The Stress hack for nWoD
Well, some of you may have noted my World of Darkness hack for madness, the stress of coming into contact with the supernatural, and the tie-in to the Morality system. I've been looking at it...and I can also see how it might lend itself to a pretty nasty spiral of "Way too many derangements that will cost way too much XP to buy off." Well, here's a solution for that.
Lighting the Candle of Hope
Hope points are a lot harder to come by than Stress. They're awarded by the Storyteller for particularly heroic (especially sacrificial) moments that a character performs. Any character can receive no more than one Hope point per session. Hope points can also be earned by a powerful demonstration of Virtue. Hope points can be expended to stand against the darkness, gain a little bit of an extra edge...and wipe out some of those derangements.
When you spend a Hope point on a roll, you get to roll an extra d10. This should be visually different in some way from the other d10s. (I am shamelessly stealing from Old School Hack's "face die" system here.) You make the roll as normal, and check the Hope die. If the Hope die is one of your successes, then you get to wipe out a derangement. Minor or major, it doesn't matter. You've somehow come around and overcome the shadow of evil. (This isn't quite realistic, I know, but it's very dramatic.)
For instance, let's say you're rolling a pool of five dice, and spend a point of Hope. You roll five dice and a Hope die. If they come up 6, 8, 10, 4, 3, (6), you get two successes (and a roll-again), but you don't get to wipe out a derangement, because the Hope die wasn't a success. If they come up 4, 6, 7, 3, 2, (9), you get one success, and because the Hope die rolled a success, you remove a derangement.
Simple, effective, and interesting? I hope so.
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