Glitches instead of damage

This was included in my Damned Bureaucracy! RPG adventure.

Instead of damage, I let the players accumulate “glitches”.
That way, no character can die — but they will get an ability that might make gameplay more creative. If the player get a severe fail (two or more bad results), the player roll a d6 too see which glitch they will get:

Glitch-list:

1: One of your body parts starts to illuminate! Hiding becomes more difficult.(1:Left hand, 2:Right hand, 3:head, 4:Left foot, 5:Right foot, 6: the player decide)

2: You shrink half your size!

3: You are sensitive to sound! You can now hear things unnaturally well, however: you are easily distracted.

4: You are cold! Everything you touch turns to ice.

5: You are sticky! You may walk on walls or the ceiling. However, you are slow.

6: You are now holding X in your hand. You simply can’t drop it or leave it from your grip.
(1:Torch, 2:Spoon, 3:Scissor, 4:Stapler, 5: Plunger, 6:Noseflute)

Note
The players thought it was fun to get a glitch, which was great!
This also made it less scary to push their luck with the dice and their new abilities gave them creative ways to approach problem solving.

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Elisabet Johansson

UX 💚 Game design — currently working @Bolibompa, SVTi. I post more frequent about UX on instagram: @The.UX.Notebook