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...

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

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

Doing what? What was the activity or skill you were using? Simple movement? At NTC, did I roll Catastrophic Failure while shooting at the OPFOR on my Small Arms (Rifle) skill?

I guess this is where GM's judgement comes in, but there are no real rules for it.

[simonmark6]

God as GM decided that you needed a straight roll against Agility for riding on top of a moving vehicle without any specific restraints to prevent you falling off. When you rolled, despite the positive modifiers that God gave you for a straight forward task, you came up a 20 when you rolled.

[pmulcahy11b]

Yeah, but I'm an atheist...

[kcdusk]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Yeah, but I'm an atheist...

Thats God telling you to switch up.

Back on topic, i think your talking about the encounter table calling for a random event on the GMs random event table. You could just as easily dropped your secondary weapon without knowing or made a loud sound ...

[Legbreaker]

Lets just skip all the rubbish and go straight to the results.
In an April Dragon magazine many years ago there was a "Wandering Damage Matrix" with just that in mind - forget about encounters, just roll percentile and apply damage.
My favourite result was "cut yourself shaving - loose a limb".

[natehale1971]

Dying isn't easy... anyone who thinks it is, should come have a talk with me. 23 July 2008 i was in a car accident that cut off both of my legs, collapsed my left lung, broke my left shoulder blade, broke every rib on the left side of my chest... i died on the operating table that day for 40+ minutes. When i got out of the operating room i was awake for about half and hour before i slipped into a 10 day coma. During the coma i kept stop breathing... trying to slip away in my sleep. My parents had the put me on life support. I died on the operating table two more times on 26 July 2008.

When i awoke from the coma, my so-called wife called from the UK and said, "I love you.. just get well enough to get on a plane to get home to me and the boys, and everything will be alright."

the nurses had said that just minutes before that call, I just laid there.. and didn't do a damn thing. But the moment that phone call was over, it was like a switch had been flipped. I reached up to the trapeze bar and pulled myself completely off the bed with my right arm. One of the only two limbs that I had that wasn't screwed up. All the different drugs they gave me caused me to go crazy and forget who i was, where i was, or who my own mother was. When ever a female tried to touch me (inculding my mother) i would scream at her "Don't touch me you bitch, I'm married!" it was right after that, that the nurses treated me like my shit was made of solid gold. namely because they hoped that if their husband was in my situation... they'd have said the same thing.

The doctor's said it'd be a year to two before i'd be ready to start walking again... or be able to get on a plane. My mother was telling everyone she believed i would just stay in the wheelchair and give up. But I didn't. I fought to learn to walk again... i was on parallel bars by mid Sept. 2008, started on crutches by mid-October 2008. And was released on 19 November 2008, only to find an email saying "i want a divorce."

There are days I really wished they would have let me slip away in my sleep... namely when i miss my sons... or when I am so incredibly alone in this apartment by myself.

Force of will allows someone to push past the pain, and do amazing things... and i'm proof of it. Or could be, that I am just to damn stupid to laydown and die...

What do you guys think?

[Sanjuro]

Well done on pulling through that Nate; I hope the strength you showed then keeps you going now.
On a lighter note... can anyone tell me where to find a chiropractor in the Free City of Krakow?

[Legbreaker]

Those sort of injuries in T2K will get a character DEAD. With the extreme lack of facilities and supplies, there's no coming back from it, even with the best possible doctors and nurses left breathing on the face of the planet. How strange it seems though that some players still seem to believe they can be combat effective with a similar level of physical abuse inflicted upon their characters...

[natehale1971]

actually in my campaign there was a chiropractor and acupunturist in the Free City... they were a former PRC diplomat who found themselves stuck in Poland when the ballon went up.

[Tombot]

Injuries... oh yeah.. special topic to every RPG-Game.
Never understood why a lot of gamers try to downplay that topic so much.
Most gamers i know here in germany prefer the cinematic-thing.
You know.. like "if it doesnt kill you instantly, its just another scratch".
Its just some fluff to them.
I dont do that. I was influenced by some of the better westerns, or other, historical adventure-books/movies , where a bullet (or a car-crash) can mean instant death to anyone, any second. And where people have to deal with difficulties of healing, transporting injured people, and all that.

Even "light" injuries are not supposed to be ignored. A superficial wound maybe, yes. But a light wound should actually mean that one arm/leg could be non-functioning, while the rest of your body is working "all right".
But even that is quite a hindrance. A broken forearm (even if its not your "good" one, for most people the right one) is a real problem.
Even if you have painkillers.

The players in my games learned to worship their medics, cause their diagnosis-rolls give them an idea of what happend to them in terms of attribute-reduction.
If they dont have one of them around, they dont even know, how much damage they took - i just describe ´em the results.

I think this is a major part of any convincing, dramatic RPG (i dont use the term "realistic" - RPG`s are never realistic).
Thats why my players are tending to look for other solutions than combat, when they have a choice. Combat is killing and crippling people. Even the ones with injuries, which get not infected, or have just a light wound - it always take some time to be able, to act normal again.

Last time my players shot some marauders down, which suddenly appeared in their camp at dawn. Afterwards, one of them was still alive, but his right hand was totally crushed from a shotgun-round.
They took the crippled right hand off.
It was a bloody scene. They managed to save his life.
Oh man, THAT was dramatic... (they even had some pity for their former attacker - they are playing as some decent people wandering the wastelands).

[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.

[natehale1971]

thanks Targan... ijust don'tknow if it's toughness or stupidity that's keepi me aroud.... especially since i can't find any female who'd be willing to look past all that and take a chane on being with me. it's been really... lonely.

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Targan

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

What he said.

One of my favorite TV shows has been "Firefly." While injuries didn't carry over from episode to episode, you can see people who are hurt, acting like they are HURT (primarily Captain Mal)-- moving gingerly, taking it easy.

In the easy-squeezey system of Savage Worlds (I've been talking about it a lot, I know), PCs can take 3 Wounds before passing out, but each one applies a -1 modifier to all die rolls. Levels of Fatigue also apply the same modifiers, and a referee is advised that minor injuries (like falling down a slope, but not really breaking anything) should be counted as Fatigue.

[natehale1971]

sometimes i think it wasn't being to tough to die... but being to stupid to just give in and die.

the fatgiue value modifiers would be something good to use.. in our campaign one of our characters was injuried during the break out... and while they switched out their main character to one who wasn't lmited... they did keep them as a secondary character who provided support for the campaign (their non-combat skills were used alot, and they ended up getting good as a sniper and support weapons gunner)... and their injury was pretty tame. a bullet that went through the meat on his thigh. the classic flesh wound form movies... but he really played it right.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by natehale1971

actually in my campaign there was a chiropractor and acupunturist in the Free City... they were a former PRC diplomat who found themselves stuck in Poland when the ballon went up.

One of the most creative characters I've seen was a Japanese Motocross rider who was in Poland for a competition, then got stuck there when the war popped. She wasn't much on combat skills, but know a lot about first aid, and she still had her motorcycle and made a damn fine scout, as well as mechanic.

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

One of the most creative characters I've seen was a Japanese Motocross rider who was in Poland for a competition, then got stuck there when the war popped. She wasn't much on combat skills, but know a lot about first aid, and she still had her motorcycle and made a damn fine scout, as well as mechanic.

Now that's pretty interesting!

our most intersting PC was a adult model (the only porn she did was girl/girl) who got drafted under her real name. she was pretty interesting, she had gone to college and had a Russian Lit degree, she was fluent in Russian (read/write and spoke it with a convincing Russian accdent), UKrainian (spoke it as a native since her grandparents who raised her where Ukrainains), Polish, German and Finnish.

She was an enlisted intelligence specialist (interrogation and interpretor) who really, really hated the Soviets (goes back to her grandparents who told her about Holodomor that had killed their parents and siblings along with 10 million other Ukranians by starvation). Her interrogation technique would make Jack Bauer exclaim... "Holy shit bitch, you got issues"