Healing as extended contest ~ how?

[Harshax]

HQ suggests that one may treat healing wounds as an extended contest, by using the inverse (I assume) of the injury as the starting AP total, and a TN as determined by the severity of the wound.  I like this idea, but, in the case of impersonal/non-sentient forces, what does the opposing force bid during its turn?

I can imagine a physical wound's counterbid to be determined by mediating environment variables.  A "modern" clean hospital, with good staff, might make the lowest bid.  As the conditions worsened, the bid becomes determined, to all or nothing.  On the otherhand, I could see those environmental variables granting boni/penalty to the healer's TN number.

How would you handle it?

[soviet]

There is a very good thread on this exact subject here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HeroQuest-rules/message/15302

Mark

[Mike Holmes]

Yes, the AP would be equal to the resistance found on the chart that indicates the TNs for healing. So if the resistance for a particular wound is 5W, that's 25 AP.

I think those situational things you point out are, like your second guess, just bonuses or penalties. The "actions" taken by a condition should be like what you'd see watching a medical drama like "ER." Diseases are easy, because they are, in fact, beings that act. Diseases try to take over other systems, and spread throughout the body, eventually potentially killing a patient if not treated in some cases. Poisons travel the blood stream affecting more systems.

Less active seeming agents are harder, but not impossible either. For cuts and such, they bleed, and too much blood loss leads to shock and other complications. Broken bones can lead to blood clots and strokes potentially. Or simply heal up improperly.

Check out the thread for ideas. But the key is to think about a "goal" for the injury. If it helps, think of the injury as a spirit that's seeking to do more harm. What can it do next to do more harm?

Mike

[Harshax]

Hmm. . .

I think I'd be better off using environment conditions, and the severity of the wound to determine the bid, with DM fiat being reserved for good story purposes.  I'd rather that the healing process be primarily impersonal.  Ie.  You're being rained on, it's hot, sweaty, your bandages are dirty, and you have no clean water.  The wounds looks like it's starting to fester (determined bid 10AP).  This way, we (party and narrator alike) can point to precedent, and I can be absolved of mistreating my players.  >:(

Yes, the AP would be equal to the resistance found on the chart that indicates the TNs for healing. So if the resistance for a particular wound is 5W, that's 25 AP.

I think those situational things you point out are, like your second guess, just bonuses or penalties. The "actions" taken by a condition should be like what you'd see watching a medical drama like "ER." Diseases are easy, because they are, in fact, beings that act. Diseases try to take over other systems, and spread throughout the body, eventually potentially killing a patient if not treated in some cases. Poisons travel the blood stream affecting more systems.

Less active seeming agents are harder, but not impossible either. For cuts and such, they bleed, and too much blood loss leads to shock and other complications. Broken bones can lead to blood clots and strokes potentially. Or simply heal up improperly.

Check out the thread for ideas. But the key is to think about a "goal" for the injury. If it helps, think of the injury as a spirit that's seeking to do more harm. What can it do next to do more harm?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

"DM Fiat?" I have no idea what you're talking about here. I mean I know what fiat is, I just have no idea how it applies here. I don't see how what I'm proposing is any different than determining what a troll will do next, and what the AP bid is for that.

What prescedent are you citing here?

Mike

[Harshax]

All I'm saying is that I'm more comfortable with making bids for sentient beings as oppose to impersonal processes.  I came to this conclusion because you suggested I treat the injury as sentient (specifically a spirit that wants to do harm).  To me, injuries don't act, the body acts, infection acts, tiny micro-organisms act.  I find outlining a list of mitigating factors to be more appropriate for determining the bid of opponents when those opponents are non-sentient, such as a physical injury's resistance to being healed.

But more to the point, there most definitely is a difference between determining what a troll will do next and determining how resistant a wound is to healing.  Well, at least to me, there seems to be a clear difference.  Trolls do not have default responses to the environment (except perhaps, "to eat it"), whereas physical injuries have many predicatable responses to the environment, such as heat, cleanliness, and the presence of dead and or rotting tissue.

Since I do not believe that a "wound" is no more an active participant in a healing contest than my pencil is an active participant in staying put on my desk, I conclude (however sloppily) that the bid must be determined in a more structured fashion.  While diseases and infections "act", they are still non-sentient and incredibly simple (predictable) organisms.

Maybe I'm just looking at the same solution from a different angle than you are, but factors such as the cleanliness of the environment are better applied as a factor for determining the wound's bid vs. healing, as oppose to a boni/penalty to the healer's TN.  Since the wound has no will, there is little else to determine how much a wound will stay wounded other than factors such as those I described.

As to why I mention "DM fiat", please disregard.  It's a non-HQ related term for when a game master railroads the outcome of some contest.  I only asked about how to appropriately handle healing because I want to present a fair assessment of the contest.

Your mileage may vary.

"DM Fiat?" I have no idea what you're talking about here. I mean I know what fiat is, I just have no idea how it applies here. I don't see how what I'm proposing is any different than determining what a troll will do next, and what the AP bid is for that.

What prescedent are you citing here?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

You haven't told us why you feel like you do, or why you think it'll work better. You're just telling us how you feel.

If you're not interested in debating the merits of the methods, then why bother asking at all? Are you looking for advice, or just confirmation of your method?

Because if it works for you, go for it. What does it matter what I or anyone else thinks?

Mike

[Harshax]

Actually, I think I've been pretty clear on why I am choosing to do it the way I do.

I asked, not because I want to get into a debate; although I'm willing and have offered a few debateable points in my last post; but because I'd like to know how other people do it.  This is a new mechanic for me, a new way of thinking about the game, and I'm not always confident that I'm using the game in the best way, instead of falling back on my previous 20+ years experience playing RPGs with other mechanics.  I even asked, specifically, "How would you handle it" in my first post, and while you have presented some great advice, and I enjoy reading your posts, in this instance, I know that I don't want to handle it the way you suggested.

Please don't misinterpret my previous post as just "talking about how I feel".  I chose the wording of my post specifically because I worried that I may have offended you with my "DM fiat" response.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, I think I've been pretty clear on why I am choosing to do it the way I do.

Well I could paraphrase it, "I'm not comfortable with it, because I see a difference between active resistance, and passive resistance." Well, that's just a perception, and one that's not particularly supported in the rules. I'd posit that it is, in fact, just your past 20+ years of play leading you wrong.

But that's not to say that how you feel isn't important. I mean, if you can't get over this, then by all means, don't try to run such contests. But that would be my advice to you. That is, I have real trouble seeing why, if you're not comfortable with the idea of an injury or disease progressing it's course as AP bids, how changing situation would be any better.

In fact, it's quite problematic for play. Basically you're saying that by altering the situation, that the player can control the opposing AP bid. That's simply going to slow things down a lot without any really good outcome from those ends of the rounds.

What I'd suggest is that you're not seeing these situations as being "dramatically lengthy" enough to demand an extended contest. I've done healing as an extended contest precisely once in hundreds of sessions of play. In all the rest of the cases a simple contest has sufficed. I'd propose to you that in play looking at healing situations that you're going to feel this way looking at such contests. That only if you could see the disease or something as an active opponent with steps it might take that only then would you really be feeling that the contest merits an extended contest.

In practice in play, extended contests are pretty rare. So, largely, this thread may really be worrying about a situation that just won't come up very often.

It is indicative of a slightly more common case where extended contests are used. And that's generally where there's an "inactive" opponent. There's a thread somewhere way back here that discusses, for instance, an extended contest to climb a tower, and what the tower might throw at the PC in terms of "attacks." I'd suggest that you're missing out on a whole fun category here. But, again, when to do an extended contest is always a subjective matter anyhow.

Just as an interesting side note, if you're playing in Glorantha, then getting a disease actually means that you've been infested with a spirit that belongs to Malia, the Great Spirit of disease. So, in fact, there is an active being inside the character taking actions to kill him. It would be odd in Glorantha, at least, not to consider a disease an active opponent.

Mike

[sebastianz]

The thread Mike mentions is http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=8326.0. At least, it's my guess that it is.
Though I agree with Mike in principle, I see no reason why change of situation couldn't be used to base AP bids on. But like medicine, only in small amounts. As Mike points out, the environment can only change that often. So one needs to come up with something different the next round.
Let's take a look at heat as a factor. First, bacteria in the wound (or a disease/ wound spirit) might love heat. Well, it will probably allow a small bid only. But it could also remain as a penalty to the healer, as sweat runs in his eyes or it's difficult to keep instruments (and hands) sterile. In the next round, the wound will do something completely different, like breaking open again or causing spasms or  high fever ...
The goal is to provide fun, therefore all sources can be used to provide it.

Sebastian.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, interestingly with disease I think we're all talking about the same thing from a different perspective. That is, sure disease is opportunistic and goes after certain conditions. One can see this as the condition driving the action, or the disease taking advantage of the situation.

I'm certainly not saying that situation shouldn't play a part. But what I would say is that mechanically it's more interesting to have the disease moving be an AP bid, and the conditions that are causing it to have advantages be a bonus to their die roll. That way you're considering both the nature of the advancement of the disease, and the conditions.

Because, again, the player shouldn't have the ability to control the AP bid. But he does have the ability to alter the conditions to make for bonuses and penalties. So moviing a character to a clean environment doesn't mean that the disease won't try to progress a lot over the next 24 hours if that's how this disease presents. Just that it'll have a harder time actually getting anywhere in that time.

AP bids represent the amount of ground covered from start to achieving goals. Difficulty is represented in the TNs and bonuses and penalties to such.

Here's a thought. If you see injuries and diseases as "inactive" but want to measure progress, simply choose a "rate" like "5 AP every 4 hours" and just use that bid every time. Again, modifying it's rolls based on how hard the characters have made it's progress.

Mike

[sebastianz]

Just to clarify: I'm talking about using both methods. Usually, outside conditions will just be a simple modifier. But not always. I remember one episode of M.A.S.H. in particular. Several patients didn't recover, their conditions worsened. That was because of some dirt on the floor as they discovered. So they made it of concrete to keep it sterile. Here, they fight against an injury or a disease, but the killing blow (the final AP bid) was to make the floor of concrete. So, I say that the first few rounds were about discovering the source of the illness, examining the wound, treating it and the like. Here, outside conditions are probably only a modifier. But at one point, it's in the focus and a major bid is required of the players (in that case, their bid is based upon outside conditions). It's probably possible to take the stance of the illness and look how it would play out. For example, spreading from the ground in the wound. That's a major attack, so a high AP bid, coming not from the wound itself but from outside.
Perhaps it's best to just think of the opposition to treatment doing something and not this particular wound. Then many options become available and you can consider bacteria doing something or a spirit or just the world trying to stop you.

Sebastian.

[Doyce]

In my Firefly HQ game, I acutally did run a Healing check as an extended contest in the very fist session against the ship's medic.  The patient in question had been near an explosion and has suffered a lot of internal damage -- punctured lung, perforated whozzits, etc.

In that conflict, the actions went something like:

Player: "I examine him as well as I can with the tools at my disposal." (Small big.)
Me: "You can hear the kind of wet sucking sound that indicates a punctured lung, and it's being pressed flat by internal pressure: he's bleeding internally, and pretty badly. (Pretty big bid.)
Player: "'I have to operate on this man.' I'm going in, quickly and decisively, looking first for the source of the bleeding." (Big bid.)
Me: "The initial source of bleeding is readily apparent: a bone shard from the guy's lower rib did some pretty evident damage.  You get that clamped off and cleared, and you're looking at the lung damage when the guy starts shaking on the table and his heartbeat gets extremely erratic -- there must be another bleeder somewhere -- his BP is dropping like a stone." (HUGE bid.)

... and so forth.  It's really not that hard to get my head around -- I'd just watch some of the emergency surgery scenes from ER or something to get ideas for bids.

[Doyce]

Fighting a disease is pretty much the same thing -- I'd just stretch the contest out over days.

Me: The kid's mom brings him in for you to look at -- he's running a slight fever and his hands are kind of clammy. (small)
Them: I'm going to give him a shot of antibiotics, check to make sure there aren't any complications, that sort of thing. (small)

Me: Couple days later, the mom's back, without the kid: she says he's home, he's white as a sheet, sweating buckets and cold as ice, and doesn't seem to hear when anyone talks to him. (Huge bid.)
Them: Okay... I'm going to go there, obviously.  Check him over -- check for viral infection versus bacterial.  Also, I'm going to work to change the environment to help his body fight it -- lots of fluids, warm covers... in fact I'll bring some IV bags with me and get him hooked up to flush his system. (Medium.)

Et cetera.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, now I'm convinced we're all really talking about the same thing in most cases. I don't say either that the opponent need be the only opposing actor. That is, the dirty floor in the example, is a complication of the overall illness. I'd probably reassign an entire resistance to overcoming that particular problem. Just like a character changing abilities.

But that, again, messes with the TN. The AP bid still needs to look at how much ground is being covered, not how hard it is to cover said ground.

Mike