What tabletop systems give the players some sort of out-of-character compensation for things going wrong in-universe?

Just now I was wondering, what systems have "fumble points"?

Then I realized my using the term "fumble points" is, as far as I'm aware, would be derived from Ryuutama, while the concept probably has a different name in other systems.

So, what is that name, and what systems have this feature?

Like the title says, this feature is basically the player receiving some sort of karmic "resource" when something goes wrong in-universe, such as their character dying, or critically failing a check or something along those lines.

(A closely related feature I've heard about is a feature where a player gets something for taking the story in a direction that makes sense but disadvantages their character in-universe.)

There are plenty of systems that have that, yeah. The one I'm most familiar with is Fate, which has an entire economy built around that concept with Fate points: you start with a small pool, you spend them for bonuses or rerolls during play, you get into trouble or make the story interesting to get more.

Nobilis and Chuubo's give you Will or MP when your Bonds and Afflictions cause you trouble, too (with Bonds being broadly under your control and Afflictions just sort of doing things when the GM thinks it's appropriate).

Edited by CountDorku on Jun 20th 2019 at 4:57:16 AM

There are lots of systems that give you bonus points for building flaws into your character, and even D&D gives you a benefit for role-playing them.

Chronicles of Darkness gives you experience whenever your character's flaws become a hindrance in any way in a session. That's a pretty obvious "bad stuff goes down, and you get rewarded for it" instance, although it is specific to a given character (which can bite admittedly, when said bad stuff splashes onto the rest of the characters, but only the one with the flaw gets the experience).

I wouldn't necessarily call it "compensation" unless you count hilarity, but Warhammer 40,000 has critical failures that are quite spectacular and often hilarious if you're playing with an Ork army.

Edited by theLibrarian on Jun 21st 2019 at 1:28:27 PM

I like the way Numenera by Monty Cook does it. It's similar to many games mentioned where the GM can give you a bonus for allowing something bad to happen to your character, or you can pay to reject it. An example given in the book is "the floor gives out from under you, revealing a previously hidden cavern. Do you want to accept this, or pay me to say you jumped out of the way just in time?"

The thing that makes it more interesting is that instead of just fate points or whatever, it's XP. In fact, it's one of the most common ways to gain XP. If you accept it, you also get to pick one other player to gain an XP.

Similarly, most Powered by the Apocalypse games have failing rolls as one of the main ways to get experience. It makes sense, doesn't it? You won't learn if you play it totally safe and never risk failure, after all.

Edited by Durazno on Jun 23rd 2019 at 2:22:05 PM

Numenera was mentioned - roll a 1, get an XP. My group has earned a lot of XP.

Spirit of 77 does something similar - any failed roll grants an XP, successful rolls are obviously good for success at your task.

The old Amber Diceless system had a different form of out-of-character compensation. By which I mean the player could provide things for the GM/group (such as bringing snacks or drawing scenes from each session) in return for XP points; failing to live up to their end of the bargain basically meant being screwed with bad luck for the whole session.