Similarities of two characters (“brothers”) on two different worlds

[Alex-01]

The situation:
- There are two characters. They live on two different worlds (maybe with two different tech-levels). These two characters are “brothers” and “connected” together. The two brothers can only communicate mentally (not with cordless devices or via mail …).
- The two worlds are fully separated from each other. The characters can’t travel between the two worlds.
- Therefore every player has two characters – two brothers.
- These two brothers are fighting the same enemy. This enemy can switch between the two worlds and can appear in different manifestations. Sometimes the character at world A had to solve a problem, before character at world B can continue.

The problem:
At the moment the only existing connection between the two brothers is the communication. The brothers are “talking” to each other, if they had to fight an enemy.

What I want:
I need an element of connection, which have immediate effects to the game.

My idea so far:
Some RPG´s use e.g. Drama Dice (7th Sea) or Karmapools (Shadowrun). The two brothers have a shared pool of these special-points, which allow them to make some “special moves”:
- “Borrow” an ability from his brother
- Classic use: repeat a dice roll, increase skill or attribute
- learn something special like Infravision
…
I´m not satisfied with this idea, but I don’t want to make too hard. E.g. character A is breaking his leg, therefore character B is breaking is leg too.

[lumpley]

I once proposed a mechanism ... let's see ...

You can declare that your PC's fate and another PC's fate are "married." The PCs don't have to have any particular relationship or even know one another at all. Once per scene, you can pull a die from the other player's pool and include it in your roll. If your roll's a win, return the die to the other player's pool; if it's a loss, throw the die away!

That die-borrowing scheme might work for your game. I like it, in principle, never having seen it in action.

-Vincent

[matthijs]

In this setup you have the opportunity to introduce some heart-breaking sacrifice mechanics. What if when brother A really needs to do something, he can succeed - but brother B has to suffer some ill effects?

For example (bearing in mind that I don't know anything about the setting): Brother A is being attacked by a giant cyborg. He's down to his last dice in his Defending Against Cyborgs pool. He gets 3 extra dice, provided brother B's farm burns down.

This doesn't necessarily need to be justified in the fictional world - it can seem coincidental, or unrelated. The point is to give the player some hard choices.

[Josh Roby]

This becomes a lot more interesting if I'm playing a down-time character connected to Vincent's up-time character, and Vincent's down-time character is connected to matthijs's up-time character, and matthij's down-time character is connected to my up-time character.  So I share dice and consequences with both Vincent and matthijs.

[Alex-01]

Thank you for your ideas.

I will introduce a shareable dice pool. It allows:
- Sharing a ability or a attribute for one proof / dice roll
- Having the opportunity to repeat a proof / dice roll

I don`t have more ideas for the shareable dice pool but it is a good beginning.

[lumpley]

Do think very hard and very carefully about the rules for adding dice to the shared pool and discarding dice from the shared pool. Those will be the rules that determine what the die pool really means.

-Vincent