Right, so this has really been bugging me. A fair number of games (read nearly all) represent a character''s health through some sort of HP meter. Damage subtracts from HP, healing adds to HP, and HP 0 = death. I have some problems with this system. First, the scaling factor is usually tremendous between individuals. I''m willing to accept that a person larger than me can take heavier blows and survive longer, but not ten times as much! The average person takes a 9mm round near the center of gravity and that''s all she wrote. A tough dude, and I mean really tough, might soak two or three, but he''s going down before the clip is empty. Which brings me to my second complaint. Even if mister tough is still standing after getting shot, he''s not a happy man. His performance degrades due to his injuries. But not our heroes the game characters! Even at death''s door they''re as strong as ever, if not stronger. Now, I know people will say "this is to improve gameplay, and allow a character to come back from near defeat." Okay, fine. But it also erases the major advantage that makes the tough guys look tough in real(er) life. That guy who went down in one shot probably isn''t dead. With emergency aid he may be saved - but the first shot made him go down. The tough guy is still standing after a bullet, and may be able to return fire. It''s not that he isn''t hurting, it''s that his strength allows him to function despite his damage. So I propose this. A character''s ability to absorb damage is based on three things: his Soak, his Endure, and his Grit. All characters are operating on the same percentage scale. 100% is the peak of health, while 0% is shop for headstones. Now, when a character takes damage three things happen. First, his Soak steps in. The Soak is a fixed value representing the character''s ability to take damage in flesh as opposed to vital organs. The absorption is on a scale relative to the magnitude of the attack: the character takes only 20% up to Damage = Soak, 40% up to Damage = 2 x Soak, 60% up to 3 x Soak, until at 5 x Soak the character takes 100% of the damage anyway. The attack is just too massive for his puny form to defend against at that point! Now that the character has taken some damage, his Endurance comes into play. This value alters the correspondence curve between damage and performance. It''s a zero-average stat. Zero means damage and performance loss are one-for-one: with 50% remaining damagewise, he acts at 50% of capacity. With higher Endurance, the character retains more of his ability when damaged. The curve is symmetrical about the line performance + health = 100%, and the axial point slides up or down this line depending on Endurance. This is so much easier to illustrate using pictures... suffice to say, that tough characters will suffer little degradation in performance until they reach their "breaking point", while weak characters will drop to low performance quite early and then slowly degrade from little to nothing as more damage is taken. The third statistic, Grit, determines the point on the Performance curve beyond which the character cannot keep it together and is completely KO''d. This ranges from 0-100%: if Grit and current Performance add to 100%, the character is still conscious and able to act to whatever degree his current Performance allows. Once Grit + Performance < 100%, however, the character is unconscious and begins to degenerate from his injuries. Effectively this is the point which many games call 0 HP, especially those where teammates are able to aid fallen characters. He can still be saved, as his body is not destroyed, but he cannot act to help himself or others in any way. Now once actual damage capacity reaches 0% you''re completely gone. I don''t like the above examples because they''re very abstract, and tie me to specific numbers early in the game. To illustrate the concept, I''ll give some examples of how I intend damage to affect characters with different combinations of attributes. - High Soak, low Endurance, high Grit: This fellow''s got the bulk to absorb damage, but he''s not the picture of fitness so anything that actually gets through will impede him pretty severely. On the other hand, he''ll still be able to move after he''s no longer able to fight, and can drag himself away and patch up. Think: veteran gone to pot. - Low Soak, high Endurance, high Grit: A little dude, without the sheer mass to take hits. But he doesn''t seem too fazed by the hits he takes... and even when you think he''s out of the fight, he''s still awake and looking for some way to cause trouble. Think: Bruce Lee. - High Soak, high Endurance, low Grit: Classic glass-jaw. Looks tough, seems tough, until he takes one too many hits and drops like a brick. Think: Your classic villain, all talk and no staying power. - Low Soak, high Endurance, low Grit: A person in good condition, but not tough and not used to taking pain. If he can get up from it, he''s more or less okay; otherwise, he''s gone. Think: Jogger in a street fight. I hope I''ve shown this system gives a more realistic, interesting, and varied model for character durability. Comments? --------------------------------------------------- -SpittingTrashcan You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

The more realistic RPGs have been doing stuff like that for years. D&D and CRPGs are the conspicuous exception

- HP total is only a function of size/mass. It doesn''t vary with experience. Some games allow a slight bonus for physical training/general fitness/constitution (can go up AND down). Armor reduces damage. High constitution reduces the penalty of being wounded (including recovery, see below).

- As your HP (and even fatigue) go down, you start to take penalties to all your actions. Some games vary the penalty depending on the type of action, such as athletic vs. intellectual. Constitution/Will act to offset them.

- The damage of a given hit, as a percentage of your current/total HPs yields the chance of a critical/incapacitating/instantly lethal hit (e.g. lose half your total HPs in one shot = lose a limb, lose half your current HPs in one shot = instantly unconcious). This could also control the accumulated wound penalty . With fatigue, it does the distinction between sustained and violent effort.

- Staying conscious is an action with 100% base chance of success. Once you start taking penalties, that chance goes down... and you have to test it each round. Same penalty also apply to wound recovery rolls (recovery time, permanent disabilities).

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Oh good! All the better if I''m not breaking new ground. But given that computers are far more efficient at all that statistical mucking about, why in heaven''s name do only P&P games implement such a feature? I like D&D''s simple wound mechanics, because they''re well-suited to keeping a quick pace in a P&P game rather than having combat become a chore of statistical management. But since the computer could be doing the work, why don''t we let it?

This is more of a general philosophical question than a specific design idea, and I''ve already ranted on this topic, but I''m going to lay it out again in the clearest way I can. P&P works well within the following parameters:

+ Arbitration uses human intelligence and a few flexible rules,
THEREFORE
+ Choices are unbound and limitless
- The player must know all the rules of the game
- The numbers must be kept simple and small
+ The numbers do not reflect the entirety of the situation

Now, computers are a very different story. Here is what happens when a computer tries to run a game built for a human coordinator.

- Arbitration uses strict interpretation of many rules,
THEREFORE
- Choices must be limited to those allowed for by the rules
- The player is still aware of all the rules
- He doesn''t need to know them
- Knowing them gives him an unfair advantage against the strictly bound computer
- The numbers are still kept simple and small
- A waste of processing power
- A missed chance to increase depth of game
- The numbers ABSOLUTELY MUST reflect the entirety of the situation
- Since the numbers are so small the game becomes less realistic than an equivalent P&P experience.

But what if we rethought the whole system, and designed a game to be for a computer from the ground up?

+ Hide the rules from the players.
+ Make the rules thorough and realistic enough that the player doesn''t need to know the rules to play the game. The computer can handle it.
+ Add more numbers and rules to reflect every possible parameter and situation. You can''t get by with half-assing it because the computer can''t improvise.
+ Instead of building all possible choices into the rules, create a more fluid system in which players can construct their own options within certain wide parameters, and the computer then does as much work as necessary to determine what effect that action has.

Perhaps these aren''t the best approaches. Still, isn''t it time we stopped stealing from what works in P&P games and start actually focusing on the strengths of our chosen medium? Let us try to actually use the immense power we have, instead of playing into the computer''s deficiencies.

---------------------------------------------------
-SpittingTrashcan

You can''t have "civilization" without "civil".

I miss bleeding in these systems. Or is it in?

Also, they are worthless without realistic hit zones. No matter how though a guy is, a good head shot with a .22 will kill him. Same goes for a sliced throat, broken neck, etc.

quote: Original post by SpittingTrashcan
Perhaps these aren''t the best approaches. Still, isn''t it time we stopped stealing from what works in P&P games and start actually focusing on the strengths of our chosen medium? Let us try to actually use the immense power we have, instead of playing into the computer''s deficiencies.

I agree. However, designing and implementing such a complex system is not a trivial task. It may not be worth it for a number of games.

quote: Original post by SpittingTrashcan
But what if we rethought the whole system, and designed a game to be for a computer from the ground up?

...isn''t it time we stopped stealing from what works in P&P games and start actually focusing on the strengths of our chosen medium? Let us try to actually use the immense power we have, instead of playing into the computer''s deficiencies.

Welcome to Tyr. I started this project to do exactly that. It launches in ~1 week, maybe less. Completely focused on community game design around a computers computational power.

The primary focus of initial discussions will focus on attribute definiton. I had a few thoughts similar to yours. I picture interactions of Health, Endurance, and Adrenaline. I like the Grit/Toughness attribute that you suggested.

Health begins as a base, and maybe increases by 10-15% after much training, ever.

Endurance begins low and can increase quite a bit.

Adrenaline is a set scale but has a different rate of fluctuation with different characters.

Grit is you general toughness, how much you can take and keep swinging.

All of these will interact with one another to determine a players current health status. The formula remains open.

Additional factors include type of attack, damage of attack, and area of attack. In general, a non-experienced character should always have a slight chance of beating an experienced character (if you shoot him in the eye, even if it was a lucky shot, he''s still gonna die; if you hit an unsuspecting someone in the back of the head with a brick, he''s going to get "knocked the f*** out").

Just wanted to mention we''re on the same page.



The Tyr project is coming...

as kind of a side note
the topic title of "endurance curve" sounded really cool.

like there would be a function based on the current amount of damage, and outputting a number with which to modify the player character''s performance

but what you described seems to have about the same effect. neat idea.

Consider though that these games are unrealistic in regards to HP because it is easy to communicate to the player and because it is fun. A game where you''re character writhes on the floor screaming in pain after receiving a gut shot might not be as entertaining as if you could just keep going til HP runs out.

but it depends a lot on the type of game you are making too. noone seems to care about realism in Quake-type deathmatches, but in a grittier, more serious setting this would be great!

I agree alot, its a good way to make things dramatic sence, almost forcing role playing. I may incorprate somthing like this into my game desgin. Its a nice realism factor.

As many people will say, the problem with using any system where health is tied to performance is one of negative feedback. The unit taking damage is being penalized twice, first by loosing health and secondly by loosing performance. This means whoever gets the first hit(s) in will have an unfair advantage, because the damaged character does not get a chance to respond properly, and this negative feedback cycle becomes compounded with each additional turn. More realistic, maybe, but in a gameplay environment (especially a competitive one) this is very frustrating for the underdog, who under normal circumstances will never get a chance to recover.

This is why most games will abstract damage into 1 attribute. Your ideas are appealing from a logical and creative point of view, but will need quite a lot of care to be balanced properly in a game setting (This system would function well as a strict simulation, of course).

[edited by - R0B0T0 on October 8, 2002 12:00:06 PM]

I think your game is going to need one heck of a A.I. for the GM/DM.

I''ve playied lots of P&P RPGs over the years, with lots of different GM/DMs...the best of these actively sought to make the experience worthwhile...the worst of them strictly enforced the game rules...Imagine your party is out in the middle of the woods, you have just defeated some dragon, and are severly wonded. Worse the party is left with no way to heal itself after useing all it''s resources in the drawn out deadly battle.

A decent GM/DM would consider how well we roleplayd the situation, he/she may even take into consideration how "lucky"/"unlucky" we got with our dice rolls. Such a GM/DM would likely allow our party to return to town with little incident....However a more rules basied GM/DM may try to play up the "realisam" of our situation, with the result being that the party would have to fight through hordes of critters on it''s way back to town (which is nearly impossable given the weak party condition).

And this was with a relitivly simpler hitpoints basied game mechanics then what you are developing...

Games like Final Fantasy have seemingly pretty abstract "battle engines"...but are they really? Think about it...the net result of a battle is the important part...whom dies (or is wonded), what resources were used/burned...how much experience points and/or other rewards are recieved....
The battles themselves are seemingly simplified pseudo turn-basied games. In which characters are presented takeing and dishing out huge amounts of damage beyond what mortal men are capable of...but if taken in battle result context...the actual fight itself can be considered a stylized gross exageration of the actual fight...

If the actual fight involves the player takeing 150 points of damage, then healing himself for 100 points before the fight is over....the net loss is 50 points, PLUS whatever resource used to heal himself...thus it represents a more involved and challangeing of a fight....these "resources" (in the forum of iteams, etc..) are the "fudge factor" that allows the game to model istelf more on players expectations as a GM/DM would.

The types of battles in FF type games are more or less "symbolic"...rather then trying to model reality....the individual attacks are more or less "exagerated and styleized MINI-VICTORIES" rather then some actual representation of an attack....


But by trying for a more realistic approch, the A.I. GM/DM is going to have to be wickedly clever...If the wonded player is heading back to town after a horrific fight, and stumbles across some critter (that could realisticly take the player out)...how would such a A.I. resolve the situation? Would it allow the critter to attack? And if it does then what is the player supposed to think when his/her wonded character has just been bitten by a rattlesnake, yet it does no damage? Where is the realisam then?