High Lethality Game?

[Ratter]

Are there any good RPG systems for high lethality with easy to roll up characters and deep combat? I've been thinking about Savage World.

I'm really wanting to run a sci-fi game that starts with a very lethal environment with lots of character death in a custom setting I made (such that I'm not sure I could adapt a 40k system). Any help would be appreciated!

[Pauly]

Paranoia. PCs are expected to die. A lot.

On a more serious note.
Traveller has solid combat, and easy to roll up characters, although it probably would be better for the players to roll up several characters first then select replacements.

Cyberpunk. Highly lethal combat. Quick chargen can ge a problem

[Duff]

Vast Grimm is a Sci Fi game with high lethality and an App to more-or-less instantly produce characters

[Tarmor]

I second Paranoia! I ran a game for the first time a few weeks ago. One player dead within 10 minutes of starting and a second dead just before they got briefed on their mission.

I wouldn't go anywhere near most d20 / Pathfinder / 5th Edition games. Simpler (and older) RPG's are more likely to have easier Character creation, and I think be a little nastier. Most systems could certainly be made more lethal, by tinkering with combat &/or damage.
The BRP system from Chaosium (or a Cthulhu variant) would also work - lethal, fast and simple Char creation.

[Beelzebub1111]

Depends on what level of "High Lethality" you are looking for. I think the interlock system is my preferred high lethality level where you have locational damage and can have your limbs blown off and still survive with immediate medical attention but you still have repercussions for fighting so it's something best avoided if you can.

On the other hand you have the basic system which abstracts a lot of that by giving you a small pool of hit points and having damage be high enough that a good hit can take you out all at once.


As far as simple character creation goes for high lethality games I think it's best to do pregens and have backups on hand for easily getting back into play. If you don't want players to get too attached, that is.

[Pauly]

I second Paranoia! I ran a game for the first time a few weeks ago. One player dead within 10 minutes of starting and a second dead just before they got briefed on their mission.


That's an unusually long time for the first death. Friend computer outed me for being a commie mutant traitor inside the first minute of my first game (lesson learned - trying to suck up to friend computer is highly suspicious behaviour)

[kyoryu]

That's an unusually long time for the first death. Friend computer outed me for being a commie mutant traitor inside the first minute of my first game (lesson learned - trying to suck up to friend computer is highly suspicious behaviour)

In Paranoia, everything is highly suspicious behavior. Not sucking up would be equally suspicious.

[Pauly]

In Paranoia, everything is highly suspicious behavior. Not sucking up would be equally suspicious.
That was lesson 2, resulting in my second character death. But that quite reasonably took about 5 minutes to learn.

[Vorpal Glaive]

Check out Stars Without Number. It covers everything you're looking for plus more.

[gbaji]

That was lesson 2, resulting in my second character death. But that quite reasonably took about 5 minutes to learn.

There's a leanring curve in Paranoia. The general rule is "don't ask questions". Just accept what you are told and go off and do it. Oh. And don't actually agree to anything either. I mean, go along with it, but never actually say "Yes" (and never ever under any circumstances say "Ok. Go ahead and do <whatever>"). There's good odds that whatever you were asked and to which you agreed to, is far more lethal than you thought.

Also, remember that all the characters literally exist for the purpose of amusing the GM/computer with the various ways you suffer calamity and/or (usually "and") die. So a suggestion is to be the one causing amusing calamity and death to others as the best way to avoid it yourself. Um... This is by no way even remotely a guarantee of anything though. You're basically playing a goblin in TE's army.

Fun fact. Never ever, under any circumstances look down at your character sheet and say "Hey. I'm <whatever> level and still on my first clone". Even if <whatever> is red (the starting level). In fact, never refer in any way to the fact that your character is alive (even without the word "still" involved).

Also. Never test out any experimental equipment. Of course, this is impossible, since you are *always* asked to do this (and you can't say "no" either). So yeah. Just accept that death is as inevitable as life, pick up the gear handed to you, and move on. It's going to do "something", so why worry about what exactly that's going to be?

Ironically, a completely zen approach to Paranoia can often be the most successful. If you don't actually care if you live or die, make no effort to survive, nor to avoid death, but just do stuff that is interesting/fun/deadly whenever an option comes along, I've found you tend to live longer. Well, unless you are dumb enough to mention that your zen approach is working, in which case it's now instant death. That falls squarely under the "commenting that I'm (still) alive" bit.


Paranoia is not about winning or losing. It really is just about the experience. I will say that of all the games I've played, by far the most absurd and funny stories come from Paranoia games. You just have to let it all go...

[GloatingSwine]

Paranoia is mostly high lethality via slapstick.

If a group of troubleshooters can order a pizza without going through half a sixpack they're obviously up to something and need to be terminated.

That may or may not be what you're after. (But if it is you're probably already playing Paranoia.)

[Reversefigure4]

Are there any good RPG systems for high lethality with easy to roll up characters and deep combat? I've been thinking about Savage World.

Savage Worlds isn't particularly lethal by default. Indeed, characters are quite tough, because the default simulated level is "pulp hero".

You can -make- it lethal by turning on all the various lethal optional rules, though.

Basic Roleplaying (Call of Cthulhu, the percentile system) can be quite lethal if you remove Luck Points and things, and has quick to roll up characters if you use the default ability spread. It's not deep or tactical combat, though.

[tomandtish]

Paranoia. PCs are expected to die. A lot.

On a more serious note.
Traveller has solid combat, and easy to roll up characters, although it probably would be better for the players to roll up several characters first then select replacements.

Cyberpunk. Highly lethal combat. Quick chargen can ge a problem

I'll second Paranoia if you want a humorous game.

Haven't played Traveller since the original. That version was lethal enough that your character had decent odds of dying during character creation.

[Telok]

As with all things internet, do your own research after getting suggestions. Paranoia has different modes of play (zap!, classic, and dark, being examples with most "i died in three minutes" coming from people playing zap! style), different reprints of Traveller (like even between the late 70s & early 80s printings) have editing that adds or removes the overhyped 'dead in chargen' option, and Call of Cthulhu can take a bit to roll up a character if you're running high education modern/future characters and lots of skills.

[KineticDiplomat]

My generally "high potential lethality" game is Blade of the Iron Throne. PCs don't actually die that often, but the nature of the combat is such that they very much CAN die or be crippled in combat. Your bog standard Mook isn't likely to kill any character focused on combat, but if he gets lucky or you make the wrong move, when he does shove a spear through your femoral or you take a stray crossvow bolt to the face with your visor open, that's the end.

High actual lethality you can use older versions of WFRP or the 40k games (well, not the space marine ones).

Theoretically Shadowrun, but it almost never ends up being that way and definitely doesn't have quick chargen.

[Biggus]

High actual lethality you can use older versions of WFRP

That was going to be my suggestion, 1st and 2nd edition at least fit the "high lethality with easy to roll up characters" part of the specification to a tee. For an even more lethal experience, just remove the fate point system. Not sure what "deep combat" means so I don't know if it fits that part.

[KineticDiplomat]

Ooh, I glossed over deep combat in the skim. Good Catch. I don't know if WFRP would count as deep combat by OP - the D&D bar is pretty low and WFRP would do fine there, maybe not against more modern systems - but Blade is definitely I'm the deep combat realm.

So much that by late HYW equivalent arms (it spans from Hellenic to early-mid blackpowder pretty well), you'll find a lot of plated fighting devolves into wrestling or trying to knock the other guy over to Paul Bunyan him or stick something in a gap. (Or just swap your blade over to a murder grip and try to concuss him with the pommel).

Whereas say, a three musketeers esque game will see lots of footwork, feinting, ripostes and the like because driving a rapier through his gut will end the fight, as will chopping a kneecap with a saber, etc.

[gbaji]

To be fair, "easy to roll up" and "deep combat" are not two things that generally associate well with each other. Well... Not if what makes the combat "deep" actually ties into anything written on the character sheet or generated by the rolls and selections made while filling out that character sheet, that is.

There are a few relatively simple point/stat buy systems out there that can work and meet the "easy/quick character generation" requirements. But honestly, even in those I always find myself flipping through the game book, figuring out how each point in each of those things may affect various game skills/abilities/resolutions anyway, so... never as quick as you might think. I mean, technically early edition V:tM characters have a quite short decision tree during creation (slot points, pick clan (not necessarily in that order), pick a few abilities, done). Never actually that easy though.

If you really want to go old school, I can toss out The Fantasy Trip's Wizard/Melee rules (you can even use the "basic" rather than "advanced" versions if you want). Literally has three stats (and only two if you're only playing Melee). Point buy system. Basically just pick up your gear (or spells if you're a wizard), and move on. Of course, the original game was just a straight combat game. But the advanced stuff (including a GMs book) includes additional stuff you can do to make it a more fully featured RPG (like actual skills). We would occasionally play this game as a break from more "serious" games. We always referred to it as "RPG-lite". When the entire character "sheet" fits on a 3x5 card, you're about as far into "easy" territory as you can get.

And yeah. It can be quite lethal too.

[Vorpal Glaive]

The most lethal rpg I've run into is the One Roll Engine (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/79955/reign-enchiridion) (ORE) but character creation isn't as quick as you might like. The game has Hard Dice that can kill targets pretty easily even one-shot them. I'd take a look to see if it can work for your group.

[Cactus]

I just pulled a 1989 edition of WFRP from my shelf and you can create a character with 17 to 20 dice rolls (depending on bonus skills for age) and only three decision points: species, class and one starting stat advance. Some careers have a skill or two with a percentage chance to know them which adds about 10 seconds to the process. Things get more complex for a magic user but only by another dice roll for magic points and choosing a couple of petty magic spells.

It definitely meets the 'quick to create a character' requirement.

[kyoryu]

To be fair, "easy to roll up" and "deep combat" are not two things that generally associate well with each other. Well... Not if what makes the combat "deep" actually ties into anything written on the character sheet or generated by the rolls and selections made while filling out that character sheet, that is.

There are a few relatively simple point/stat buy systems out there that can work and meet the "easy/quick character generation" requirements. But honestly, even in those I always find myself flipping through the game book, figuring out how each point in each of those things may affect various game skills/abilities/resolutions anyway, so... never as quick as you might think. I mean, technically early edition V:tM characters have a quite short decision tree during creation (slot points, pick clan (not necessarily in that order), pick a few abilities, done). Never actually that easy though.

If you really want to go old school, I can toss out The Fantasy Trip's Wizard/Melee rules (you can even use the "basic" rather than "advanced" versions if you want). Literally has three stats (and only two if you're only playing Melee). Point buy system. Basically just pick up your gear (or spells if you're a wizard), and move on. Of course, the original game was just a straight combat game. But the advanced stuff (including a GMs book) includes additional stuff you can do to make it a more fully featured RPG (like actual skills). We would occasionally play this game as a break from more "serious" games. We always referred to it as "RPG-lite". When the entire character "sheet" fits on a 3x5 card, you're about as far into "easy" territory as you can get.

And yeah. It can be quite lethal too.

I played in a game that was a blend of TFT, AD&D 1e, and about a dozen other things. Super old school, and way fun. It taught me a lot about how games were run "back in the day" (and I say this as an old geezer) when a lot of games were open tables run out of hobby shops. Good times!

[gbaji]

I played in a game that was a blend of TFT, AD&D 1e, and about a dozen other things. Super old school, and way fun. It taught me a lot about how games were run "back in the day" (and I say this as an old geezer) when a lot of games were open tables run out of hobby shops. Good times!

Yeah. I always kinda liked TFT. It did have some "odd" quirks to it (like high dex characters being the ones walking around in heavy armor), but the actual game mechanics worked pretty darn well. And with a few tweaks and liberal application/interpretation of some of the spell/enchantment rules, you could make a pretty filled out adventuring environment. Basically you have to sand off some of the high lethality and low recovery aspects a bit, otherwise it turns into an attrition sink pretty quickly. Which is not surprising given its origin more or less as a single shot arena fighting game.

[VoxRationis]

Mythras/RuneQuest are good on the "deep combat" and "lethal combat" fronts, but not so much on the "easy to roll up" unless you make yourself a couple of standardized builds for initial skill point allocation.

[gbaji]

Mythras/RuneQuest are good on the "deep combat" and "lethal combat" fronts, but not so much on the "easy to roll up" unless you make yourself a couple of standardized builds for initial skill point allocation.

I actually wrote an excel template for RQ character sheets. Has charts for skill category bonuses, racial skill bases, SR calculations, etc. So you basically fill in the stats, and your race, and it calculates everything on the sheet for you (including filling in hps per location in a human shaped character box thingie). Standard skills are prefilled in a table, but additional ones can be added in as needed. Typing the matching skill name in any skill column on the sheet automaticaly fills in the appropriate skill into the sheet next to the skill, taking into account base, category bonus, and gained skill from experience. Typing it into the weapon skills box, autofills the attack and parry skills (I never got around to inputing all weapon stats into a table though, so you have to put those in yourself, but that would be a neat addition).

I also wrote some macros that allow you to select any skill you've put in the sheet, and roll for research or training or experience increases (or you can just set the value if you want, or spend skill points if you're just bundling experience over time). Didn't get so fancy as to auto fill skills based on selected profession or anything (again something that could be done, but was kinda too much work, given you usually only do this once). Of course, you can always just edit the values directly in the table if you want, but where's the fun in that? I also put in macros for rolling for POW increases (taking into account racial maximums), and even aging rolls. Cause I'm just that silly.

Still requires you to crack open the books and look up the armor and weapon stats, and type equipment carried and encumberance into the equipment sections (but it does tally it up for you). Takes a lot of the time out of the equation though. I still agree that the game is not at all a fast character generation game. But one of the great advantages of it is that literally everything you need is written on the character sheet (even the default ones that come with the game). You never have to look anything up in the book when playing (well, maybe the specifics of a spell description on rare occasions; oh and fumble charts).

I also wrote a sheet that auto generates groups of NPCs, based on a pulldown selection of races. Use it as a GM all the time. And yeah, I also wrote a macro to auto generate chaos features and drop them into whatever cell you've selected (cause hey. why not?). Makes generating groups of opponents quick and easy, while still allowing for them not all being identical (which is actually pretty important in this game, because identical opponents means identical strike ranks for their actions, which can be very brutal to the PCs).

Yeah. I've been playing and running that game for a while. :smallcool:

[Kurt Kurageous]

The new Kobolds Ate My Baby (Orange) promises to be very easy to create, very easy to die.

How easy? I dont know, the backers like me were promised delivery in October.

Somethings going to die soon.

[Jyps]

Paranoia is mostly high lethality via slapstick.

If a group of troubleshooters can order a pizza without going through half a sixpack they're obviously up to something and need to be terminated.

That may or may not be what you're after. (But if it is you're probably already playing Paranoia.)

I was just about to recommend Paranoia when I saw this reply.
The game is really fun, if your group is willing to venture into less serious games. Just remember the computer is your friend.

[icefractal]

Hmm, would GURPS work if you were very selective about which material you used?

Like, do char-gen from the quick-start guide, use Bang skills, use the simplest tech rules available. But then, use all the optional combat widgets, which I recall there being a lot of.

However, note that (IME) combat itself runs rather slow if you're using all of those. But IDK to what extent you can combine "deep combat" and "fast combat", so that might be inevitable.