Optional Rules for D&D 5th Edition - Story Influencers

Hello everyone, welcome back for a new post.  So this time around I figured I would post about an interesting thought I had for making your D&D games a bit more interesting.  This optional rule is what I call "Story Influence".  What this does is allows players an opportunity to influence the story set forth by the GM with more than just their actions and Inspiration points.

-The Rules-                                                                                                            

At the start of a game session each player gains 1 Influence Point.  Players may spend this point at anytime...but there are limits on what can be done with this.

Influence is spent to allow a player to alter the story of the game in their favor.  The benefits and limitations on what you can do are as follows:

• You must sum up what you want done in a single sentence.
• What you want to happen must fall within the realm of reason.  That is to say that expecting a god to suddenly appear and save the party, or even an avatar  of them, is not reasonable unless the players have already done something to earn a god's favor.
• Story alterations are possible, but cannot break the game.  This could be something like an old friend who happens to own a shop or inn that will shelter the PC's for free, or gives a discount on purchases.  The alteration in the story has to be something that would make sense and still be confined to a single sentence.
• What you may want may come with a price, but it is available.
• A percentage roll may be applied if you want a specific item or piece of equipment to be found.  The percentage target for the roll is based upon how common or rare the item is.  This is handled in 20% increments and requires you to roll less than the percentage.  Thus a common item has a 100% chance of being found, while a legendary item would have a 20% chance.  The GM may lower this further if the given situation and location would normally not allow one to find such an item. (For example, your not likely going to find a Holy Avenger just laying around in the middle of nowhere.
• It can allow you to find a crucial piece of information that the group may have failed to gain.
• Influence is usable to gain a recovery of some spells or HP in combat in the form of getting a second wind, or finding some deep reserve of strength.  The GM has final say on what this may entail.  One method of handling this is to allow the PC to spend Hit Dice in combat, or they may instead recover a limited percentage of lost HP (5% per level, rounded up).  For spells the play may regain 1 spell for each spell level they have access to, or a random number of spells (1d4+1).

Unlike Inspirations you only get one of these per session and a player can use it for their own benefit or for the groups.  The GM also can veto any possible use of these.  For example if during one session you use your Influence point to get a magic item and during the next session you wish to do so again.  Here the GM may say that it would make no sense for you to be able to do so as you already manipulated fate for this purpose.

Another option is for the GM to sit down and possibly create a list of specific things that a player may choose to influence.  This gives a more grounded and restricted field of things they may spend their Inspirations on via the GM creating single sentence options for them.

And of course don't think for a moment that you can't take these rules and apply them to other games.  Well I hope these options are helpful and can add an extra element of fun to your games.