the gift of dice

The World Hits Back

Being the Protagonist on a story, particularly those of larger-than-life heroes with power and leeway to drastically change the world around them, at times comes at the expense of seeing that world bend around these characters.

In such an interactive mediums as Role-Playing-Games, the classic figure of the GM is expected to to come up with "repercussions", twists, and all sorts of plots and devices to counterpoint the player character actions.

I wonder if pushing some of that onto the other players would be interesting.

The World Hits Back

A system of world repercussion for all of the player's meddling.

Place a pool of tokens in the middle of the table.

Whenever a Protagonist leverages their powers, skills, force, and other forms of imposing their will and wont upon the setting, be it places or supporting characters, they take one token.

Whenever a Protagonist acts towards building or supporting the community, yielding, listening, creating art, and promoting culture, providing safety and comfort, preparing for a loving future, or seeking restoration and reparations they may return a token to the pool.

Any time a token is taken out, The World makes an Escalation Move. Any time the pool is empty, the World inflicts a Hard Move. Any time a token is returned to the pool, The World makes a Soft Move.

Protagonists keep the tokens they accrued and mark them as Stains on their character.

At the end of the session, tally how many tokens remain in the pool then check the World Repercussions table. The players controlling Protagonists must assign tokens to the entries on the table to cancel them. Any entry that has not been canceled is foreshadowed for the following sessions.

World Repercussions

  1. a Toxic Power takes interest in the Protagonists actions and forces a choice upon them
  2. the Protagonists set in motion a scheme to upset their community
  3. the Protagonists harm the local community and its ways in unforeseen ways
  4. someone was harmed or killed by the repercussions of the Protagonists actions, in the background
  5. a Toxic Power finds an opening to move against the community
  6. the community is cut off from something good, dear, or needed
  7. a Toxic Power inflicts forceful action upon the Protagonists and any who is allied to them
  8. someone takes the blame for the actions of the protagonists
  9. the community grows aware and wary of the protagonists, fostering resentment and contempt
  10. a Toxic Power threatens imminent, brutal violence with overwhelming force

Expanding for Dice

The initial concept above resolves without dice or other randomizers. However, I expect that the Otherkind Dice Outcome Cards would work brilliantly with this concept.

Conclusion

(MAR 2026) I started this piece forever ago and there is something to it, I feel there is value in showing it off and maybe it's something y'all can take upon yourselves to transform into something cool or mayeb I will or maybe both.

Have fun.

License and Attribution

This module is published under the Anti-Capitalist Attribution Cooperative License.

You may use the template below for attribution:

[your thing] used/was inspired by [my thing] by Gabriel Caetano Barbosa.

Credits

#RPGLATAM #TTRPG