Narrative Damage

[Dave Blewer]

In an attempt to get away from some rampant metagaming that has been rife in our recent games I am introducing some measures to take us away from the number crunching that has been evident in our earlier games.

One idea I am toying with is keeping track of the PC's HP's and relate the effects of damage to them in a descriptive manner (Unknown Armies style).

The way I figure it the serious damage would only start to be inflicted when the PC's were down to their last 1/4 hps, bedfore then it would all be bruising and shallow cuts. Maybe some of the damage could even be described as loss of fatigue and exhaustion. Once those last quarter of HPs are entered then I can start the gruesome damage descriptions.

Anybody done this? What should I look out for?

 

[dkilgo]

Well, as far as I know, the rules don't cover explicit descriptions of damage incurred on the battlefield.

Also, I think that this might need to be on the House Rules forum.

 

[Dave Blewer]

Whoops, could one of the admins move it across for me?

Sorry

 

[hong]

Wouldn't it be KQQl to have a feat or spell that does damage to the BBEG's narrative? "Shut up with your gloating speech already, and eat 10d6 damage!"

 

[shilsen]

I've been considering doing the same. Varying the description depending on amount of hp left should work fine. For example:

Jakk the Fighter with 100 hp takes a 10 hp hit from an ogre's club. Description: "The ogre's club barely strikes you a glancing blow. You almost don't feel it."

Same situation, except Jakk has 50 hp. Description: "Your armor deflects the ogre's blow, but you can already feel the bruise it's going to leave."

As above, except Jakk has 15. Description: "The club smashes against your side, and you can feel a rib crack under the blow. Although you somehow manage to remain on your feet, you know you can't take another hit like that."

 

[Dave Blewer]

Yes, that was the kind of thing I was thinking about. Damage less than 10% for 100 hp+ characters could be just fatigue I suppose..

 

[dkilgo]

You coud describe as best to your ability, but try not to let the same descriptions seep into your game over and over. That would make the wounds start to sound a little monotinous.

 

[Dave Blewer]

This would be the biggest problem, yes

However, I hope that my 6 years of almost constant Feng Shui GMing would help me in this respect

 

[the Jester]

I do something like this with crits. I've added a 'colorful critical hit system' where the damage inflicted vs. your current hp indicates the severity of the crit, and you roll to see exactly what happened. This leads to maiming, broken bones, interesting scars and decapitation, but you only get maimed if you take enough damage (proportionally) and only get decapitated if the damage kills you.

 

[Dave Blewer]

Jester would you be willing to share this list?