Luck and Instant Karma work like Yum Yums in QAGS or Fate Points in Fate. You earn them for doing cool stuff during the game and can use them later to improve die rolls, take control of the narrative, and otherwise push the story in the direction you'd like it to go. The main difference between the two is that Luck carries from one scene to the next as the story unfolds, so that you can potentially use Luck that you had at the beginning of the game to affect the outcome of the climactic final battle. Instant Karma (IK), on the other hand, is only good for the scene during which it is earned. Any unused Instant Karma you have left at the end of the scene disappears in a puff of anticlimax.
Luck
Characters determine their starting luck at the beginning of each game by rolling their
Luck Die. As the game unfolds, players earn luck by doing things that contribute to the overall adventure and the campaign as a whole. The kinds of things that earn Luck generally fall into four main categories:
- Operational: This category covers the nuts and bolts of bringing the current adventure to a successful conclusion: Piecing together clues, coming up with brilliant plans, figuring out mission goals, and generally doing things to keep the story moving toward an enjoyable conclusion.
- Role-Playing: When a player makes a role-playing choice that is in character and has a high likelihood of significantly impacting the story (usually to the party's detriment), the player can earn Luck.
- World Building: Characters help flesh out the world by introducing new characters, locations, background storylines or subplots, and other world elements that pique the other players' (including the GM's) interests and make the world seem more alive can earn Luck for their contributions.
- Being a Team Player: You can also earn Luck for things that improve the overall gaming experience for everyone involved. If someone buys pizza, works to clear a space for the quieter or or less assertive players to get their time in the spotlight, or goes out of their way to help the GM keep things running smoothly, they deserve Luck.
If you have any Luck left at the end of an adventure, you can convert Luck to
Downtime at the rate of 1 Luck per Downtime or to
Character Points at the rate of 1 Luck per 0.1 CP.
Luck Die
Players roll their Luck Die at the beginning of each adventure to determine their starting Luck. To determine your Luck Die at character creation, roll a d20 and consult the table below. You can raise your Luck Die by 1 step (to a maximum of d8) for 1 Character Point. Lowering your Luck Die by 1 step (to a minimum of d4) earns you 1 CP.
| d20 Roll |
Luck Die |
| 1 |
d4 |
| 5 or 20 |
d8 |
| Any Other Roll |
d6 |
Using Luck
Players use luck to get things that help them move toward a favorable resolution of the current adventure or episode. While players can use Luck to get absolutely anything that the GM will agree to, the benefits of Luck typically fall into a few broad categories:
- Resources: Characters can spend Luck to get access to something they need. If it's something that the character could obtain by making a Resource Roll, the Luck cost is based on the Target Number for the roll: 1 for TN4, 2 for TN5, 3 for TN6. If it's something the character could not gain access to with a resource roll, the Luck cost starts at four and increases based on how unbelievable it would be for the character to have access to the resource in question. An example of spending Luck to gain Resources occurs in The Princess Bride when the Westley needs a wheelbarrow and a holocaust cloak.
- Shortcuts: If the players need to do something that we know they can do (often because we've seen them do it before), they can spend Luck to skip the scene and any rolls required to perform the action. They still have to spend the time and expend any other resources (like money or goodwill) necessary to secure the desired outcome--but it all happens off-screen. The GM may allow them to slightly reduce the costs or time requirements by spending additional Luck, but if they want to do anything crazy they'll have to play through the scene. In Supernatural, once the writers had established that both of the Winchesters were capable of stealing a car (by showing them do it), most of their subsequent auto thefts took place off screen unless they involved a clue or monster attack or provided an interesting setting for character interaction.
- Synchronicity: Players can spend Luck to introduce useful coincidences that the characters have no way of engineering on their own. The more unlikely it is that a particular thing would happen right at the point when the players need it to happen, the higher the cost. Making sure it's foggy on the night you plan to break into Buckingham Palace costs 1 Luck. Making sure that Kirk and Spock Prime just happen to end up in the same remote ice cave is considerably more expensive.
- Trackers and Counters: Players can usually spend a point of Luck to advance (or set back) a tracker or counter by one step.
- Instant Karma: A character may spend a point of Luck to gain Instant Karma equal to a roll of their Luck Die.
- Extra Successes: When your character makes a successful roll, you can spend 1 point of Luck to gain dLuck extra successes. Luck cannot be used to turn a failed roll into a success.
- Avoid A Costly Success: A player can spend 1 pont of Luck to ignore the "costly" part of a Costly Success.
Instant Karma
Instant Karma is the scene-level version of Luck. You earn it for doing things that improve the current scene. For example:
- Coming up with a cool plan or strategy to resolve the scene.
- Overcoming obstacles that are making the scene more difficult for the party.
- Answering questions or making connections that help move the scene toward its resolution.
- Cracking a joke or delivering a cool one-liner in-character.
- Doing something that tilts the scene in a new direction.
- Doing something interesting or unexpected that fits the character and the genre/style/setting.
- Good role-playing.
- Anything else the GM thinks deserves to be rewarded.
- You can also trade 2 unused successes from a roll for 1 point of Instant Karma.
At the end of a scene, you can use Instant Karma to improve your roll during the
Damage Phase and/or trade 5 Instant Karma for 1 point of Luck. Any remaining IK disappears before the next scene begins.
Using Instant Karma
You can use Instant Karma during a scene in the following ways:
- Add a Luck Die to your die pool before rolling (1 IK)
- Avoid a costly success (IK cost is equal to the number of 1s rolled)
- Prevent a die from being eliminated by the Discord Die (1 IK per die protected)
- Add Successes to a roll. The maximum number of successes that can be added is equal to the PC's Hero Factor. Instant Karma cannot be used to turn a failed roll into a success. (1 IK/success)
- Improve the scene in your favor, often by introducing or clarifying information about the environment. The IK cost depends on how much the new information stretches the suspension of disbelief and you cannot use Instant Karma to contradict information that has already been established. You can spend IK in this way to get some of the same results on a a scene level that you can create by spending Luck on a story level. For example, you could spend IK to gain a resource by spending IK to point out the rifle hanging above the fireplace or to introduce synchronicity by having a cloud pass in front of the moon just as the party gets ready to sneak across the open courtyard. The main thing to keep in mind is that the benefits of Instant Karma only last until the end of the scene, so the rifle above the fireplace is destined to get destroyed, irreparably jam, or run out of ammo before the end of the scene. If you want to carry it on to the next scene, you'll have to spend Luck.
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