Story Points and the GI Joe Essence20 system

I generally am not a huge fan of “narrative points”, which is what Story Points are, that player can spend in games because it kind of goes against my heavily wargaming background. Yes, I’m one of those DM that loves to have big fights with tactical positioning and such. But for narrative games, I do think that sometimes it works well, ESPECIALLY when both the player and their opponents get some of these points.

How it works

In the GI Joe RPG, this ressource is called “Story Point” and is shared by the entire group. When playing GI Joe X Battletech, you can easily adapt such a mechanic and system by giving a pool of Story Points for each team including during Player vs Player matches, and not just during Player VS GM matches.

• For normal narrative sessions, follow the rules in the GI Joe Core rulebook (PDF available here), and the players simply carry over their Story points to any battlemech battles, just the same as if they were doing regular actions in the game.
• For Battletech match-ups, each player count how many Named Characters they are using. You gain 1 Story Point for each Named character, and 1 story point for each full 3 Greenshirts or Vipers (generic pilots).
  • Example: Player 1 is bringing Duke and Stalker on a mission against Destro and 3 MechVipers. Both sides get 2 Story Point for the match.
  • Example: Flint, Lady Jaye, Bob Morane and Grifter are stuck behind enemy lines and must cooperate to fight two lances commanded by Copperhead. The Joes get 4 Story points, the Cobra player has 1 point for Copperhead, and 2 points for 7 generic pilots.

Gaining back Story Points

For players:

• You gain a Story point for every failed Piloting skill test by a Named character.
• Eliminating an opponent on the board (destroying target, forcing them to retreat, no longer a threat)
• Completing an objective

For Game Masters:

• Players failing an objectives.

Using Story points

Following rule articles will include ways to use Story points, but here are generic ways of using them as well:

• Re-roll any 1 dice.
  • Example: Player 1 rolled a 1 and a 2 on their 2nd consciouness check after being hit by a LB-X round. They spend 1 Story point to reroll the dice which rolled a 1, getting a 5, passing the check.
• Increase the difficulty to hit your unit by 2 until the end of the round for all incoming attacks.
• Add 2 to any ONE dice roll for activating equipment or on a piloting skill roll.
  • Example: Player 2 rolled 4 on their piloting skill roll which required a 5 to succeed. They spend 1 Story point, modifying the result to a 6, passing the check.
  • Example 2: Player 1 is at round 4 of activating their MASC and roll a 7. They spend 1 Story point to increase the roll to a 9, preventing damage to their actuators.
• Add 3 to any Cluster Roll to indicate how many hits are done with cluster weapons.