Injuries

[kcdusk]

I bought T2K when it first came out. I loved the idea of the post-apoc setting. Looking back, there were two big items i misunderstood.

#1 was the first mission, Escape ... your on your own. I made up a travelling party (from the front cover), rolled for vehciles, read the "Escape" handout, looked at the map, planned an escape, and basically was overwhelmed by how-i-was-going-to-kill-every-russian on the map! There were groups of hundreds of russians with tanks and APCs etc ... I just didnt understand how i was going to win the war on my own. As a youngan, that was my first misunderstanding.

My second misunderstanding was common injuries. I remember one of my first characters received a leg wound, a bad one. I couldnt believe my PC was now incapacitated! - From a mere leg wound?!

Sucking chest wound, head shot ... i understood my PC was in trouble. But the leg? Or an arm? How could an injury to those areas put me down.

Since first starting the game i've played contact sports, done lots of camping & hiking and generally grown up.

I now understand the aim of the game was never to kill every russian. And a 50cal wound to the leg is serious, even a stab wound is very serious. Stop for a minute and think about the humble steak knife you've just used to eat tea with ... think about stabbing gthat into your thigh, or between your ribs. Thats real pain. You have to get it out, if your on your back you might not be able to sit up, you certainly cant walk/run/think about returning fire ....

Point of the post was i have come along way in accepting how even simple, low level injuries will impact on a PC.

[Legbreaker]

And this simple fact is seriously overlooked/totally ignored in many games.
When you're injured, you're going to be handicapped in some way. Even something as simple as a sprained wrist will have significant impact on your ability to hold a weapon and accurately return fire. Make that a bullet hole in your forearm, even one received several days ago and treated in the best hospital by the best doctors, and each and every shot is still likely to send shockwaves of agony through the arm.

While it's understandable that it's "just a game", some realism needs to be there, or it just becomes yet another bunch of munckins running about with their BFGs/+10 swords blowing the crap out of T-90's and Hind gunships/Tiamat without significant risk.

[LVI]

Very valid point. Until a few years ago I was still playing football and as a offensive linemen. I remember one game I got the wind kicked outta me. Fuck me for about 2mins I thought I was gonna die. I just couldn't regain my breath. And that's minor to a gunshot wound. Probably closer to a concussion blast. And I was out for a few series afterwards until the trainer cleared me.

A few years ago my wife was in a serious car accident. She was blind sided in an intersection as the passenger of a left turning car. Well she had a broken collar bone, collapsed lung, broken ribs, a 6" gash on the back of her head, internal injuries plus more minor injuries all being 17 Weeks pregnant. Thank god she and my daughter made it. And just watching her immediate and long term recovery makes u realize the significance a injury to ur PC can have in his day to day actions.

[Adm.Lee]

Yep. That's the biggest single reason I suggest players have multiple characters. Once one gets hit, it may be a while before they'll want to walk point again.

[pmulcahy11b]

Here's something about injuries that I've never seen ANY game account for: those aws**t injuries that happen every so often. Like the time I fell off the top of a moving M577 when we got ambushed at NTC and I dislocated my shoulder and cracked three of my ribs. Immediately quite debilitating, but once the PA popped my shoulder back into socket and put me into a rib binder, I went back to my platoon and kept going (and now, much later, I am having lots of problems with that shoulder). Or you're running across a field at night to get into position, step in a hole and bammo, you have combination broken/sprained ankle that takes 6 months to fully heal, but you grit it out and keep going with much trouble. Or you're just breaking track, your hand slips, and you end up with a deep laceration on your hand (no that wasn't me, but in T2K that could lead to a fatal infection).

No one has ever seemed to come up with any way to account for that sort of thing.

[simonmark6]

Twilight does account for that, it's part of the Catastrophic failure rule, you rolled a 20 that day...

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Here's something about injuries that I've never seen ANY game account for: those aws**t injuries that happen every so often. Like the time I fell off the top of a moving M577 when we got ambushed at NTC and I dislocated my shoulder and cracked three of my ribs. Immediately quite debilitating, but once the PA popped my shoulder back into socket and put me into a rib binder, I went back to my platoon and kept going (and now, much later, I am having lots of problems with that shoulder). Or you're running across a field at night to get into position, step in a hole and bammo, you have combination broken/sprained ankle that takes 6 months to fully heal, but you grit it out and keep going with much trouble. Or you're just breaking track, your hand slips, and you end up with a deep laceration on your hand (no that wasn't me, but in T2K that could lead to a fatal infection).

No one has ever seemed to come up with any way to account for that sort of thing.

In my last campaign those sorts of injuries certainly occurred. And the game system handled them quite elegantly, often sparked by a critical failure on some skill or attribute check. For example the fall from the M577 could be the result of a critical failure on an initiative check at the start of the ambush and then a subsequent marginal or critical failure on a Climbing, Strength or Agility check. The broken/sprained ankle could be the result of a CF on a Running or Survival (Survival skill is used, among other things, for pathfinding in Gunmaster/Harnmaster) followed by a failure on a subsequent Agility check. Luck rolls and their levels of success or failure could also come into it.

And death from infection following serious injuries certainly occurred in my last campaign too. A replacement PC called "Tex" Walker (a member of B Troop in Dobrodzien who was recruited by Major Po) died from a streptococcus infection some weeks after being shot with several MG rounds, falling from the vehicle upon which he was manning the ring mounted weapon and having a leg run over by the vehicle following behind. There came a point where Major (and Doctor) Po told Tex that the available antibiotics were not working and he would soon die. As I recall, Tex's final request was that another PC cut out his heart after death and bury it in Texas.

Oh, and Nate - those are some gnarly scars. Congratulations for being too tough to die despite such brutal damage.