>From: "Stephen McGinness" <stephenmcg_at_...>
>
>simon_hibbs wrote:
> > I also think wound sshould be cumulative, i.e. there should be a
> > single 'Wounded' rating. The main reason is that if you take a bad
> > wound, if subsequent injuries don't add to the rating they only
> > augment. That means subsequent wounds are only penalising you at
> > 1/10th the rate the original wound did, so once you've taken a
> > wound later wounds aren't that big a deal any more.
>
>Hmmm. It does depend on how much book-keeping you want to do. As
>you pointed out earlier a variety of wounds would not just apply to
>general activity as a 'Wounded' category would do but would hinder
>particular abilities by giving them higher resistances.
>
>I can see the attraction of the single wounded rating but I could
>also see that the it might simply be the biggest wound you have taken
>augmented by any others...thus later wounds aren't a big deal unless
>they are worse than the previous one.
God I'm dim. The answer is right there in front of us. David pointed out
that the "double augment" is a problematic thing. Well, why isn't it
problematic in normal play? Why don't we use them stacked in that
inefficient manner? Because you can apply them separately. Just like Hurts,
which I keep saying are like abbreviations for wounds.
My character is hurt in the following ways:
Leg Laceration 8
Bleeding 7
Fatigued 17
Dizzy 12
These could all be applied separately. That's a total of -5 in penalties.
One from each, and two from the fatigue. Basically, they add if they should
add, just like any other augments. So, if I'm testing my arm strength, I
probably wouldn't get the penalty from the Leg Laceration. Why is that now
so obvious, when it wasn't before?
Now, if the Contest was to get rid of the Bleeding after the fight, I'd use
Bleeding as the primary resistance, Augmented by the Fatigue for a total
resistance of 9.
> > Other factors such as disease and poison should have their won
> > ratings though, so a Scorpion Man's poison could augment the wounds
> > he inficted, etc.
>
>This would be a good way to get that element of colour into special
>attack such as a scorpion man's poison into the narrative. If the
>scorpion man attacked with his sting and got a major success you
>might strip the character of AP bid and give them a poisoned flaw at
>the AP bid (or the rating of the poison??) rather than stripping 2x
>AP.
>
>The poison could then work against the poisoned character for the
>rest of the combat - and after.
Poison sounds like an Extended Contest to me. Poison vs. Hardy or some such
Ability. Simple. I love the idea that a sting in combat could give the
character a Poisoned Ability which he'd have to fight against over time. In
the current combat, the Poison rating would be a negative Augment to that
Contest. I might even run the fight and the poisoning contests concurrently
under some circumstances.
BTW, I really like the idea of a character fighting against his own
Abilities. Put another way, the GM has part ownership of a character's
Flaws, and can make them resistances against which the character can have to
fight. So if my character is wounded, we all agree that this makes a cool
contest for healing. But what I really like to see in play is the GM set up
my Curious 5W (actual character) against my character's Canny 18 or
something. As losing a contest limits the loser, in these cases my character
is limited from ignoring whatever it was that fired up his curiosity.
With the proper consideration (the GM shouldn't use these to force things
all the time), these can be some of the most interesting conflicts in the
game.
Have I mentioned how much I like this system? :-)
Sorry for the tangent, maybe that's another post. The other big question yet
to be discussed is the fact that players don't often use these rules as
they, as Simon put it (IIRC), distract from the overall goal. Well, there
are a few ways to look at this:
- The most important thing is that it is, in theory, a valid tactic. That
is, one would think that the penalties to the target's abilty to attack and
resist would be a balanced incentive. Perhaps they're not. If you feel
that's the case, then maybe you need to incentivize their use more. You
could, for instance, double the rating of the new stat from the AP. So 8 AP
would be a 16 wound, and not an 8. At some point, a balance can be reached,
in theory that incentivizes the use of the tactic. OTOH, I really don't like
this because it ruins the simplicity and symetry of the system.
- I think that it's mostly a GM prerogative. Instead of the player saying
that they want to do this or that with the points, the GM should look at the
declared action and break things up as he sees fit. If the player causes a
20 AP loss to the character on a "Sword swipe intended to make the guy lose
ground", then the GM can rule that it's a 5 AP Graze, and 15 AP of loss to
his pool for position. The problem I see with this is that it's the GM being
arbitrary with the player's result. One could come up with a system to
determine breakdown, but that would add complexity. It also might lead to
players making declarations like "I'm maneuvering for position" intending to
make wounding unlikely. So, if you want to make it a player prerogative:
- For results against the PCs, the player could be allowed (as I think
Simon was implying) to take AP losses to the pool as Wounds instead. Make
what happens on failure, the PCs choice. This has no downside. It means that
it the player doesn't want to fail, he can, instead, take on further
conflict in the form of wounds that have to be healed, etc. GM would
determine the nature of the wound, but the player would make the decision.
I'd be tempted to allow them to split losses into wounds and straight AP
loss, but that might lend itself to gamey solutions (I can see people always
going to 1 AP before losing). You might have to make this an all or nothing
choice.
- It's a dramatic tool for the GM in any case. Let's say that a character
is in a bind, and has recieved AP losses that would put him under. But too
soon in the extended conflict for it to be dramatic. Or you just want to
string it out some. Well, in that case when declaring the attack that would
otherwise put the character under or just bring him low, have the NPC make
the (possibly tactically unsound) decision to wound instead of remove AP.
This is classic villain stuff. I can see the villain now making a "Gloat"
roll over the PC on his kiester. Might result in an Embarrasment Ability for
the PC. Which the PC might actually be able to turn on the NPC right
therafter. In any case, you can draw things out and make for more conflict
(like I mentioned above) by applying wounds as the GM instead of AP loss.
Thoughts?
Mike
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