Salut !
Aside from Inspiration, Fate points, and the Hero coin, what other metagame currencies have you guys heard about, played with, or perhaps even enjoyed, in games?
If you’ve played with them, what did you feel that they brought to the table, and how did your friends or players enjoy them?
Thanks a lot for your replies and have a good day!
I have played with surge dice in an ongoing Warpshell game that I have run for some time now. I allow 3 D8’s per session and they have worked out pretty well.
Some people play with a wealth stat. When the character wants to purchase something they can roll a d20+Wealth modifier. If they meet or beat the roll, they buy the item. Something expensive is Hard; cheap Easy. You are allowed one purchase a session or something like that.
Those are really interesting, I would love to implement them at my own table!
Thank you both for your answers!
I’m still looking for more if there are!
There’s a nice blog article about abstract wealth and how to mechanically implement that on the Prismatic Wasteland-bog: Bury Your Gold: On Abstract Wealth.
I know of Bennies in Deadlands, but I have never played it so I can’t say much about them. They seem to work like a lot of metacurrencies, i.e.: re-rolling a check etc.
Another metagame currency I know that can be used for narrative purposes are Darkness Points from Coriolis. They basically work like this: every time a player fails their roll, they can push their roll and re-roll by “praying to the icons”. Every time a player does that, the GM gets a Darkness Point which they can use to complicate situations for the players: jamming their weapons, re-rolling checks for NPCs etc.
There’s also the momentum dice pool in 2D20-games where players can store surplus successes (?). Basically: if a player needs one success to make a check but scores 3 successes, they can store the remaining 2 successes as additonal dice in a dice pool that all players can access.
Praying to the icons sounds like “praying to the GM”, so I kinda like it. 
As for the momentum pool, I wish that I could read the whole mechanic but I’m not sure that I want to buy books for games that I won’t play… but thank you for your reply!
In Modiphius’ Conan 2d20 they utilize “Doom” and “Momentum,” which are metacurrencies used to purchase extra dice for task resolution attempts. I’ve adopted the concept for the game I’m writing, rechristening them as “Fate” and “Fortune.”
They are AWESOME. In short, the 2d20 system allows players to opt for additional dice to hopefully achieve a greater number of “successes” when attempting task resolution. When you achieve more “successes” than the required target, you generate “Momentum” which can be used by you or your fellow PCs to purchase extra dice on their turn.
(edit - just saw that kagozaiku mentioned this before I did 
)
This sounds really interesting! How do you generate more success? And how does Doom work?
In Conan 2d20, the GM assigns a target number for any given task, with a baseline of 1 (meaning that 1 ‘success’ is needed to accomplish the task). This target number can increase based on circumstantial criteria, going as high as 5.
Each player gets 2 d20s to roll for each task resolution attempt. (with each individual d20 aiming for a specific number to be considered a ‘success’) The player may opt to purchase additional d20s to add to the roll to increase their chances of rolling ‘successes’ but in order to buy them, the player must generate ‘Doom’ (which is the GM’s metacurrency) or spend ‘Momentum’ from the party’s shared pool.
Momentum can also be spent in other ways apart from buy extra dice for task attempts. It can buy extra damage, armor penetration, situational modifiers, and many more fiddly bits.
Conan 2d20 is a pretty crunchy game. I love the flavor of it and have GM’d a campaign for my friends, but in my old age I’ve grown weary of games with too much rules-meat on the bone. I’ve been designing a game that utilizes the awesome potential of the Doom/Momentum currencies but with a simpler outlook and implementation. It’s pretty unique and awesome in my esteemed opinion! (I’ll share it with you guys some day)
@BlazingPoly - Conan 2d20 has a free download quickstart that explains their Doom/Momentum mechanic if you’re interested in reading without committing to a purchase.
Oh! Thank you for the info. It does sound pretty awesome, so I will go get myself that quickstart document! And I can’t wait for you to share your modification with us, I’m also not a fan of crunchy games! Cheers!
It occurs to me that I didn’t explain ‘Doom.’
In Conan 2d20, ‘Doom’ is exclusively the GM’s metacurrency, representing heightened tension, growing menace, and ambient threat in the game story. ‘Momentum’ is for the players, representing cooperative effort and executed teamwork. ‘Doom’ and ‘Momentum’ are used for mostly the same purposes - they can each be spent to purchase extra d20s for a task resolution check, gain armor penetration, extra damage on an attack, and others.
‘Doom’ has a few spends that are unique to the GM, however.
-The GM can spend 1 Doom to have one foe act immediately in combat (in Conan, the players always go first in combat. No initiative rolls), outside the normal turn order.
-The GM can also spend doom to add more enemies to the scene (I’m not in love with this one. Adding extra bad guys should always be the prerogative of the GM regardless of any pooled metacurrency available).
-The GM can spend Doom to create a ‘complication’ that interferes with the players. (oh no, that door is not only stuck, but it’s locked too! Oh, is that a venomous snake swimming toward you while you wait for your ambush?)
-Some enemies have unique special powers that require the spending of Doom, usually that involve dark magic or cthulu-esque demonic abilities.
Doom is good stuff.