I am continuing my series of house rules for The Voyage of the Flying Eagle-campaign. This time it as Rule of the Day, which was used as a variant of the flashback rules (minor, major), that I have presented earlier. The rule is used with the D&D 4E-rules and allows the players to reroll a d20.
Embarrassing Moments
This is a rule of the day used for the first session. It was introduced as a fun manner in which to use the flashbacks.
- Once pr. encounter a player can choose to play a flashback to an embarrassing episode in the character’s life.
- If the player plays out or narrates the scene himself, he gets a reroll on a d20 (attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws).
- If the player appoints another player to do it, the player gets a +4 bonus to the reroll.
(The last version was suggested by one of the players, and I added the extra bonus to tempt the players to use it.Notice how it has things in common with the Even Cooler-rule and how it handles rerolls differently than the this reward).
Whenever an important die roll was failed, it led to the question ‘How embarassing do you want it to be?’ The ‘danger’ being that you allow another player to define an embarrasing fact about the player. Since it is a flashback it is a such not public knowledge, but your fellow players do know it, and furthermore my character may not know it, but he may accidentally refer to something related to the embarrasing situation.
We had a lot of fun with the embarrasing rule, both since it added a tough choice for the player (how embarrasing …?) and it added some fun stories to the characters. We got to know a lot about an important diplomatic meeting between an elvish representative of the Thyatian Empire and an isolated religious community of dwarves. There were many misunderstandings at his meeting and it seems almost miracolous, that no war was declared.
Roles, Dice and Fun 