I'm already on record as dislikely Fate (or Luck) Point mechanics, but they are so common in design these days that's it's difficult to escape them.
Joshua over on the Tales of the Rambling Bumblers doesn't care for them either, and he does an excellent job detailing one of my own reasons why they're a poor mechanic.
But I can't approve of his method for overcoming that limit. The idea of trading one 'get out of jail' card for a "GM will now screw the players" card comes with a whole host of problems. It furthers a negative style of GMing- i.e. one opposed to the players. As a GM, I reject any mechanic that forces my hand in such a way and in such a direction.
Worst, it requires the GM to balance those Luck Points during play- and how do you balance not killing someone? Kill a different PC? Kill him later? It seems that any GM won't trade equally on this matter or the very trade itself (from the PC PoV) is foolish except in very rare cases. Indeed, he'll undervalue (to use Joshua's terms) Karma vs. Luck every time.
No, this isn't a wise option. If a group is worred about characters dying- use a system where they either don't die, or where the chance of their dying suits the group's taste.
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I would in general agree with Hit Points, they are in effect just a sloppy mechanic that makes it appears things are happening in the game that aren't.
Sadly whatever my taste, they are still used.
Well, an equal trade (not dying now for dying later) would certainly be fair, and I can see a certain Challengers of the Unknown charm to knowing you're living on borrowed time. But I confess I'm probably not a ruthless enough GM to pull that off. I was thinking more along the lines of spending Karma points that have accumulated to impose the kinds of set-backs and random tragedy that happen both in real-life and fiction, but are statistically rare enough that nobody actually rolls to see if they occur. Either games do without them entirely, or they are imposed by GM fiat--which can be quite touchy if the players aren't playing an explicitly story-oriented game.
Possible, but it's a trade of acceptable (in story terms) setbacks in exchange for unacceptable setbacks (character death).
So it's an uneven trade out of the gate. One may just as well just use a safer system, and let character disadvantages and/GM story driven events handle acceptable setbacks. Easier to design and more to the point.
I will never understand why people desire additional mechanics to correct something that should just be corrected in the core design.
I think it comes from the house rule add-on mindset- which is fine in a limited way (I still wouldn't use this type of mechanic). But it shouldn't even be considered for a ground up design.
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