Players abusing hero points to the detriment of the game

[moosher12]

My approach is to let players keep Hero Points between sessions, but I only give Hero Points at the start of a session they attend, or whenever the party completes a milestone that's considered "moderate or major" Their max remains 3. Basic fights do not fulfill this condition unless they have a certain degree of importance beyond fodder. (I also grant an additional Hero Point to all party members at the start of a session if one of the player's birthdays was within the past two weeks, as I run biweekly games with players I know well). And of course I occasionally just grant the party Hero Points when a legitimately "heroic act" is performed.

The idea is as follows:
-If they know it's an expendable resource that is only increased based off of accomplishments, they are encouraged to do significant acts quickly.
-They are encouraged not to be wasteful with their usage of Hero Points, as it is a resource that, while predictable, is still limited.
-Despite being encouraged to hoard their points for important moments, because their is a cap of 3, they are encouraged to spend at least 1 point once they reach capacity, else any potential hero points would be wasted.

[Tridus]

arcady wrote:

I'm plotting out my switch to becoming a GM, so I'm following this thread as I think about how I will hand out Hero Points. Originally I was going to do the common '1 per hour' routine. But the thread is making me think I need a more complex answer.

I think a lot of issues discussed here don't exist at a typical table. I know I don't have them. Though I tend to give hero points when something memorable or cool happens rather than on a clock, which can vary how many go out. Like I hate "its been an hour so someone has to get one even though you spent 45 minutes of that time discussing shopping".

Meanwhile a couple PCs team up to do something epic and I only have one to give out? Silly. They're both getting one for that. I know a couple of times after a particularly hard battle where the whole party worked together to get it done, I just gave everyone one.

The other thing we do (not just me as a GM, but also the games I play in locally) is that if your use a her point on a failure/critical failure and the result doesn't improve, you get the hero point back. You still get the new result, but you keep the hero point to try again on another roll. So its a lot more likely to help you at some point since you can keep using it until it does. That does make things slightly easier by giving out more rerolls (unless it works the first time they use it), but its pretty player friendly since rerolling a 3 into a 1 already feels lousy.

[The Raven Black]

I now wish there was a way to use Hero Points as a misfortune effect on an enemy.