How to avoid killing your player characters as GM

[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.

To the person who approached me on this, do NOT respond to the thread for a little while, just let the answers pour in and feast on the responses. For others who are also worried they may kill off characters - feel free to jump in and offer your own questions.

To start off with, nothing states that the GM has to play his NPCs as stone cold killers. He might say that his NPCs are afraid, and are making pop-up attacks with an additional -2 penalty to hit. He rationalizes that his NPCs are human too and do not want to die! He might rationalize that his NPCs are DRUNK, which adds a further -2 penalty to their skills. If he thinks their skill should be at DX-1 because they're not trained to use guns all too well (ie, they're not profesionals) then he can simply state that their gun skill is at best, a 9 or a 10. Just to hit a target that is 80 yards away, is penalized by a -10 to strike a target with a hasty shot.

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 instance, if an NPC decides to fire upon a character who has taken refuge behind a pine tree trunk, the GM has to decide how much DR that pine wood provides. GURPS has rules that an inch of wood provides a DR of 1, and the GM doesn't have any real guides towards how to handle what happens if you hit a tree with a 7d6 bullet. Quick answer: Google "a tree that is 2 feet in diameter is how old?" got me to https://www.treehugger.com/estimatin...es-age-1343321. This in turn led me to google the growth rate of Pine trees (it works out to about a factor of 5) and thus, I can estimate that a copse of pine trees 100 years old will be about 20" thick. That works out to a DR of 20. Against a 7d6 bullet averaging 25 points of damage per roll, that means that the tree at worst, stops 20 of those 25 points. But there is also the HP of structures to worry about. At about 60 some odd HPs for 20" thick tree (probably closer to 65 or so), and the rule that to totally destroy something requires -5xHP - I would estimate that to totally destroy the structure of the trunk implies that it has about 10 HP overall. So call it 20 DR plus a blow through of an additional 10 points for damage inflicted on the tree itself, for a total stopping power of about 26 HP. The bullet would likely LODGE in the tree itself and not come out the other side.

Is it in the rules that a living tree will stop 26 hit points? No specifically. But it is in the spirit of the rules for damage elsewhere and this instance, that as GM, I can simply rule that a given tree will provide a given amount of DR based on its age.

Being a GM requires that the GM practice the art of GM'ing and getting to know the rules. It also means that he likely needs to know what the penalties are to secure a hit by anyone - NPC and PC's alike. Most importantly, he or she needs to be aware of doing things that do NOT automatically KILL the player characters where ever possible.

Reiterating the one BIG rule I've come to realize is handy in GURPS for modern style games is this:

Death saving rolls that fail by less than 3, result in the player character - in the immortal words of Billy Crystal in PRINCESS BRIDE - being "Mostly dead". In a Cyberpunk campaign, missing your death saving roll does not mean the character is dead - especially if there are those who can be saved by prompt medical attention (Emergency Medical Response or Emergency Medical Technician). Add in the rules for the surgery required to save a mortally wounded character, and presto, last minute reprieve for dead or dying characters.

Also - I think the bleeding rules for GURPS are TOO harsh and result in far higher a casualty rate for modern battlefields than is perhaps warranted. As a consequence, I don't use those rules as written, but tend to make it -1 per 10 points of damage. In short, GMs can make those rules they don't like, weaker in their application than the rules as written were intended to do.

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