How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

This thread that evolved into a similar subject. Several people told me the same thing.

https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=192377

I've followed (and contributed to)that thread and still can not fathom where you got the idea that PCs should be between 10-13 HP and never more than 20 even when made with 500+ cp.. That's not what the rules say and it certainly isn't what I've said.

[Colonel__Klink]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've followed (and contributed to)that thread and still can not fathom where you got the idea that PCs should be between 10-13 HP and never more than 20 even when made with 500+ cp.. That's not what the rules say and it certainly isn't what I've said.

It might have been me taking MBurr0003's statement on page 3 too to heart. He made three assertions with this sort of thing.

1) "no 10-15 is normal."

2) "I would not recommend allowing more than +3 over normal."

3) "don't have more powerful than 5d weapons. " (again with the "we have a monster manual full of cool baddies to fight that you should totally never ever ever ever put in game. They are just for looking at, not for playing against. There are plenty of small arms like battle rifles and tl9 assault rifles that do 6d+ damage)

You add in other commenters supporting statements like

"lots of things die when they get shot, that's sort of the point."

And I walked away with the distinct impression that even if it wasn't EXPRESSLY against the rules, it was against their spirit. There are additional statements expressing the doubts of the effectiveness of increased HP but... well having 30hp so you need to lose 20 before the game rules say "alright you can't roll successful defenses anymore!" is preeeeetttttyyyy effective...

Added: Originally I was against higher HP because I was worried about having melee options be like fleabites but all the arguing over the past (weeks?) really helped me understand the rules a bit better. gurps when it says 2d6 swing doesn't MEAN 2d6 damage... that's more like 4d6 damage for that weapon... In a setting with vampiric or cybernetic strength well that's an option still to at least be semi threatening to a player character with 30hp even in context of guns as a comparison.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

"
And I walked away with the distinct impression that even if it wasn't EXPRESSLY against the rules, it was against their spirit. .

Nope, there's no general rule against making superhuman characters. There are only specific campaigns where the local GM has limited character abilities.

As the GM you've already decided that your PCs aren't going to be "normal" humans so what assault weapons do the limbs of unarmored average humans is pretty irrelevant (except for when your PCs shoot such persons and your PCs will want those weapons to be effective then).

If you go to the Martial Arts book it's fairly simple to make a Sumo Wrestler with 40 HP. However, even when you do you can not just soak up attacks into your HP like a D&D character. Gurps characters need to avoid being hit (and wear armor too).

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

It *still* doesn't solve the rule that says "if you're at less than 2/3rds hp you don't get to successfully roll defensive rolls" but it's... better than nothing?

It's not that extreme. If my normal Dodge is 13 (because I'm a super cool vampire with Speed 9 and Combat Reflexes), +3 for using a large shield and +2 for Acrobatic Dodge, and I get hit for lots of damage and my Dodge gets halved to 6, +3 for shield and +2 for Acrobatic Dodge, I still succeed on my Dodge (11) about 62% of the time. I'm dodging like hamstrung greased lightning but it's still greased lightning. If I Dodge and Drop for another +3 in exchange for ending my turn prone, I've got effective Dodge 14 and a 90% chance of success.

If you get seriously wounded you have to adapt and start being more cautious, but you still get to succeed on some defense rolls.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've followed (and contributed to)that thread and still can not fathom where you got the idea that PCs should be between 10-13 HP and never more than 20 even when made with 500+ cp.. That's not what the rules say and it certainly isn't what I've said.

100% agreed. 10-13 HP seems too low for vampires.

[sjmdw45]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

It might have been me taking MBurr0003's statement on page 3 too to heart. He made three assertions with this sort of thing.

1) "no 10-15 is normal."

2) "I would not recommend allowing more than +3 over normal."

3) "don't have more powerful than 5d weapons. " (again with the "we have a monster manual full of cool baddies to fight that you should totally never ever ever ever put in game. They are just for looking at, not for playing against. There are plenty of small arms like battle rifles and tl9 assault rifles that do 6d+ damage)

You add in other commenters supporting statements like

"lots of things die when they get shot, that's sort of the point."

And I walked away with the distinct impression that even if it wasn't EXPRESSLY against the rules, it was against their spirit.

There's a 24 HP vampire PC right on page 321 of Basic. It's not that there's anything wrong with high HP vampires.

[hal]

Originally Posted by ericthered

But that's not about lethality, that's about being put out of a fight. Those are two different things in gurps, and being put out of the fight is a LOT more likely to happen than dying, especially with good medical tech (and decent HT).

One good trick to reduce lethality with guns is don't have the bad guys aim for the skull or vitals. The other hits tend to put you between 0 and -HP. And remember failing a death roll often just puts you in need of surgery, not instantly dead.

If you want rules to reduce being put out of the fight.... that's a lot harder.

One other thing to keep in mind (adding to this particular post) is the fact that when you roll for crippling damage, you roll vs HT of the character. If said character succeeds at their HT saving roll vs Crippling injury, their injury is not lasting - and use of the crippled item in question returns once you are fully healed. If you fail your HT saving roll, it is a lasting injury that will take months to recover from. ONLY if you crit fail the HT saving roll for Crippling injury does this issue become permanent.

Now, the real issue here is what happens during the game play? THAT is entirely dependent upon what tactical situation you've hit your players with. If all of the characters are rendered combat ineffective (for what ever reason), you have to decdie what the NPC's response will be to the circumstances. If it was a battle to the death, winner take all - well, that is unfortunately, a Total Party Kill. If one of the characters is captured, then you simply decide what the NPCs will do with their captured individual. Maybe the remaining player characters will have a chance to mount a rescue. Maybe a secondary group shows up to rescue the player characters, but then tell the group "you owe us" and then send them on a mission of some kind that is going to be TOUGH as hell, and that the players had better bring their A-Game to the table.

If you always spare your players - that will become a part of your Style as GM. If they never have to worry about the consequences of their actions, they will play that way until either the campaign ends, or you pull out all of your hair and run screaming into the streets or something in between. ;)

Me? I let them have the fruits of their victories, along with the tears of their defeats. You need to have the specte of defeat and have it mean something if you really want them to enjoy the fruits of their victories.

SOMETIMES, your players will pull off something that is so blindingly Spectacularly perfect, that as GM, you smack yourself quietly thinking "I should have anticipated that, but didn't". Do NOT steal their victory from their grasp! Let them savor it, and remember it for 3 to 4 decades later!

To this day, my wife recalls how she asked a trucker "you running empty?" while she and her team mates were trying to dodge the bad guy assassins on their tail. The Trucker (picture Jerry Reed) said "Shure honey, as empty as a poor kid's lunch box". She asked him "how much to rent his rig and take cargo to California" He gave her an answer that was a given amount per mile and she said "Done". The trailer was wider than the car they were in - and she knew that the truck stops (it was Car Wars) wouldn't give the time of day to strangers asking about a brother trucker's routing - and the adventure came to a halt. PERFECT ending as it were in my eyes.

In any event - I'm willing to discuss these aspects of gaming via Fantasy Grounds - Monday through Fridays, 8 AM through Noon Eastern Standard Time. I am more than willing to share some of my "techniques" for GM'ing off the cuff, because NO campaign survives contact with player characters. You can either run a sandbox campaign and let the players explore your game universe, or you can tie them to a "road" style adventure where they start at point A, and have to go through B, C, D, E and F before they can arrive at G.

True story: Scientists wanted to measure the intelligence of a Gorilla by giving it only THREE ways out of a room. They were certain they could control all of the variables. The Gorilla showed them the fourth method out of the room when the Gorilla ripped the one door off its hinges and went through it. Your players will do the same to you as GM. As my wife tells me often...

"It is our JOB to make mincemeat of your plans".

So - that's all I can say. I will suggest that if you want advice as a newbie GM, that you open up a thread either in GURPS area or in Role Playing area - and simply posit your scenario saying "what can go wrong?"

Make it a point to remember who responded to this thread and ask people privately or via email "hey, this is my scenario, help me refine it".

I have to admit, I came close to trying to dig up my copy of GURPS VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE and trying to translate it into GURPS 4e just to feed my itch to see what it would look like. Sadly, if I did that, I'd have to inflict it on a guy who wants to play GURPS CYBERPUNK instead.

if I had my druthers, I'd rather reconvene the 1920's campaign set in New Orleans. One of the two players dropped out, and Iv'e been thinking about restarting that campaign up on Monday Nights again.

Now if ever there was a need for a GM to tread carefully and NOT kill of his player characters gratuitously, it would be in a two player campaign set in the 1920's! On that note, I'll sign off. I've got end of Month processing tonight and that is a definite "all hands on deck" environment. Night all.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

One other thing to keep in mind (adding to this particular post) is the fact that when you roll for crippling damage, you roll vs HT of the character. If said character succeeds at their HT saving roll vs Crippling injury, their injury is not lasting - and use of the crippled item in question returns once you are fully healed. If you fail your HT saving roll, it is a lasting injury that will take months to recover from. ONLY if you crit fail the HT saving roll for Crippling injury does this issue become permanent.

I'll note this only holds when at between that part's crippling threshold and twice the crippling threshold - an attack that deals 2x or more the crippling threshold automatically permanently cripples the body part, with no roll to avoid this. This doesn't sit quite well with me, but that's the RAW (honestly, part of me feels limbs should be treated somewhat like characters with some amount of HP - at 0 HP and below, they risk falling "unconscious" - temporary crippling - when used, at -1xHP they risk being "destroyed" - permanent crippling, although failure by 1 or 2 might mean lasting crippling instead - and at -5HP they are automatically "destroyed" - but that would probably work out as being too complicated at the table). That said, canonically a lot of Permanent Crippling can canonically be fixed with TL 7+ surgery (B424; I believe this is expanded on in Bio Tech), and the GM can certainly rule this is the case for crippling due to firearm hits. Heck, there can be cases where a severed digit or limb can be saved and reattached; it typically never winds up working as well as before, but that can often be disregarded for a game.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

And I walked away with the distinct impression that even if it wasn't EXPRESSLY against the rules, it was against their spirit.

No, it isn't. Did you start out looking at the 3e Basic Set that would go with the V:tA book? 3e started out pretty focussed on 100-point characters, but expanded its range a fair bit. 4e has always been aimed at a wide range of point totals.

Originally Posted by Colonel__Klink

There are additional statements expressing the doubts of the effectiveness of increased HP

Having 30 or 40 HP doesn't let a character give up wearing armour, or mean they don't need to bother with making defence rolls. It does mean you can survive bigger attacks while doing those things, and last longer if there are lots of opponents.

[whswhs]

Since this is Hal's thread, I can give an answer that would have been off topic on Colonel Klink's similar recent thread.

My primary strategy for avoiding killing player characters is to follow a practice of not fudging dice rolls, and not modifying the rules to make combat less lethal, and being up front about this with my players. If I'm running a campaign with this approach, I'll say something like the following in the prospectus:

* Emphasis on weird horror and the academic life; violence will be unusual and not pretty; those who know too much will go mad.

* Play style will be mildly cinematic, but with realistic injuries.

* Combat will be realistic and death will be possible, as will legal consequences for going too far with your abilities.

I have several points to make about this as an approach:

It avoids player character death partly by giving players an incentive to have their characters do something other than draw knives or guns or cast deadly spells, and thus to avoid giving their adversaries a reason to use such methods.

At the same time, if player characters do face a situation where they have to resort to deadly force, it makes the choice dramatic, not only for the characters, but for the players, because they have skin in the game—they might lost their characters and the work of designing them. For the character, the choice is "I know I'm risking my life, but this is something that needs doing"; for the player, it's "I gained points by giving the character traits that make this fight necessary, so now I have to pay for them" or "having my character go into this fight is good roleplaying." (There are few more intense moments in the film of The Lord of the Rings than Faramir and his men riding out to a doomed struggle against the forces of Mordor, while the people of Gondor throw flowers at their horses' feet.) Since I usually value drama more than action, I think this is a plus.

Players still have some reason to give their characters combat skills, if only so that they can pose a believable threat to foes who, realistically, also have a reason not to throw their lives away in an unneeded battle.

The risk of death doesn't need to be all that great to have this salutary effect. Certain death in GURPS means reducing a foe to -5 x HP, which is 60 points of damage for an ordinary human, and may be more if you take damage resistance and increased hit points into account; buying up HT, or taking Fit or Hard to Kill, makes it significantly less likely that death will occur short of that much damage—but there is still a risk. On the average, player characters will get into multiple fights with severe consequences before anyone actually dies—but the chance that it might happen will still be on the players' minds.

[Farmer]

If you want melee and guns to be more similar, boost the melee. Make them very fine due to high tech materials, or make the vibro weapons, or give them other tech advantages to provide AD and so on. Then, give the players armour so that the more balanced melee and guns are suitably resisted to average the kind of damage that you want to get through. Then allow the players have a few extra HP and a decent HT. Don't take head shots against the PCs (or give warning shots that make them pull their heads in when you want them to feel like they need to back off - "that shot nearly took your ear off - they're aiming for your heads!" and so on.

In short, you're concerned that melee weapons don't do enough damage by comparison, so boost them. Then you can use armour to balance it all out and thus avoid killing your PCs.