Action vs. Danger vs. Character complexity

[Shreyas Sampat]

Refutation of premise is a form of engagement in argument.

In response to your question, I was posing that question to you to give you something to think about; you sounded like you were designing a game, and so I responded like someone would who was talking to someone designing a game.

As for your original post, it seems to me that the way one resolves these three conflicting forces (as you describe them) is to remove one or more of the forces from play.

I will assume that you don't want to remove #3 and discuss only the alternative options:

In Four, I am exploring removing #1.  The game is all about interesting and complex social behavior, not risk to life and limb.  You can probably kill someone by stabbing them with a knife - but there aren't rules for it because that's not what the story is about.

In Torchbearer, I eliminated #2.  As in Alyria, a player has to choose to kill his character (or sometimes, to allow his character to die), because that isn't the story we're interested in; the story we care about is the story of a character's life.

Different games resolve this apparent conflict by unbalancing the factors to different extremes.

[Jason Lee]

The threat of character incapacitation provides the same tension as the threat of character death without the permanent loss.  If you get knocked out you're still open to being kidnapped, imprisoned, experimented on, killed or whatever other goal inspired the violence.  If the opponents don't have any reason for the violence, then there is indeed nothing to worry about.  Other than random encounters, when does that happen?  The bad guys jut beat on you until you fall over and move on?

The question is:  Do you want characters to die?

If so, if this is an acceptable loss condition, then I think you have to live without #3 (original post).  Barring some sort of mechanic that postpones a character's death until they are suitably interesting.

I not, then why have rules that state 'The character dies if...' (running out of health levels, for example).  That would be contrary to the goal of 'characters not dying.'

[Callan S.]

Sorry about the delay in my follow through on this thread.  I plan on going through and replying to posts where replies are helpful.

I wanted to say that I've been considering adopting an alternate "hit points" system where there are only three wound levels, battered (bruised, scratched, nicked), wounded and dead/on death's door.

After all, what other states or levels are dramatically important?

To the PC, none. No person or PC wants to be on deaths door.

However, to the player, if he (edit: I mean the PC he runs) can't die, he can't experience the visceral thrill of being in a role who is about to face death.

And no, I'm not saying the latter is a must have of game design. But RPG's do have their share of sensualism (as in all senses. I don't mean sex), and facing death (as a player) seems to be a popular one.

[Robert Bohl]

So, Noon, do you think that a three-tiered wounding system is a good idea?  Maybe this is better for a different thread.

[Judd]

So, Noon, do you think that a three-tiered wounding system is a good idea?  Maybe this is better for a different thread.

Rob, it feels like one more thing to keep track of in an already rule-heavy, number-crunchy game.  If you think it will increase drama, go for iit, but I'm not sure it is going to help overall.

[Robert Bohl]

So, Noon, do you think that a three-tiered wounding system is a good idea?  Maybe this is better for a different thread.

Rob, it feels like one more thing to keep track of in an already rule-heavy, number-crunchy game.  If you think it will increase drama, go for iit, but I'm not sure it is going to help overall.

But I'd consider it to be a replacement for whatever wound-tracking system is currently in use, not an addition.

[Callan S.]

So, Noon, do you think that a three-tiered wounding system is a good idea?  Maybe this is better for a different thread.

Yes and sorta yes.

Personally I'd add a gamist level. Every time they would normally be taken below 'at deaths door' and killed, I'd give them a 'You should be dead' point (okay, name it something else). The gamist ideal is to collect the least or (the holy grail, none!) in a campaign. Big braggin rights stuff.

But it occurs to me that you can do this in D&D. Simply port in D20 moderns massive damage rule. In that a guy with 50 HP could take 15 damage, fail his massive damage check and suddenly be at -1 (make it full on death instead of -1, or whatever suits you, if you want). If you don't know about this rule, I can chase up its place in the SRD if you want.

You can mix that with the 'you should be dead' points as well.

[Mark Johnson]

RobNJ,

This thead has drifted severely off course.  And that may be somewhat my fault, my post was a tad snarky.  I am sorry for that.  Old habits die hard.

I do think that your idea for a new thread is a good one.  Rather than responding to posts individually with a one sentence response about this rather general topic, you might try to develop a unified thesis or a playable game that demonstrates the concepts that you are talking about here.  Then continue to incorporate other people's ideas and continue to develop the ideas.  I actually have some sense that you are doing that, but it is probably not as explicit as it could be if you start a new thread from scratch with a more defined goal.  

Talk Soon,
Mark

[Gordon C. Landis]

[Edit - I also wanted to add to John - yup, I didn't mean to imply that there is NO problem here - just that it's not NECCESSARILY a problem.  Novel etc. stuff can sometimes be applied to RPGs, but the fit is not always great, nor to everyone's taste]

Hi Rob -

Up front and during play - got ya.  That's important.

I think you've mentioned two different problems here - the first is the "t's important to me that it's credible to players that a guy with a knife can kill you," and the second is the "I don't have a problem with preturnaturally deadly heroes, I have a problem with heroes who never have anything to worry about."  The second can be solved by the "Ancient Wyrm" route - the heroes do have something to worry about (in terms of survival) when faced with the appropriate adversity.  But with the first, if anyone with a dagger can kill your PC - and folks with a dagger and the will to poke it at said PCs are common - that kinda takes over everything in the game.

And ultimately, you have to decide - is that what I want?  Will you and your players (disregard the PCs for the moment) get the most enjoyment out of facing that survival challenge at every moment, worrying about your skill as players keeping the PC alive?  Or would you rather develop the interesting/complex PC/story, and appreciate that (in several possible ways)?

Because you CANNOT maximize all three of your initial variables - something has got to give.  All three can be there in some way, but not in their ultimate, purest form.

Gordon

PS#1-Within d20, there are many ways to mitigate the "mere guy with a dagger can't hurt me" problem.  Make him a Rogue with some serious Sneak Attack damage.  Use the Massive Damage rules.  Change (as you suggest) Hit Points to just three would levels. And etc.  Still, if what you as players (I include the GM as a "player" for use here) focus on is the flat survival or death of the PCs, you're focusing on that - NOT the other stuff.
PS#2-(for the GNS-savvy) Yup, I'm making parallels here with GNS - it may be that Rob's issues can be summed up as "how can I play Gamist and also play Sim/Nar?"  Or "how can I play Sim and also play Game/Nar?"  To which the answer is, in the pure sense for all of Game/Sim/Nar, you can't.

[Callan S.]

That post reminds me of the old saying about speed, quality and quantity. You can only choose two. It sort of applies here in a different, but similar way.

[Robert Bohl]

I should probably say that I consider #1 not to even really be worth discussing.  It's sort of a given, almost.

So that leaves me with a tension between #2 and #3.  I'm not convinced that there's no way to overcome this.  Unfortunately I don't know what the answer is.  I don't suppose any PCs need to actually die, they just need to understand that death is easy, so that they respect it.

[Callan S.]

Well, there's systematically implimenting it and there's theatrically implimenting it. Have you tried talking with them?

In fact if they can't do it theatrically they'd probably be stumped even if the system implimented it.

[M. J. Young]

By the way, Rob, is NJ where you live, or is it coincidentally your initials, or something else? Just wondered if we were neighbors.

I wanted to say that I've been considering adopting an alternate "hit points" system where there are only three wound levels, battered (bruised, scratched, nicked), wounded and dead/on death's door.

After all, what other states or levels are dramatically important?

I'm going to call your attention to an article by Charles Franklin entitled Hitting Them Where It Hurts, in the first issue of The Way, the Truth, and the Dice. Franklin is a retired marine who has studied the reports and knows the real combat statistics; he's created a wound system (adapted for GURPS, but presented generally enough that you could adapt it to anything) which reflects these levels of injury. (I really ought to bookmark this or something--I'm often citing it, particularly on this board.) You'll find it at http://www.mindspring.com/~ernestm/wt&d/issue1/htwih1.html. It accounts for levels of injury and most frequent hit locations, based on real-world data over the past century or so, if I recall correctly. You might find it useful in the pursuit of a wounds level system.

Regarding your other problem,

It's important to me that it's credible to players that a guy with a knife can kill you. Think of D&D (put away the torches!). Almost anyone can come at you with a dagger and you're not going to be that worried.

Actually, I mean, whenever my players say, "There's no way they can kill me," that's an example of my worries.

The 15th level fighter who sleeps without fear in a tavern full of smalltime cutpurses because even if they coup de grace him there's no chance he'll die.

I think I can help.

Multiverser uses a system which includes within it 1) that someone more skilled with a weapon has a better chance of doing more damage and 2) that someone more skilled with a weapon has a greater range of potential damage that he can do.

To illustrate with the dagger example, a dagger is a damaging weapon, which means it does 1-5 damage at the base; the typical character can take about 15 damage, player characters a bit more, but only extraordinary characters can take more than twenty--and it's tough to get that, if that's your objective. The amateur user with ordinary abilities in a moderate tech world has about a 45% chance of hitting, and that means he can't do the maximum damage--only about three intensities maximum. However, someone who is a professional with the dagger gets a damage category bonus, putting him in the 1-10 damage range, and simultaneously increases his chance to hit to somewhere closer to 60%, in all likelihood--which means he can get six or seven damage max out of it. Someone with high attributes giving him an extraordinary (but humanly possible) strike value has done the same thing, and if that is combined with professional skill, the two damage categories push the weapon into the 1-20 range, and the chance of success is probably near 80%, meaning that damages of 16 are possible. Get the skill into the expert range, and you're above 90% on your chance to hit, plus you get damage points--which can push you to a minimum of 3 on the damage, up to perhaps 21 or 22. It is possible to have a chance to hit in excess of 100%, even without superhuman abilities, and push a dagger to the point that it does 5 to 24 damage.

The character cannot know that one of the people present does not have that level of ability.

Additionally, there are learnable combat maneuvers which can incapacitate or kill if successful; they are difficult to perform (in the sense that doing so costs the character some advantage), but there are many variations of these.

As far as the fighter sleeping in the room full of cutpurses, I seem to recall a rule in OAD&D that stated that any incapacitated character could be killed by any character in a single round. The fighter who is asleep, at least in that version of the game, really only has one hit point for practical purposes, and the hit is automatic, unless he awakens.

Of course, I'm an old OAD&D hack, so I know these things--that's probably a frequently overlooked rule.

Hope that helps.

--M. J. Young

[Robert Bohl]

By the way, Rob, is NJ where you live, or is it coincidentally your initials, or something else? Just wondered if we were neighbors.

Yup, I live in New Brunswick, NJ.

And thanks for the pointer to Multiverser.  I'll check it out.