Drama Points: Divine Favor, Archetype, and Destiny Points

[Throndir]

Recipients
Archetype points:
Arian, for spreading tales of Civerb, the not-so-ordinary and generous dark elf, to throw off trackers.



Drama Points
These three types of Drama points function as nearly the same thing. (Same type of rewards). I'll be the one to hand these out though. The reason for three types of these points is so that it can overlap with all the players. However, it is very possible for the players to earn one or more of these types of points. These points come in very rarely, and will be given only with very good roleplaying or actions. (Which I see fit).

The examples given are from Roleplaying Tips, using D&D 4.0. But works well enough for ours.

Divine Favor Points
Any action, or series of actions, that could earn the favor of your patron god. Your god may or may not be in alignment with the party's wishes, but every time you do something extraordinary in roleplaying keeping your deity in mind, will earn you a Divine Favor point.

Divine Favor Points can only be earned by extraordinary
actions. Slaying zombies and wraiths pleases the Raven
Queen, but she won't give the cleric points for it. It's
something he would have done anyway.

Our cleric has one Divine Favor Point at the moment. The
party had been searching for a runaway boy, and they found
him badly injured and near death. Their first thought was to
heal him and bring him to safety, but the Raven Queen told
the cleric that it was the boy's time to die. She ordered
him not to heal the boy.

The cleric's action in the service of his queen earned him a
Divine Favor Point because it ran contrary to his natural
inclinations and the party's goals. It also caused some
great drama that I, as the DM, could not have planned on my
own.

Archetype Points
Perhaps an extension of the TY Points, but more closely related with roleplaying your character out to the fullest. Every time you act doing something that's very archetypal to your class or race or even alignment, you will earn an Archetype point. Such as with the Divine Favor points, actions that can earn an Archetype point, need not to be hand-in-hand with the party's wishes and motivations.

He gains Archetype Points by doing extremely dragonborn
things. In one battle, he was stunned for several rounds.
The fight was going badly by the time he finally saved
against the stun. He spent an action point to take an attack
on that turn, and killed the enemy. He described his
character as leaping to his feet, sword in hand as he ripped
the ghoul's claws out of his body and dove at the vile
creature, destroying it with a mighty blow. The party was
saved.

This seemed to me like a very dragonborn thing to do, and it
was certainly out of the ordinary. He earned his first
Archetype Point, which he spent not long after

Destiny Points
Earning Destiny points is if you succeed in getting a step closer to your destiny. If your character has an over-all goal and motivation in mind, every time your character does something that can lead to that long-term goal, will earn you a Destiny point.

Destiny Points are earned whenever the character does
something extraordinary in pursuit of his or her destiny.
Take care not to confuse these with experience points - they
are not a reward for passing plot milestones. Rather, they
celebrate effort that is above and beyond.

A character seeking to dethrone an evil king should not get
a Destiny Point just for slaying some of that king's elite
guards. However, if in the battle with the guards' captain
he tells his allies to stand back, makes a brief dramatic
speech, then charges forward with a righteous yell as he
plunges his ancestral sword into the captain's heart, that
would be worth a Destiny Point.

Rewards
You may spend a Divine Favor, Archetype, and Destiny point, to any sort of action, skill, event, encounter, that is thematically related to the point. What I mean by this is with Divine Favor points, perhaps with the help of your god, one of your spells does something amazing. With Archetype points, it can be something extraordinary that relates to your race or class. With Destiny points, it can be something event related if the event closely ties in with the destiny or long-term goal of your character.

Using these types of points will also require a bit more imagination and creativity for the players in order to spend them properly. At the very least when using one of these Drama points, the player should roleplay it accordingly.

Due to the nature of these points, it is best if you yourself can come to me with some ideas of events for your character to earn them. The same for spending them. I'll have to decide if what you're spending them for is viable and not too over-powering and unbelievable. (Since the rewards of these points is to basically give the character the ability to do something over-powering - in respects to the mechanics of D&D).

The following rewards can be mixed-and-matched, if you can somehow relate it thematically with the specific type of point.

Whenever the cleric or paladin does something above and
beyond the call of duty in the service of their god, they
gain a Divine Favor Point. They can spend these points to
enhance their Channel Divinity powers, which are the spells
and abilities they specifically derive from their gods. They
can also ask for a minor miracle or anything else
thematically related to their god's domain.

• They ask their god for divine strength, or are able to cast a spell of strength without any interruption (even if something normally interrupts), and the character is able to do something extraordinary for being able to cast the spell.
  
• Changing the effects of a Paladin/Cleric/maybe Druid spell/ability. (The spell is god-guided, and does more than it usually does).
  
• Some sort of minor miracle, that can relate to your god.
  

The warlord spent his point to overcome the tribal leader
with a surge of eloquence, and together they raced back
toward the melee, bursting in with a roar and halting the
battle just in time to prevent members of both sides from
dying. The warlord used his Inspiring Word power to heal not
just one or two allies, but every person on the battlefield.
Impressed by this display, the tribe of dragonborn agreed
that talk was perhaps better than slaughter.

(Inspiring Word is usually only for 1 target. He used it to heal everyone in the area.)

• Changing a race/class skill/ability to include more than one target.
  
• An archer being able to hit an auto critical against a target hundreds of feet away.
  
• A dark elf casting darkness on an entire village. (Or multiple people hit with faerie fire at once).
  

Destiny Points, like most of the other drama point
varieties, should be traded in for thematically relevant
rewards. The most appealing of these is probably added
narrative control in scenes where the character's destiny is
at stake. The player described above could immediately turn
in his new Destiny Point to announce that the few remaining
guards are shaken by what they just saw, and two flee while
the third falls to one knee and pledges his loyalty to the
party.

Other rewards could include bonuses and re-rolls in key
fights. Rather than saying that the guards are shaken, the
player spends his point to gain temporary bonuses to
Strength and Dexterity and spend a freebie healing surge as
he finishes the battle.

• Telling me how exactly NPCs will react.
  
• Free re-rolls for actions that are key to your destiny.
  
• High bonuses for an event relating closely with your destiny.
  

Conclusion
These points basically give the players a chance to "God-mode". However, you must come to me first, and see if I approve of it. This gives us a way for your character to do something extraordinary usually always found in story books and novels, that perhaps the D&D mechanics might limit.