I think I was trying to get at the same thing you were but I don't think I expressed it very well at all (I was in a hurry to finish typing so I could get to our Thursday night HQ game). Basically, if an injury is more severe, it has a higher Resistance and will tend to make higher AP bids. Similar types of injuries will perform similar "actions" (just the sort of thing Roderick suggests above, which is what I was failing to get to), but they will be different magnitudes of a similar action.
So, for example:
Shallow cut 14 - will ooze blood and probably make small AP bids
Deep gash 5W - will get blood all over the healer's hands and make moderate
bids
Severed artery 5W2 - will spurt blood all over the walls and camera lens and
make big bids
> >For example, Oddi the Unlucky has taken a severe mauling from a bear.
> >His injuries are recorded as:
> >
> >Broken Arm 17
> >Nasty Gashes 5W
> >Fractured Skull 20W
>
> No, he comes in "All messed up, that bear dang near killed him"
Well, I tell the players: "He's all messed up..." What I write down in my super-secret detailed GM notes is the real deal. ;)
> Doctor makes his initial diagnosis
<snip>
This is just the sort of thing that might be happening in the first exchange of the contest. Of course, if it's something that seems blatantly obvious ("A broo just hit Oddi with an axe!"*) someone might just dive into action without a diagnosis. Which gives the opportunity for the GM to pull a bait and switch if they do it once too often.
> Now wounds "attack" - you can:
<much snippage>
Good stuff! Some of the events here could happen as the the result of a dice roll, too, instead of being an AP bid that the injury/disease takes. It works both ways.
Some of the outside interference stuff, like:
> Involve Onlooker ("Get her OUT of here, nurse")
> Family Drama ("Doctor, your ex-wife's lawyer is on line 3")
I would probably include as separate actors, if the contest was pre-planned. One of the things I wanted to add to the end of the original post (but ran out of time) was a "Non-Surgical Complications" sort of section dealing with the sort of wackiness that tends to happen around treatment tables in ER and the like. Interfering relatives, more patients coming in who need attention, axe wielding maniacs bashing the door down...
> I'd suggest making Diagnosis a Unrelated action - make it a simple contest
> and don't bid AP. Successes might not just point out the problems, they
> might even give you bonuses to abilities ("Oh, *here's* the problem, a
> simple cut here will relieve the pressure") (I'd do that for maybe Major &
> Complete victories) Defeats of course make it more difficult - I'd assign
> the typical penalties from the contest results - ie, a major defeat at
> Diagnosis would inflict a -50% penalty (at least until a new diagnosis is
> successful). This is like looking around in combat - you're not actively
> fixing the problem, you're trying to *find* the problem.
That's workable, though I prefer to avoid unrelated actions in the middle of contests when I can. Another way of dealing with diagnosis, to add to the several we already have, is to treat it as an augment to whatever healing ability you're going to use.
> On the other hand, you *can* simply include it as part of the extended
> contest with an AP bid - but then you might just "diagnose him back to
> health" - ("My Diagnose is 10w2, but my surgical skills are only 17. I'll
> just keep using Diagnose with big AP bids until I win...")
I can think of a couple of ways around this:
Regards,
Bruce
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