Luck Again

In Luck Happens," I wrote that "Luck should literally be the result of luck, as in chance." I still believe it's the optimal method of awarding Luck, but I also believe Luck can be awarded for achieving certain goals as long as it cannot be spent on permanent character improvement. In Omnia, Luck plays no part in improving a character's statistics. It can only be used as a temporary boost. Therefore, Luck may be awarded when a character does something specific or it may be awarded randomly. The real key, as I reflect on it now, is not how Luck is acquired, but how it can be used. (It should also be noted that Luck scores and Ability scores are randomizers, not flat values, because Omnia uses a dice pool system.) Luck is no substitute for experience, but it can be gained by having experiences.

What Voice Did I Use for That NPC Again?

Apart from schedule conflicts and published adventures with suboptimal presentation leading to user unfriendliness, my biggest challenge in running role-playing games is trying to remember exactly how I portrayed a given non-player character in a previous session, especially when the last session was months (or years) ago. This frustrates me to no end. How can I create a believable world and its inhabitants if I can't remember how I portrayed recurring characters? It isn't easy.

For Omnia, I borrowed an idea from QAGS. In QAGS, player characters have something called Who Would Play Him/Her In The Movie, or WWPHITM. The player is advised to think of a thespian who is best suited to play the character in a hypothetical movie to help the other players imagine that character. In Omnia, there is a similar characteristic for player characters called Portrayal, but it occurred to me that this would also be a useful characteristic for non-player characters—not only for helping visualization, but as a means for helping the moderator remember how to play the character. The moderator need not ever reveal a non-player character's Portrayal. It can just be a mnemonic device for the person responsible for playing an entire cast of supporting characters and antagonists every session. It's a simple solution that works for any role-playing game. I might need to highlight this aspect in the rules.