How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That depends on what you're knowledgeable about...

And that, of course, was what GURPS calls "TL3."

Hence the phrase, "...as easy or complex as you like and still be a pretty good read..."

Even if you don't go full complex or know much about medieval combat, a gamed fantasy encounter still puts together a pretty good story even in layman's terms.

Hacking a computer in game and knowing little to nothing about computers and/or networking? What kind of description can you write for that after the game?

That's a pretty bad call on their part not to, at least, give you a little prep for what they would expect. Especially since you were the GM first.

What did you do? Did they try and modify the dice roll depending on your knowledge of medieval combat?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Hacking a computer in game and knowing little to nothing about computers and/or networking? What kind of description can you write for that after the game?

I mean, presumably there was some reason you were hacking the computer, so you can largely just write about what was accomplished rather than what the character actually did. Which is probably the same thing you'd need to do with a combat encounter if you have no clue about that, since "He tried to strike the orc with his sword, but it parried. It then tried to strike him with its sword, but he parried. He then tried to strike the orc with his sword again, and this time it failed to parry, and he wounded it badly enough it fell down." would be pretty boring to read.

Of course, situations like that are where other players (and the GM) can be useful for providing commentary, suggesting ideas on exactly what the character is doing (whether that's identifying an unpatched application and using an exploit to gain root access through it, or using the contact between the blades to push the orc's sword out of line and thrust into its gut).

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Cover DR is based on HP and estimating a tree's HP is pretty easy. Average adult pine is 5,000 lbs and Homogeneous so 137 HP and it probably has DR 1, so Cover DR is 36.

Just curious how many different pages in the rules are engaged to get the result.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

What did you do? Did they try and modify the dice roll depending on your knowledge of medieval combat?

I don't know any more. I met C in 1984, and it was sometime before that; over four decades the memory has faded.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Honestly, given the characters will often know things the players don't - because they have skills the players lack - I think it's appropriate to basically give everyone a free variant of Common Sense, where when the player says to do something the character would know better than to do, the GM can roll against a relevant skill and, on a success, inform the player their character would know better than to do that, and perhaps suggest alternatives. ... Granted, that's more a general-use houserule than one really designed to keep the characters alive. It can certainly help a good deal, by keeping them out of situations where accidental death is a significant concern... but in an adventure characters are almost certainly going to get into those kinds of situations anyway.

I wouldn't call that a house rule. It's a fundamental assumption for playing characters that the they have a 'reality' within the setting.

I wouldn't be playing long with a GM that nerfs my character to what I, as a person, am capable of.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by hal

Hi All,
Without saying who or why, I thought it might be best to open up this topic and inviting veteran players and/or GMs to offer ways on using the GURPS rules as written, to avoid killing off player characters.

Then there are those things that the rules don't provide for, but as GM, you can add to the game at your discretion. ...............................

For all others who want to chime in - how do YOU keep your player characters alive in a modern or future campaign?

My go to technique with a new player/group is to use encounters early on that consist of waves of comparatively low level enemies relative to the power of the PC/Party. I find it much easier to adjust to a situation that is becoming lethal by just subtracting or ending the encounter early by dropping waves.

Naked Kobols (as in "lvl1-3" with 'gear'), pack of feral dogs, street gang (younger, smaller, scavenged weapons, improvised armor, etc), things along those lines. Stuff that one on one would probably be hand waved as "Mooks" and not even gamed out with a more experienced group.

Starting out you will see if the PCs jell and have any concept of tactics "al la GURPS", and you will also get an idea of lethality as a GM. The waves tactic allows you to adjust on the fly adding or subtracting from the next wave, and deciding when the next wave comes. ("As the fight takes a turn in your favor, you hear screeching/howling/shouts in the distance"). A group of faster lighter XXX will be the second wave, third wave will be stronger tougher and maybe have a singularly difficult 'leader'). Putting pressure on the encounter without putting the party in a place where you have to do a GM Bail out or let the TPK happen ("You think you see movement [off in the trees/ between to pillars/ in the street] but in the shadows its difficult to make out")

There are all kinds of methods and reasons that the Enemy would turn tail before doing irreparable harm to the PCs, even up to nothing past a couple stragglers from the original group shows up to try and bolster their comrades but end up either not engaging or running after they see that the PCs are not being overwhelmed.

I personally tend to prefer groups of relative lower power enemies to a matched team. A single "boss" encounter that is a challenge for your collective PCs is also so strong that its generally hard not to kill multiple PCs 'on accident'.

You can't use these techniques forever or always, but as a go to for either scaling difficulty or assessing players/PCs it works really well, especially if you want to wear a group down and just get them to expend resources prior to a specific scene.

[Colonel__Klink]

Someone mentioned keeping limbs in and always rolling randomized limb damage (maybe keeping the head off the list? ) It was a really interesting idea considering the kind of campaign I'm doing.

The only thing that makes it work is that it would require per game rules two hits regardless of the weapon to blast the limb off. With the damage profile of a rifle on the lower end of the power spectrum (5.56, 5 dice) without the damage limiter to limbs it would blow an unprotected limb O*F*F* every single time! As it is the limb hit would knock most players out of the fight either rendering a leg useless, if it hits their main hand and they are a pistol user they are fighting at -4 (plus shock), if it hits the off arm and they are using a rifle they can't use their weapon anymore.

The limb damage got me to think of the game like Kenshi though where toughness is the most important stat. It prevents you from bleeding out, it's how you wake up before the dogs eat you ect. That's HT in Gurps. Kenshi's health system is one of my favorites. The problem with gurps is that it's structurally designed that if a player gets hit ONCE the negatives start stacking to knock them out of fight. Reeling (lose 1/2 of your defenses), shock (up to -4 on attack actions), instantly crippled limbs from just one hit even from a pistol. Ect. I'm not sure how to even begin to cope with it. As soon as a character gets hit the rules are stacked so as to try to ensure that they lose.

In my setting the limbs getting blown off can be interesting flavor. It gives humans a reason to visit the ripper doc and at the very least buy a five finger discount (hur hur) arm that works... mostly till they get more cash. Vampires well they just use 5 blood points and they can regrow a completely obliterated limb.

It would pose a problem for players who want to be human mages in setting as I wanted it to be that if you delve into cybernetics too much magery is beyond you but instead you become a "technomancer" able to hack better than anyone with a deck.

added: (at present I'm planning on pushing reflex jackets on players... with them at least having tailored armor clothing. It doesn't strike a great balance as it renders pistols useless but.. What can you do?)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

The limb damage got me to think of the game like Kenshi though where toughness is the most important stat. It prevents you from bleeding out, it's how you wake up before the dogs eat you ect. That's HT in Gurps. Kenshi's health system is one of my favorites. The problem with gurps is that it's structurally designed that if a player gets hit ONCE the negatives start stacking to knock them out of fight. Reeling (lose 1/2 of your defenses), shock (up to -4 on attack actions), instantly crippled limbs from just one hit even from a pistol. Ect. I'm not sure how to even begin to cope with it. As soon as a character gets hit the rules are stacked so as to try to ensure that they lose.

High Pain Threshold is what you want. You never have a shock penalty, and on rolls to avoid knockdown and stunning you get +3 to HT. That's a big improvement in the odds, and relatively cheap at 10 points. For what you're trying for it may be more useful than either Combat Reflexes or Luck.

[Donny Brook]

I found this house rule a couple of years ago.

I've allowed it in two cinematic campaigns now and it has only been activated once when a character had a catastrophic failure in a climbing situation.

The more significant effect is that players are more willing to use Luck earlier in play and for things other than combat defense.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

Someone mentioned keeping limbs in and always rolling randomized limb damage (maybe keeping the head off the list? ) It was a really interesting idea considering the kind of campaign I'm doing.

I'm not a huge fan of rolling random hit locations for a variety of reasons (it's often only an edge case where hitting a limb is worse than hitting the torso, the former is typically better, and it gives a chance at hitting a high-value target like the neck or skull, as well as unarmored locations, all at a +0 to hit), but statistically I believe it does indeed improve survivability, at least if OpFor is using weapons that will reliably punch right through your torso armor. But try telling that to the PC who just got his head blown off by what would have been only a Major Wound if it hit him in the chest (as you note, leaving head - specifically the Skull - off the list will help; if you want to, treat any such result as a Torso hit with a bit of a damage bonus, so it's still a bad thing to get hit there but not quite as horrible as a bullet to the brain).

It is arguably problematic that grazing (~minimum damage) hits to limbs (and elsewhere) are rather unlikely (and become markedly more unlikely the higher the base damage, as the more dice you roll the closer to average you tend to be). One idea I had, inspired largely by lwcamps' Variable Blow-Through idea, is to replace the damage roll with a 1d roll that determines hit placement; a 1 represents basically perfect shot placement (the Eye on a headshot, the Vitals on a Torso hit, the bone on a limb hit, etc), a 6 represents a grazing hit, and the others are somewhere in-between (roughly speaking, 1 is going to do around minimum damage, 2 is going to go a bit deeper but cause below-average damage, 3 and 4 are going to deal around average damage, 5 is a serious hit that will deal above-average damage, and 6 is going to be around maximum damage). With something like that, even something firing .50 BMG has a decent chance of a grazing hit (although at 6dx2 damage, even minimum damage is going to cripple pretty much any human's arm, and either tear off or at least upgrade that crippling to permanent*).

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

In my setting the limbs getting blown off can be interesting flavor. It gives humans a reason to visit the ripper doc and at the very least buy a five finger discount (hur hur) arm that works... mostly till they get more cash. Vampires well they just use 5 blood points and they can regrow a completely obliterated limb.

It would pose a problem for players who want to be human mages in setting as I wanted it to be that if you delve into cybernetics too much magery is beyond you but instead you become a "technomancer" able to hack better than anyone with a deck.

The obvious option for human mages would be some sort of regrowth spell. Failing that, perhaps they can get a cloned arm grown in a vat and attach that to replace their lost limb - no cybernetics to interfere with magic, the body recognizes it as "Self" (it would be grown from your own cells), and a setting with advanced cybernetics has probably figured out how to grow and "re"attach cloned limbs (cyborgs go for chrome for the enhancements; it may also be cheaper and/or faster to go for cybernetics).