Broadly speaking, every traditional role-playing game has some sort of system for tracking the health and well-being of its characters. Classically, as in Dungeons & Dragons, these are expressed as Hit Points. Other systems such as Savage Worlds or Vampire: The Masquerade use some sort of qualitative wound mechanic. For the purposes of this article, which will compare the relative merits of each approach, we’ll call the former approach Tink-Tink-Boom (or TTB for short) and the latter the Death Spiral.
Regardless of the particular gloss, all systems with a damage mechanic fall into one of two categories: an attritional model (TTB) where you are fine until you aren’t (either falling unconscious or dying) or a system of gradual decay (Death Spiral) whereby accumulated wounds seriously impact your ability to function.
The biggest advantage of the TTB approach is simplicity. You (generally) have a bank of Hit Points. Things do damage to you that deplete that bank. When you hit zero Hit Points, you die. Some systems, like those derived from Basic Roleplaying such as Call of Cthulhu or King Arthur Pendragon, introduce a tripwire point that triggers unconsciousness prior to death—if your character takes enough damage to reduce them below that threshold, you simply pass out. Other systems, such as the Palladium Books family of games, Champions, or Dragon Heresy, break Hit Points into two categories representing mere shock or bruises on the one hand and life-threatening injuries on the other. (Often in these systems, characters have far more “shock” points than “vitality” points.)
These elaborations on the basic TTB system were presumably introduced in an effort to add a dash of “realism” to the mechanic, as that is the fundamental downside of the classic Hit Point arrangement: in real life, people who suffer repeated injuries tend to feel the effects well prior to expiring.
And thus the Death Spiral.
Whether as a result of wanting to treat injury more realistically or (somewhat paradoxically) to move the system in a more narratively-focused direction, qualitative wound categories have been around for decades. Early White Wolf games like Ars Magica and Vampire: The Masquerade helped pave the way with their hierarchical wound categories. More recent systems such as Apocalypse World and its many offshoots use variations on this approach as well, albeit often through ticking off boxes or filling in a track on the character sheet.
What these systems all have in common is that, as more boxes are ticked or wound categories are marked off, more and more penalties accrue. Perhaps in a dice pool system you lose dice out of your pool; in a system that relies on single dice rolls, you likely suffer a penalty to your roll. You might also suffer shock effects, lose actions, etc.
The point is: getting wounded slows you down and makes you a less effective fighter. It also tends to speed up your headlong rush towards the final curtain as the penalties accrue—hence the term “death spiral.”
Although there’s much to be said for the increased realism of this approach, it also must be said that it comes with an increased burden of modifiers and conditions to keep in mind. Although this may not weigh too heavily on a player’s shoulders, I can say from personal experience that keeping track of NPC wounds is often an onerous imposition for already-harried GM brains.
What do you say, gentle reader? Is the simplicity of the TTN system not worth the loss of realism? Is the Death Spiral too brutal, or is it grimly satisfying? And is that grim satisfaction worth the extra variables required of the players and GM to track?
On a final, personal note, this will be my last UGC article for EN World. It’s been a lot of fun writing these game theory articles, as well as the Storyteller’s Vault and Statosphere Roundups, and I’m looking forward to continuing to read the excellent output from UGC contributors both present and future!
This article was contributed by David Larkins (sirlarkins) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program.We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
Regardless of the particular gloss, all systems with a damage mechanic fall into one of two categories: an attritional model (TTB) where you are fine until you aren’t (either falling unconscious or dying) or a system of gradual decay (Death Spiral) whereby accumulated wounds seriously impact your ability to function.
The biggest advantage of the TTB approach is simplicity. You (generally) have a bank of Hit Points. Things do damage to you that deplete that bank. When you hit zero Hit Points, you die. Some systems, like those derived from Basic Roleplaying such as Call of Cthulhu or King Arthur Pendragon, introduce a tripwire point that triggers unconsciousness prior to death—if your character takes enough damage to reduce them below that threshold, you simply pass out. Other systems, such as the Palladium Books family of games, Champions, or Dragon Heresy, break Hit Points into two categories representing mere shock or bruises on the one hand and life-threatening injuries on the other. (Often in these systems, characters have far more “shock” points than “vitality” points.)
These elaborations on the basic TTB system were presumably introduced in an effort to add a dash of “realism” to the mechanic, as that is the fundamental downside of the classic Hit Point arrangement: in real life, people who suffer repeated injuries tend to feel the effects well prior to expiring.
And thus the Death Spiral.
Whether as a result of wanting to treat injury more realistically or (somewhat paradoxically) to move the system in a more narratively-focused direction, qualitative wound categories have been around for decades. Early White Wolf games like Ars Magica and Vampire: The Masquerade helped pave the way with their hierarchical wound categories. More recent systems such as Apocalypse World and its many offshoots use variations on this approach as well, albeit often through ticking off boxes or filling in a track on the character sheet.
What these systems all have in common is that, as more boxes are ticked or wound categories are marked off, more and more penalties accrue. Perhaps in a dice pool system you lose dice out of your pool; in a system that relies on single dice rolls, you likely suffer a penalty to your roll. You might also suffer shock effects, lose actions, etc.
The point is: getting wounded slows you down and makes you a less effective fighter. It also tends to speed up your headlong rush towards the final curtain as the penalties accrue—hence the term “death spiral.”
Although there’s much to be said for the increased realism of this approach, it also must be said that it comes with an increased burden of modifiers and conditions to keep in mind. Although this may not weigh too heavily on a player’s shoulders, I can say from personal experience that keeping track of NPC wounds is often an onerous imposition for already-harried GM brains.
What do you say, gentle reader? Is the simplicity of the TTN system not worth the loss of realism? Is the Death Spiral too brutal, or is it grimly satisfying? And is that grim satisfaction worth the extra variables required of the players and GM to track?
On a final, personal note, this will be my last UGC article for EN World. It’s been a lot of fun writing these game theory articles, as well as the Storyteller’s Vault and Statosphere Roundups, and I’m looking forward to continuing to read the excellent output from UGC contributors both present and future!
This article was contributed by David Larkins (sirlarkins) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program.We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
