Last time I talked about the Bonds chapter of the upcoming SAGE (Simple Adventure Game Engine) roleplaying game. The next chapter, covered today, is a brief one covering Fortune.
If you’ve played The Expanse, you know Fortune, but you can also find it as an option in the second edition of Fantasy AGE, of Cthulhu Awakens, and as one of the system variants in the Modern AGE Mastery Guide. Fortune is a pool of points you can use to alter die rolls and buy off damage on a 1 for 1 basis. If you don’t nullify all incoming damage by spending Fortune on it or reduce it by taking Conditions (injuries), you get defeated!
In SAGE Fortune works pretty much the way you’d expect from those games. This is actually adding a bit if complexity compared to the original SAGE rules in Engine #3, where it functioned more like a traditional Health or “hit points” score, but with a twist where you could spend it to change dice rolls.
I changed it back into something closer to its original form in The Expanse for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted players to be able to opt to spend it as they pleased—they might take a quick knockout in a fight to save their strength for later—but also because in SAGE, we lean more heavily into the idea that Fortune is “script immunity,” representing the degree to which the story allows you to avoid bad things because, well, you’re one of the main characters. This can apply to social threats, psychic attacks, getting roasted at a comedy special ostensibly in your honor—not just physical threats, especially since in SAGE, conflict is abstract enough for more than fights and fast talk.
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