What's your most memorable use of Karma/Bennies in a game?

(Karama is the Suzerain translation of Bennies, I knew it as that first is all)


For me, it was the first time, failing a roll to grapple the mini-boss while the ice we were standing on cracked beneath us. I use my Karma and won the fight and finished him off. Roleplay wise it played off that he'd pinned me on the cracking ice, I then use the momentum and the ice to slide underneath him, wiping out his ankles before jumping up grabbing him midair and slamming him into the ice throwing me clear of the danger and him smashing through the surface and into the deep freezing waters where he, supposedly, died.



//Karama/Bennies explained for those who don't play Suzerain/SWADE

Players start each game session with three "Bennies" (American slang for "benefits"), represented by poker chips, gaming stones, the official Bennies we make for all of our games, or other tokens that signify a little bit of good luck or fate. Bennies are discarded at the end of each session -- use them or lose them! They can be used to reroll a trait, recover from shaken, soak rolls, draw a new action card, reroll damage, regain power points (Pulse in Suzerain) and influence the story (i.e. find an extra clue if you're stuck).

Spent bennies as a half ogre fighter to grab my (human) opponent, carry him off a cliff edge, and use him to break my fall.

I soaked the (minor) damage, but my opponent, well... he was strawberry jam.

Brutal!

Don't know if it fits your definition of Bennies but in the game Sagas of the Icelanders there's a currency called "Bonds" which can be used in certain ways.

So, there was this game where Father and Son didn't go along because the former blamed the son for the mother's death while giving birth. The father thought the son a frail and a coward. Then the son used a Bond to ask the father player a question which is predefined in the rules... "What could I do to make your character to... ?" and filled that blank with "Respect me". A use of bond for this forces the target player to answer truthfully, and so he answered "show bravery in face of danger".

Then when summer came and with it some hostile neighbours raids, the son fought bravely and risked his life defend the clan lands and the father had a shift in perception to him (as informed by the previous use of the Bond). From then on their relationship took a turn for the better, and with it the story as a whole.

3rd edition D&D - Weird War 2 ruleset.  One guy used his bennies to soak throwing himself on a grenade.

Super fun campaign.  It was at my university gaming club and was open to everyone.  We took a platoon of US general infantry and started with the Moroccan landings and played all the way up until the end of the North African campaign.  Unfortunately we had to end before getting into any Italian or Southern France action but by then some of the characters were starting to get moved to various intelligence/special forces groups.

I am of the opinion that the users that clamor for karma aren't the types of people that make communities good. They just go for the mass-appeal, low hanging fruit comments that tend to garner lots of upvotes for a silly score that doesn't matter at all.

This change would just inflate the perceived "value", and just give one more thing to the people who already chase those numbers. It'll just, in my belief, increase the number of posts that are fishing for awards and upvotes. Kodi nox

We were playing Deadlands and in a house full of some sort of infectious mutated folks. My character and the GM's wife wanted to burn the place down (nuke it from orbit). Another fellow insisted we had to somehow save all the residents (he'd kind of vote himself leader of the group because he was the only lawman, but harrowed).
There were already some underlying resentments between the Players... so it ended up in a big 'Mexican stand-off' with everyone pointing guns at each other and throwing down chips to blast them into oblivion.
I'd never liked the Bennie idea to begin with and was loathe to use them... so my pile was a bit larger.
Anyway, none of the characters were killed... the GM subverted it because he could see his wife and I were not just playing our characters... but we pretty much spent all our 'lucky bucks' in the process.

Experiences with that group put me off Deadlands and Savage Worlds as a whole... not entirely rational, but here I am.

Quote from: anglebrill on October 09, 2020, 08:09:24 PM
I am of the opinion that the users that clamor for karma aren't the types of people that make communities good. They just go for the mass-appeal, low hanging fruit comments that tend to garner lots of upvotes for a silly score that doesn't matter at all.

This change would just inflate the perceived "value", and just give one more thing to the people who already chase those numbers. It'll just, in my belief, increase the number of posts that are fishing for awards and upvotes.

I can't tell if you are joking or if you actually think that this thread is about Reddit karma.

One of the players in our last Gloranthan RuneQuest game had a chance to increase Species Maximum POW. He had a 30% chance of increasing the POW and failed, so he used a Hero Point to reroll, then failed again. He got a bit annoyed and used another Hero Point and failed the roll again. His jaw tightened and he tried again and again and again. I think he used 15 Hero Points before he eventually succeeded, as he was determined to make the roll.

We used Hero Points for Experience Points as well, so our Players tended to keep them in reserve for experience rolls.

Quote from: arcanuum on October 09, 2020, 10:05:50 PM
I can't tell if you are joking or if you actually think that this thread is about Reddit karma.

I'm hesitating over the 'report post' button simply because I'm trying to ascertain if he's a bot or not.

Considering that post includes a link to an ad I would say it's a bot.