Luck in Its many forms

Chance/Random/Dumb Luck

This is basically a die roll use to simulate variance caused by minutia no one can be expected to track. This is different than Heroic Luck as this is unearned unpredicted advantage or disadvantage.

An interesting variant allows different rolls varying according to who it is affecting or circumstances. For instance each player might choose the form of their characters luck.

mean(average) luck = 10.5 in all three cases

This Luck can be easily adapted to many RPGs

Heroic Luck/Karmic Favor

This form of luck is normally earned by the behaviors which your universe/gods favors. In fact a complex set of rules might be needed (although storyguide fiat may work just as well) , both to determine how this luck/karma is awarded or earned and how it may be employed.

Earning your Luck

How specifically Heroic Luck is earned varies completely from universe to universe and even from role to role within that universe. In general as a meta-game tool it may be used to reward "good" roleplaying and sticking with the genre, well defined genres are necessary for this to be used easily (If the genre is secret the SG may have to tally a characters luck secretly)

Examples might be

• Slaying of foul beasts and rescuing fair lads and maidens
• A Villain might get luck for long solliloquoys which delay their nasty deeds
• Conforming to any restrictive behavior code

Awarding the Karma/Luck pts

• The players Karma/Luck may be tallied secretly and employed by the SG. This method adds to the games mystery as it keeps the game mechanics behind the scene and the GM may allow the luck to range into the negative (to allow a desperate character to live when his death would have been just a product of dumb luck for instance) and later having it snap back creating more problems than were planned. How far negative is allowed may be based on the characters Karmic Level
• Or openly awarded to the player who can then apply it at will, even allowing it to build up and then use to gain some unusually helpfully lucky circumstance.

  Story Guides have very big jobs it may well be in his best interest to award them.... but some players find that it ruins their sense of being "in the story" players who prefer this immersive style may wish to plan in advance what circumstances are likely to trigger their luck and allow the Story Guide to actually adjucate its use (these circumstance may take in to account more Story Guide information about whether the luck is needed than basic player controlled luck.)

Karmic Favor

may be a spiritual status/ability which provides "karmic/Luck" pts which renew periodically (perhaps at the onset of each adventure). The Karmic Favor itself is earned and must be maintained by actions which earned it ( these may be offstage actions), but the points simply reflect an ability gained from this status. These may be tallied and employed openly or secretly

Active Employing Karma/Luck Pts ---- Probability Manipulation

Luck may be employed in ways whose effects are nearly universal, to create virtually any circumstance which is possible. Characters who are aware of their souls/spirits ability to move chance in their favor are sometimes considered Probability Manipulators/Wizards when they take an active role in this or just plain lucky when they don't.

• Figure out the cost for most common things accomplishable with chance, and wing it if someone wants something new.
• example "help arrives" cost in Luck pts = to power class of entity.
• example "it's just a scratch" a wound turns out less extreme than normal reduce wound by one caliber per luck pt spent. This is after the fact, and does not undo the immediate incapacitation caused by the wound.
• Determine the odds of something occuring and use the points spent as a modifier to those odds. Allow over spending and Snap Back this can be fun. (players get paranoid waiting for the other foot to fall)

Permanent Allocation

A specialist might be "lucky" under specific circumstances and "unlucky" under other circumstances.

Other Luck Pages

Kodecis Luck Page (has some interesting elements regarding use of luck in games which have death spirol combat and anime style conflict.)