Basic Action Super Heroes!

I was working on the rules for what I hope will be my next pbp game to run here and came up with a way to use Mental Malfunctions to increase player to player interactions.

Either in lieu of or in addition to the standard Mental Malfunction, each character on the team will be assigned a secret "Mental Malfunction". There is no penalty for ignoring it, but each time the character goes out of his/her way to act on it, they will be awarded 1 or more Hero Points.

Some examples of stereotypes and their Mental Malfunctions:

Side-Kick: Anytime the SK shows up the Paragon in a fight, he gains a Hero Point

Paragon: Anytime he has to rescue the SK from danger that he warned him against, he gains a Hero Point

Power Armored Saint: Anytime the Armored Saint can heroically divert danger to himself or find a way to martyr himself, ...

Fire Weilding Hot Shot: Anytime the living elemental outshines his companions or draws significant public praise, ...

Super Genius: Anytime he developes a plan and gets the team to execute it...

etc

What do you guys think?

Some of these would play into the backgrounds of the pregens (The Paragon is the big brother of the Side Kick for instance).

Giving it some more thought, some goals might be harder to achieve than others. That being the case, I may alot 1 HP per character per scene. If they fail to earn a HP this scene, it carries over to the next (so they could earn 2HP+).

Hopefully this would help players not get discouraged if they can't pull off their super-secret MM regularly. Sure the Side Kick won't always prove the Paragon wrong, but when he does he'll get a bigger reward!

I like the idea. Anything to promote role-playing.

cheers

My other favorite RPG, Hollow Earth Expedition, has the concept of defining a Motivation (e.g., Greed, Honor, Redemption) and a Flaw (e.g. Bad Leg, Phobia, Gullible) for your character.

Every time a character follows his Motivation or is affected by his Flaw (either intentionally or not), he gets a Style point (which works similar to Hero Points/Dice).

Bottom line, I think the idea of providing a tangible reward with immediate benefits for good roleplaying is a good thing.

Love the idea of "secret" motivations / agendas, etc- as long as it isn't "* over the other team members". I hate that kind of griefer nonsense and don't allow it at any table I game in.

I had a friend who told me about a campaign where each character had a secret Advantage that even their characters didn't know about (it was free) that was revealed over time. This was a buffy-type game where one of the players turned out to be a "demon hunter" so anything he attacked demons with could kill them, another turned out to be born with sorcery- so when the party found some old magical arifact he was able to use it (but nobody else was), etc.