Using Sword's Path: Glory, Phoenix Command, and Living Steel as extreme examples of the Simulationist side, and heavily abstracted or loose-representational systems on the Abstractionist side (I'm looking at you, VtM), what are the general thoughts about using avoidance theory to promote roleplaying and non-combat solutions to conflict?
Here's what I mean.
Most of you are aware of my unhealthy infatuation with the Living Steel game, in which, if playing unchanged from the baseline rules, it runs like a combat simulation with every action and movement gradually working down the character's action count until their turn is done (actually, I found that the computer game Jagged Alliance felt a lot like playing the baseline Phoenix Command). The combat is involved, detailed, and accurately deadly (there's four locations on the hit table where a single assault rifle hit will result in immediate death. Like the table just says "Dead"). For the purposes of Living Steel, the designers specifically left the combat as deadly as the original simulation presented it, with the intention that players would quickly realize that a firefight was somewhere they DID NOT WANT TO BE, and would seek to find other options besides charging in guns blazing; and if they did decide that combat was inevitable, they would do everything in their power to make sure they stacked the deck appropriately, using ambushes, support by fire, and in general all the proper tactics to make sure they were successful, while minimizing their casualties or injuries. Just like real life.
(IRL Protip: A Tank is a big metal thing with a nasty gun on it, not your buddy who takes all the rounds for you. A Dragon is an old missile launcher, or possibly Puff (AC-130 Spectre), who is your friend and you love. An honorable combat is where you establish fire superiority and then they all surrender. Or they don't, and you don't have anyone around taking pictures.)
On the opposite side of things, you have games where combat is of reduced effectiveness, and where as part of the setting and the system it's presented as a bland, less effective secondary option, either that isn't as effective or not as scary. (V:TM, Storygames, assorted other highbrow concept games, etc)
Along with that, although not directly in the same category, I include hit point systems, where your degree of injury doesn't have any direct impact on the game (although good players will roleplay combat fatigue and their injuries). Combat becomes a part of everyday life, and the capability exists to have someone ride you down, shove a lance into you, then ride over you on their horse and you survive. Heroic stuff, which I approve of depending on the setting. (D&D of pretty much all editions, Elric!, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Hero, Gurps, etc)
So, I've played, and enjoyed, games in each of those examples, I'm not trying to make a 'this is right that is wrong' statement, or looking for specific corrections on my examples of the game systems and how they interact, but what do you think of the use of detailed or very dangerous representative combat as a means to promote roleplay?
By very dangerous I'm talking about something like running 3.5 with no change to the weapon or spell damage, 3d6 take them as they fall ability scores, and saying "You never have more than your CON in HP and you're DEAD when they hit 0" level dangerous.
Most of my favorite games feature the potential for one-shot-one-kill. In the case of Traveller - where characters have essentially six hit dice and can be attacked with weapons that do twelve dice of damage and where a single laser hit to your ship can cost millions of credits to repair - and Top Secret, with guns which shoot over a dozen bullets in a round, combat is best avoided unless the odds are overwelmingly in your character's favor or you simply have no other choice. TS, in particular, is about espionage, not commado ops, and the lethality of the weapons reinforces that - if you run around getting into firefights, you will end up dead in short order.
Boot Hill is about as lethal as they come - the rules aren't intended to simulate Saturday matinee Westerns so much as they are actual gunfights, so running and dodging and using cover are both rewarded by the system. Two guys blazing away in the middle of Main Street is extraordinarily risky in BH, despite being a staple of the genre.
Flashing Blades is probably the most interesting exception in this. Combat in FB is more likely to result in incapacitation than death, but it is possible to kill someone outright with a single sword thrust or pistol ball. What makes this interesting is that this is a game and a genre where combat is expected - to shirk it, to look for alteratives to combat, is to risk considerable disapproval toward your character. FB is a game where combat is difficult to avoid and potentially deadly at the same time.
I run a pretty dangerous system, where a knife in the back can mess up any character's weekend, although it would need to be a very high roll on the attack or a really bad dodge, basically a professional assassin or one-in-a-thousand against your typical min-maxed PC.
My experience has been that yes, PCs tend to take their time a bit more, not so much talking things out as becoming more strategic, planning and picking their fights, applying proper tactics when doing battle. Groups used to the stand-up pugilism of D&D need to be made well aware before starting a game that a different playstyle is probably advisable, or you'll have some angry players on your hands.
There also tends to be a drift towards working around problems, by stealth, diplomacy, or cunning.
I should say as well that the combat system makes up a significant proportion of the game, so its not like it deliberately goes out of its way to discourage battle. My belief is that pulling the teeth of combat is counterproductive to both gameplay and atmosphere in any system. When the game mechanics don't behave approximately in the way they would in the real world, the whole experience suffers.
I don't like very dangerous combat. Or rather, I like somewhat dangerous combat, but also combat to be a viable choice for solving problems, if not all of them (other options including asking the villain out, poisoning their food or beating them at an arcade game).
I think spending a lot of time to write a combat system that is then deemed too dangerous or - worse - too cumbersome to use in practice is a huge waste. I don't want my book to have 50 pages I don't want to ever use. As you mentioned Phoenix Command, guys spent an inordinate amount of time and effort to produce all those tables and stuff. That they are to be relegated to just the direst circumstances is a tragedy, not a triumph of design.
I think lumping GURPS and HERO in with D&D is pretty unfair. Both are pretty brutal at the base line. It's just that they have options that can be dialed up to make things more cinematic for heroic individuals.
For instance, in GURPS it's strongly suggested that less skilled combatants and animals generally make all out attacks which, of course means they don't get a dodge roll. And if you take a 2d6+2 (9mm round) hit to the vitals it does 3x normal damage, averaging 21 points which is enough to kill a normal person in a single shot.
Similarly in Hero, joe average has ten Body and a pistol does 2d6 killing damage. Which is a 7 in 36 chance of an instant kill on any hit.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;579324Flashing Blades is probably the most interesting exception in this. Combat in FB is more likely to result in incapacitation than death, but it is possible to kill someone outright with a single sword thrust or pistol ball. What makes this interesting is that this is a game and a genre where combat is expected - to shirk it, to look for alteratives to combat, is to risk considerable disapproval toward your character. FB is a game where combat is difficult to avoid and potentially deadly at the same time.
That is a pretty interesting example, and one that makes me wonder: when you're wounded in FB, how long does it take to heal, and what are the negative effects of it? I read your example combat for your house rules, on the surface it seems like a combat system that's quick but with some depth to it.
Quote from: The Traveller;579325Groups used to the stand-up pugilism of D&D need to be made well aware before starting a game that a different playstyle is probably advisable, or you'll have some angry players on your hands.
Yeah, I anticipate warning them about it, but most of my players are current or ex- military with multiple tours over here or in Iraq behind them. I was expecting to show them how the damage and healing rules for my d20-fied version worked and let them see that it's going to be a bad thing to pick up wounds.
QuoteI should say as well that the combat system makes up a significant proportion of the game, so its not like it deliberately goes out of its way to discourage battle. My belief is that pulling the teeth of combat is counterproductive to both gameplay and atmosphere in any system. When the game mechanics don't behave approximately in the way they would in the real world, the whole experience suffers.
I agree, and I hope I'm not taking it too far with my version. One of the things that is going to be the case, however, is that for slightly different reasons than the social ones that BV brought up, combat will be unavoidable in some situations. I just want it to
feel like a failure of diplomacy when the guns start coming out.
Quote from: vytzka;579329I don't like very dangerous combat. Or rather, I like somewhat dangerous combat, but also combat to be a viable choice for solving problems, if not all of them (other options including asking the villain out, poisoning their food or beating them at an arcade game).
Do you think that it should be less than lethal? Like Shadowrun, for instance, where it's relatively easy to put someone down, but hard to unintentionally kill them outright?
QuoteI think spending a lot of time to write a combat system that is then deemed too dangerous or - worse - too cumbersome to use in practice is a huge waste. I don't want my book to have 50 pages I don't want to ever use. As you mentioned Phoenix Command, guys spent an inordinate amount of time and effort to produce all those tables and stuff. That they are to be relegated to just the direst circumstances is a tragedy, not a triumph of design.
Unfortunately, unless you're intimately familiar with the system and interested in micro-managing every move of a given combatant, the PCCS rules are cumbersome as hell. I liked what they did for the streamlining in LS, but even that makes most players' eyes glass over when you start going into Aim Line Modifiers.
The original (especially with the advanced rules) made it a requirement to adjust the penetration based on the range, and the chances of hitting a given target with Autofire based on the ballistics of the weapon you were using, then you had to do calculations to figure out what the chance of the round glancing off armor (if any) was, then determine the effective penetration of the round through the target, then its effects...
PCCS was just too involved. I've tried to run the setting with Cyberpunk, Hero, and Palladium before, and much like my opinion of Palladium Robotech, I can't seem to create the same sense of appropriateness with any of the those systems. I'm trying now to work on making something that feels like PCCS, but only using one more roll than D&D (and that's for location).
Quote from: David Johansen;579332I think lumping GURPS and HERO in with D&D is pretty unfair. Both are pretty brutal at the base line. It's just that they have options that can be dialed up to make things more cinematic for heroic individuals.
For instance, in GURPS it's strongly suggested that less skilled combatants and animals generally make all out attacks which, of course means they don't get a dodge roll. And if you take a 2d6+2 (9mm round) hit to the vitals it does 3x normal damage, averaging 21 points which is enough to kill a normal person in a single shot.
Similarly in Hero, joe average has ten Body and a pistol does 2d6 killing damage. Which is a 7 in 36 chance of an instant kill on any hit.
I wasn't trying to place a judgement on either of those systems, they fell in with the others because they make use of a hit point system that, by default, doesn't take into account injury with regards to performance. I placed Shadowrun and Cyberpunk there as well, and they both have degraded performance, but they have a similar feel of 'counting up/down to dead'.
I've been watching Burn Notice. The main character is a spy, and individually he's pretty deadly. Taken in isolation, most of his actions could be understood as possible - but taken in conglomerate, the idea of him having survived is pretty ludicrous.
That's the thing about a recurring character in heroic situations. Given enough times, your number comes up.
So being 'realistic' and dealing with things that are more 'heroic' than people typically do, you're likely to kill them. While realistic, as a player it's not very satisfying.
If death is too common, you don't really role-play your character because he's seen as expendable. Mike 1 through Mike 8 are basically the same character. Further, if the situation is really 'believable', characters will walk into an ambush; even if it happens once every six or seven sessions, the likelihood of one (or more) deaths when the bad guys open fire is pretty high. Again, realistic, but not very satisfying if you want to do heroic things.
To that end, you're best with a good chance of incapacitating someone, but a much smaller chance of death. Assume that anybody you get to Walter Reed gets basically better.
To reflect that, you need some kind of rule like this:
If you take enough damage to 'die' or 'death' is the result, roll a die (d20?). If you roll under your Body (or Con or Toughness or whatever) you can recover with medical care (treat as critical condition for 2d6 days). If you roll a 1, you recover, but you're left with some permanent disability from the wound (ie, you step on a landmine which results in death. You roll a d20, aiming for less than a 13. You roll a 1. You survive, but you lost a leg).
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579334Do you think that it should be less than lethal? Like Shadowrun, for instance, where it's relatively easy to put someone down, but hard to unintentionally kill them outright?
I don't play Shadowrun but I'm leaning towards this type of combat systems nowadays. It's even okay if they can one shot knock you out and leave you to bleed out without aid, but your friends can still patch you up after the battle, or the enemy can collect the PCs for further, ahem, processing.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579343I've been watching Burn Notice. The main character is a spy, and individually he's pretty deadly. Taken in isolation, most of his actions could be understood as possible - but taken in conglomerate, the idea of him having survived is pretty ludicrous.
That's the thing about a recurring character in heroic situations. Given enough times, your number comes up.
So being 'realistic' and dealing with things that are more 'heroic' than people typically do, you're likely to kill them. While realistic, as a player it's not very satisfying.
If death is too common, you don't really role-play your character because he's seen as expendable. Mike 1 through Mike 8 are basically the same character. Further, if the situation is really 'believable', characters will walk into an ambush; even if it happens once every six or seven sessions, the likelihood of one (or more) deaths when the bad guys open fire is pretty high. Again, realistic, but not very satisfying if you want to do heroic things.
To that end, you're best with a good chance of incapacitating someone, but a much smaller chance of death. Assume that anybody you get to Walter Reed gets basically better.
To reflect that, you need some kind of rule like this:
If you take enough damage to 'die' or 'death' is the result, roll a die (d20?). If you roll under your Body (or Con or Toughness or whatever) you can recover with medical care (treat as critical condition for 2d6 days). If you roll a 1, you recover, but you're left with some permanent disability from the wound (ie, you step on a landmine which results in death. You roll a d20, aiming for less than a 13. You roll a 1. You survive, but you lost a leg).
That sounds like a really good working rule for a modern game, I already have permanent disability as a possible outcome of serious wounds in my LS game (added in, actually, they didn't have it in the original game), but I like the rule, I think I'll keep that in the back of my mind for a more d20 modern type environment, thanks..
Quote from: vytzka;579350I don't play Shadowrun but I'm leaning towards this type of combat systems nowadays. It's even okay if they can one shot knock you out and leave you to bleed out without aid, but your friends can still patch you up after the battle, or the enemy can collect the PCs for further, ahem, processing.
Yeah, I tend to lean that way pretty heavily as well. I've run a lot of Shadowrun in the 2e/3e versions, as well as Cyberpunk 2020 and I found it pretty useful to be able to do exactly that. I wanted it to mean something when a character was killed, so I tended to have lower actual lethality than the game would normally expect. Not that I didn't stick it to them, there was a lot of brain damage and maiming going on in my CP2020 games, for instance.
@vytzka Since you're passably familiar with Living Steel, I'm counting on the Exceptional Merits to provide a lot of cover for the Swords themselves; every Sword gets a minimum of 1, and that by itself means that they get to roll two times to recover from wounds and permanent disability, but unless they have the higher levels, they don't heal any faster than a normal person would, and it's those healing times (easily crossing into the month range) that I want to serve as a serious deterrent. I doubt that they'll catch on to just how MUCH more survivable EM's make you initially, so the initial scare tactics should sink the idea of even numbers being bad in pretty well.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579305Using Sword's Path: Glory, Phoenix Command, and Living Steel as extreme examples of the Simulationist side, and heavily abstracted or loose-representational systems on the Abstractionist side (I'm looking at you, VtM), what are the general thoughts about using avoidance theory to promote roleplaying and non-combat solutions to conflict?
I don't have a preference. That is to say I like different methods in different ways, for different purposes.
-clash
Quote from: David Johansen;579332I think lumping GURPS and HERO in with D&D is pretty unfair. Both are pretty brutal at the base line. It's just that they have options that can be dialed up to make things more cinematic for heroic individuals.
GURPS was deliberately dialed down to make it less deadly. From the Man-To-Man (GURPS Combat System) Designer's Notes in The Space Gamer #76 (http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-2376):
QuoteFor instance, the first couple of drafts of the combat system followed strict reality on "hit points." An average man swinging a club could incapacitate another average man (if he was unarmored) with a single good blow, and kill him with two or three. That's the way it really is. And edged weapons — or guns — are far deadlier!
But a combat system that lets one blow decide the battle isn't much fun. Especially considering the time it takes to design a char- acter. Even if you bring him back to life to fight the battle again, one-blow combats are a drag.
So, at every little decision-point that went into making up the combat system, we chose in favor of less damage. Thus, no individual subsystem is wrong — but, added all together, they give a combat system that makes player characters a little harder to kill than "real people" are. Just because it's more fun. However, you'll never see Gonad the Barbarian running around with 80 hit points. No way. A super-hero, maybe — but no natural person is that tough in real life, or in MTM.
I disagree to the extent that I do think that battles being decided in one blow can be fun, but if the game designers want to avoid the PCs being killed with one shot, then I would prefer them to give the PCs script immunity through some sort of Fate Point (Warhammer FRP version) or Fudge Point mechanism rather than nerfing the entire combat system so that nobody, PC or NPC, ever dies with one blow. Making one-attack kills impossible makes surprise attacks and ambushes that count on one-attack kills impossible, too. Just call it what it is -- "script immunity" for the PCs -- and give the players points to limit it, if you want.
Quote from: David Johansen;579332Similarly in Hero, joe average has ten Body and a pistol does 2d6 killing damage. Which is a 7 in 36 chance of an instant kill on any hit.
I ran a science fiction game using the Hero System that had heavy weapons with 4d6 killing attacks. It's very easy to make Hero a very deadly system by making killing attacks the norm.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579305Using Sword's Path: Glory, Phoenix Command, and Living Steel as extreme examples of the Simulationist side, and heavily abstracted or loose-representational systems on the Abstractionist side (I'm looking at you, VtM), what are the general thoughts about using avoidance theory to promote roleplaying and non-combat solutions to conflict?
Never had a impact for us (used Book of Mars for a while, a system related to those 'extreme examples' you mentioned).
The ratio of combat to non-combat remained the same. The setting, goals of the characters and needs of the adventure determined when there is battle- risk avoidance had nothing to do with it.
Quote from: David Johansen;579332I think lumping GURPS and HERO in with D&D is pretty unfair. Both are pretty brutal at the base line. It's just that they have options that can be dialed up to make things more cinematic for heroic individuals.
Or dailed down, and even ignoring the dails you can change things greatly just by building stuff to a different standard than the examples given in the book and their settings (which I find to be very bland for the most part).
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579343If death is too common, you don't really role-play your character because he's seen as expendable. Mike 1 through Mike 8 are basically the same character. Further, if the situation is really 'believable', characters will walk into an ambush; even if it happens once every six or seven sessions, the likelihood of one (or more) deaths when the bad guys open fire is pretty high. Again, realistic, but not very satisfying if you want to do heroic things.
Is the best way to handle this to make the combat system less deadly for everyone in the setting or is it better to handle this by simply acknowledging that the PCs are special and have script immunity and providing some way for them to avoid death where reality suggests they should die? There are games that do this. D&D, of course, also provides a way to raise the dead, thus fixing the problem after acknowledging that a death has happened.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579343To that end, you're best with a good chance of incapacitating someone, but a much smaller chance of death. Assume that anybody you get to Walter Reed gets basically better.
In the real world, there are things that people can recover from and things that they don't recover from, which also raises the fairly gruesome possibility of characters dying slowly, something most RPGs avoid. Of course another thing that many role-playing games gloss over are scars and worse, such as the loss of limbs, eyes, permanent brain damage, and so on, which is a very real problem in the real world after incapacitating injuries.
And if incapacitation or slow death applies to everyone in the setting, then leaving the battlefield covered with wounded bad guy NPCs that are not dead yet can raise some troubling choices for the PCs. Do they leave them to die slowly, slit their throats to finish the job, or do they try to heal them and take them captive?
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579343If you take enough damage to 'die' or 'death' is the result, roll a die (d20?). If you roll under your Body (or Con or Toughness or whatever) you can recover with medical care (treat as critical condition for 2d6 days). If you roll a 1, you recover, but you're left with some permanent disability from the wound (ie, you step on a landmine which results in death. You roll a d20, aiming for less than a 13. You roll a 1. You survive, but you lost a leg).
Do you imagine that applying to NPCs as well as PCs, or only characters that the players and GM want to extent script immunity to?
Quote from: John Morrow;579366Do you imagine that applying to NPCs as well as PCs, or only characters that the players and GM want to extent script immunity to?
As I think you're well aware (being perhaps the one person in the whole world who read at least part of
Age of Heroes), I'm perfectly fine with having a lower threshold of death for common NPCs compared to PCs and important NPCs.
Think of it as a limited version of
"script immunity through some sort of Fate Point" that's skips the additional rule overhead and is just directly applied post-combat.
Quote from: John Morrow;579360I disagree to the extent that I do think that battles being decided in one blow can be fun, but if the game designers want to avoid the PCs being killed with one shot, then I would prefer them to give the PCs script immunity through some sort of Fate Point (Warhammer FRP version) or Fudge Point mechanism rather than nerfing the entire combat system so that nobody, PC or NPC, ever dies with one blow.
Yep, that's an accurate summation of the system I use, I limit the "script immunity" fairly severely though so it isn't abused.
PCs aren't dropping like flies either - while they
might be killed in one blow, they are usually quick enough on the dodge and well enough armoured that its quite unlikely, especially if they don't do things like single handedly charge a column of the city guard. The possibility adds a wonderfully keen edge of excitement to combat however, its betting with real money.
Quote from: John Morrow;579366In the real world, there are things that people can recover from and things that they don't recover from, which also raises the fairly gruesome possibility of characters dying slowly, something most RPGs avoid. Of course another thing that many role-playing games gloss over are scars and worse, such as the loss of limbs, eyes, permanent brain damage, and so on, which is a very real problem in the real world after incapacitating injuries.
That's one of the things I'm trying to address. As an example from my work with Living Steel:
QuoteSome time after the previous example, Mike is unfortunate enough to be the recipient of a sniper attack. He takes a 5000 PD hit to his abdomen, failing his KV roll and becoming incapacitated for 6 days. The Physical Damage is converted to 2000 Damage Total, and Mike's Critical Time Period (the time until the character must receive medical aid or make a Fortitude save or die) is 28 rounds, with no chance to survive.
Luckily, Mike's team medic is nearby and rushes to provide First Aid. His assistance increases Mike's CTP to 15 hours, however there is still no chance that Mike will be able to survive a wound of this severity. A MEDEVAC is called, and Mike is moved to a nearby base with a Field Hospital. Mike's CTP is now 25 days, but the Recovery Roll (the fort save) is still a hefty 27. The decision is made to move him again, this time to a Bondsman Trauma Center.
At the Trauma Center, Mike's CTP is still 25 days, but his RR is now 17. The doctors recommend that Mike remain in the Trauma Center for the full 25 days of his CTP, as well as the extra 3 days to reach the 1/3 of his total Healing Time (84 days) (which reduces the overall healing time by 20%). Mike's team agrees to this (he is still unconscious), and after 25 days Mike will make his RR at a DC of 11.
Essentially, in the idealized example, they continue to escalate the care that Mike is receiving until it's possible for him to survive; but if they didn't have access to the MEDEVAC, there would honestly be no chance for him to live. It falls right in with John's comments about some things not being survivable.
Here's my rule for disabling injuries (for the purposes of the table, this is a d20 game, so stat mods have the same effect that you would expect)
QuoteDisabling Injuries and Permanent Disability
Whenever a character receives a serious injury (more than 300 PD in a single wound) or a disabling injury, the possibility exists that the character will not heal completely, leaving him permanently disabled. After the recovery roll is made for survival, additional recovery rolls must be made for each critical wound the character received, at the same DC as the survival roll. If the character fails this roll, then the injury has resulted in a permanent disability as shown on the Disability table. Exceptional Merit Swords roll multiple times to resist these effects as well. All effects of permanent injuries are cumulative.
Additionally, characters who receive 700 PD or more to an extremity have suffered from a traumatic amputation at GM discretion.
Injury Type - Disability
* Arm - Arm Injury, -4 to actions using that arm
** Arm - Serious Arm Injury, -8 to actions using that arm
* Leg - Leg Injury, Move reduced to 7m,
** Leg - Serious Leg Injury, Move reduced to 5m
Body (<1000 PD) - Body Injury, -1 to STR and CON
Body (<5000 PD) - Serious Body Injury, -3 to STR and Con
Body (<40000 PD) - Extreme Body Injury, -6 to STR and Con
Body (<100000 PD) - Crippling Body Injury, -8 to STR and Con
Upper Head - Brain Damage, -4 to INT and WIS
Eye-Nose - Missing Eye, -4 Traps & Spotting (Spot Checks), -2 to Ranged Combat, -2 to Defense rolls in Armed Combat
Mouth - Mouth/Jaw Damage, -4 CHA (Has difficulty speaking)
Do you think that's too harsh to use on PC's? Do you think that PC's should have some sort of safety net in games with higher lethality?
Quote from: gleichman;579368Think of it as a limited version of "script immunity through some sort of Fate Point" that's skips the additional rule overhead and is just directly applied post-combat.
Well, that's my question to deadDMwalking about such mechanics. Are they for everyone or just the PCs and special NPCs? And, of course, if they too readily save the PCs from situations that can kill them, it can raise the problem deadDMwalking mentioned about Burn Notice, that "
Taken in isolation, most of his actions could be understood as possible - but taken in conglomerate, the idea of him having survived is pretty ludicrous." That's really the problem with a lot story-oriented techniques (in fiction as well as role-playing games). In isolation, they work fine and seem realistic but, used again and again, they can create serious believability problems. Having some red shirts in the landing party die once to show how dangerous the situation is can work pretty well. Done week after week, and it becomes the stuff of parody.
Quote from: John Morrow;579380but taken in conglomerate, the idea of him having survived is pretty ludicrous.[/i]" That's really the problem with a lot story-oriented techniques (in fiction as well as role-playing games).
One either accepts genre conventions or one doesn't. The nice thing about doing one's own rules (or house rules) is that you get to pick and chose.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579371Do you think that's too harsh to use on PC's? Do you think that PC's should have some sort of safety net in games with higher lethality?
Those negatives could have serious repercussions for characters with abilities that rely on attributes. The last 3 seem like pretty severe jumps, and there should probably be a less severe version or versions of them. For a game with magic, it's possible to have the application of magical healing reduce or eliminate the negative long-term effects of wounds that will happen if they heal naturally.
Quote from: gleichman;579382One either accepts genre conventions or one doesn't. The nice thing about doing one's own rules (or house rules) is that you get to pick and chose.
Sure, and there are certainly people who feel such genre conventions are critical to running a game like the fictional work in question and I understand where they are coming from. It's my opinion that overused storytelling techniques are usually simply that -- overused storytelling techniques that are a problem. I think that the original Star Trek, for example, was good
despite the overuse of the red shirt storytelling technique, not because of it, and it's the reason (with a few notable exceptions) that movie sequels that use the same storytelling techniques as the original quickly get old and are rarely considered as good as the original.
Basically, I think there are two ways to emulate a genre. One way is to emulate the milieu of the genre. An example would be playing a game set in the Star Trek universe and I believe the Starfleet Battles-derived Star Trek games such as Prime Directive take this approach. In such a game, the bridge crew doesn't necessarily beam down to every planet and the red shirts are not always the first to die. The other way is to emulate the type of stories typical of the genre. A GM emulating Star Trek stories would deliberately set up scenes so that red shirts die, the captain talks an evil computer to death, the Chief Engineer does something "impossible", and so on because that's what happens in Star Trek stories. Either can be seen as a legitimate goal, but players expecting one and getting the other can be seriously disappointed.
Quote from: John Morrow;579389Basically, I think there are two ways to emulate a genre. One way is to emulate the milieu of the genre.
The other way is to emulate the type of stories typical of the genre.
Or you do a mix of both, keeping elements of the latter (like a lower chance of death than one would expect) and flowing otherwise with the former.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579334That is a pretty interesting example, and one that makes me wonder: when you're wounded in FB, how long does it take to heal, and what are the negative effects of it?
Hit points heal at the rate of one point per location per week.
Say a character with 10 total hit points gets hit with a pistol ball for 6 points in the arm and amd a sword thrust for 2 points in the leg; his arm is useless for 1D6 days after missing an Endurance check. A surgeon heals three points of damage, distributed among his wounds, so he gets two back on his arm and one on his leg. That means it takes one week to heal the light wound to his leg and four weeks to heal the serious wound to his arm completely.
A character can regain two points per location per week with bed rest, so he could heal completely in two weeks if he wishes; that's time than can't be spent adventuring, practicing, and so forth.
Some wounds can result in long-tem injury or disability as well. Say the character had already lost two points of general damage from a grenade blast, and the serious wound from the pistol ball dropped him to zero. The character goes unconscious for 1D6 hours and rolls 1D20 - 1-11 no long term effect, 12-16 bad scar (no other effect), 17-18 broken bone (1D6+2 weeks to heal the break before normal healing can begin), 19-20 lose hand, (-2 Dexterity, -1 Endurance, replace with hook that gets treated as a dagger thereafter).
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579334I read your example combat for your house rules, on the surface it seems like a combat system that's quick but with some depth to it.
What I like about it is that it captures the back-and-forth of swordplay while integrating firearms and brawling smoothly. There are good reasons, for example, for parrying with a sword and then punching the other guy in the face, and no matter how good a swordsman may be, he's still vulnerable to a pistol shot or getting poked with a pike.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579343If death is too common, you don't really role-play your character because he's seen as expendable.
Develop-at-Start sorts find this to be a problem; Develop-in-Play gamers couldn't really care less (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/03/o-death-where-is-thy-sting.html) as long as they're having fun playig the game.
Quote from: gleichman;579382One either accepts genre conventions or one doesn't.
Be very clear (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-3.html) on exactly whixh genre conventions you're trying to emulate (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/04/u-is-for-unbuilt.html).
Quote from: gleichman;579390Or you do a mix of both, keeping elements of the latter (like a lower chance of death than one would expect) and flowing otherwise with the former.
Yes, a middle ground is certainly possible, but doing so just shifts the same problem to a more granular level, if a player expects something to go one way and it goes the other, instead. I'm not saying that it can't be resolved. I'm pointing out that it's important that both players and GM be on the same page.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;579397Develop-at-Start sorts find this to be a problem; Develop-in-Play gamers couldn't really care less (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/03/o-death-where-is-thy-sting.html) as long as they're having fun playig the game.
I'm very much a Develop-In-Play person and thus consider a character that is well-developed in play a pretty substantial investment in time. I once played a D&D game where I went through a lot of characters and I got pretty detached from caring about the game or my characters as a result. So I see that as a legitimate concern.
Quote from: John Morrow;579398I'm pointing out that it's important that both players and GM be on the same page.
Generally speaking, the rules themselves will make this clear.
Those detailing how a character dies will speak to how how lethal battle is to PCs (and important NPCs) as opposed to NPCs. If there are no rules for the Chief Engineer to do impossible things, then he clearly can't.
Of course the players may be willing to read the rules in the first place.
Quote from: gleichman;579400Generally speaking, the rules themselves will make this clear.
In your case, that may be true, but how accurate a predictor that is can depend on how much fudging the GM engages in. And, of course, things like red shirts dying in Star Trek as as much a matter of how the GM has NPCs pick targets to kill as an application of rules.
Quote from: John Morrow;579401In your case, that may be true, but how accurate a predictor that is can depend on how much fudging the GM engages in.
As you know, I'm not a big fan of the GM fudging.
Quote from: John Morrow;579401And, of course, things like red shirts dying in Star Trek as as much a matter of how the GM has NPCs pick targets to kill as an application of rules.
It should be more a matter of how the players deploy their landing party.
Red Shirts (i.e. security personal) are suppose to stand between any dangers and the crew they are sworn to protect. They have point and perimeter and are the natural first targets. Add in the fact that they will throw themselves in the way of fire much like the secret service and the genre convention of Red Shirts dying rather takes care of itself.
D&D, GURPS, and HERO are all pretty deadly at the baseline. A level zero commoner, or a guy with straight tens in the other two will die very quickly. His only hope of survival is the whiff factor and that's set at 50% in all three. (hits AC10 on a 10, DX 10, Dex 10 / 3 + 11 - foe's 10 DX /3).
In D&D you're looking at a d6 or d8 damage verses a d6 hitpoints.
In GURPS you're looking at a pistol doing 2d6-2 (x3 vs Vitals x4 vs Brain) against HT x 2 (before this you're just knocked out after it you have a second by second chance of dying) Sure he's got a dodge of 8- on 3d6 if he's aware of the attacker or didn't all out attack.
In Hero you're looking at a pistol doing 2d6 Killing against a Body of 10. Which is the highest survival margine of the three.
It's just they have options that make character survival more likely.
Quote from: Panzerkraken;579334I wasn't trying to place a judgement on either of those systems, they fell in with the others because they make use of a hit point system that, by default, doesn't take into account injury with regards to performance.
Just to correct a misunderstanding about now GURPS works: it most definitely does take injury into account with regard to effectiveness.
For example:
- Immediately following taking damage, a victim suffers a shock penalty equal to the damage suffered (to a maximum of -4, which is pretty serious in GURPS terms).
- If you take damage equal to half your Health in the Torso (average HT is 10, so 5 points) in a single wound you must make a HT check; fail and you are knocked down and stunned, fail by 5 or more and pass out.
- If you have lost 2/3rds of your hit points then your Basic Speed, Move and Dodge are all halved.
- If you take damage equal to half your Health in a major limb (arm or leg) in a single hit then the limb is crippled and unusable. Make a HT check at the end of the combat - a success means the effect passes, a failure means it is lasting and a critical means it is permanent!
- A minor limb (hand or foot) is crippled if you take 1/3rd your HT in a single hit.
So whilst the game does have hit points, they are used in a radically different way to how D&D uses them, for example.
GURPS high-tech (current era) is pretty dangerous as guns dish out a lot of damage and armour is relatively weak. The balance is different in different time periods dependent on the weapons and armour available. And to keep this relevant to the point of the thread, GURPS combat does make players more likely to consider tactics other than a frontal assault against superior numbers...
Quote from: John Morrow;579399I'm very much a Develop-In-Play person and thus consider a character that is well-developed in play a pretty substantial investment in time.
I read dDMw's post as referring to succession of new characters, which is why I brought up DaS versus DiP.
Quote from: John Morrow;579399I once played a D&D game where I went through a lot of characters and I got pretty detached from caring about the game or my characters as a result. So I see that as a legitimate concern.
Great, so you experienced the extreme end of the spectrum - you have my condolences.
Do you believe this experience is representative of roleplaying games generally? Is it representative of the majority of the campaigns you played?
Do you think games should be designed to prevent crapsack referees from being crapsacks? Is that even possible?
Quote from: David Johansen;579405In Hero you're looking at a pistol doing 2d6 Killing against a Body of 10. Which is the highest survival margine of the three.
Um, no. I thought these numbers sounded fishy, so I looked them up and they haven't changed from Danger International to 6th edition. A 9mm pistol does 1d6+1 Killing. To get to 2d6K you have to be packing a .44 Magnum.
IOW, it's actually impossible to kill a normal non-heroic person with a single shot to the chest with a 9mm pistol.
Quote from: daniel_ream;579421IOW, it's actually impossible to kill a normal non-heroic person with a single shot to the chest with a 9mm pistol.
This is true, however the weapon listings for HERO should be considered suggestions- the GM is free to build them however he wishes for his own campaign. For an example I offer my own example on how to build firearms for HERO (from a previous thread on this site).
Due to the customization built into HERO, saying HERO is this or that is to automatically be mistaken.
For my own preference, I like to treat NPCs and PCs the same way. If people are going to die without medical care of some kind, it's usually fine to assume most of the bad guys 'bleed out'. If they don't, most of them are going to retire or cease to matter in most situations. If they do have a reason to keep coming back (ie, major NPC), then I'm all for treating them like the PCs.
The villain is more meaningful if he comes back to haunt the PCs and he's sporting major scars that he can blame them for. But rarely would a mook matter for this treatment.
If a GM makes a rule that keeps people alive apply only to PCs and major NPCs, that doesn't bother me TOO much. Not my preference, but I understand that it does make things easier.
Quote from: gleichman;579426This is true, however the weapon listings for HERO should be considered suggestions- the GM is free to build them however he wishes for his own campaign.
Seriously, gleichman? The Oberoni fallacy? From you?
Quote from: daniel_ream;579450Seriously, gleichman? The Oberoni fallacy? From you?
It's not a fallacy, it's actually what HERO is designed to do. It's a toolkit for the construction of whatever world you wish. The actual values are all your own to decide upon (as long as you follow the contruction rules of course).
We had that very discussion back in the day with the original designers when we were one of their playtest groups.
Quote from: gleichman;579462It's not a fallacy, it's actually what HERO is designed to do. It's a toolkit for the construction of whatever world you wish. The actual values are all your own to decide upon (as long as you follow the contruction rules of course).
We had that very discussion back in the day with the original designers when we were one of their playtest groups.
So it's like GURPs?
Quote from: MGuy;579498So it's like GURPs?
I'm not certain about GURPS, but my impression was that it was a toolkit for characters and not for gear and other objects. For example it has very defined rules for converting real world items like vehicle and weapons that would result in them being identical from setting to setting.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;579420I read dDMw's post as referring to succession of new characters, which is why I brought up DaS versus DiP.
Great, so you experienced the extreme end of the spectrum - you have my condolences.
Do you believe this experience is representative of roleplaying games generally? Is it representative of the majority of the campaigns you played?
Do you think games should be designed to prevent crapsack referees from being crapsacks? Is that even possible?
I don't think that it is, without seriously limiting what the options for the flow of the game are. If the DM has his hands tied so tightly that he can't be a crapsack, you might as well be playing Lone Wolf.
Quote from: deadDMwalking;579440For my own preference, I like to treat NPCs and PCs the same way. If people are going to die without medical care of some kind, it's usually fine to assume most of the bad guys 'bleed out'. If they don't, most of them are going to retire or cease to matter in most situations. If they do have a reason to keep coming back (ie, major NPC), then I'm all for treating them like the PCs.
The villain is more meaningful if he comes back to haunt the PCs and he's sporting major scars that he can blame them for. But rarely would a mook matter for this treatment.
If a GM makes a rule that keeps people alive apply only to PCs and major NPCs, that doesn't bother me TOO much. Not my preference, but I understand that it does make things easier.
I've had a couple of Mooks that were turned into recurring villans (or contacts, depending) based on having not quite died at the hands of the PC's. I've also seen a lot of nomad corpses strewn across the highways, so fair enough. But I certainly wouldn't discount the Mook value, and I usually try to jot a note or two down after a combat about what the wounded are going to have happen.
Quote from: MGuy;579498So it's like GURPs?
Not exactly... GURPS has all its equipment pre-determined and balanced within the game or setting; the characters are point-bought, but things like equipment and vehicles and such are pre-determined. Hero gives you the capability to create just about anything you can imagine using the 'Powers' combined with Advantages and Disadvantages. So at it's core, a Colt M1911 is a Ranged Killing Attack with Obvious Accessible Focus and Limited Ammunition (7). There might be other modifiers that you can decide to use (Gleichman has an extensive method that he uses which combines real-world values and makes the weapons as accurate as possible to each other)