Mummy, Why Won't He Die?
Taking damage in various RPG systems discussed.
(NOTE: Quite an old article, so don't fret if your favourite system is not included, or some of these issues were adressed in later editions. This article is reproduced from the first edition of TechNo Prisoners, and although some of the details may be outdated, I believe that although things have progressed considerably, they are still far from perfect.)
"...the shell from the corp-cop’s 10 mm slug-thrower pierces your thin armour-jacket (that's the last time you buy cheap Italian imports!), ripping a chunk of flesh from your left arm. The pain sears through your body, activating nano-surgeons from their slumber. You stagger from the blow, spoiling your aim ...."
"That's three points of damage, less one for your armour, you soaked one, so cross off a check box, your character cannot fire this round and loses any aiming bonuses. Any action with your left arm is at a penalty of one dice until healed, but the other pain is suppressed by the Biotechnica Auto-Doctor™ that your employers implanted as part of the deal. Next round ..."
If we had been playing D&D (Some strange temporal spell having been effected), the second part would have read "Take two points of damage." Hardly a line to inspire the suspension of disbelief! I remember trying to explain to a new recruit, after explaining that RPG’s tend to be controlled by rules so that a sense of consistency and realism could be maintained, that losing three quarters of his hit points to a goblin blade would have the effect of leaving him with less hit points. Nothing more, nothing less. An extreme example of system failure, but I feel quite an important area. Hopefully games have progressed from the depths of dungeon bashing, and its modern/punk version, cyber-grunting, and the combat scenes are becoming rarer and therefore more meaningful.
Defenders of the D&D system tend to stick to the line ‘It leaves room for a good GM to elaborate.’ A fair argument that I tend to accept, but a good GM can work around most systems. Most other systems have tried to detail physical harm (especially combat damage) a little more, to varying degrees of success.One problem that has now been mainly overcome is the ‘porcupine effect’, where a high-level warrior could walk slowly towards a wall of archers, and survive to tell the tale. Unfortunately, this has been replaced by the ‘bullet-proof vest' that enables punks/space explorers to charge machine-gun nests. A major culprit for this is CP2020, where a light armour jacket, armoured jeans (Chrome Book 1), and a bike helmet is proof against most small arms fire, in unlimited quantities. At the other end of the spectrum, they encourage Great Big F**k-Off Guns (GBFO’s), weapons whose power is only matched by their preposterous names. In a genre where combat is always an option, and life moves at the speed of light, even a light injury can take a few days to heal. Will that lucky shot the ganger put in you be healed enough to take the truck North at the weekend ?
CP2020 splits the characters 40 health points into four sections, representing levels of severity from light (1-4 pts) to mortal (13-40 pts), and allocates penalties and healing times to the overall level of injury. Damage is treated as ‘general’, that is, not detailed as to location or type of wound (although a location roll is required to see which piece of armour is hit).
GURPS can also suffer from porcupining, due to high (realistic? Even a well-swung sword wont pierce full plate armour) armour values, but this is balanced by fatigue penalties for the increased encumbrance, and even though your enemies wont be able to pierce your armour, they will be able to wait until you've exhausted yourself, and then go to work with a can opener (see Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’). The only other main problem with GURPS is that no penalties are taken for being injured, until you are down to your last few hits. While not being realistic, this can help the flavour of the game, with heroes ignoring multiple flesh wounds until that last blow saps their energy, leaving a staggering mess, hardly able to hold a sword, never mind slay a dragon. Poetic? Maybe. Playable ? Definitely. Realistic ? This is a fantasy game ! In its favour, GURPS does try to consider the short-term effects of shock. On the turn after a character is injured, all of their rolls are penalized by the amount of damage taken (except parrying), but then adrenaline, endorphins and sheer bloody mindedness take over, and the injury is forgotten. To balance this debilitating effect, a character may attempt to stay active despite horrendous injury. Once on negative HP, a roll against Health must be made each round, failure indicating total collapse, success giving another second of action. Again, this does help atmosphere, with mortally injured characters given a chance to have one final stab at victory. The elven archer, cut down by a stray arrow, managing to loose a couple more shafts before the blackness envelopes him; your corporate enforcer, having been ambushed in the Wilds and subjected to heavy-weapons fire, finding the willpower to keep her car on the road until the city limits are reached and the auto-pilot kicks in. I feel it to be a nice touch to an already playable system. Are there any other systems that will allow the combat to end with all of the combatants unconscious?
Two systems that try to directly address the problem of injuries affecting abilities are Traveler and WarpWorld. Traveler, the veteran of Sci-Fi games, doesn't give a character hit points of any kind. Instead, damage points are deducted from their physical attribute scores (Strength, Stamina, Dexterity). When one of these scores reaches zero, the character can no longer act. Two zeroes and a long hospital stay is to be expected. All three at zero and it’s time to roll a new character. This gives a quite realistic effect, as wounded characters become weaker, fatigued and slow to react. The minor problem (from a realism standpoint) is that the player decides which scores are lowered, and by how much. This tends to let characters survive longer, which is probably a good thing from my experience of Traveler.
WarpWorld has one of the most complex systems that I have seen, in a system that seems designed for accountants or Universal Field Theory researchers. All rolls are made on a d20 against a characters’ skill level, with ‘modifiers’ (expressed as +1, -3, etc., but meaning +5%, -15%, ) for situations. Wounds are treated as another situational modifier to relevant areas of the body. E.g. a small wound to the arm may give a -2 modifier to that arm, or a gunshot to the chest might apply a -10 to all actions. This sounds reasonable, and would be a playable way of dealing with injuries, if the authors had found a simple way of finding these modifiers. Instead, firearms do a set damage dependent on caliber, while other wounds deliver various amounts of damage. This is multiplied if the head or torso is hit (apart from the first two points), and then split into lethal and non-lethal damage, according to the attack type. Cross-referencing this with the characters’ body points, gives a damage level, or impairment. This impairment is multiplied for location, and applied to relevant rolls. A stun roll must also be made, with a similar amount of calculation, and then a check to see if the wound will be fatal, how long the character has left to live, and if they will be conscious for this time. All this, and we haven't discussed the actual combat system ! Trying to GM a large combat, even with reference tables, is a monumental task.
Talking of monumental tasks, it only seems fair to mention Role Master, and the way I.C.E. choose to deal with damage. As with many systems, it is based upon an increasing number of hit-points, which have little effect as they dwindle away to sword thrusts, spiked pits and other harm-causing experiences (for which you do gain experience points. 1 xp/hp lost !). What makes the system unique is the ‘Critical hit’ system. Often a system incorporates a way of representing lucky shots, blows that miss the opponents’ armour etc., but in the case of RM, the critical tables are an inherent part of damage. The hits (full name Concussion Hits) represent how much physical punishment a character can stand, and other ‘details’ are left to the crits. The damage tables (one for each weapon) cross-reference armour type with attack roll to give a damage code. A typical sword blow may give the code ‘7B’, for example, causing 7 hits, and a roll on the ‘slash critical’ table, severity B (‘A’ being a minor hit, ‘E’ being a mortal wound). Each type of wound type (slash, pierce, impact, heat, cold, electricity etc.) has its’ own critical table (this is RM., remember), and the results range from ‘Light blow, +1 hit’ through ‘ Minor forearm wound, +4 hits, Bleeding at 2 hits/rnd, stunned 1 rnd.’ and ‘Blast to off-arm. +10 hits. If no shield, arm broken stunned 3 rnds’ to results such as ‘Sever weapon arm. 15 hits/rnd. Down and unconscious immediately.’ or my favourite (from the Heat Critical table) ‘Blast annihilates entire skeleton. Reduced to a gelatinous pulp. Try a spatula.’! These tables not only give more detail to the damage system, and give characters different penalties for different types of wound, but as players become familiar with the tables, the tension upon hearing that your character has been wounded is intensified by knowing that any damage could be fatal, and even a minor wound may be painful enough to load your character with penalties.
The damage system that appeals to you should reflect your style of play. In a heroic (GURPS ‘Cinematic’) setting, where players are set up on by hordes of lesser foes and must fight through to do battle with the Big Bad Guy, you do not really want to have the characters arrive at the throne room with a collection of wounds that is slowing them to a snails’ pace and meaning they can hardly hold their weapons. On the other hand, a lot of tension and suspense can be built up around a seemingly minor injury. Put a spear/bullet/laser beam through a characters’ chest, missing most of the vital organs but leaving them immobile for several days (D&D: 5 points of damage, no penalties. 2020: 17-20 pts. Mortal wound, -4 REF, bedridden. I.C.E.: +10 hits, 6 hits/rnd, -20 to activity, stunned 4 rnds.) and throw challenges at them thick and fast! With a setting where combat is rare, it is usual to have a simple but deadly system, such as Cthulu, where your hits drop away until you reach 0, and then you die. You've been unconscious from 2 pts, with an average of 10-11 total, and a revolver doing 2d6 damage. One decent shot and you're history.
Of course, all of the systems are open to adjustment and the addition of ‘house rules’. The best examples of this are RoleMaster, which started life as an alternative combat system for existing games and has now become one of the best selling systems (and rightly so !), and my present CyberPunk campaign using the White Wolf rules system. These two are also good examples of the difference in general systems. RM. uses a 1-100 (Ability) system (sort of), with many ways of gaining +2, +3, +5 bonuses, giving a wide range of ability. WW uses a 1-5 (Attribute) + 1-5 (Ability), where a few minor differences will not affect the mechanics at all. I particularly like this for a C-Punk setting, where a character may spend double the stated price for a piece of equipment, to make sure it is the latest release by the most fashionable Corporation. RM. might well give the equipment a +5 bonus, but WW would not, and The C-Punk Way is to go for the image rather than bothering to look through for the most bonuses:
‘This gun is the best, just look at it !’.
So, on a closing note, find a system that seems to suit you, don't be afraid of changing it to match your needs, and above all else, don't give Gary Gygax any more money!