Optional Challenges
In several scenes I've narrated, I've found myself thinking "gosh, I wish there was a way to give my players a challenge that they could choose to do or not do." Say you're kidnapped by a group of hostiles, but there's one particular NPC that seems to sympathize with you. An optional challenge to gain their trust might be played there.
These would work differently than goals; for example, if your current mandatory challenge is NPC A, it'd be hard to fulfill a "make peace with NPC B in this scene" goal.
Perhaps Optional Challenges could be slightly greyed out (almost like a completed challenge) until someone decided to address them with at least one card. They would count toward total challenge point for the scene, as well, whether the players decided to take the challenge or not.
Senna
shared this idea
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Jonathan Lawn
commented
Looking at this from another angle, I'd just like to be able to exceed the total number of pips that could be played by my players, so that we know from the start that they'll not complete all tasks. The "2 pips remaining" warning when setting up the challenge/outcome is good, but I'd like to be able to deliberately go into the red and save the result.
The greying out of an optional challenge before it is played is a nice idea still though.