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hazardchris
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Location: Lexington, KY
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 Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 10:47 pm Post subject: GM tracking all player damage. |
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I was reading the Penny Arcade blog today, and the artist was talking about the D&D game he playing in and mentioned a technique that his DM is using -- namely that the players don't keep track of their HP. The DM describes the effect that the attack has (It glances off, his blade bites deep into your arm, ect.) rather than telling you how many hit points you loose.
I really like this idea, and while I'm sure it's not a wholly original concept, it's the first I've heard of it. I'm thinking of ways to adapt this to Star Wars D6. Obviously, this technique was designed with the Hit Point system in mind, not the D6 health system.
So, to cope with that, I'm considering ditching the negative die penalty in favor of a static negative in it's place. The easiest that I can think of is to just replace the -1D with a simple -4 or -3 to the skill/attribute roll.
Another possibility is to make some sort of ascending penalty that gets worse depending on your injury type. I'll sit down with it and run some numbers on it, but I want to know what The Pit thinks about the concept idea and any suggestions that you'd have for it.
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CRMcNeill
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Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: GM tracking all player damage. |
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| hazardchris wrote: | | Another possibility is to make some sort of ascending penalty that gets worse depending on your injury type. I'll sit down with it and run some numbers on it, but I want to know what The Pit thinks about the concept idea and any suggestions that you'd have for it. |
Maybe something like, say, rather than having actual Hit Points, your character could have a Strength rating that he rolls to resist damage, then compares the difference in the Strength roll to the damage inflicted and applies that difference to a chart that tells him how badly his character is inured? That does sound simple, but it's such a good idea that I bet someone has used it already. 
Seriously, though, I have seen some charts done already that combine the standard Wound chart with the hit location chart, applying additional penalties based on where you got hit (can't quite recall where at the moment). An example would be something like your character gets Wounded, and then rolls on the Wound Location chart and gets one of his arms. The character now has the standard -1D penalty to all actions (due to being in a lot of pain), plus an additional -1D to any actions taken with that arm.
Ultimately, a system like this is a good idea if you are into realistic gameplay, but it does add another level of complexity to an already complex situation. If you're interested, I'll see if I can dig up the chart for you (no promises), but personally I would just stick with the standard damage chart.
EDIT: And technically speaking, a random number from a dice roll is a more realistic representation of an injury, as some positions and uses will hurt more than others.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 5:01 am Post subject: |
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I have had fun in adnd games where the DM kept all the hp and damage totals.. Never seen it used in other systems.... Especially adnd is the only one i know where there are no penalties for various wounds..
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I have had fun in adnd games where the DM kept all the hp and damage totals.. Never seen it used in other systems.... Especially adnd is the only one i know where there are no penalties for various wounds.. |
I once played a Rifts game where the guy playing a Juicer allowed his character to stand there and take a point-blank shot in the forehead from a heavy revolver, all because he had over 300 hit points (or their Palladium equivalent).
SPLAT!
You should've heard him complaining about it. Literally for an hour, the entire time it took him to roll up another character.
He wasn't invited back.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Bren
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:21 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I have had fun in adnd games where the DM kept all the hp and damage totals.. Never seen it used in other systems.... Especially adnd is the only one i know where there are no penalties for various wounds.. |
We frequently do that by default in Call of Cthulhu. I have players that just aren't very good at tracking their damage. 
Back in the days of D&D many decades ago in the past century we did dual tracking. Players tracked, but the DM did as well. Lot o' trust in some of those games. 
We dual tracked in Runequest as well. The rules for when a limb was damaged, vs. incapped, vs. severed/destroyed was beyond the level of complexity that many of the players enjoyed so it helped if the GM tracked this. |
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garhkal
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | garhkal wrote: | | I have had fun in adnd games where the DM kept all the hp and damage totals.. Never seen it used in other systems.... Especially adnd is the only one i know where there are no penalties for various wounds.. |
I once played a Rifts game where the guy playing a Juicer allowed his character to stand there and take a point-blank shot in the forehead from a heavy revolver, all because he had over 300 hit points (or their Palladium equivalent).
SPLAT!
You should've heard him complaining about it. Literally for an hour, the entire time it took him to roll up another character.
He wasn't invited back. |
I believe the phrase for that around here is "RED MIST"... player wants to invite that type of stupidity on them, they suffer... Perhaps the bullet bypasses all their natural resistances...
| Quote: | We frequently do that by default in Call of Cthulhu. I have players that just aren't very good at tracking their damage.
Back in the days of D&D many decades ago in the past century we did dual tracking. Players tracked, but the DM did as well. Lot o' trust in some of those games.
We dual tracked in Runequest as well. The rules for when a limb was damaged, vs. incapped, vs. severed/destroyed was beyond the level of complexity that many of the players enjoyed so it helped if the GM tracked this. |
Easiest way i have seen was have everyone use poker chips. Blue - 10hp, Red - 5hp, White - 1hp, and if needed, Black - 25hp.
Take damage, remove those chips and toss them in a 'central cup'... siting near the DM's screen.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | I believe the phrase for that around here is "RED MIST"... player wants to invite that type of stupidity on them, they suffer... Perhaps the bullet bypasses all their natural resistances... |
Actually, Palladium has no mechanism for determining degree of damage, apart from lost points. Characters are given Hit Points and SDC points (Structural Damage Capacity), and I was never able to find a rule that clarified why you needed two different values. It would've made sense if they had clarified that SDC was strictly for lethal damage (like all the rest of the SDC rated inanimate objects in the game), while Hit Points were strictly for non-lethal things like Brawling or Stun damage, but I could never find a rule that clarified it. The only concession they made to realistic damage was an optional coup-de-gras rule, whereby a helpless character could be killed with one shot from a weapon fired at point blank range, even if that shot didn't do enough damage to knock out all of the character's HP and SDC.
With this guy playing the Juicer, he automatically assumed that his 300+ combined SDC and Hit Points would protect him from a headshot with a .44 Magnum revolver at point blank range. Ooops.
Unrealistic systems like that are the reason I gravitated towards a "pointless" damage system like D6. IMO, it is a better reflection of reality. I still have pdf copies of all the old Palladium and D&D books that use that system, but I use them almost entirely for references and ideas for SWU stuff these days.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:10 am Post subject: |
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Ah. so similar to rifts.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:21 am Post subject: |
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| garhkal wrote: | | Ah. so similar to rifts. |
Exactly the same, actually. Palladium produced Rifts along with Robotech, Heroes Unlimited, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Random Numbers
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 5:22 am Post subject: |
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I bought Rifts 1ed and liked it. I Also owned a copy of Gamma World. I'm sad to say I never tried them out.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:58 am Post subject: |
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| Random Numbers wrote: | | I bought Rifts 1ed and liked it. I Also owned a copy of Gamma World. I'm sad to say I never tried them out. |
I appreciate the Palladium system because it introduced me to roleplaying in general, but the system is basically a patchwork of concepts from other gaming systems folded together with a lot of gaping holes. Specifically, I have difficulty recognizing any RPG system that uses hit point as an accurate reflection of human reality.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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Random Numbers
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:15 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | Random Numbers wrote: | | I bought Rifts 1ed and liked it. I Also owned a copy of Gamma World. I'm sad to say I never tried them out. |
I appreciate the Palladium system because it introduced me to roleplaying in general, but the system is basically a patchwork of concepts from other gaming systems folded together with a lot of gaping holes. Specifically, I have difficulty recognizing any RPG system that uses hit point as an accurate reflection of human reality. |
I don't know about the system, I just liked the setting/story in general. Realistic hp systems aren't that high on my wanted list in a rpg by the way. Why do you consider the d6 hp system to be realistic? To me it's not.
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Bren
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:25 am Post subject: |
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| crmcneill wrote: | | I appreciate the Palladium system because it introduced me to roleplaying in general, but the system is basically a patchwork of concepts from other gaming systems folded together with a lot of gaping holes. Specifically, I have difficulty recognizing any RPG system that uses hit point as an accurate reflection of human reality. |
If I assume damage is not literally hacked tissue and blood loss, but mostly a somewhat gradual accumulation of bruises, minor nicks, and fatigue based on narrowly avoiding deadly blows, then hit points work. Big, tough, high CON, high level (in leveled system) characters can take more hits than their opposite. The simulation works even better if you include penalties for success as damage accumulates and some system for critical hits that do extra damage.
Obviously the SW D6 damage mechanic is more cinematic than realistic. Obvious case in point, hitting a 4D6 strength human with a 3D6 holdout blaster on average does absolutely no damage. Hitting a big beefy guy with .22 pistol bullet does not ever result in no damage. Hitting Bruce Willis (or action hero of your choice) with a 9mm bullet in an action movie barely inconveniences him or (if the plot demands) merely knocks him unconcious for now while delivering a picturesque scratch on the side or top of the head.
But that's OK with me, because I really want a cinematic not a realistic game. That's part of why I am ok with light sabers as a weapon and starfighters that go wooshing by while their laser cannon blasts make an audible sound when they miss. |
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Bren wrote: | | Obviously the SW D6 damage mechanic is more cinematic than realistic. Obvious case in point, hitting a 4D6 strength human with a 3D6 holdout blaster on average does absolutely no damage. Hitting a big beefy guy with .22 pistol bullet does not ever result in no damage. Hitting Bruce Willis (or action hero of your choice) with a 9mm bullet in an action movie barely inconveniences him or (if the plot demands) merely knocks him unconcious for now while delivering a picturesque scratch on the side or top of the head. |
If anything, the SW D6 system is more realistic than any points-based system for that very reason. Characters in point-based systems tend to gain hit points at a rate that quickly puts them out of range for most standard weaponry, as the weapons continue to inflict the same amount of damage as they did when the character is at first level, while the character at 10th level now has hit points in the low to mid hundreds (depending on what class you are playing), and can shrug off a blast from a Magnum revolver with the loss of a few dozen points. Not very realistic.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
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garhkal
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| Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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Yup. Take ADND for example. BY the base rules (no called shots, no crits), a person butt neked, who has earned say 3 levels of experience as a warrior with a 17 constitution can flat out shrug off a heavy crossbow bolt to the chest. I say shrug, cause even maxing the damage out is not going to drop him.
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