How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

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!

No, limb removal is always optional. The 2x removal suggestion is mostly meant for Cutting attacks anyway. Bullets don't "blast" limbs off even in Harsh Realism.

Also, 17 pts of damage won't be 2x for some characters built on 250 pts. With 16 HP the base threshold is 9pts and 2x is 18pts. 16 HP is quite reasonable fr 250pts and 20 or higher is possible.

[Otaku]

Yes, finally caught up!

First, the thing I didn't see mentioned:

Extra Lives

The relatively short version is to treat it as a "Mundane" trait in the vein of Luck, as opposed to a Power or the like. From a gameplay perspective, your character died and has now used up that Extra Life; from the story's perspective, you had a close call and/or seemed to die. This can turn character-ending or even campaign ending goofs into survivable learning situations, whether it was the players or the GM who underestimated the danger. There should be a Limitation, to prevent abuse, and make it clear this is not some miraculous thing. For example, the Extra Life won't kick in if you deliberately jump from a fatally high location just to more quickly reach a lower elevation. Or if you want to convince the NPCs that you're a god they should worship by rising from the dead. ¬_¬ Even when it works, exactly how well depends on the situation specifics: if the only plausible outcome is you were mistaken as dead a la Hard To Kill, that is what happened. On the other hand, maybe your character seemed to die in an explosion, but instead you cash in Extra Life and you merely were separate from the party by that same explosion.

I just haven't worked out a value for such a Limitation. I mean, if you just assign (for example) three Extra Lives to each player at the start of the campaign and don't allow them to buy more, the exact CP value doesn't usually matter.

Originally Posted by mburr0003

I prefer to think of this as "Players are never as properly informed as their Characters and will often make rash choices".

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.

Originally Posted by Culture20

Over time, I've come to the conclusion that Common Sense should be free even if the players are playing versions of themselves, because the characters (usually) have complete senses in their environment while the players have only the description I've given them verbally that they have to translate in real time to imaginary visuals, scents, sounds, etc. When a player says they do something unusual or dangerous, I almost always ask for reasoning and give clarification. The only exception is for characters failing a roll making them impulsive or oblivious.

I'll go one step further by suggesting Common Sense needs to be rewritten, because most (if not all) of what it does should just be how your PC's IQ (or relevant Skills/traits) ought to function. I've never met the perfect GM or player; there's going to be a disconnect about what the GM knows, what I know, what the GM thinks I know, what my Character should know, etc. If I propose my character do something intelligent that might be beyond them, I'll have to roll to see if it happens. If it is clearly beyond them, the GM won't even let me roll and will just tell me "No". It should work similarly when I say I want my character to say or do something stupid relative to the PC's knowledge and understanding of the situation; tell me if there's no way my PC could say/do it without understanding the consequences, or roll if there's some leeway.

Common Sense should just be a Leveled Advantage that improves such rolls... and yes, all of this falls under the "How to avoid killing your player characters as GM" heading. The GM will need to make judgment calls if he or she is worried their players are abusing such mechanics, but I think that just falls under the duties of GMing. If someone is abusing it, or it just adds to much to the GM's workload... one just has to go back to RAW.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Varyon

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*).



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).

// long explanation of magic to follow if you're interested //

For human mages who have lost a limb I think cloning or the produce of cyber ghouls would be the best options. It needn't be THEIR limb, it need be flesh specifically.... I got this interesting web of lore underpinning the whole setting (TBH I'm getting to the point that I might be able to share the source book that I'm working on.)

It's... eldrich... lovecraftian themed with cyberpunk tech. To make it all fit together with vampires, imagine the elders as invading trans dimensional spirits (which tbh fits pretty well with lovecraft lore.) Vampires are born of an invading spirit that like many isn't quite capable of forcing the human plane into compliance and forming a body for itself so it forms symbiosis with human hosts. Generally such invading spirits begin to twist the host reshaping it into something else, greater ones begin to warp reality around them through greater and greater connection with the twisted host.

The magic is heavily inspired by works like Dark City. Classic human magic works to reshape reality itself because the human plane is made by men's minds. A fun idea based on the experiments that show that material reality changes behavior based upon observation (particles travel as waves when unobserved. ) It is a solid connection to the human plane that allows them to discover the means to manipulate it and the invading lesser beings do the same. They possess a denizen of our world and use that as the connection to begin to discover manipulation.

But then man made a new plane of reality, a tesselation, a sub plane if you will called cyberspace. It's not alien to men as it is of men but it is not the over plane of reality. It's effected by the over plane but again exists separated with its own rules. As a man increasingly becomes cyberized this sub plane becomes more and more part of his core understanding of reality until he loses the connection with the over plane to manipulate it, the sub plane of cyberspace is his true home now and now his magic works there. What other men are able to do with cyberdecks that have a hard cap on the level of hacks / spells he does by his spirit with no deck. He doesn't need a cyberdeck, he has become the deck, a sentient deck standing astride worlds!

Gameplay wise I was imagining human magics are focused on shaping the world (earth air water ect), changing the density of reality (haste slow), creating gateways and tracking / targeting elder invaders. They can sense the wrongness of the invaders with proper magic and try to impose human planar order causing specialized damage (aggravated, all extra planar beings are very similar to vampires in being unkillable. Some like ghouls just can only be driven out of the dimension for a time as they are truly immortal.)

The vampire magic being the hungry symbiosis / parasite it is is principally focused with manipulating both it's own flesh but also tracking and manipulating flesh and blood humans around it with minor manipulation of the world around it.

The Technomancer is focused on the digital world and all within it. All the phones computers, doors, cyborgs (which most people are at least lesser cyborgs) able to sift the sea of information to track, manipulate and command. They really are quite incapable of targeting naked humans or a vampire... much less an elder prince. But they can even manipulate their own cybernetics to help out if the target is alien to their plane just as vampires can buff themselves as they have extreme difficulty targeting cyborgs which sit at the edge of their current plane.

// whew! I'll respond to the rest in a bit. Sadly lunch break is over... //

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, limb removal is always optional. The 2x removal suggestion is mostly meant for Cutting attacks anyway. Bullets don't "blast" limbs off even in Harsh Realism.

Also, 17 pts of damage won't be 2x for some characters built on 250 pts. With 16 HP the base threshold is 9pts and 2x is 18pts. 16 HP is quite reasonable fr 250pts and 20 or higher is possible.

The rule on B421 isn't given as optional, so it's just as core as other non-optional rules, and it states that over twice the crippling threshold of damage 'destroys' the body part. Cutting attacks remove it, others mangle it, burn it, or whatever so it's unhealable. HT suggests that impaling, piercing, and tight-beam burning attacks shouldn't remove limbs until four times the threshold is reached (but permanent crippling at double remains).

It's true that rifle hits to the limbs will often ruin them, and a solution can be to lift the 'destroyed' threshold to also be four times the crippling threshold.

In my experience, having a character take a hit that 'cripples' a leg or arm (most PCs in my experience have high HT and/or Rapid Healing, so I've yet to see an unhealable crippling that wasn't from massive damage) add drama to a fight - a leg means they fall over and need to be rescued or helped into cover, etc. A crippled arms or hand means they need to swap from their rifle to a pistol, or change hands, and accept the reduced effectiveness, again adding tension to the scene - all without actually removing them from the fight as a loss of conciousness or death would. This is one of the things that makes GURPS combats interesting compared to games where it's all about ablating pools of hit points until they hit zero.

[Outlaw]

If absolute banality is the goal then...

Originally Posted by Varyon

"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."

is a clear win. But, aside from having seen a movie or two, you don't have to know anything about sword fighting to make that a better read. It may not be real world accurate, but it can be certainly make a decent read. It can be imagined in real time almost as good as it can be written. And it can be weaved into a good story almost directly from the game log, even if the GM's narration is as poor as the above.

Now make hacking a computer/starting a fusion reactor/getting the methacrylic acid pump back in action, etc a good story without knowing anything about the subject. It's just a dice roll. It can't even be imagined without some level of knowledge. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not my preference in an RPG.

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The rule on B421 isn't given as optional...

If you're the GM, all rules are optional.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

If you're the GM, all rules are optional.

Hence "...just as core as other non-optional rules." They are all equally optional/non-optional (which doesn't mean that they're all equally important, of course).

[Colonel__Klink]

Edited out the responses:

I realize I have ultra tech and magic in my setting. Stimpacks and magic spells can resolve most of the issues of survivability and possibly even have stims to temporarily allow use of disabled limbs but not destroyed limbs.

[benz72]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I've generally found that giving the opposition reasonable abilities and making sure the PCs have access to Luck/Destiny Points/buying success is sufficient in the games I've run. If the best Made Man in the mafia only has Guns-14 and the run of the mill soldiers have Guns-10 or so, then a shoot-out at 10 yards can easily go in the PCs' favor. You can't aim at what you can't see and you lose aim bonuses if you lose line of sight, so if the PCs appear from behind full cover on 1 turn and take a shot, then shoot and move back into full cover on the next, even the Made Man only has a 50% of hitting and the PCs can Dodge (with Luck covering failures) while the soldiers are hitting in 1 shot in 6 at best. Meanwhile, the PCs have Guns-16 against foes with Dodge 8, and are generally removing an opponent after each pair of shots.

I think we did have a minor issue in the Ultratech game where the berserker marine got shot up a bunch by hijackers, but "grievously wounded and unconscious on the field of battle" isn't dead. His crewmates subdued the hijackers and tossed in a medical pod for a few days. And it honestly wouldn't have been a problem, except berserkers don't go for cover or make Dodge rolls.

One thing I do avoid is foes aiming for the vitals or skull. Face shots are rare but happens some times, but usually foes are such bad shots that aiming for the face helps the PCs.

IIRC, I think he burned through his luck on that too as he shrugged of the first crippling laser wound, kept charging and had the invaders convinced he was some kind of cyborg to be able to absorb so much damage. I really did think the second one was going to put him down for good though... but he made it #:)

[benz72]

When I GM the answer varies by genera:

For everything...
I let the players know that recklessness is dangerous and that a one trick pony PC is likely to face lots of things against which he is not specialized, so either cover your bases yourself or stick with a party member who can do it for you.
As part of my play style I'll often point out situational risks that would be obvious to the character. Perhaps this is 'everybody gets Common Sense for free' but I try to use it to add to the sense of dramatic tension.
"As you try to psych yourself up to sprint across the gap, leap the sand bags, and wrestle the enemy soldiers a flash of nostalgia flits through your mind as you wonder what your wife will do with your posthumous medals. Are you sure Sgt. Foolhardy wants to do this?"

For DF I generally don't worry too much about PC death as it is part of the expectation. Resurrection can become a plot goal, getting a replacement PC is easy and lets a player change play modes a little bit, and actually having a PC die can add to drama not just in the moment, but also when the party is in danger again as they recall their fallen friend.

In my Infinite worlds campaign Luck is strongly suggested, the point budget is quite high and I almost always give them operational initiative (you get tp plan how you want to address a problem rather than having one forced upon you while unprepared), not always, but mostly.
Beyond that, they tend to have better armor than their opponents have weapons (mostly); thank you higher relative TL.
Even further I let my players forego the survival point for one adventure (per PC, ever) to turn a wound into a flesh wound. "That sniper's bullet nicked your ear... it makes you shiver to think about what would have happened if it had been a few inches over"
Add to that the care and feeding of a player new to GURPS where a significant but diminishing amount of GM advice is appropriate and we've yet to have a dead PC.

If I were to run a different genera it would probably be tailored to that idiom. E.g. Fallout would have rapid increases in power levels with odd situational perks and a small but real risk of spectacular bloody dismemberment via Gatling guns. Old west might have drunk opponents and unreliable ammunition. Far future Sci Fi might have Extra Life clones or the ability to upload consciousness out of a dying body. Weird modern might have the option to play as a ghost with unfinished business.