Question about the flavor of "Mortal Wounds"?

[David C]

First of all, my game uses a HP system.  However, if a character suddenly suffers serious damage, they gain what I call a "Mortal Wound."  Mortal Wounds cause the character to take damage every Diurnal Phase* until treated. It's possible to live several days after taking a mortal wound, without treatment.  With continual treatment, they can survive forever. Also, a character must suffer at least 1 "Mortal Wound" before they can die.  If a character suffers from 5 mortal wounds simultaneously, he will die.  Mortal Wounds take exceptional healing and resource sacrifice to treat. 

Now that you know all the mechanical/flavor effects of "Mortal Wounds" do you think they are inappropriately named?  My worry is that I'm using too strong of a descriptor (Mortal) to describe something that isn't necessarily fatal or critical.  Most characters will be accompanied by a healer, that while not necessarily (experienced) enough to remove the wound, will be able to keep them alive indefinitely until they can find a talented healer. 

Also, you can feel free to comment on the mechanic itself.

*Days are broken into 6 Diurnal Phases

[soundmasterj]

Bleeding or Open Wound?

So, is there no way to ever get rid of such a thing?

[Ron Edwards]

Given that healing is readily available, why bother with the wounds at all? Does taking such a serious hit remove a character from combat, or diminish their ability to fight so badly that it might as well?

In some other games with similar sudden/significant damage mechanics, such a hit is called a Takedown, Downed, or Out of the Fight. However, I'm not sure whether this applies to your game; it depends on whether the injury permits the character to keep fighting or not.

If he or she can keep fighting, then maybe Trauma (if you want a clinical feel) or Agony (if you want to go with the character's experience).

Best, Ron

[David C]

@sound

you can get rid of it, but it requires like a month of treatment, or a rare healer, like only one in a thousand. 

@ron

it diminishes their ability to fight severely. Effectively, it reduces their chance of success by -10% for each 'mortal wound.'  Of course, they die if they receive 5.   They can still fight, however. Every 4 hours, they take up to 8d6 damage from blood loss and trauma.  Characters have about 40 hp, so mortal wounds would take somebody who's at full health (unlikely, but possible) to death in about 7 hours. 

The way I imagined them were like, wounds that would open at the slightest agitation, that weren't clotting, that were internal bleeding, etc.  Combat is supposed to be a risk.

Healing in the world is a combination of actual healing techniques, combined with a trickle of magic to speed the process up.  To remove a mortal wound, it requires a character who's specialized in healing to achieve 70% of "maximum planned level" of character progression I've written.  It also requires a huge resource expenditure (they could remove perhaps 5 of them in a day, but then they'd be too fatigued to do any other healing.)  In comparison, a similar level mage could suddenly create a catapult from nothing, create a powerful undead warrior, or grow roots and vines to tear down a section of city wall.

[Marshall Burns]

Grievous wounds.  That's what I'd call 'em.  'Cause everything else is just a fleshwound, right?

[jag]

I'm partial to the underused "Grave Wound" myself.[1]  In this case it gives the appropriate balance between severity and possibility to live on and recover.  A mortal wound means that -- barring a miracle -- you won't be living much longer.

However, I'd ask what purpose this mechanic serves, and whether there might be another mechanic that serves the same and is more, well, fun.  Personally, i think it's a downer to get long-term and near-incurable "You suck now" effects, but I don't know the aim of the system in which it's embedded.

James
[1] "I'm afraid he suffered some grave wounds on the battlefield today -- we don't know if he will survive."

[Eero Tuovinen]

"Deep wound" is used by some games, but I think you're overthinking this - "Mortal Wound" is quite passable, and certainly that's how most of our fiction handles "mortal" wounds. It's an exception when heroes actually die of something that is "mortal". More importantly, though, I can't think of a game that would have been skuttled by minor flavour problems in their terminology.

If I had to change that to get some sleep at night, I'd probably focus on the permanency. "Permanent Injury" or some such would be pretty clear.

We've been talking about your game before, and this mechanic seems logical in that context, so this is looking good in that respect. If I understand you correctly, when you say that most heroes will be accompanied by healers most of the time, this is because the players choose to create a healer character, not because the setting provides NPCs as a matter of course to compensate for an overly-deadly combat system. It'll be interesting to see how you're going to make playing such a healer interesting; unless the adventures have lots of "save the princess from a mysterious illness" type turns, I'd rather take the "catapult from nothing" than being able to heal individual characters. The catapult at least has comedic potential.

[David C]

Yes, to the part about a player being a healer. Also, please keep in mind that while these wounds are extremely difficult to recover from, they aren't absolutely permanent.

Wow, I've gotten a lot of recommendations that I hadn't thought of before.  Just for personal reference, here they are: Grave Wound, Grievous Wound, Deep Wound, Permanent Wound, Open Wound.  (Bleeding Wound isn't on the list because I have a spell by a similar name.)  I feel like "Grievous Wound" flows off the tongue better than "Grave Wound", is this just my imagination?  These may be my top two choices, but I can't decide on either one right now.

I think part of the reason I feel less enthusiastic about mortal wound, is that you used to have less of them before you died (3.)  Play test sessions made me realize I had to increase it a few, because it was too easy for characters to get the six foot treatment during the normal course of a single battle.  Walking around with 4 mortal wounds, while you are extremely close to death, kind of feels ridiculous. (I keep thinking back to Frodo's ring wraith wound as the type of wound these represent.)

@ Jag
Mortal Wounds are to make players think twice about getting into any combat, especially at lower levels.  It also helps to tie in a mechanical "time to go home" effect, since they will probably have to travel to a capital city to have anything done about them. (Or take a several month long break and wait for it to heal "naturally" as a healer keeps them from going to the great beyond)  The best way to think about them is as a "spiral of diminishing resources", as the group healer will spend more of his healing resource keeping the group alive, therefore not being able to heal up very many "flesh wounds" each day.  Also, the characters are less effective, so they're going to suffer more from combat. 

I hope J reads this again, this post really exemplifies the gamist element.

Sorry if this is incoherent, I'm litterally shaking from a caffeine crash I was maintaining all day, that's now wearing off. Yay! Time for sleep.

[soundmasterj]

Dear god, don´t talk GNS to me, that always ends in tears.

I immediately thought that the wound was something to keep combat risky; I guess while field medicine cure "minor" wounds immediately after combat, these should remind the player that every combat brings the chance to die. They are designed, it seems, to be annoying.

Here´s another:
Severe wound.

I like "grave" and "grievous" the most. Another idea would be to go full color; categorize them somehow, but don´t note on the player sheet, "3 XXX wounds", but write down under the label "grave wounds": "3 crushed rips and a bleeding lung" and "cut triceps" and "shattered wrist", each representing one of these wounds. To me, if I actually have to imagine what my character looks and feels like, I´ll treat him a lot more carefull. Also, pretty much everybody loves gore.

"spiral of diminishing resources"

"Death spiral".

[David C]

I do like that J, I can see how players would be a lot more careful with their characters when they're focusing on what their characters are actually experiencing.  Also, it allows the GM to use a wound table, which I notice a lot of GMs and players both enjoy.

[soundmasterj]

Personally, I dislike those tables. Way I´m doing it in combat-heavy games is, when you attack, you narrate how and where. If you wound, the type and location of the wound depend on where and how you hit. I say, I aim for his head, if I kill him, it´s because I smash his skull in. If I merely nick him, I hit his ear or something. So if you got a wound from my attack on your head, you´d write "brain trauma" or "gapping neck wound". This also encourages narration on attacks.
On the other hand, yes, many people seem to like tables.

Also, you could just call these things "wounds"; everybody else is just a nick or a slight cut and you don´t care for it much.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi everyone,

I suggest that we focus on David's game and not get wrapped up in what any of us do or do not like in other games.

David, the reason people are flailing and falling back on their own preferences is that we have no idea what the basic color of your game is. Victorian adventure? Dark and smoky fantasy? Hot pink sex in the 1980s? That, ultimately, will be your best guide toward the terminology that will suit the mechanic.

Best, Ron

[David C]

Thank you, Ron.

Describing my game in terms of 'dark and smoky' or 'pulp' is difficult, since none of the genres seem to fit exactly.  However, I would venture to call it 'gritty' and it is definitely recognizable as 'fantasy.'  As far as the players I was describing as "Liking wound tables" I was referring to the players I enjoy gaming with, and are my target market.  Obviously, things like wound tables will depend on the audience. I would also like to mention that some tables can be perceived as fun by players, while other tables might be boring or cumbersome to the same players. 

Unless someone feels they have a great insight to the topic at hand (The flavor of "Mortal Wounds"), I'd like to consider this topic closed.  Anything else can be sent to me as a PM. Thank you, guys.

[Daniel B]

What's this about hot pink sex in the 1980's? I was a youngin' back then and had no idea of such things.

[Ron Edwards]

An idea presented by me only as a contrast to the usual RPG tropes for which the text claims realism for the rules. It's not a topic of discussion in and of itself, unless of course it were in fact the basis for a given game idea.

Best, Ron