Injuries

[kcdusk]

I bought T2K when it first came out. I loved the idea of the post-apoc setting. Looking back, there were two big items i misunderstood.

#1 was the first mission, Escape ... your on your own. I made up a travelling party (from the front cover), rolled for vehciles, read the "Escape" handout, looked at the map, planned an escape, and basically was overwhelmed by how-i-was-going-to-kill-every-russian on the map! There were groups of hundreds of russians with tanks and APCs etc ... I just didnt understand how i was going to win the war on my own. As a youngan, that was my first misunderstanding.

My second misunderstanding was common injuries. I remember one of my first characters received a leg wound, a bad one. I couldnt believe my PC was now incapacitated! - From a mere leg wound!

Sucking chest wound, head shot ... i understood my PC was in trouble. But the leg Or an arm How could an injury to those areas put me down.

Since first starting the game i've played contact sports, done lots of camping & hiking and generally grown up.

I now understand the aim of the game was never to kill every russian. And a 50cal wound to the leg is serious, even a stab wound is very serious. Stop for a minute and think about the humble steak knife you've just used to eat tea with ... think about stabbing gthat into your thigh, or between your ribs. Thats real pain. You have to get it out, if your on your back you might not be able to sit up, you certainly cant walk/run/think about returning fire ....

Point of the post was i have come along way in accepting how even simple, low level injuries will impact on a PC.

[Legbreaker]

And this simple fact is seriously overlooked/totally ignored in many games.
When you're injured, you're going to be handicapped in some way. Even something as simple as a sprained wrist will have significant impact on your ability to hold a weapon and accurately return fire. Make that a bullet hole in your forearm, even one received several days ago and treated in the best hospital by the best doctors, and each and every shot is still likely to send shockwaves of agony through the arm.

While it's understandable that it's "just a game", some realism needs to be there, or it just becomes yet another bunch of munckins running about with their BFGs/+10 swords blowing the crap out of T-90's and Hind gunships/Tiamat without significant risk.

[LVI]

Very valid point. Until a few years ago I was still playing football and as a offensive linemen. I remember one game I got the wind kicked outta me. Fuck me for about 2mins I thought I was gonna die. I just couldn't regain my breath. And that's minor to a gunshot wound. Probably closer to a concussion blast. And I was out for a few series afterwards until the trainer cleared me.

A few years ago my wife was in a serious car accident. She was blind sided in an intersection as the passenger of a left turning car. Well she had a broken collar bone, collapsed lung, broken ribs, a 6" gash on the back of her head, internal injuries plus more minor injuries all being 17 Weeks pregnant. Thank god she and my daughter made it. And just watching her immediate and long term recovery makes u realize the significance a injury to ur PC can have in his day to day actions.

[Adm.Lee]

Yep. That's the biggest single reason I suggest players have multiple characters. Once one gets hit, it may be a while before they'll want to walk point again.

[pmulcahy11b]

Here's something about injuries that I've never seen ANY game account for: those aws**t injuries that happen every so often. Like the time I fell off the top of a moving M577 when we got ambushed at NTC and I dislocated my shoulder and cracked three of my ribs. Immediately quite debilitating, but once the PA popped my shoulder back into socket and put me into a rib binder, I went back to my platoon and kept going (and now, much later, I am having lots of problems with that shoulder). Or you're running across a field at night to get into position, step in a hole and bammo, you have combination broken/sprained ankle that takes 6 months to fully heal, but you grit it out and keep going with much trouble. Or you're just breaking track, your hand slips, and you end up with a deep laceration on your hand (no that wasn't me, but in T2K that could lead to a fatal infection).

No one has ever seemed to come up with any way to account for that sort of thing.

[simonmark6]

Twilight does account for that, it's part of the Catastrophic failure rule, you rolled a 20 that day...

[pmulcahy11b]

Twilight does account for that, it's part of the Catastrophic failure rule, you rolled a 20 that day...

Doing what What was the activity or skill you were using Simple movement At NTC, did I roll Catastrophic Failure while shooting at the OPFOR on my Small Arms (Rifle) skill

I guess this is where GM's judgement comes in, but there are no real rules for it.

[simonmark6]

God as GM decided that you needed a straight roll against Agility for riding on top of a moving vehicle without any specific restraints to prevent you falling off. When you rolled, despite the positive modifiers that God gave you for a straight forward task, you came up a 20 when you rolled.

[pmulcahy11b]

Yeah, but I'm an atheist...

[kcdusk]

Yeah, but I'm an atheist...

Thats God telling you to switch up.

Back on topic, i think your talking about the encounter table calling for a random event on the GMs random event table. You could just as easily dropped your secondary weapon without knowing or made a loud sound ...

[Legbreaker]

Lets just skip all the rubbish and go straight to the results.
In an April Dragon magazine many years ago there was a "Wandering Damage Matrix" with just that in mind - forget about encounters, just roll percentile and apply damage.
My favourite result was "cut yourself shaving - loose a limb".

[natehale1971]

Dying isn't easy... anyone who thinks it is, should come have a talk with me. 23 July 2008 i was in a car accident that cut off both of my legs, collapsed my left lung, broke my left shoulder blade, broke every rib on the left side of my chest... i died on the operating table that day for 40+ minutes. When i got out of the operating room i was awake for about half and hour before i slipped into a 10 day coma. During the coma i kept stop breathing... trying to slip away in my sleep. My parents had the put me on life support. I died on the operating table two more times on 26 July 2008.

When i awoke from the coma, my so-called wife called from the UK and said, "I love you.. just get well enough to get on a plane to get home to me and the boys, and everything will be alright."

the nurses had said that just minutes before that call, I just laid there.. and didn't do a damn thing. But the moment that phone call was over, it was like a switch had been flipped. I reached up to the trapeze bar and pulled myself completely off the bed with my right arm. One of the only two limbs that I had that wasn't screwed up. All the different drugs they gave me caused me to go crazy and forget who i was, where i was, or who my own mother was. When ever a female tried to touch me (inculding my mother) i would scream at her "Don't touch me you bitch, I'm married!" it was right after that, that the nurses treated me like my shit was made of solid gold. namely because they hoped that if their husband was in my situation... they'd have said the same thing.

The doctor's said it'd be a year to two before i'd be ready to start walking again... or be able to get on a plane. My mother was telling everyone she believed i would just stay in the wheelchair and give up. But I didn't. I fought to learn to walk again... i was on parallel bars by mid Sept. 2008, started on crutches by mid-October 2008. And was released on 19 November 2008, only to find an email saying "i want a divorce."

There are days I really wished they would have let me slip away in my sleep... namely when i miss my sons... or when I am so incredibly alone in this apartment by myself.

Force of will allows someone to push past the pain, and do amazing things... and i'm proof of it. Or could be, that I am just to damn stupid to laydown and die...

What do you guys think

[Sanjuro]

Well done on pulling through that Nate; I hope the strength you showed then keeps you going now.
On a lighter note... can anyone tell me where to find a chiropractor in the Free City of Krakow

[Legbreaker]

Those sort of injuries in T2K will get a character DEAD. With the extreme lack of facilities and supplies, there's no coming back from it, even with the best possible doctors and nurses left breathing on the face of the planet. How strange it seems though that some players still seem to believe they can be combat effective with a similar level of physical abuse inflicted upon their characters...

[natehale1971]

actually in my campaign there was a chiropractor and acupunturist in the Free City... they were a former PRC diplomat who found themselves stuck in Poland when the ballon went up.