I've got a pulpy adventure rpg in the works.

And with the development, I've hit a snag and would like some external input and thoughts. I'll try to be verbose without dumping the whole mess in front of you.

The problem I have is with weapon damage and wounds. I like wound levels instead of hit points and am trying to work that out. Characters have five attributes, one being toughness which I want to use for damage comparison. The attributes are ranked from 1 to 10 and there is no superhuman levels implied with the ranking.

My initial impulse was to use my roll of the die also be expressed as number of successes. Example: Player X hits Player Q in the nose. X's die roll was eight and the skill ranks were +4. So with a roll of 12, Player Q's Defense of 9 doesn't protect him. Player X now has three points of success.

Okay. Along with that first impulse was to give every weapon a chart. I cringed and said no, but worked at it anyway. Every weapon has four levels of damage. A fist would be like 1,2,3,4 and a gun would be like 1,4,8,12 or something.

My thoughts were that maybe with that small chart the action would be faster and no additional die roll would be needed.

So my questions are these:
Would preset damage be a bad idea? Why?
Anyone opposed to the idea? Why?
What are the pros and cons?

Honestly, my brain has been hurting lately. I've worked at the system for a few weeks straight, trying hard to keep focused on it, and this is escaping me right now. I do need a break, but want to finish this small part soon. But I also doubt everything I write, so I'm asking someone else. Any hints or pointing to a good direction is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Eric

okay, i created a game that used both wound levels and preset damage levels on weapons for a cyberpunk-y scifi game and all of my players were into it. you have to remember that it might not emulate the kind of pulp feel that you are aiming for. after all, there is Buck Rogers-style pulp and there is Spider-style pulp. In Buck, no one really got hurt all that much. The Spider was vicious bastard though and killed people left and right, and he was beat up a couple of times as well, if memory serves.

so, anyway, back to the thing. in my game, there were a number of wound thresholds represtnting the type of damage hat could be done, like Light, Moderate, Severe, Massive and Lethatl (or something like that). Each ahad a number assigned to it that was gotten from doing some math with the character's Will and Physique Stat. Each wound threshold also had a corresponding number of points lost from a total vitality pool that the character had. If a character ever lost all of his vitality points or had taken a mortal wound, they died.

(What i tried to do with the mechanic was show what kinds of wounds were being dealt out to each character and to have them take their effect on that character, each piling on top of each other until finally the character couldn't take it anymore and collapsed from the wounds. or, in other words, i wanted combat to be violent and bloody, so i used this to enourage players to see the kinds of damage that wthey were doing and taking.)

When ever a person was hit, he would multiply (ugh) the damage of the weapon by the number of successes differenve between the winner and the loser. I made this easier by having charts for the weapons with x0, x1, x2, x3 and so on. Characters then compared that number to their wound thresholds and, whichever level the damage rating was higher than or equal to was the one that the character took.

for instance: Joe is shooting at Aaron. let us assume that Joe hits, whatever mechanic may be used, and has a Margin of Success of Two. Joe's gun has a damage rating of seven, which, when multiplied by two, means a 14 point wound. Aaron compares that to his wound thresholds and sees that the highest level that the wound meets or beats is a Moderate. thus, Aaron checks off one moderate wound on his character sheet and loses so many points of vitality from his pool.

personally, in the game that i ran that, seems to me anyway, has a similair approach to damage and weapons as your game does, i had a lot of fun with the system. i would also suggest not going that route. anything with the "pulp" tag on it i would think would want to be as math light as possible. i would suggest looking at Heroquest for an alternative to hit points that isn't wound levels. it's probably the best way to go if you want to have a game of high adventure and not want to bother with what exactly a nine millimetre round with mercury tips can do to a man. lots of numbers and wound thresholds just encourage that kind of game play.

sorry that this sounds a little ragged and all over the place, but it's late and i'm tired. g'night!

laters,

-m

TheRedSoup wrote: I've got a pulpy adventure rpg in the works.
...
Honestly, my brain has been hurting lately. I've worked at the system for a few weeks straight, trying hard to keep focused on it, and this is escaping me right now. I do need a break, but want to finish this small part soon. But I also doubt everything I write, so I'm asking someone else. Any hints or pointing to a good direction is much appreciated.

I was trying not to post the entirety of the game here like so many others, just the meat of the matter. Maybe I needed to post more.

The small weapon chart was just an idea to keep the speed of the game going and not add in another die roll. The quick sample chart I created went a little like this:

Weapon Then have 1-2 successes, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8. Under each success column show the amount of damage that did.

Fist 1 2 3 4
Knife 1 2 4 6
Pistol 1 3 6 9

I thought this would make it quick. So the question was does this have any cons? If there was I didn't think of any. And wanted another view.

Should I post more of the mechanic? Would that help?
It's a d10 added with skill levels 1-5. Some characters can roll more than one d10 in hopes of getting a higher number. But they only keep a single d10. If you roll more dice and two or more are successful rolls then you get bonuses to the one roll you keep.

I don't know if that makes it better.

Eric

I'm not sure if this will help, but here's what I did with InertiaX. Like you, I preferred wound levels. I happen to use minor, moderate, deep, and severe. But I don't have a set damage for the weapons. I use a dice comparison system and power rating.

For example, say a 9mm pistol has a damage rating of 4, and a .44 has a damage rating of 7. A DR or 4 gives you a d6 for a master dice and 2d20 for compare dice. A DR of 7 gives you a d8 for a master dice and 2d12 for compare dice.

After you've determined that you've hit your target, you roll your master dice and compare dice. If the result on the master dice is higher than both of the compare dice (don't add the compare dice), then you inflicted a minor wound. If your master dice is equal to or in between either of the compare dice, then you've inflicted a moderate wound. If you master dice is lower than both numbers on the compare dice, then you've inflicted a deep wound.

There are a couple of ways to inflict a severe wound. One is to have scored a critical hit, while aiming is another. But there are other ways as well.

As people get better skilled at a weapon, not only does their chance to hit increase, but the damage rating of the weapon increases as well. A highly skilled marksman will score deep and severe hits much more frequently with the same weapon than a novice would.

That's an idea. Maybe it's too many rolls for my system but the jist is workable. I'll think about that for sure.

Eric

Aw, jeez! I'd have to say that for a pulp adventure system, the first idea (the originator of this post) is about the best because it is the simplest. It's actually a pretty good damage model, too (a paperclip could be like 0,0,1,4... 4 damage levels would be in the hands of a deadly assassin ;))

Of course, the only problem you have is that there are only 4 success levels. I don't know if you'd like to stick with this for simplicity's sake or expand. Just be careful, or you'll end up with a set of ridiculously completionist Rolemaster-style tables.

But anyway, to say that a punch and a bullet can do the same amount of damage if its only a grazing shot, but a well-applied punch simply cannot cause as much damage as a well-aimed bullet, is pretty realistic.

Four success levels should be enough. I'm needing to playtest it of course, but it looks okay. The rolls won't be much more than eight points over the target number to begin with, so no need for much higher.

I did think about a fifth one for 9+, but we'll see about that.