early D&D (which doesn't allow wishes to act on the metagame level at all) and later pure metagame mechanics that allow undoing bad rolls or selecting your own results.

[hanschristianandersen]

A more recent example -

The Riddle of Steel (Driftwood Publishing, 2001) has a Spiritual Attributes system that permits massive infusions of dice to rolls that are aligned with player-authored criteria (Passions, Drives, Destiny, Conscience, Faith).  These dice infusions often are sufficient to completely overpower the non-metagame mechanics.

There's also a sixth Spiritual Attribute, Luck, which is used differently from the other five:
"These dice may be added to any of your rolls - all at once or bit by bit - over the course of the game session. ... A point may be spent permanently to afford an instant success in any matter normally out of your hands - like a hay cart at the bottom of the castle tower you just fell out of (no matter the [target number]!)."