Should I go full WFRP/Rolemaster and add a critical wounds roll to my shitbrew instead of normal "HP hits 0, you are dead"?
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Should I go full WFRP/Rolemaster and add a critical wounds roll to my shitbrew instead of normal "HP hits 0, you are dead"?
Depends entirely from what you want from your game, but sure, why the frick not.
>Should I go full WFRP/Rolemaster and add a critical wounds roll to my shitbrew
Yeah.
I'd go even further and add scaling injuries as you lose health. I'm sick of systems where you function at 100% efficiency until suddenly hitting 0 and keeling over. Even WFRP is pretty benign up until your hit critical wounds.
Totally this.
We give a slight modifier when you get to 50% and then a bigger one when you get to 25%.
>I'm sick of systems where you function at 100% efficiency until suddenly hitting 0 and keeling over
The reason most systems do this is because the inverse results in incredibly cancerous gameplay that rewards alpha strikes even more than normal and also incentivizing tiresome mechanics like cannon fodder hirelings and disposable summoned monsters because when your GM has a whacky critical hit table that takes your fricking eyeballs out 5% of the time anyone being a melee combatant actually letting themselves get hit is a loser. But people play roleplaying games because they WANT to be cool knights and shit and don't want to fricking start every combat like they're the English at Agincourt. "Realism" makes for pretty terrible gameplay.
I disagree, I think lethality does make for a good roleplay feature, it makes people put themselves in the flesh of their characters and feel the consequence of their actions. Most people want to play cool knights but they also want to test the limitations of one.
In our wfrp campaign, our dwarf had to blow a fatepoint right as combat started because the first baddie in the initiative order crit his crossbowshot and rolled a critical wound that would have straight up killed. I enjoy the rp, but I dread the combat. I don't want to lose the character I lovingly crafted. Maybe that's part of the experience? In any case I play a lot of roguelikes and roguelites and dying in those is part of the game. Dying in a ttrpg means making a new character and having the group wait for you. I don't particularly like character death and unless there is a narrative payoff, like later in the campaign, having a character die is neither fun for the player nor the others at the table. Imagine having a character die in session 2 due to horrible luck. How can the other characters even care as much about a guy they met a week ago compared to a character dying in session 20? What if the dm had particular plans involving a certain character and suddenly a part of the campaign has to be dropped or reflavoured? I can see the appeal in wfrp's way of handling deadly combat, but I feel like there's a lot more fun to be had if your decisions matter more than a diceroll and if you have the opportunity to learn from mistakes instead of just straight up dying or getting crippled for life.
I don't know about WFRP, but I played GURPS DF and characters mostly died from their own mistakes (getting themselves surrounded or trying to face big enemies head on). It was a west marches game so it ain't like the characters were all best buddies before but it was fun for me realizing the type of danger my character could get himself into if he didn't pay attention. The game only had 2 deaths and they were the example I gave, all from the same player btw.
Yes but players should never get to do anything cool. That has always been the way of the perma-DMs here. I wonder why nobody plays their games.
How can they be a perma-DM if he doesn't play games.
Death has and always will be the most boring consequence of combat in ttrpgs
Death is the last consequence of combat, the ones that come before are the real deal.
Surely you can have a lethal system without being reliant on death spirals or character ending crits.
>incredibly cancerous gameplay
The issues are only due to bad framework design: if the game has crippling injuries how does the game handle related short term and long term gameplay? As in you may have the condition effects and the time to heal needed (if any) but are there guidelines for the scenario? For example one of the character gets crippled during combat and that stops the whole combat scenario replacing it with an escape/chase one for all the party (a little skirmish-y but you get what i mean) and, if successful leads to a post battle timeskip that ends when (if) the crippled character has recovered. Another thing is if the game has healing effects that should take into consideration baseline regeneration as entry level.
>I don't want to lose the character I lovingly crafted
If one of the premises of the game is impeding danger and death you have to make peace with this eventuality beforehand. That doesn't mean thought that the 'on the verge of death' scenario shouldn't be well crafted. Wfrp has Fate points as a failsafe mechanism but still is a bit handwav-y, a Fate roll with a series of decisional effects the character could pick may be more interesting.
Adeptus Evangellion.
it also somewhat solves the issue of character development/high lethality by also being a mech game. Being 'defeated' most often results in you being stuck in a non-functioning robot, but alive. Plus you can eject if need be. An entire limb being hacked off is just a tactical inconvenience for that battle.
If you want lethal combat, I highly reccomend it.
Plus since it has RP skills and combat skills use entirely different XP pools, so you don't need to invest everything into being a combat monster just to avoid dying.
>injury stat is health
>once injury goes below zero it subtracts from combat rolls
>once negative injury is equal to best combat skill character is incapacitated
>character dies in -12
I really don't lile Dominions taking turns backwards stuff. It feel so counter intuitive.
Nta but i once tried a similar initiative system to another game, it's not that is unintuitive but just a slog.
yeah, just make all the entries actually frickin matter
it gets really tiring to roll on the injury tables and get all the inconsequential results on a guy that should have died like 4 attacks ago
WFRP4e fixed that with each critical having a lethal modifier to it so you could still die if you got low rolls on it.
Now the opportunity rises to post this other shitbrew I found
>Should I graft element n from game B to my game A?
You should be playing B instead, you dense homosexual
Just B yourself.
What the frick is the point of making a game if you have to ask other people what to put in it?
Combine to pain train without a direct "minus number" caused death spiraling.
When hp drops to 0 or x damage (or crit or whatever notable rare event you want to focus on), inflict wound of player choice (pain convulsion/paralysis of being stuck for a die roll, loss of limb for obvious effect, destructive damage to eye and mouth/nose/ear again for obvious effect, cracked ribcage for limited ability to interact/do anything while also moving, shattered hips for damage taken on movement, internal hemo where you roll a die and thats how long you live, tho without penalty before auto death, etc).
After all, irl a lot of times if something is lethal but doesnt have stopping power it ends in mutual kill, equally if something has stopping power but doesnt kill, both sides can go away mostly free.
It’s kinda interesting
Yes.
Rolemaster already have a D&D retroclone
Forgot link
https://drivethrurpg.com/en/product/279034/Lightmaster-Core-Rulebook
Has HARP being memory holed? Also there's "Against the Darkmaster" which is a reskin of MERP (which is practically rolemaster light)
Also BG&G
Go full legends of the wulin wound system instead. No HP, only applying and exacerbating penalties until you take someone out of the fight.
Yes, but its not a replacement. Critical wounds occur on critical hits or when certain damage thresholds are met (i.e take X or more damage/X or more % HP in a single hit). You dont only risk losing limbs once you are down.