Using Hero Points
Hero Points can be spent in a variety of ways, giving you the flexibility to influence the game before, during, or after a roll, and even when it’s not your turn. The key is to ensure that the points are used in a way that’s relevant to the current scene.
Pre-Roll Use: Before rolling to decipher an ancient script, you decide to spend a Hero Point to add an extra die, increasing your chances of success. This gives you a better shot at uncovering the hidden meaning of the text.
During-Roll Use: In the middle of an important negotiation with a stubborn merchant, you roll poorly on a persuasion check. You decide to spend a Hero Point to reroll one of the dice, hoping to sway the outcome in your favor and secure a better deal.
Post-Roll Use: After rolling just below the success threshold on a perception check, you spend a Hero Point to add a success, allowing your character to spot the hidden compartment in the old bookshelf just in time.
Interrupting Another Turn: During a tense social encounter, another player’s character is about to make a faux pas that could ruin the conversation. You spend a Hero Point to jump in with a clever remark, redirecting the discussion and saving the situation from going awry.
Altering Rolls
Hero Points can be used to improve your die rolls, adding additional dice to the roll and boosting your chances of success.
Improving an Action: During a stealth mission, you need to avoid detection. You spend a Hero Point to add an extra die to your roll, giving you a higher chance of sneaking past the guards unnoticed.
Making a Comeback: After a series of poor rolls, your character is in dire straits. You spend multiple Hero Points to add dice to your next roll, turning what could have been a disaster into a stunning comeback.
Securing a Vital Success: During an important moment, you need to pick a lock in record time. You spend a Hero Point to add a die, ensuring you have the best possible chance of success when it matters most.
Altering Outcomes
Hero Points can be used to change the outcomes of events, allowing you to modify the severity or duration of complications or enhance the results of your actions.
Reducing a Complication: Your character has been poisoned, and the effect is starting to take its toll. You spend Hero Points to reduce the severity, allowing your character to keep going without succumbing to the poison’s effects.
Boosting Success: After successfully persuading a group of mercenaries to join your cause, you spend Hero Points to ensure their loyalty, turning a simple agreement into a lasting alliance.
Avoiding Disaster: During a perilous climb, your character slips and is about to fall. You spend Hero Points to reduce the damage from the fall, allowing your character to land safely instead of crashing to the ground.
Maximizing an Opportunity: After finding a rare artifact, you spend Hero Points to learn more about its history and potential uses, turning a simple discovery into a key plot point that could shape the rest of the adventure.
Special Actions
Hero Points can be spent on special actions that go beyond the usual rules, allowing you to invoke traits or perform extraordinary feats that would otherwise be impossible. Sometimes these will be included as part of the setting, but players always have the option to try things.
Extraordinary Feat: Your character, known for their agility, spends a Hero Point to perform an acrobatic stunt that defies the laws of physics, leaping across rooftops in a daring escape.
Invoking Setting Traits: In a supernatural setting, your character taps into ancient magic by spending a Hero Point, allowing them to summon a spirit guide to assist in a dangerous ritual.
Breaking the Mold: During a high-stakes chase, your character uses a Hero Point to commandeer a vehicle, pulling off a daring stunt that leaves the pursuers in the dust.
Unleashing Hidden Power: In a moment of desperation, your character spends Hero Points to tap into a hidden reserve of strength, lifting a massive object that no one else could budge.
Narrative Control
Hero Points are not just for mechanical benefits; they also give you narrative control. Want to declare something as true in the story? Spend a Hero Point. Maybe you conveniently find a clue, recall that you did pack a snack, or suddenly remember the name of an old friend who could help you out. Spending Hero Points on narrative control is like adding a new trait to your character or the scene.
Creating a New Trait: During an investigation, your character remembers an important detail from their past, adding a new trait that helps them crack the case. This declaration is made by spending a Hero Point. The new trait has a rating of 1, if a rating is even necessary.
Finding a Clue: The group is stuck, and progress has stalled. You spend a Hero Point to declare that your character finds an important clue hidden in plain sight, moving the story forward.
Resourceful Moment: Your character suddenly remembers packing a grappling hook, just in time to scale a wall and escape pursuit. This quick thinking is made possible by spending a Hero Point.
Unexpected Ally: In the middle of a tense negotiation, you spend a Hero Point to declare that your character recognizes a member of the opposing faction from a past encounter, turning them into a potential ally.
Creating a Distraction: When the situation calls for it, you spend a Hero Point to declare that there’s a loud noise or a sudden commotion that distracts the enemies, giving your group a chance to slip away unnoticed.
Negating Changes
Hero Points can also be spent to counter or negate changes made by other players. While cooperative creativity should be handled in a friendly manner, sometimes one player might propose a narrative edit that another player doesn’t like. The first player can withdraw their narrative control without losing Hero Points if they’re willing. If they’re not, the other player can spend an equal amount of Hero Points to negate the change. This can even turn into a bidding war. Players can team up, pooling their Hero Points to support or oppose a change.
Objecting to a Narrative Edit: One player wants to introduce a plot twist that your character wouldn’t approve of. You spend Hero Points to negate the change, keeping the narrative in line with your character’s story arc.
Bidding War Example: Two players have conflicting ideas about how a scene should play out, leading to a bidding war of Hero Points. The gamemaster steps in to mediate, ensuring the story continues smoothly.
Defending Your Character: Another player suggests a narrative edit that could harm your character’s reputation. You spend Hero Points to negate the change, keeping your character’s image intact.
Collaborative Resolution: After a disagreement over a narrative control issue, both players agree to spend Hero Points to come to a compromise that benefits the story and keeps everyone happy.
Tagging
Tagging allows you to exert narrative control over an existing trait, establishing additional details or resources in a scene to better fit the situation. If you want to exert narrative control over another player’s character, they can say no. Maybe you think this is a time when one of their negative traits should kick in. If they agree, you give the point directly to them. No means no when player agency is involved; you can’t throw Hero Points at a player to force them to do something they’re not comfortable with.
Adding a Detail: In a tense confrontation, you spend a Hero Point to declare that there’s a concealed weapon hidden in the Villain’s Office (location trait), giving your character a much-needed advantage.
Reinforcing a Trait: During an escape attempt, you spend a Hero Point to emphasize your character’s Keen Senses trait, allowing them to detect a hidden exit that others missed.
Expanding the Scene: In a chase through a Marketplace (location trait), you spend a Hero Point to declare that a vendor’s cart blocks the path, giving your character a chance to create a diversion.
Enhancing a Characteristic: When your character is cornered, you spend a Hero Point to tag their Intimidating Presence trait, causing the attackers to hesitate and reconsider their actions. If it work, it avoids a roll.
Introducing a Challenge: During a high-stakes poker game, you spend a Hero Point to tag your character’s Unpredictable Gambler trait, making the next hand even riskier and more exciting.
Retcons
Retconning, or retroactive continuity, allows you to declare that something has always been true, even if the story previously suggested otherwise. This can be a powerful tool, but it needs to be used wisely to maintain narrative integrity. Retcons should enhance the story, not undermine it. There are good ways to do this, and bad ways to do this. If it was mentioned once, in passing, that a character had a brother, but it’s never come up again, it’s easy to retcon that and say no, they never had a brother, or it was a sister instead, or they have no siblings, or two brothers. If the brother has appeared in the story, as a supporting character, and it’s clearly been established that they exist, then the retcon just undermines the narrative. This is why players have the ability to spend Hero Points to oppose and negate changes.
Simple Retcon: Early in the campaign, your character mentioned having a brother. Now, you decide that it was actually a sister all along. Since the sibling hasn’t been part of the story yet, this change is easily accepted with a Hero Point.
Major Retcon: If your character’s brother has been a key figure in the plot, retconning them into a sister might disrupt the narrative. Other players can use Hero Points to oppose such a change, keeping the story consistent.
Shifting Background Details: Your character was originally from a small village, but you decide they’re actually from a bustling city, adding depth to their backstory. This retcon is accepted because it adds to the narrative without conflicting with established details.
Clarifying Past Events: During a flashback, you use a Hero Point to retcon a minor detail about a past encounter, making it clear that your character was already aware of an important piece of information.
Limits
There is a cap on how many Hero Points you can spend per scene, based on your character’s level of experience. This keeps things balanced and ensures that no single player can dominate the narrative.
Per Scene Example: In an important scene, your Competent character can spend up to 3 Hero Points. You decide to use them all at once to ensure a major victory in a climactic battle, knowing you won’t have any left for the rest of the scene.
Strategic Spending: Your character, who is an experienced Authority can spend up to 5 Hero Points in a scene. You choose to spread them out, using some to alter rolls and others to control the narrative, maximizing your impact.
Saving for Later: Although you have the option to spend all your Hero Points in a single scene, you decide to hold back, using only one or two so you have some left for later challenges.
The Lightspress Handbook isn’t just another rulebook. This is a reimagining of what roleplaying can be, challenging the norms and redefining how we think about storytelling in games. Forget the flashy mechanics designed to impress; this book strips things down to what truly matters: playing your characters and crafting their stories. Whether you’re exploring the intricate landscapes of traditional fantasy, venturing into the unknown in space opera, uncovering secrets in a gritty crime drama, or getting lost in the cozy charm of cottagecore fantasy, The Lightspress Handbook offers a universal, adaptable approach that fits almost any genre. It’s especially designed for those who are eager to dive into genres left in the shadows, like dark academia and magical realism.
