Let's Talk About Health, Damage, Wounds, Death and Related Mechanics

[Reynard]

The system I was thinking of had some sort of HP/Stamina pool depleted by damage, but if the damage in any particular attack was over some threshold, then a consequence would also occur. But if that is the case, what happens if you somehow manage to loose all your Stamina without ever taking a consequence?

 

[Thomas Shey]

The system I was thinking of had some sort of HP/Stamina pool depleted by damage, but if the damage in any particular attack was over some threshold, then a consequence would also occur. But if that is the case, what happens if you somehow manage to loose all your Stamina without ever taking a consequence?

You've either bled out or shocked out depending on your design preference. Either of those can end up putting someone down without much interim effect. Arguably they do so more commonly than other things (of course normally they aren't necessarily dependent on just accumulated wounds, though those can certainly increase the chance.).

 

[Kannik]

As usual, a big part the system to use/ depends on the tone, genre, and intent of the game. HP works great for me in D&D (which I consider it's own genre), but something much harsher would be warranted for something like a Twilight 2000 game. Though I don't think I would ever go to the level of (false) precision of something like Phoenix Command and it's 63ish hit locations...

For many of my high-adventure type games, I've really been liking the balance of Cortex Prime's Stress mod with a single Stress track. As the character suffers violence, fatigue, mental hardship, psychic blasts, and etc, they accumulate Stress (tracked by a die rating between d4/d6 up to a d12). As this Stress die can be added to an opposition pool, it has immediate impact (though note that the way the dice system works, while a high Stress die is noticeable and significant, it also isn't so harsh that it guarantees PC failure). If Stress is pushed beyond d12, then the PC is Taken Out (they are out of the scene) and they gain a d6 Trauma die based on what took them out. Next scene, the Stress is removed but the Trauma die remains, and as with Stress that Trauma die can be added to the opposition pool. And while Stress typically will automatically step down some amount after each scene or downtime, Trauma requires active treatment and is therefore more lasting. Additional Trauma gained of the same type steps up the Trauma die, and if a Trauma die goes over d12, the PC is beyond help and is out of the campaign (dead, mentally broken, etc).

For our group this is a nice sweet spot that provides for a meaningful downside of incurring hardship (vs the 100%/0% binary of something like Hit Points) without becoming too harsh of a death spiral, both because Stress recovers easily but also because being pushed over Stress only removes the PC from the scene and doesn't "kill" the character. It's also easy to resolve and to keep track of.

Cortex also has open-ended and situational consequences that can be applied for things that aren't as all-encompassing as Stress. (And when they apply, they are mechanically handled in the same manner as Stress.)

Putting aside Cortex's specific way of doing it, that's the kind of system I find works best for many of our campaign types. Legend in the Mist (with its Tags and Tracks), FitD (with its Stress/Harm/Trauma -- bit harsher but it often fits the tone), FATE (with its Stress/Consequences), these all fit in the same mold. For my Star Wars game (which is using my own system) I've currently got it set as a series of Stress tracks with specific Condition levels (and much like Stress/Trauma, Stress recovers easily but the Conditions require active care).

 

[MacDhomnuill]

While I have enjoyed D&D style hit point games with critical hits and death mechanics, i've been leaning much more towards simpler systems. I find as ive aged, I just prefer less accounting, which is odd to say as a Battletech player.

Speaking of Battletech, the RPG has always been a mess. I was looking at the Classic Battletech injury table. During battle in a mech a pilot can take 6 total hits before being killed. An injury happens when the mech is struck in the head location, falls and pilot fails a check, ammo explodes, etc.. I was thinking that when a mechwarrior is out of a mech, why doesnt it work the same? Get punched/stabbed/shot, its 1 injury. Make a check to see if the PC goes down, or keeps going. When they get 6 hits dead. Simple, easy peasy.

As a fellow BattleTech player, I often asked the same question myself. Especially becausecar wars of Steve Jackson Games fame had drivers/gunner having three hits, in the vehicle or out.

 

[MacDhomnuill]

For most fantastical games I think low number HP and conditions work well, but in my heart I know that Harn Master with its impairment and middle ground injury detail is the best system for me. For those unfamiliar with harm masters combat system, it works as in a contested role with multiple outcomes, not unsimilar to basic role-playing. The type of weapon you use combined with how successful your role was modified by hit location and worn armor gives you the injury/impairment value which then works as a penalty for all skill and attribute rolls and at a certain point kills you. The system has lingering injuries too, its meant to be very realistic with out the massive number of role master tables

 

[Reynard]

You've either bled out or shocked out depending on your design preference. Either of those can end up putting someone down without much interim effect. Arguably they do so more commonly than other things (of course normally they aren't necessarily dependent on just accumulated wounds, though those can certainly increase the chance.).

Maybe it would be good to have a "dropped to zero stamina" specific consequence?

 

[SableWyvern]

Very true, but absolutely irrelevant to the conversation about consequences feeding plot in play to find out RPGs.


Sure, not sure why you are bringing it up in response to play-to-find-out RPGs. Natural consequences of play exist in all RPGs and don't have anything to do with consequences generated mechanically.


Yes, you are running a traditional GM style RPG. Which again, isn't germane to the conversation.

Your experiences, and the types of RPGs you run, are not some universal constant that there cannot be other types of games that espouse other GMing styles.


And yet you seem to be pushing again RPGs that have rules and resultant playstyles that provide mechanical support for exactly what you claim to enjoy. Everything you describe still exists in play to find out RPGs, and in addition there is mechanical support for twists and turns in your emergent story.

Your post seemed, to me, to be saying (among other things) that there a subset of people playing traditional games, specifically, who fail to recognise the value of consequences or include consequences that affect the direction the story takes. My point was that any game can include consequences and any game can make good use of consequences. In addition, players of any sort of game can fail to make use of consequences in a way that has meaningful long-term impact on the nature of the game.

Having reread your post after a good night's rest, I can see I may have read it a little harshly. However, by opening by stating that "some who play mostly traditional games are missing," and then going on to describe how consequences are useful, you seem, to me, to be implying that there is something special about people who play your style of game that enables them to make better use of consequences than others.

It is my personal experience that consequences in Blades in the Dark were mostly ephemeral, impacting in the moment but not long-term; while in the most dramatic and impactful consequences have occurred in traditional games. That is not in any way to say that my experience is universal -- things happened that way because of the way we ran and played those games, and how much I've played them, nothing more, nothing less; we could just as easily have more signifcant, long-term consequences in Blades. But, at the end of the day, my central point is this: The sorts of games you refer to as "play to find out" games make no meaningful use of consequences that doesn't happen in traditional games driven by "emergent play". But, of course, if you weren't meaning to imply otherwise, my post is, indeed, unnecessary.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Maybe it would be good to have a "dropped to zero stamina" specific consequence?

Oh, yeah, you could definitely do it both ways. Its just that's going to be a particularly strong one, so you have to keep it in mind when comparing to others.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Torg's damage system was interesting.
To determine the effect of an attack, you compare the damage to the target's toughness (modified by armor). Depending on the difference, you get a certain amount of shock damage, wounds and possibly a K or an O result.
If you have 4 wounds or more, you're dead/defeated and might die. Every wound causes a -1 penalty to rolls, up to a max of -4.
Wounds represent real physical damage, shock represents fatigue.
If you have too much shock damage (I think equal or higher than your toughness) you were also effectively unable to act (not sure if you were deemed unconcious or just couldn't act?). If you got a K when you already had a K you got extra 2 shock, and the same for O, but if you got a K an an O, you would be knocked out.
Torg Eternity apparently did away with K and O, they didn't have that much impact, by the time you accumulated both a K and an O result, you probably also had enough shock to be dropped unconcious. I still think it's an interesting concept to take note off because it means there could be additional "consequences" besides exhaustion and damage.
Torg characters have possibilities they can use to grant them an advantage, IIRC, one possibility allowed you to take away e "packets" of damage, a packet either being 2 shock, 1 K or O, or 1 wound.

At least before Eternity, the dice result of your attack was also the result added to your damage roll. That lead to "glass jaw" Ninjas, because they would dodge most attacks, but if the enemy has a result good enough to hit, the resulting damage would be massive, too. Also, the "shock troopers" commonly employed by some villains in the setting tended to be "shocked to defeat" beause they were easy to hit but had good armor. That has an interesting interaction with the drama deck initiative system, because a potential result during turn is "inspiration" for one side of the battle, which removes all shock damage. So suddenly all the shock troopers you knocked out so far could come back into play. (Of course, such good results for the villains is usually reserved for the dramatic fights, in standard fights the heroes are more likely to get it.)

*) Torg uses a d20 roll as basis, but you reroll 10s and 20s and add the results, and the final value is then compared to a table to get your effective result,then added to your skill. And with possibilties you can reroll dice, and with cards from the drama deck you can get additional bonuses, too. So the effect of a +1/-1 modififer isn't quite straightfoward.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

One thing I have been toying with for damage systems is to get rid of the notion of strict "cumulative" damage. As it is right now in many hit point systems, the best thing to do is really to focus fire as hard as you can to get rid of however many points you need to take away to take out that enemy.
But hey, some persons survive 18 gunshots, others die from a single one, the loser of a knife battle dies on the street, the winner dies in the ambulance. So what if it wasn't cumulative?

So, basic setup: A Character has currently x current wound value, and takes y wounds from an attack. a is now the higher value of them both, and b is the lower value.
Character's damage is now at least a.
If (b < 1/2a): +0 wound (either the new wound is a much severe injury, or the existing wounds is so severe that a bit of extra injury doesn't make the difference)
if (b >= 1/2a): +1 wounds (the new wounds and the existing injuries are severe enough that both together make things worse).

The "neat" thing is that now you could "model" a salvo of a dozens of bullets hitting, and it wouldn't be suddenly 12 times more powerful than a single shot, which can be a real issue when trying to deal with firearms and damage, because you quickly go into overkill territory and it becomes impossible to balance (and trying to model how many bullets could really hit in a 12 shot-salvo is its own can of worns).
You could still track how many "hits" you took seperately, if you wanted, though I am not sure yet what to do with that.

Such a model would be combined with some system of injury penalties (death spiral), but the result is that you benefit from spreading damage around and cause many target's some injury penalty because knocking them out directly by focused fire alone isn't going to happen. But maybe such a system would need to be combined with something boost your attacks so you could make "kill shots", because accumulating damage isn't going to win you the fight. Or a morale system that you don't end up with a bunch of mooks whiffing around with injury penalties.