Bleeding

[kenjib]

Here's an arm removed, just as you described, with a doctor's opinion on it, from recent news:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/11/02/shark.attack.ap/index.html

Doctors at Wilcox Memorial Hospital said Bethany's top condition as a competitive athlete helped her survive the attack.

"It was a very clean amputation," Dr. David Rovinsky said.

Hamilton's background in competitive surfing helped her survive, he said.

"This is a woman who is a highly trained athlete, and because of that she's able to handle a huge blood loss really well," Rovinsky said.

[Loki]

Excuse me if I'm rehashing an old point, but it doesn't make any sense to me why someone with a better Health (HT) would bleed to death slower than someone with a lower HT.

If this is an old point and established consensus on this, forgive me for jumping armed with nothing more than uninformed opinions, scant medical knowledge and to make matters worse, a newbie's understanding of the rules. But hey, this is the internet, if I can't shoot my mouth off here, all I've got left is the subway. ;)

Now that I've established my credentials... while it's true that people probably bleed to death in roughly the same time, surely there are some mitigating factors. For instance, the amount of blood. A small person bleeds to death faster than a large one, all else being equal. Also, some hearts might crap out when they have 50% blood loss, while others might hang in there with less. Seems to me that some attribute or combination thereof is a good placeholder for a real-life situation that's going to be difficult to test empirically (except for the most hard-core, committed gamers).

[Durgil]

Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to insult anyone with the initial part of my last post.  I know that there have been discussions in the past about blood loss, which I never really had any interest in for some reason until now and didn't read.  I wrote what I did just incase my opinions had already been discussed and thrown out earlier.

A small person bleeds to death faster than a large one, all else being equal.

But all else wouldn't be equal.  It is true that a larger creature should have more blood, but they must inturn have a larger and stronger heart to circulate all of that blood and require more blood to continue pumping.  The times may very, but I seriously doubt if it is in any way linear (i.e. I'm 50% bigger so it takes me 50% longer to bleed to death with the exact same wound).  Also, the levels of wounds do not vary with the size of the creature, therefore a level 4 wound to a 5'6" man is actually smaller than a level 4 wound done to a giant because the way those wounds are described are exactly the same.  The game merely makes it much harder to deliver a level 4 wound to a giant through the mechanism of giving the giant a much higher TO.

Also, some hearts might crap out when they have 50% blood loss, while others might hang in there with less. Seems to me that some attribute or combination thereof is a good placeholder for a real-life situation that's going to be difficult to test empirically (except for the most hard-core, committed gamers).

I think I can see your point here, especially after reading kenjib's post about the athlete who managed to survive because of the kind of shape her body was in.  I think your statement helps explain how her being in top shape helped stave off death.

[Mike Holmes]

Essentially, nobody dies from blood loss.

In fact, to be really precise, death means brain death. So, for that to occur, oxygenated blood must stop reaching the brain. For that to happen, there must either be no blood at all, or something else happens. Nobody ever bleeds out entirely (well, not unless their strung up for that purpose like a deer carcass). As blood pressure drops bleeding slows to the point where the blood just pools. The question is almost always at what point does the pressure in the system drop so low that the person bleeding goes into cardiac arest (as Salamander noted).

This usually happens as a result of the patient going into shock or at some point thereafter. Shock is an odd condition in that the body, in an "attempt" to keep the blood from leaving it ironically, expands the blood vessels suddenly making the system much larger in terms of volume (it's actually quite a complex process). This causes blood pressure to plummet, making cardiac arest much more likely.

At that point, the brain is still probably bathed in blood, but without oxygen in it. Thats when brain death typically occurs. So it's precisely a healthy resistance to going into shock and other cardiac fitness that determines how long you have to live in a case like this. It's also why psychology is important in treating bleeding victims, as shock is dramatically affected by biofeedback (things like lots of adrenaline make shock much more likely to occur). The Will stat should actually have a significant effect because of this. This is also why part of treating a patient to prevent shock is just to talk to them and calm them down.

I have the best credentials in the world for this - game designer. Have any idea how much research I put into learning stuff like that? :-)

Mike

[Durgil]

That is really damn good Mike.  Now, the question I have is do the current rules catch the spirit of all of that research, or is there some changes that could be made to reflect that reality in the spirit of TRoS?  When you have such a realistic combat RPG, I think that the very realistic result of bleeding (both internally and externally) should be realistic as well.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not so sure. That is, does this sort of detail actually enhance play? The point is that the rules as they stand do fine in making some gross approximations. As such, I don't know that you really need more detail. Especially because, once a character has bled out enough, they're as good as dead in such a setting. There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

Now, if we were doing a game about Paramedics or something....

Mike

[Loki]

I'm not so sure. That is, does this sort of detail actually enhance play? The point is that the rules as they stand do fine in making some gross approximations. As such, I don't know that you really need more detail. Especially because, once a character has bled out enough, they're as good as dead in such a setting. There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

Well said.

Now, if we were doing a game about Paramedics or something....

The Riddle of Gauze? :)

[Ithron]

There are no IVs or blood transfusions. Nobody knows CPR. Once unconscious, and bled heavily, I think that pretty much they'd leave you for a goner. For practical purposes, that's dead in a fantasy environment.

I've only got the QS rules atm (book's ordered), but I see no reason why a caster who'd seen deaths from bleeding to a cardiac arest couldn't or wouldn't do something similar to CPR or a blood transfusion or whatever.

Ithron

[Brian Leybourne]

I've only got the QS rules atm (book's ordered), but I see no reason why a caster who'd seen deaths from bleeding to a cardiac arest couldn't or wouldn't do something similar to CPR or a blood transfusion or whatever.

That's reasonable, but he would have to really like/love the wounded person. Sorcerers in TROS are very selfish when it comes to their magic, since it ages them.

Hell, even telling your companions that you are a sorcerer is an exercise in overwhelming trust, given the extreme magic prejudice and mageophobia most people in Weyrth have.

Brian.

[Callan S.]

but its hardly a complete mechanic

[rant]
Complete.  I hate it when people start tossing Complete and Incomplete around.

A game is incomplete when it is missing some piece of information that is necessary to play.  If a game is missing necessary information than it can't be played...if it can be played, than obviously that piece of information is not necessary.

A game is complete when there is enough information provided to play and enjoy it.

*snip*

I think what is enough information to play is a subjective thing.

Besides, play is a different matter from math. If you don't know value X in 5 + X, then you can't do the equation. Play is different, as the GM can guestimate what X is. Perhaps I should have said mechanically incomplete. Surely it is mechanically incomplete? (And I'm not complaining...bleeding to death is too dull a death, IMO, to have too solid a mechanic suggested by the book)

[Callan S.]

Essentially, nobody dies from blood loss.
*snip*

Suffocation, then? :)