Luck advantage in practice

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by ericthered

I usually either make it game time or have it refresh after each "Encounter/Scene/minor milestone". .

Same here. This also makes it mesh nicely with RAW Serendipity which is session-based.

[Mister Negative]

I also tinkered with Luck in a manner similar to the OP. Characters with the advantage get one use each game per hour we normally play (which is usually about 4-5 hours). I hand out poker chips for them, and they cash them back in.

This works well for me for a couple of reasons.

First, I also give out luck chips for people who are willing to do something extra for the game session. If someone brings food, or does something significant to contribute for the session (not like good roleplaying, like drawing character portraits, or painting minis for people), they also get luck chips, so it works in the same fashion.

Second, I find that the 'per hour' is unwieldy and artificial for my games. People will forget when the clock ticks over, or use it right before the clock runs out so they don't waste it, or something like that. Or they will go to the bathroom or run to get a beverage to run out the clock so that it will refresh If the mechanism for Luck replenishment is an artificial construct, I can't complain too much that the players use artificial means to benefit from it.

Also, an hour of real time can be almost any amount of game time. We played (and are going to play again) DF, so an hour can be shopping around in town, asking about rumors, and trekking to the dungeon, or it can be mostly a single nail-biting combat. My players are way happier having the option of using two Luck rolls during that combat than using one on a good Hiking roll on the way in.

Finally, Luck gives the player a bit of narrative control, so I personally think it's more appropriate to give them a bit of narrative control on how and when they are lucky. Maybe one guy is lucky in that he seldom trips, stumbles, fumbles, or flubs his actions, while another guy is lucky in that sometimes, he can pull off one single, completely amazing action that saves everyone's bacon (like using luck on his defense roll, then his attack roll, then his damage roll).

I certainly don't think there's anything broken about the RAW application of Luck, but I felt that a 'pool' of usage was more thematically appropriate, given the way our games can shift from narrative play to tactical play.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by khorboth

1) how do you use Luck in your games?

Right now? Kinda by the RAW, but I'm between games. My last several campaigns have used Impulse Buys with regening Points so no one has bothered with Luck.

2) how useful is Luck in your games?

Right now? See above. Previously? It's held it's own as one of the top five most taken Advantages.

3) What are your opinions on how my group has been using luck?

It sounds like it's been working for you.

4) What are your opinions on how I'm thinking of using luck?

Both house rule options are fine. The former is more front loaded, it requires more strategy on the part of the Players to really maximize and to make sure they have themselves covered in later scenarios. The second option means they can blow through their current Luck stockpile, and if the scenario will last another hour or more, rest assure more uses are coming to cover themselves against bad crits.

2) when sessions go over the expected time, players occasionally ask for more uses of Luck and things are a little weird.

That right there is a good enough reason.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

On the other hand, I think it could lead to players being more likely to burn it up on things like getting a success - there's a psychological factor, I think, in seeing "hey, I have three uses of Luck handy!" that makes it more likely for you to spend 1 or 2.

That's exactly the effect I've seen since switching over to Impulse Buys. The Players have a 'pool of points' (in this case represented by tokens) and I've heard them say "Yeah, I've got 5 tokens, I afford to use two here to make this failure into a critical success!"

Originally Posted by khorboth

To clarify the example, I believe he dropped the bag in order to then catch something much more valuable but didn't have time to drop the bag with finesse. The GM ruled that one potion was going to break and allowed luck to choose which one would break. Maybe serendipity would be a better fit, but it's an example of our actual use.

In my house Luck would have been to reroll the "how many potions break" roll, Serendipity would have meant the bag landed on a particularly soft bit of ground (or landed padded side down, or whatever) and all potions would have survived.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

In my Lephrecon game, we just stopped counting. Every player blew [60] on Ridiculous Luck and threw it every turn. That plus ridiculous brogues worked fine.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by khorboth

We found keeping track of the Luck timer to be annoying enough that no players were willing to take the advantage.

At our table, we just write the time down on the same sheet we use to track HP, FP, mana, arrows, or whatever. It's a resource.

I generally take it if at all possible, and use it for disaster mitigation. Our games are usually high stakes enough that being able to re-roll now and then is PC life saving. Interestingly, there is a side effect where folks who have burned their luck are more cautious.

Allowing Luck to stack in piles will allow for some really big "spikes" of cinematic action, followed by longer periods of caution. Not sure how that works long term.

[AlexanderHowl]

Players generally reserve it for the 'big finish' in a session, at least in my experience. If a player ends up not using it, I generally buy back unused luck at a rate of 10:1 (every ten uses of unused luck equals one CP). It translates to the characters regaining the CP they spent on Luck in an average of 50 sessions (average of 3 unused luck per session per 'level').

[Ultraviolet]

About Luck:
It has only appeared during Cliffhangers games in my almost 30 years of playing GURPS.
In 3rd ed Luck was something you had to declare in advance when using it, and roll 3 times to pick the best.
I like the 4th ed mechanic better, where you don't declare until you see a bad roll you would like to have been better.

1) how do you use Luck in your games?

My Cliffhangers character is a laid-back but daring explorer and WWI cavalry veteran. He has Luck once per hour with the limitation that it only works on "heroic actions". So not when we're doing minor stuff, trying to drink another party member under the table etc. But when we assault a hostile camp and I run through the fight and into the center to free a captive.
A previous player with a scam artist character often used Luck on trivial things, for his own benefit, and other players thought that wasn't sufficiently epic for the campaign. Still, it was within the rules.

2) how useful is Luck in your games?
Not very useful. I forget I have it. Somethies we go for 3 entire sessions doing nothing but roleplay, investigation and puzzle solving and rolling trivial rolls. And then we may have en entire 3 hour session begin one big fight or connected action sequences.
But I have luck in order to avoid critical failures when they matter the most.

3) What are your opinions on how my group has been using luck?
I don't like the accumulating and concentrated use. I like it when Luck uses are spread out.
I'm unsure if we rule "there must be one hour between uses" or "the hour value of the clock must have changes by 1" because if I ever use it in a session I don't ever think I've ever used it a second time.
Maybe Daredevil would have been a better choice?

4) What are your opinions on how I'm thinking of using luck?
I don't like it, but then again I don't like the accumulated luck uses used freely either.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

He has Luck once per hour with the limitation that it only works on "heroic actions".

What limitation value do you use for that?

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by tbone

What limitation value do you use for that?

I get 50% off for that, but I do it more the the limitation than the points discount.
Maybe it should have been a lot less discount by the book (perhaps only 20%?), but in the kind of campaign we run I have to take considerable risk for the entire scene to ever have it work. I can't use it if I'm very defensive and careful in an action scene, like hiding behind a rock and not stick out my head until I'm sure i have cover fire. Nope, ol' Tex charges into the fray.

[Gnaskar]

1) how do you use Luck in your games?
I've got a public DFRPG campaign going which uses Luck as written. The players track luck use on their phones without GM intervention or supervision.

In my private games, however, I use a houserule for luck. 2/4/8 uses per session. Our sessions are about 5 hours long, but I've observed that people don't use luck as soon as it is available (what if I need it more sometime in the next hour?).

Usually luck is either compulsory or banned in my campaigns. It alters the feel of the game enough that it aught to be a setting feature.

2) how useful is Luck in your games?
Usually very useful. In the public game we have a Swashbuckler with Everyone is a Critical (treat 7 or less as a critical hit) and Ridiculous Luck. He usually scores multiple crits per turn.

In my private games, it's even more useful (or at least gets used more often). Since they can use it twice in a row and have at least two uses per session, players are much less likely to save it up and end up not using it.

Some players use it just to avoid critical or automatic failures, while others (especially those with high levels of it) also use it to be able to pull off difficult maneuvers and do cool stuff.

3) What are your opinions on how my group has been using luck?
Similar to how I would do it, but it is definitively more powerful than luck as written. Players rarely use luck as often as they theoretically could in games and if they do they use it on sub-optimal things. In order to use luck 5 times in a 5 hour session, you'd have to use it on whatever you're doing when the timer runs down rather than spending it on important rolls.

4) What are your opinions on how I'm thinking of using luck?
It doesn't solve the concerns I have with the original houserules. You're still getting the best of both worlds, with no real downsides. Both the ability to save up Luck points until you need them, and the maximum theoretically possible Luck points per session.