Drama Dice in 7th Sea

Part One: Dice ≠ Challenge. Part Two: Decisions = Challenge. Part Three: definition of issues 1-5.

Drama Dice in 7th Sea have problem 3. Specifically, the best option was almost always to save the Drama Dice for the extra XP. As a player, it quickly became clear that it was only worth spending them on die rolls if someone's life rested on this one roll.

The GM could easily create situations that you could only solve by spending Drama Dice, and that lead to players feeling robbed of advancement points. Few things suck like blowing the big roll, and then contemplating that the three extra "ones" you rolled could have been +50% XP for the session if you'd held on to them.

The solution I implemented to this was to allow each Drama Die spent to give 1 XP that could only be used for the skill or attribute which you rolled as you spent it. That way, there was a small benefit to hoarding your drama dice (since you could spend their XP on anything that night) but you'd have no regrets when rolling a drama die on a knack that wasn't maxed out. Knacks that were maxed out rarely required drama dice to be successful.