Indie mechanics in "Traditional" games?

[thadrine]

This particular example was written for Mutants and Masterminds, but could be easy converted to any system, espceacially those with a some sort of meta currency (i.e. Bennies, Artha, Action Points, etc)

There are a few things I have been discussing with people. Here are some things I am deciding to implement into my game. I know that a lot of these are what some might consider to be "Indie game" mechanics. Me and several other GM's are attempting this as a way to incorporate more interesting story telling mechanics into more "Traditional" games. I hope to hear some feed back from you.

Basics:
You succeed....you gain narration over the story. You fail, the GM has narration over the story.

In the future I will set the DC of all actions and tell you them ahead of time. I might add a random die value for some variability, but that is minor. If you beat the DC you gain the rights to narrate what happens, and as long as no one at the table veto's your description it happens just as you say. For every every 5 points that you beat the DC you may add an additional trick.

Example:
DC 25 (to unlock the blast door to the military compound you are breaking into)

You roll a 36. This meets the DC and has 2 additional tricks that may be added to the scene.
You may say that the doors open up (that is the success), then the doors immediately close behind us (that is one trick), and then the doors rearm (that is your second trick).

Advancement:

Every time the GM spends a villain point (bennie, etc) it goes into a central coffer, it does not go to any specific character.

Other players around the table may award the points to another player for something interesting or heroic they have done, or any player may choose to compel an aspect (I incorporate SotC aspects in almost all games I run) of himself or another player. This awarding of Hero Points gives the player a " / " on their Hero Point tracker.

Every time a player spends a hero point, or to activate an aspect, they gain a " \ , " that is written over top of the " / " they got when they earned the point. This makes an " X ", and for every "X" that a player earns they get an experience point. It takes a number of experience points equal to the number of players in that session to gain a character point.

You must convert all XP to character points at the end of a session, but character points need not be spent until desired.

[Luke]

One of the reasons this type of success/failure/narration works in off-beat, small press games is that failure don't mean the same thing as it does in task resolution games. It'd be best if there was a reason to fail, and if "failure" was circumscribed by the rules. Otherwise handing "narration" to the GM in one of these games is near catastrophic.

[chance.thirteen]

Luke, could you rephrase this comment, or expand on it?

I believe I follow and understand, and even agree all the way until the last sentance. Isn't the GM usually the narrator in "that sort" of game?

[Luke]

Luke, could you rephrase this comment, or expand on it?
I believe I follow and understand, and even agree all the way until the last sentance. Isn't the GM usually the narrator in "that sort" of game?

Sure, the GM is the narrator. But since there is no upside to failing a test in a trad RPG, there's no impetus for the player to hand control over to the GM. Failure in these games is either a shrug-your-shoulders-roll-again sort of affair, or a complete um-what-do-we-do-now? disaster.

[thadrine]

I agree totally, and this sort of game encourages the fear of failure that is so heavily entrenched into the minds of my players.