Hit points, tissue damage and the mechanics of getting stabbed

[Mastikator]

Often in games damage is extremely abstracted, characters have hit points and actual tissue damage (wounds, bone fractures, etc) is not even remotely mentioned.

However, I've once played a game that actually did tissue damage rather than hit points, it called it "body points" and modeled each body part separately, and it kinda worked. Actually it worked really well, when you rolled for damage you also rolled for where you hit, you could break legs and get concussions, it made each attack more dramatic and more in depth. Though it was a low fantasy high grit medieval game.

But it got me wonder, why don't most games do that? Why don't you roll for tissue damage on body parts and blood loss in most RPGs? I wonder if it's because I'm alone in liking that.

I wanna know, has anyone played with a system like that, and did you like it? Prefer it over abstract and ambiguous "hit points" or did you not like it?

[TheIronGolem]

They do different things and are suited for different kinds of games. If I'm playing a gritty, high-lethality game like Cyberpunk, I want at least semi-realistic wound modeling where any combat round could be your last. If I'm playing a cinematic game like D&D, gimme my abstract hit points and let me decide what my wounds "really" mean.

[BWR]

Sounds like you want Rolemaster. Personally, I'm not a great fan of overly specific wound systems. In D&D, I'm more than happy with people just taking a beating and still coming undeterred until they finally collapse. In other systems like AM or L5R you still have a non-specific damage location system but suffer increasing penalties for more damage. If it's important or fun for the game that specific locations take damage and (more importantly) suffer impairments, we'll probably just rule it on the spot.

[goto124]

Rolemaster.

Roll Master*

Which says a lot.

[Arbane]

Often in games damage is extremely abstracted, characters have hit points and actual tissue damage (wounds, bone fractures, etc) is not even remotely mentioned.

However, I've once played a game that actually did tissue damage rather than hit points, it called it "body points" and modeled each body part separately, and it kinda worked. Actually it worked really well, when you rolled for damage you also rolled for where you hit, you could break legs and get concussions, it made each attack more dramatic and more in depth. Though it was a low fantasy high grit medieval game.

There's plenty of systems that do that. Off the top of my head, there's Harn, Rolemaster, RuneQuest, GURPS, and lots of others. These days, it's mostly D&D and its various derivatives who just use Generic Escalating Hit Points. Lots of other systems use Generic Non-Escalating Wound Levels, with or without Death Spirals. Games like FATE and Legends of the Wulin have you take handicaps like 'cracked ribs' or 'blinded in one eye' as a result of combat, and models them narratively instead of trying to model human anatomy in a dice-based game.

But it got me wonder, why don't most games do that? Why don't you roll for tissue damage on body parts and blood loss in most RPGs? I wonder if it's because I'm alone in liking that.

The main reasons, I think, are a combination of:
1: It adds a lot of complexity.
2: Nobody likes it when their brand-new character they spent three hours creating catches an arrow with their head on Round One of the first battle.
3: Besides instant-death, 'realistic' damage + 'realistic' medieval medicine = amputations.

I wanna know, has anyone played with a system like that, and did you like it? Prefer it over abstract and ambiguous "hit points" or did you not like it?

Eh, it works fine in some games. (Mainly ones where fights are either supposed to be avoided, PCs get Luck Points, or combat is supposed to be swift and brutal.) In others... see my above comments.

[Anonymouswizard]

The main reason I don't use such rules is because I play with people who dislike complications. Me and one other player are the type totally down with rolling for hit location and seeing if the attack 'crippled' the limb, but more of my players want fast and fun combat (guys, this isn't D&D, in the games I run you are squishy as heck), so I've limited hit location to crits, and everything else assumes torso hits.

[Mr. Mask]

Well, I tend to like games with realistic wounding, or more I have trouble getting into games with completely unreal combat (like Die by the Sword, where being outnumbered + rubber swords = almost certain death). The problem with detailed wound systems is they're more complex, specially in pen and paper games. More to track.

Of course, abstraction can still be realistic, if done carefully. Have fewer HP, maybe have some abstracted penalties, etc.. And of course, a good UI to streamline things.

[TheCountAlucard]

The hit points system also becomes pretty superfluous if most humanoid opponents can have it bypassed entirely in one hit by aiming at their head or heart.

[Mr. Mask]

Oh yeah, some hit-location systems like Fallout are pretty bad. Where every single shot is aimed at the eyes by late game, so they just balance it so that you need to hit them critically in the eyes three times with the best weapon in the game to kill them (ruining the point of the system in more ways than one). A bad or gamey hit location system tends to lose point. However, if it's realistic and deadly, then a hit to the arm, or the leg, or the torso, the head or the neck or the eye... what's the difference? If you hit someone well with a sword or a rifle, you'll cut them down. In games where it's ten hits to the torso or three to the head, the head is just the obvious location to aim for.

[goto124]

In real life (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert), it's almost impossible to hit the head of a moving humanoid who's delibrately trying not to be hit.

Not sure for limbs though.

If a system has gritty realistic mechanics for wounds and health, it should have gritty realistic mechanics for combat. At least, the kind that ensures PCs don't drop dead in 3 seconds.

[NichG]

For me, more detailed does not automatically mean better. Details have to be important, in that they add or enhance relevant decisions. They also can't cost more in terms of time or book-keeping than they add in terms of tactical, strategic, or conceptual depth. Something where you roll a bunch of random factors every time an attack is made is going to increase resolution time and the amount of tracking and calculation needed, so it has to bring enough to the table to pay for those costs. I haven't yet seen a system that does so for me, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done. But I think its a fairly difficult design to pull off well.

[erikun]

But it got me wonder, why don't most games do that? Why don't you roll for tissue damage on body parts and blood loss in most RPGs? I wonder if it's because I'm alone in liking that.

Two big reasons.

First of all, hit points are more dynamic. That is, characters are always gaining them and losing them, so it's easier to see who is winning in a fight. This makes it easier to gauge the difficutly of the fight and when a character needs to retreat in order to survive. There are a lot of very little factors which can influence a real life fight, which are not easy to model or represent in a RPG - HP is a handy shorthand for displaying that information, in a way that people can easily understand.

Secondly, the amount of "hits" generated through a HP system is not the same as the numer of "hits" generated through a wounds system. A glancing blow wouldn't cause wound damage but it would cause HP damage. This means that wounds system combat either ends up being buffed up tanks swinging at each other until a hit goes through, or it tends to be stupidly lethal even with armor which could make dangers little concern. Also note that wounds tend to be cumulative, meaning that the first character hit is usually dead. Fighting back when missing an arm and/or -5 penalty to rolls pretty much guarantees that further fighting will just take the character apart, turning combat into a game of rocket-tag even with relatively minor skirmishes.

[Mr. Mask]

Goto: Well, that would be quite an exaggeration. A lot of injuries on excavated bodies are to the head. In sports like boxing or the full contact armoured reenactments, a number of blows do collide with the head despite the efforts of others. It isn't easy to hit someone in the head intentionally, but then it isn't easy to hit someone in general.

Limbs tend to get scored pretty frequently, as they're close to the weapons. Legs are less common due to the mechanics of human reach.

[goto124]

Thanks, Mr. Mask! I guess your complain is more about how battle is reduced to something requiring little thought and tactics?

If I'm not wrong, RL battles get slower and less exciting as time goes on.

Can't have that in a medium meant for entertainment. Such as a game.

[dream]

Often in games damage is extremely abstracted, characters have hit points and actual tissue damage (wounds, bone fractures, etc) is not even remotely mentioned.

However, I've once played a game that actually did tissue damage rather than hit points, it called it "body points" and modeled each body part separately, and it kinda worked. Actually it worked really well, when you rolled for damage you also rolled for where you hit, you could break legs and get concussions, it made each attack more dramatic and more in depth. Though it was a low fantasy high grit medieval game.

But it got me wonder, why don't most games do that? Why don't you roll for tissue damage on body parts and blood loss in most RPGs? I wonder if it's because I'm alone in liking that.

I wanna know, has anyone played with a system like that, and did you like it? Prefer it over abstract and ambiguous "hit points" or did you not like it?

Well. "Body Points" & "Hit Points" are just labels for the same thing; the amount of damage a character can withstand before being downed. You could do the same thing with D&D via role-playing; "I stab the orc in his arm to make him drop his weapon!" That's one of the feature I really love about D&D is you don't need rules for everything. Extensive rules slow the game down.

[Mr. Mask]

Goto: Just Mask is fine. Yes, my concern is that many games reduce or remove tactics in their attempt to improve, simplify or balance combat (which only seems to work some of the time).

RL combat, it depends what kind you mean. Boxing, for example, is combat, even if under specific conditions, and it can wear down if the fight goes on too long. If you mean a duel with blades... those generally will be pretty short (see Kurosawa's works for some examples), so it isn't really a concern. In war and deadly combat, there aren't that many fights that drag on, though sometimes with unskilled participants without weapons you could get a fight gradually reduce to exhausted wrestling or mutual bleeding out.

To put it another way, the Romans thought watching people fight was pretty entertaining, and I think many changes games make to try and increase entertainment often reduce the immersion and impact of combat.

[Thrudd]

There is a compromise you can use, between abstract HP and specific lasting tissue damage, which some OSR games like ACKS uses. You have HP and combat as normal, but getting reduced to zero causes a roll on the mortal wounds table. The character could end up with a maimed hand, lose an eye or ear, damaged leg or other such thing that has a permanent effect (including plain old death). To heal that, you can roll the dice with the "restore life and limb" spell, which could restore you to normal, could fail, or could heal you with side effects, like a magical mutation of some kind or a gender switch.