How to give fatigue points more meaning?

[Boge]

I don't believe I've ever had a character get dangerous on fatigue points. It rarely comes into play, and if it does, it's easily remedied with rest.

We've tried to implement Extra effort rules, but even with that, combat doesn't last long enough for 10 fatigue to become worrisome.

We don't play incredibly close attention to diet and sleep, but we do account for it if someone misses a night of sleeping. Otherwise, like I said, combat fatigue regenerates quickly enough to where it's not really a factor. Oh, none of us ever really touch on magic. We would only ever do that in a fantasy campaign, but I personally am not interested in magic usage.

I'm guessing there is something we're missing? How can we make fatigue more of a factor?

[Refplace]

The Last Gasp article in Pyramid has long term FP lost that might be what your looking for.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Boge

It rarely comes into play, and if it does, it's easily remedied with rest.

Personally, I'd say "easily remedied with rest" is the main issue. Remember, each FP requires 10 minutes of rest to recover. In an action-packed game, 10 minutes is a long time, particularly when it's 10 minutes of no walking around. Put some time pressure on the PCs, and you'll probably find that those lost FP feel a lot more precious. Particularly since, once you're down to below 1/3rd FP, your Move, Dodge, and ST are all halved. The halved ST in particular is kind of a double-whammy, since it means you're very likely much more encumbered than you were before, further reducing your Move, and heavy encumbrance will also mean any fight that goes on for very long will also drain even more FP from you.

[Tomsdad]

I'd also recommend Last Gasp

[weby]

In my current fantasy campaign FP are the main limiting feature. Characters are much more likely to be curtailed by being low on FP than being low of HP.

I use a different system than last gasp to do long term FP and allow extreme effort on a lot more things than is standard rules.

First extra effort: I allow it on any skill/attribute rolls with the rationale that someone like a student taking an important long test is definitely mentally fatigued after such and so on. In combat/stress the roll is against unmodified will and gives +2, outside such it is -1 to will for each +1 to rolls or +5% capacity.

Long term FP: any FP you get for pushing yourself takes at minimum 10 times(5 times with fit) as long as the pushing to recover. Thus FP for walking, normal labor, concentration and such recover at normal rates, but doing extra effort to push a 1 hour task takes 10(or 5) hours to recover that FP.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The halved ST in particular is kind of a double-whammy, since it means you're very likely much more encumbered than you were before, further reducing your Move, and heavy encumbrance will also mean any fight that goes on for very long will also drain even more FP from you.

Originally Posted by B421

Shock, afflictions, and many other things cantemporarily lower your
attributes. ST reductions affect the damage you inflict with muscle-
powered weapons. IQ penalties apply equally to Will and Per. However,
there are no other effects on secondary characteristics; for instance, ST,
DX, and HT reductions do not affect HP, Basic Speed, Basic Move, or
FP.

Originally Posted by B426

This
does not affect ST-based quantities,
such as HP and damage

Basic Lift is a ST-based quantity. If anything, reduction of BL seems even more antithetical to how these things are approached than the more linear derived numbers.

[Gollum]

I fully do agree with everything written above.

I would just add this: really take into account missed sleep hours. PC rarely miss a whole night of sleep, but they also rarely have a full 8 hours night of sleep during an adventure.

So take into account every missed hour and you will see how GURPS rules may be harsh about that: even if the first hours don't reduce the character 's abilities, they drastically reduce his total number of FP. He will get exhausted much faster... Which is realistic, after all.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Basic Lift is a ST-based quantity. If anything, reduction of BL seems even more antithetical to how these things are approached than the more linear derived numbers.

It maybe antithetical to how these things are approached, and it's certainly RAW in Campaigns that it doesn't, but does not doing it pass the reality sniff test?



Do you think you are as able to carry around and move as easily with heavy loads as well when you are knackered as you can when you are as fresh as a daisy? Especially as carrying and moving such loads may well be the thing that knackers you!


I don't know if you've ever done weights, but do you reckon you can maintain your reps while getting progressively more and more exhausted?


Do you think Boxers find it as easy to hit as hard when they're exhausted in the 10th round compared to when they come out fresh in the 1st?


Anyone done a 10+ man kumite think they find it as easy to punch their 10th opponent as hard as their 1st?


FWIW I can see not reducing HP (you don't become less massive, nor does the substance of your flesh become less resistant to trauma when you tire*).


But when it comes to expressing your ST yeah IMO being more and more exhausted effects it, so I penalise it. So for me that does include BL and ST based damage.

Last Gasp certainly specifies it effects BL & ST based damage (and as per above I agree), it also penalises DX & IQ based skills. Now obviously Last gasp is an optional extra set of rules in Pyramid and I doubt they were written with the desire to replace the Fatigue rules in Campaigns, just as an option for another way to go on the subject.


However all this is from a what's realistic POV, and if that's not a driving concern that yeah all bets are off!


One thing though I can see the game argument for not having a death spiral of fatigue based negative effects! It's just that in my games the players are aware of it and fight accordingly to avoid it, rather than threshing away at full speed until all foes are defeated.



*although I do use the penalised HT score for knockdown checks etc, as stressed system don't respond as well to such things as non stressed ones.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

It maybe antithetical to how these things are approached, and it's certainly RAW in Campaigns that it doesn't, but does not doing it pass the reality sniff test?

Jumping length calculation without some exponenetiation and at least basic trigonometry doesn't pass the reality sniff test, and yet 'we' use linear calculations of jump heights and breadths. Because to do otherwise would drastically reduce playability.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Jumping length calculation without some exponenetiation and at least basic trigonometry doesn't pass the reality sniff test, and yet 'we' use linear calculations of jump heights and breadths. Because to do otherwise would drastically reduce playability.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to the basic premise of reducing how hard you hit or how much you can bench press or carry on you back when you are tired?

I mean yes I get that you referencing the non linear way ST relates to Lifting (BL) and applied force in damage. But it seems a pretty abstract point to say "and that's why we can't do this" over.

If nothing else if your going to cite the needs of playability and the difficulties of having linear reductions in ST having non linear effects on ST application. I can just as easily say well your right, but for playability reasons I'm not going to worry about just like we don't for jumping.

Now I'm not going to get into a debate about whether or not increasing fatigue causes reduction in facility to express linearly or non-linearly*. However if you did want to take that into account with last gasp rules you could instead of reducing ST and then recalculating BL and damage from the reduced ST stat, just apply the gradual percentage reduction direct to BL and damage scores if you wanted.

So for instance instead of ST10 (so BL20) having a 10% reduction to ST9 (and so BL16 a 20% drop) once FP had dropped to 4/5ths you could just drop ST to 9 and then directly apply the 10% drop to BL20, giving you BL18.

However its more fiddly so your point about playability come in I guess.



*because frankly that's a big subject and involves stuff way out of the scope of GURPS (and my knowledge!), and no matter what it is it's not like RAW in campaigns is going to be a better match anyway