Keeping you players alive for dummies

[johndallman]

First, your characters need Combat Reflexes. That's the basic "I do combat" advantage. Extra HP and HT are always good. To keep characters alive as GM, avoid using the bleeding rules.

Fit [5] gives +1 to all HT rolls, and is as helpful for survival as a level of HT, at half the price.

Hard to Kill [2/level] gives +1/level to HT rolls to avoid dying. You could reasonably allow characters who've survived HT rolls to avoid death to buy it as part of their legend.

Increased Speed [20/level] lets you win contests of Fast-Draw and improves your Dodge. Enhanced Dodge [15] is cheaper, but only improves Dodge.

Something else that helps is a willingness to accept that you're wounded badly enough to be out of the fight. Example: Bob took a rifle hit, which took him from healthy to beyond -1*HP. Assuming he makes his HT roll, if he doesn't move after that, he probably won't get shot at any more. If he tries to carry on fighting, he will take more fire, and another rifle hit is likely to take him to -3*HP, requiring two more rolls to survive.

Having someone around with good Surgery/TL skill is very helpful. If you fail a HT roll to survive by 1 or 2, you're mortally wounded (p. B424), but won't die immediately. You need Surgery (or magical healing) to recover, and having your own surgeon on hand helps a lot. For example, Bob has HT12, Fit and Hard to Kill 1. When he has to roll to stay alive, 14 or less means he's alive, 15 or 16 mean he's mortally wounded and 17+ mean he's dead. Rounding the numbers, that's 91% chance of survival unaided, 7% of possible survival if you get Surgery, and 2% being dead outright.

Don't encourage the characters to have High Noon confrontations, unless they're much faster and more skilled than their opponents. Ambushes are far more effective, and those need skills like Stealth, Camouflage and Tactics. Night Vision is a good low-key supernatural advantage, and a huge advantage in night battles.

[Mr_Sandman]

I'll put in another vote for encouraging some investment in HT. Adventurers who are likely to frequently get into combat should probably have at least 12.

Luck can also be important for surviving, look at the Defensive limitation, to cut the point cost a bit, since you'll want it used for avoiding enemy crits, or re-rolling blown defenses.

Speaking of defenses, Combat Reflexes is another important advantage for PCs who are going to be in a lot of fights. In the range where most non-superhuman characters find their Dodge, a plus one makes a big impact on the odds of success.

Keep in mind that not every combat is to the death. This is important, because the default rules are not necessarily that deadly (especially with decent HT, and maybe a level of Hard to Kill). The majority of the enemies that the PCs face should not have the skill, time or intent to aim and target skull or vitals. So damage is much more likely to result in unconsciousness or incapacitation before a character actually misses a death check. Most opponents should be quick to flee or surrender if things aren't going well for them. Some will take prisoners, or leave incapacitated enemies without finishing them off. Also, not every fight the PCs face will be against tactical geniuses. Enemies can make mistakes, leave openings, and act irrationally in the heat of combat.

If your campaign will still work with PCs getting crippling injuries that keep them out of action for a while, but don't kill them, rolling random hit locations for unaimed missile weapon attacks can make combat more survivable, but a bit more likely to incapacitate. Especially if your players have that Luck reroll in case a head-shot comes up at random.

[Refplace]

Its been said a lot but note just how many are saying high HT is good here.
I recommend a HT roll of 14+; you can get there using a combination of HT + Fit + Hard to Kill.
Rapid Healing is good for reducing downtime and First Aid, Physician and Surgery help too.
Luck is great for reversing those really bad rolls.
Tactical Shooting and Gun Fu are really good supplements for the genre.

Extra Life for the really unlucky player might be considered too.
High Basic Speed or Fast as Lightning (GUn FU) are good for shooting first.
Basic Move lets you get to cover and Tactics skill can help in a fight.
Even non fighters like Combat Reflexes if they can afford it.

[benz72]

I generally offer new players who suffer a fatal wound the option of forgoing the survival point for the adventure and convert that wound to the 1 HP graze (like an impulse buy). I limit this offer to one use per PC, ever. I think it encourages my players to understand the implications of getting into fights, allows them to experiment a bit with how risky they want to be, lets them avoid one bad roll, and maintains a sense of danger.

Danger Sense is the way to avoid a fight, Tactics is the way to win a fight, but if you get into trouble Luck, armor*, HT and HP are the ways to give yourself time to recover.

*not necessarily appropriate for a Western setting, but maybe in a Mystical Western setting? or pull that Eastwood 'steel plate under the poncho' trick?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by fsbof

From what I get so far, GURPS tends to be quite deadly and all in all, we like it that way. Still, that also begs the question about player survivalability.

I don't think GURPS is especially deadly, the injury rules are designed to disable before killing. But guns behave like guns! Getting shot by a full-power rifle will take most human-like characters out of the fight. To survive, have your characters behave like they are real guns, or explicitly bring in cinematic rules such as "random crates and barrels provide perfect cover" (Star Trek) or spending 1 CP to turn a gunshot into a flesh wound.

GURPS Tactical Shooting and GURPS Gun-Fu have advice on realistic and cinematic gunplay. In the Western genre consider how intoxication can affect DX (and therefore Guns skill).

In a game set before the 20th century, don't bring in harsh realism options for things like bleeding and wound infection.

[Mark Skarr]

I'm an adherent of John Wick (the game designer, not the movie series). I don't kill characters, in general. I let the players decide when and how their characters go out. That's not to say there aren't consequences for their actions--not killing them is not having no consequences. Just that character-death is not a consequence.

This encourages the players to be less careful in their actions and do things that are more interesting. This isn't a game about small people doing small things, this is a story about heroes doing heroic things. Take some risks. This is a game, not a simulation in how much the world sucks. Characters should be run into the ground like a stolen car. Don't protect them.

All that said, I also use the idea of "Dire Peril." Which, when invoked means that the gloves are off and, not only can your characters die, I'm going to actively try to kill you. The first time I invoked, and fully explained, Dire Peril, my players backed off.

The second time . . . while we lost one character (though that wasn't due to Dire Peril, the player wanted to retire his character in a grand fashion), the PCs didn't hold back. It was a "Big Damn Heroes" moment and they lived up to it fighting against all odds until the last, possible moment. While the characters didn't "win" (and Mars blew up as a consequence), the players enjoyed it, knowing that it was how Zel wanted his character to go out.

[Pursuivant]

1) Armor. Lots of armor, as long as it doesn't slow characters down so much that they can't fight or move effectively. Magic or ultratech items which give "force field" type DR without adding too much weight are the best.

2) Cheap and readily accessible ultratech or fantasy healing tech.

3) Set up ranged combats with lots of cover and concealment (i.e., things that give DR when you hide behind them, and things that give penalties to see or hit your when you hide behind them) and ways for PCs to end the fight at will (i.e., lots of escape routes).

4) Don't have bad guys fight to the death. They run away or surrender if possible. One major wound and your average mook is out of the fight. This also makes combats faster.

5) Give bad guys a plausible reason to keep defeated PCs alive.

6) Let players make skill or IQ rolls for their characters to realize when they're badly outclassed and are likely to lose a fight. If you have particularly obtuse players, just tell outright that if they try to fight in a given disadvantageous situation, they'll die like dogs.

7) Smart tactics. Retreat or All-Out-Defense on any turn that you've suffered Shock or otherwise have a penalty to defenses or no realistic chance of hitting. Fight as teams to get flank shots or divide enemy defenses. Use cover & concealment in firefights. Attack from ambush. Exercise basic common sense when you might be going into an ambush.

8) No gratuitous damage or hazard sources. Random traps, disease, etc. should all be conscious plot elements on the GM's part, not stuff that happens due to a roll of the dice. The exception might be Dungeon Fantasy, where such things are the norm, especially if the PCs are optimized to deal with such threats (e.g., Thief with high Traps skill or Barbarian with Survival skill).

9) Fudge the damage dice rolls for incidental damage sources. E.g., you take 1 or 0 points of damage from accidental exposure to a flame hex, not 1d-1 HP.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Encourage them to buy up their HT.

When you get down to fully negative hit points (that is, if you have, say, 11 HP, and take 22 points of damage, you are reduced to -11 HP), you have to roll to survive. If you have HT 10, you have a 50% chance of survival; on the average you'll die at -22 HP. But if you have HT 12, you have a 75% chance of survival; on the average you'll die at -44 HP, which takes a lot more injury to get to. With HT 13 or higher, on the average you won't die until you get to -5 times your HP, at which point you're considered to have been physically destroyed.

Spending 20 points on boosted HT is a worthwhile investment, for this and other reasons.

And if that much on HT is too much, Spending a lesser amount on Fit/Very Fit and/or Hard to Kill is a reasonable substitute. I'd suggest Fit (5 points) for any physically active character as a matter of course.

When it comes to options rather than character builds, I agree with the others about 'survivable guns' - I don't like it and have never used it.

For an option to allow re-rolls there's 'Influencing Success Rolls' on p.347 of Campaigns I've not used it because I'm not a fan of spending XP for short-term one-time benefits. However, the rule can work with a pool of special points given out as well as XP, or if you and your group are okay with it, used as-is.

My usual method of reducing lethality of guns is to have the NPCs just shoot at the torso unless a shot is a wild shot or otherwise truly unaimed. I've found that random hit location rolls mean that sooner or later someone takes a bullet to the neck or skull. That said, a plain torso hit with a full-power rifle can kill quite easily.

That leads to another way of reducing general lethality - choice of NPC weapons. Don't have them use rifles much, and try not to use shotguns at very short ranges where the shot's all in one mass and does huge damage (B409). Assuming you're using High-Tech, and have a wide range of pistols to choose from (the choices at TL5 in Characters are extremely limited), try and stick to pistols that don't do Large Piercing (pi+), or that do less than 2d pi+.

[Mark Skarr]

Have a conversation with your players. How lethal do they want the game to be?

Just because GURPS can be lethal doesn't mean you have to use all those rules. Figure out how dangerous they want combat to be, and go from there.

Find out how your players want to deal with the perceived lethality. No matter what anyone else tells you--if your players are happy and having fun, you're doing it right.

[Boge]

I think it's pretty hard to die in Gurps. You have to fail your death check by 3 as 1 or 2 are mortal wounds which are usually taken care of. And you're only doing a death check when you've taken enough damage, and you only take enough damage when you're hit enough times or hit hard enough, and you only get hit hard enough if you fail your defense roll. So there are quite a few barriers to get past for a player to actually die.

The bigger issue my group deals with is being injured for the entire campaign. We tend to play 1 in game day being one gameplay session just because urgent things are always happening, so taking a break and passing time doesn't really work. You heal 1 per wound per day (house rules), but it still takes a week or two to heal up.