Negative Clichés

An idea I’ve had for a while (I don’t know if it’s in the ‘Companion’ yet, I’m saving up for it).  A ‘negative cliché’ is something that the character isn’t merely incompetent at, but famously bad at.  This would be for your comedy relief characters, your George of the Jungle vine-swinging, your Swedish Chef cooking, your Oscar The Grouch hygene, your Rincewind bravery.

When entering a contest, the game’s narrator may declare that your negative cliché is the appropriate cliché — try not to grouse about it, you took the negative cliché to make things interesting after all.  You would roll a single die and the dice for your negative cliché, and use the single LOWEST die showing as your result.  Losing a contest this way does not remove dice from the negative cliché; the character just loses the contest immediately.  However, if the character manages to beat the odds and win a round with a negative cliché, the opponent will lose TWO dice in the contest out of shock from this surprising display of competence.

i.e.: It’s a boxing match between Little Mac { boxing contender(3) } and Glass Joe { punching bag (-1) }.  In round one, Little Mac rolls 2,2,4 and Glass Joe rolls 6,2.  That’s 8 vs. 2, and Joe is taking a nap on the mat.

i.e.: It’s an Iron Chef competition between Ukyo { pizza-cart ninja (3) } and Akane { domestic disaster (-1) }.  Ukyo rolls 1,1,3  and Akane’s player lucks out with 6,6.  The judge tries Akane’s dish, clutches at his chest and starts crying… and wails “it’s… it’s… just like mother used to make it!”  (critical success! … plus some raised eyebrows at what sort of food this judge was raised on)