Are You Feeling Lucky?
Ok so this is specifically dissecting the Luck stat in DCC and its sister systems. Much has been said over how and when to use it as a GM. I think a lot of that discussion has been great, but for me the Luck stat has one fundamental purpose to the player:
It is your PC’s ability to change their fate.
Sure, there are limits to this. A player can’t just say “If I succeed a Luck check, can a Flaming Sword +2 fall out of the sky and into my hand?” That breaks the fiction (BOOOO!). Luck checks are your opportunity to turn the existing fiction to your favor (without being a weasel).
Luck Checks:
A classic example I use is a PC falling off a tower: “Make a Luck check, success means there’s a stack of hay underneath to break your fall”. Or perhaps looking for a needle in said haystack “Succeeding a Luck check means you find it as soon as you stick your hand in”.
This may feel hyper-specific, but a player paying attention to the fiction of their situation will find plenty of use cases. It’s actually in the little details that Luck can be implemented. The truth is, while some stats greatly benefit specific classes, Luck is a stat that any class can benefit from.
The important thing to note is that players should make their own Luck!
So rather than the onus being on the GM to call for a Luck check in certain moments (perfectly acceptable in moderation), if the outcome of an action feels uncertain you can just ask the player “Are you feeling lucky?” Then the decision is on them to make that call. Their character sheet literally tells them the odds.
As always, clever thinking and strategizing can and should let them avoid rolling for an outcome. Often they can choose to test another stat in lieu of Luck, but just like an agile character may choose to test their Agility for what might traditionally be a strength test, a lucky character may choose to test their Luck instead, provided the player makes a case as to why this works in the fiction.
Burning Luck:
Luck also doubles as a meta-currency in DCC. Players can burn Luck at will to add to any roll. The tradeoff is, outside of select classes like Thief and Halfling, Luck does not regenerate, so players must burn at their own peril.
As written in the DCC core rulebook, it is on the GM to show the consequences of burning too much Luck. A hostile is more likely to target that one player. Sprung traps might only affect them. The GM is encouraged to call for a Luck check on a whim mid session and punish those who fail. That sort of thing.
I am not above doing this from time to time, and as written the rules do a good job of guiding the GM on how this mechanic works to spice up the fiction and gameplay… but it does feel a tad adversarial. It also requires me to keep track of the players’ Luck scores, which I don’t have the mental bandwidth for.
But I find I don’t actually need to enforce consequences on the players when the system has them baked in already. Let me explain:
The main thing players are trading off when they burn Luck is their chance of surviving a roll-the-body check. Already this is a huge risk. Burning too much Luck like this means you are flirting with death. It brings back the perils of high-lethality games (DCC is actually quite forgiving compared to Shadowdark or B/X).
The other thing worth noting is how Luck affects crits and fumbles. Burning Luck to the minimum means you are robbing yourself of any satisfaction in critting as you run the risk of reducing your roll to 0. That’s like RPG blueballs.
Conversely, your negative Luck modifier adds to enemy crits made against you. You’re cooked the next time that happens.
So already, we have built in mechanics that punish foolhardy players who spend all their Luck without the GM kicking them while they are down.
Believe me, players who are aware of the systemic implications of burning too much Luck will do everything they can to rectify their mistake, leading to the awesome roleplay moments with Patrons and Gods this system is begging for.
Nothing gets your ass questing than the promise of changing your stars.
