I have a thought about offering devil’s bargains. I have been offering them BEFORE the roll, because the suspense is high there. It could be interesting also to offer the bargain AFTER the roll, so you either dig yourself in deeper or get yourself out.
That way it could be interesting to see whether it was the bargain that saved you specifically, instead of seeing an increase in your overall odds.
This could be especially interesting if the bargain came to represent an element of fate that might take an interest in a crew’s activities.
One side effect is that the players would be much more open to bargains once they face the consequence of a bad roll. They are more vulnerable at that point, but they could be saved if they agree to accept a consequence that becomes inevitable whether the following roll succeeds or not.
In fact, using BOTH approaches means you could have the softer easier bargains offered before rolling. But any bargain offered after the dice were rolled could be significantly harder-edged.
Just thinking out loud.
I did that in my two sessions.
Mostly because I forgot before ^^;
Okay, but if you offer it afterwards, do you give an additional die or let you repeat the whole roll with all dice?
I granted an additional die
I like it.
Dominic Niederhoff Just one die. One fateful die. =)
I like it too. If things go bad you can buy another chance… but at what cost?
Hm, maybe something to consider is that devils bargain offered after a roll should be a bit tougher?
Jennifer Fuss Yes, I think so.
.
Sounds interesting, might consult it with the group.
I might try this if an offer after really seems to fit the fiction, but I think the position degrading and then the standard option to re-roll all the dice at the worse position will remain my default.
If they take the DB after do they then still have the try again option, or is that DB all or nothing? A single action could otherwise take awhile. Especially if they take yet another DB at the new position! (which is the default way of taking a DB after)
Matthew Gagan Technically, multiple devil’s bargains could be offered every round, one for every roll. What I’m reflecting on here is the relative merits of offering the bargain before or after the roll. There’s no reason you couldn’t offer both times, if the first is turned down; the base restriction that there is only ever up to 1d added to each roll remains firmly in place.