Injuries

[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).

[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"