In my recent game, players created notable supporting character to help them in warfare conflict and one of the players plays it while he’s main character was on another planet.
And one time that player decides to use detrmination point and…here where we dive into the corebook and didn’t find anything regarding determination points of supporting character. There is info on NPC’s determination points (which is doesn’t exists but GM can spend threat instead), thought.
So, the question is does supporting characters have determination points? Do they gain one in the begining of session or at creation? If no, can GM allow players to use Momentum as GM spends Threat, or, more likely, is it a good idea?
Supporting characters are not meant to be equal to PCs. They have access to the momentum pool…
But, unlike main cast, they lack the depth of capacity and drive of a standard main cast characters. They’re there for when …
The player’s PC is doing things taking much time.
They are doing something which none of the PCs are competent at (and the SC is either competent or expendable, sometimes both)
They are doing something away from the main characters but the party wants to play it out.
The SC needs to be present for story reasons¹
The player wants a break from their main character but doesn’t want to replace said main character.
This list isn’t the same as the one in the book; it’s the list of ways my players have used them.
It’s not going to shatter the game to allow the Notable ones a point of determination…
Annotations
¹: I’ve seen players ask to put their main cast character in scene but uncontrolled, because it was more story appropriate for that meeting to have interaction with the SC, but their MC needed to be present for the information.
As Aramis says they don’t get Determination points as a rule and they aren’t meant to be as potent as full PCs. They are a break or to allow the party to be in multiple places while giving the absent PCs players something to do.
However… I have played around with supporting characters in some of my sessions. One of the things I did for an adventure is to steal an idea from the Leverage RPG and gave each SC a flashback point for the session. This allowed the player to make one change to a scene based on a flashback of their SC doing something. I.e switching the drugs in the medical bay to something else.
It made the SCs different from the PCs, and so a nice break, without it being game breaking as otherwise they were weaker than than PCs.
Flashbacks are a robust narrativist technique for characterization and for explaining on-the-fly Advancement Spends and Momentum Spends.
I’ll note that I’m not certain if Notable SCs earn AP under RAW…
… but I’ve allowed it.
I allowed it largely because I’ve seen how beloved some SCs became in STA as they grew. (The slow advancement in STA for MCs was, in fact, my players loudest complaint)
Several became more popular than the MCs. Largely due to their growth.
Notable SCs have enough details to adjudicate earning Determination… and I’d let them… but not start a session with them.
SC is one of the best idea of the d20 system.
I tend to like more the STA system than the Dune one but Dune has also some merits.
As a game master I want to say that if a player character is controlling a SC in a scene where his main character is not present I will allow the player to spend a determination point from his main character for a SC roll. If possible I will represent this as an advice or a training or an indirect action of the main character.