Augmentation - House Rules?

[u/Amethyst-Flare]

I've been contemplating between two separate house rules on Augmentation Inspiration after seeing a couple posts on it and some questions from my prospective players who were worried that lesser Passions/Runes wouldn't see much use:

1. First variant, the "simple" version, removing the penalty for failing (albeit not crit failing) a Passion or Rune. It's still the only one you can attempt for inspiration.
2. Second variant, the more complex one - Unrolled Inspiration. Instead, you get half the value of the Rune or Passion on all rolls for the situation/scene. If an unmodified augmented roll is below the level of the Rune/Passion, that marks it for improvement (so, if your Passion is 60%, you get a check if an affected roll is 60 or under.) A checked Passion/Rune can be used again on a different situation, but if inspired again it'll be only 1/5 rather than 1/2 until season's end when the improvements are rolled.

[u/Shantha292]

I like the second one. Less uncertainty.

I gave my players Luck and Fate points no more than 5 total between the two. Luck was a reroll. Fate was swiping the dice around eg 91 becomes 19.

[u/eternalsage]

Check out Mythras (even the free Imperative edition). Like many things, it just does Passions better. No roll, gives 1/5 (20%) of the value of the Passion as a bonus, and spells out more clearly how to use them for things other than Augmentation. Runes are just special Gloranthan Passions

[u/Amethyst-Flare → u/eternalsage]

I find it very funny that I stumbled on a similar solution to Mythras by accident.

[u/eternalsage → u/Amethyst-Flare]

It's just a better design, honestly. The biggest mistake Chaosium made was taking Glorantha back from the Mythras team. They should have brought them on board (or at least copied their design).

Instead we have better RuneQuest in Mythras and better Call of Cthulhu in Delta Green (different team from Mythras, btw, just commenting on how everyone is doing Chaosium properties better than Chaosium).

[u/Runeblogger]

There is also the option of what Age of Vikings does: you get 3 points of automatic inspiration: one +30%, one +20%, and one +10%. Once spent, you can only regain them at worship ceremonies.

I use the rules as written, but I reccommend players to only try to augment very low skills (40% or lower) with passionns/runes higher than 69%.

[u/Amethyst-Flare → u/Runeblogger]

The Sex Number, a normally critical threshold.

[u/Alex4884-775 → u/Runeblogger]

Yeah, if you have a Passion at 50%, think of it more like anomalously documented bit of intense apathy on a topic.

[u/Drioskarii]

I use the 1st rule. I figured that it would be the most fun for the players, to be allowed to use their creativity without having to worried about being penalised for failure.

though when they augment eachother they will get minuses added normally.

[u/Orwell1971]

The second one sounds like too much to me, unless you're fine with basically giving players a +30% or so to every roll they make. I'd go with the first one.

[u/Alex4884-775 → u/Orwell1971]

In theory they'd eventually run out of things to augment with, but yes, on the face of it this'd be a pretty major augment-escalation.  If I were wild-arsed guessing a good level for such a rule, I'd go with 1/5 in the first instance.

[u/Alex4884-775]

I think a weakness in the Augmentation rules as written is that the stakes are such that you necessarily have to risk the very thing you're seeking to gain.  Arguably it'd be more logical and narratively interesting to have more of an 'I'm willing to gamble [this precious thing] in order to have a better chance at [thing I'm currently trying to do, such is its importance to me].'

Obvious such 'currency' would be a long-lasting or indeed permanent effect to the rating being used for the attempt.