| From: | losthalo <losthalo@********.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: SRII Lethality |
| Date: | Wed, 17 Dec 1997 19:47:12 -0500 |
>That said, it's still amazingly easy to survive things that kill people
>in the real world. People playing with guns with no skill, defaulting
>off their attributes, manage to kill themselves on a regular basis.
>
>Simulating the lethality of the real world, though, is a pain. Hit
>location systems add complexity and break up the flow of a game.
Having
>your character get offed by a gutterpunk who's hyped up on a Duke Nukem BTL
>and three lines of Turbo and brings a heavy pistol into the shopping mall
>where you're having a date makes for a really bad story.
Actually that sounds really consistent with Cyberpunk, to me. If you
weren't paying attention, and were dumb enough to fight it out, you got
shot, and you died. No script immunity to save your sorry behind.
>The important question is not whether or not the system is too lethal.
>The important question is: is the system *sufficiently* lethal that
>player characters make decisions based on "not getting shot is a really
>good idea" as opposed to "Oh, Uzis, my armor jacket should be able to
>handle them."
And I don't think the system needs to do all the work of that. The players
are role-playing, not wargaming. They should realize the chance of taking
an unlucky head shot and dying from a 9mm slug even though their armor
covers their torso for anything up to a .44Magnum hollowpoint. The game
system shouldn't have to make players run their characters intelligently or
realistically.
Also... there is a difference between a character accepting the risk of
taking some fire, judging the risk and saying "Yeah, I might take a slug,
but this vest is good, and they're not packing rifles, and there aren't
many other options right now. We need to take that guy out, c'mon, on
three..." and just walking out into a hail of bullets all the time, because
he thinks he's a "Jolly Green Giant walking the earth with a gun."
losthalo
