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Decapitation and lethality in your game
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<blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7566378" data-attributes="member: 6775031"><p>In real life, the possibility of decapitation is low enough that I can stay invested in actually doing anything. You can bet that, if there was a 5% chance of losing my head whenever I got into a car, then I would spend a lot of time hiding in my bed.</p><p></p><p>Decapitation in games is a little bit more acceptable, but not by much. If I feel like anything I do has a chance of invalidating all of my previous work, then I'm unlikely to want to do anything. If I'm swinging an axe around, the chance of me cutting my own head off is significantly less than one percent. Even if someone is swinging an axe at me, as long as I'm wearing armor, the chance of decapitation is not high. Decapitation in combat is one of those unrealistic things, that happens in movies for dramatic effect. Basically, if you have a game mechanic to address such a thing, then you've already vastly over-estimated how often it should occur.</p><p></p><p>From a game design standpoint, incidental mechanics which bypass core mechanics are a bad thing. Critical hits which bypass armor are a bad design. Random decapitation which bypasses HP are a bad design. If you want an axe to have the possibility of killing someone outright, then you should work with the existing core mechanics, and make sure that the high end of the damage roll is sufficient to kill anyone you think should be vulnerable to insta-death.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Crimson Binome, post: 7566378, member: 6775031"] In real life, the possibility of decapitation is low enough that I can stay invested in actually doing anything. You can bet that, if there was a 5% chance of losing my head whenever I got into a car, then I would spend a lot of time hiding in my bed. Decapitation in games is a little bit more acceptable, but not by much. If I feel like anything I do has a chance of invalidating all of my previous work, then I'm unlikely to want to do anything. If I'm swinging an axe around, the chance of me cutting my own head off is significantly less than one percent. Even if someone is swinging an axe at me, as long as I'm wearing armor, the chance of decapitation is not high. Decapitation in combat is one of those unrealistic things, that happens in movies for dramatic effect. Basically, if you have a game mechanic to address such a thing, then you've already vastly over-estimated how often it should occur. From a game design standpoint, incidental mechanics which bypass core mechanics are a bad thing. Critical hits which bypass armor are a bad design. Random decapitation which bypasses HP are a bad design. If you want an axe to have the possibility of killing someone outright, then you should work with the existing core mechanics, and make sure that the high end of the damage roll is sufficient to kill anyone you think should be vulnerable to insta-death. [/QUOTE]
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