Taking a page from the new Star Wars RPG, I'm toying around with the idea of doing away with the A/C/E mechanic and replacing it with a Warhammer version of the Light Side/Dark Side points mechanic.

If would work like this.

Important NPCs/Baddies, would get their own Fortune Point pool, plus Talents/Actions.

All other NPCs/Baddies would draw from the GMs Chaos Point pool.

Chaos Points are generated at the beginning of the session by rolling 1 Misfortune Die for each PC. Any Banes generated are tallied and noted (with pen/paper or tokens). This is the GMs starting Chaos Point pool.

Whenever a PC spends a Fortune Point, the GM gets to add a Chaos Point to his pool.

Chaos Points can be spent in the following ways:

1 Chaos Point = 1 Fortune Die (added to the GMs dice pool), or 1 Misfortune dice (inflicted upon a PCs dice pool)

3 Chaos Points = 1 Expertise Die (added to the GMs dice pool), or 2 Misfortune dice (inflicted upon a PCs dice pool)

5 Chaos Points = 1 Challenge Die (added to a PCs dice pool)

I honestly haven't had a chance to play test this yet, so I'm not sure how balanced it will be compared to A/C/E

 As I said in the other post, I am a fan of the idea, I will test it next game.

I don't think you have to worry for the balance of the game. I am sure that when FFG created the A/C/E budgets for the NPCs they did not worry neither.

Yepesnopes said:

I find A/C/E to be too much book keeping honestly, especially when there's multiple enemies OR if the NPC is jumping in and out of the encounter/story. This makes me have to put up the NPCs card and tokens in order to make more table space.

Using the Chaos Point method above…the pool for buffing my NPC/baddies dice pools is a constant.

I think it could work, but you're making it a lot easier for the PC with the proposed point budget. In my experience the ACE budget is very important in keeping the game challenging for the players, you should thus try to be within the same ballpark with GM resources. Doing away with ACE without any other changes will make the game significantly easier. Personally I don't mind the bookkeeping, I spend the dice within the first couple of rounds in any case (I also use the optional rule from Creature guide that fatigue/stress on normal NPCs are subtracted from ACE).

In your version the GM would have ~1 CP from the misfortune roll (assuming 3 PCs), and let's say 3 per player (if you plan on keeping the 3 fortune per session). So 10 CPs per session roughly. This means you can use something like 2 expertise and 4 fortune/misfortune per session, which is a lot less than the ACE budget allows for. In a normal session with ~1 combat encounter (versus 2 different opponents) the ACE budget would give you ~8 aggression, ~8 cunning, and 1-2 expertise, and then some additional dice from NPCs in story mode.

Sure, your version also allows for 1exp=2 misfortune and the addition of challenge dice, but I don't think that would make up for the lost dice. I suggest rolling 1 challenge die per player in the start and use 1 CP per failure, 3 CP for chaos stars (banes could add tension to the party sheet). Then also, use 1 CP=1 fortune/misfortune, 2 CP = 1 exp, 3 CP= 1 challenge. On average you would then have ~3-4 (mean on the challenge dice) + 3*3 = ~12 CPs which would translate to, e.g., 2 exp and 8 fortune per session. You may run into problems with players hedging their fortune dice though (which is also a problem in EotE).

 I like your idea too Goblinking, and be interested to hear your feedback once you test it. However, I agree with Gruntl that you need to multiply your initial results by a factor, or get more dices per chaos star, as the ACE pool looks to be bigger than the Chaos Point pool at this point of time.

Ceodryn said:

Agreed!

I'm thinking that the GM should get 1 CP per PC + roll 1 Challenge Die per PC with the results being:

1 Challege = 1 Chaos Point

2 Banes = 1 Chaos Point

Chaos Star = 2 Chaos Points

This is in addition to 1 Chaos Point per Fortune Point spent by the PCs (ala Star Wars:EotE). Now this only works if you keep the Fortune Points flowing pretty freely during your games…which I do. I'm constantly adding Fortune to the Party Card when the PCs are roleplaying well or coming up with interesting plans and ideas, plus individual awards for each PC. I tend to use Fortune as a reward for achieving goals in place of Experience…only awarding Experience Points when the party completes a larger objective, defeats a big bad, or generally finishes a story-arch. This makes upwards progression a bit slower in our games, but increases the grim and gritty feel I believe.

That could work. Let us know how it goes when you try it.

Now, in SWEotE, if I understood well, when a Light Force point is spent by the PCs, the GM receives a Dark Force point, and vice versa. Plus, at the beginning, the pool is fixed based on the PCs roll. There are X Light Force points, and Y Dark Force points, where X+Y represent how much fate will be acting during the adventure. However, If the PCs dont use Light Force points, then the GM doesnt get Dark Force points after he spent the Y he had… and fate doesnt intervene anymore. If the PCs spend all their X Light Force points, but the GM isnt using any Dark Force points, it let the PCs knows that later on fate is going to fall hard onto their heads.

So, in your example, the PCs starts with PCsx3 Fortune Points and the GM with PCs+Roll Chaos Points. If the PCs use their FP, the GMs receives a CP. If the GM uses a CP, the PCs receive a FP on the pool? 

Anyway, I am curious on how it will go. 

Cheers

Ceodryn

I like the idea as well - as GM, I rarely use ACE-pool effectively, maybe one or two die per baddie.

With Chaos Points (as you well named it) I could have a nice pool of tokens to use for my whole enemy group.

Instead of throwing for chaos pool, how about converting ACE-pool to chaos points? This would generalize ACE to one Chaos Point currency usable between enemy characters.

I'll work on my version of this to my next Tuesday session and will let you know how it played out.

Ok, I created my version of this in my house rules. Download here. See page 7.

Some design topics:

• My group enjoys quick action so speed is everything in combat encounters: chaos point pool generated by GM based on number of PCs and enemies
• Corruption point rule connection: each corruption point removed from PC gives a big 5 chaos point addition. This is more than equivalent to the original corruption point rule of adding one challenge die to player die roll.
• 1 CP for fortune and misfortune respectively
• 3 CP for challenge die and expertise die respectively (statistically 3 times better than fortune / misfortune dies)
• One die per each per roll
• Stress and fatigue on monsters reduce their CP pool instead of causing wounds
• Chaos stars rolled by PCs add to chaos point pool (universal combat environment effect if you will)

I'll playtest this version on next Tuesday.