Keeping you players alive for dummies

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I wouldn't use bleeding at all unless you think it'll add something useful to your game - it increases lethality, but almost entirely on the PC side of things in most games, and it adds bookkeeping.

It's also an irrelevant detail if the PC side has any survivors because basic bleeding is always stopped by bandaging that anyone can do.

[Mister Negative]

I strongly recommend both Luck (and Serendipity), and I also give out a limited, free version of both. Those boons are handed out for anything that helps the game: hosting, bringing food, taking notes, drawing characters, 3d printing miniatures, etc. Players can hoard them as well, so the guy who brings snacks several times in a row might have some accumulated Luck chips to burn.

Given that you are doing a Western theme campaign, you might even want to hand out poker chips to track them. I used poker chips for regular Luck as well. Rather than handing out one reroll per hour, I figured out how long we were likely to play and handed out that many chips. I strongly encouraged players not to use them all in a row, but I didn't sweat it if one Luck point was used 45 minutes after another one--especially since some Luck usage occurred in a few minutes of play time, but across hours or days of game time.

If you like the idea of poker chips for Luck, another twist I triedwas green poker chips for luck, and black ones for bad luck. If a player had something unfortunate happen to them, I would offer (or they could ask) for a luck chip, but it also came with a black chip too. I could call in a black chip to make them use three rolls and take the worst, or I could call one in to allow the opposition to use them like Luck. I am not sure anyone was actually willing to make that bargain.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Make at least 1 level of Luck mandatory. A lot of serious consequences begin with a bad die roll.

I second this wholeheartedly. Unless you're trying something borderline impossible, a reroll can often make all the difference in the world. You don't even have to justfy it in-game as the character being lucky - it can simply be "I'm just that good."

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

I second this wholeheartedly. Unless you're trying something borderline impossible, a reroll can often make all the difference in the world. You don't even have to justfy it in-game as the character being lucky - it can simply be "I'm just that good."

I'm certainly aware of this option. On the other hand, I don't like Luck, and don't encourage my players to take it, and I don't think I've ever had a player do so. But I see very few character deaths. I think this is partly because GURPS combat isn't very lethal, unless a character has Bloodlust or acts as if they had it; you have to reduce a character with N hit points to -N hit points by inflicting 2N injury points to even have to roll for survival. And it's partly because players who know that combat CAN be lethal play their characters as prudently cautious, rather than as if they were action movie heroes who knew the director was on their side. The knowledge that death is possible concentrates the mind wonderfully.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I think this is partly because GURPS combat isn't very lethal, unless a character has Bloodlust or acts as if they had it

Seconded. For Low Tech fantasy pre-gunpowder.

Most 'deaths' will not occur in combat. After one side has been entirely knocked unconscious (or has fled), the question of taking prisoners or not...would be where most deaths happen, if the winners decided to finish the opposition.

My one exception in 30+ years was a talented, ambidextrous fencing weapon master. It was fairly common of him to DWA rapier/rapier and have both be targeted attacks on the eyes. His base skill for the eye shots was 12/12 (w/Luck) and a defender would start -1 for defending each end of a DWA. Damage was Imp 1d+4.

Hitting with 1 and rolling average was 28 points of damage. Treatment in Low Tech was healing magic or die. Hitting with both and average was 56 points. Max damage would be 80 points...1 round.

He was a bit of an edge case however.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Witchking

Seconded. For Low Tech fantasy pre-gunpowder.

Most 'deaths' will not occur in combat. After one side has been entirely knocked unconscious (or has fled), the question of taking prisoners or not...would be where most deaths happen, if the winners decided to finish the opposition.

My one exception in 30+ years was a talented, ambidextrous fencing weapon master. It was fairly common of him to DWA rapier/rapier and have both be targeted attacks on the eyes. His base skill for the eye shots was 12/12 (w/Luck) and a defender would start -1 for defending each end of a DWA. Damage was Imp 1d+4.

Hitting with 1 and rolling average was 28 points of damage. Treatment in Low Tech was healing magic or die. Hitting with both and average was 56 points. Max damage would be 80 points...1 round.

He was a bit of an edge case however.

Without aggressive optional lethality-enhancing rules, that is.

I haven't looked into the wound infection rules, but it's definitely the case that the MA bleeding options can make any injury to a high-bleeding location (mainly vitals, possibly also veins and arteries) into something potentially deadly without magic or unusually advanced medicine.

The MA extra major wound effects tables also can kill people.

Of course 'don't turn on optional rules that are tailor made to turn injuries into deaths' is perhaps painfully obvious as a suggestion for the title question.

[weby]

Depends on the level of realism you want, but in general if you want to simulate westerns:

Luck: all main characters seem to have this.

Stormtrooper marksmaship academy: Seems that most NPCs have maximally 1 point in guns and never take aim maneuvers.

Clean wounds: This varies from western to western, but wounds do not tend to get infected, do not hamper the hero a lot, heal fast and cleanly and so on. Exact rules used depends in choice of realism level but ranges from "flesh wounds" to just ignoring the crippling rules.

Then more generic things:
High HT(and fit and hard to kill) keeps characters alive in GURPS.
Combat reflexes is a cheap thing to decrease the probability of being hit
Extra HP is always nice to cause less of those pesky HT rolls in the first place.

[Otaku]

Well, here's hoping fsbof updates us on how things went. XD

I'm late to the party, my credentials are lacking, but I'd like to share what I've learned the hard way (by failing at it!). The most important thing is make sure everyone knows and wants this game. I don't just mean the system, I mean everything; the system, the setting, the group composition, etc. Yeah, this applies to any tabletop RPG, but much of the other advice falls under it. There's only so much you can do when you're all new to both the system and the setting, but much of what has been suggested falls under it.

High Pain Threshold is pretty important unless the setting means combat is "dodge or die". Those shock penalties can make hitting back difficult in combat.

I think I've seen just about everything else. Oh, if you're going to mess with disease or poison, then encouraging players to take some level of Resistance to those things may be a good idea. Like Fit and Rapid Healing, they don't cost a lot of CP but can go a long way. If you, the GM, do not plan on throwing those things at the players, then never mind.

Consider just giving players an Extra Life or two at the start of the campaign. Explain that they are not the unmodified version of the trait from Basic Set Characters, let alone the kind you get in video games. Nor are they supernatural Extra Lives. Basically, if a player is not doing something stupid that gets them killed, you'll handwave the situation to some extent, letting them survive but costing them an Extra Life. Exactly how it works out in-game will vary according to the circumstances e.g. maybe the PC is completely unharmed and can resume whatever it was they were doing, or maybe the rest of the party will think they're dead until the story allows a reunion later on (next session?).

[coronatiger]

My play groups have a house rule that allows characters with minor injuries (less than half their HP) to roll vs HT to regain HP every day, even when they are exerting themselves. Very useful if you have to travel several days to the next adventure, but don't have a week to waste lying in bed, waiting for your wounds to finish healing up.

[coronatiger]

Another house rule might be to track individual injuries and allowing first aid for each, thus multiplying the effects of first aid.