Hey folks. Does anyone have any good suggestions for #ttrpg systems where health/damage is more specific than just reducing health points until you die. A game where your injuries had impacts both in and out of combat could fit quite well with a homebrew campaign I am thinking about.
(Edit: lots of great suggestions, thanks to everyone who replied).
@GrahamCampbell I've heard of several different systems that don't just do HP, some of which you can find here: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/10526/what-alternatives-to-hit-points-are-there-for-abstracting-wounds
Cypher System doesn't have HP, exactly, but it's still a numerical system in that it starts impacting your stats, until your stats have all been reduced to zero. That has some effect on your ability to defend against further damage, but doesn't impact your attack ability, such as I've seen so far.
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@GrahamCampbell As I was looking for another system that I have some faint memory of where damage impacts your skills/abilities, I came across the Azquilla RPG, which has a seemingly interesting Wound system for damage, which sounds like it might work for you.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/403039/asquilla-rpg-core-free
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@GrahamCampbell Many. But there are two good examples from the #FitD / #PtbA descent that come to mind.
The key concept here is that harms can be more than just hit points being deducted from a total. Instead, they have fictive existence and mechanical impact.
They can be wholly narrative in that they provide story complications for achieving the interests of the characters. They can be opportunities that go away and which require approaching them with a new methodology. You can have simply reduced effect to further efforts. You can have your position impacted, such that you are less in control of the situation and things that happen to you are almost inevitably worse. Finally, you can have actual physical or psychological harm, which represents some sort of lasting or ongoing cognitive or emotional impairment.
Once you realize that you can manage things that are not necessarily just a bloody nose, in the same architecture which impacts resolving physical conflicts, emotional conflicts, intellectual conflicts, etc., you're well on your way toward having a solution that is more than just ticking points on a hit point list.
(cont)
First, possibly best example is Blades in the Dark itself.
https://bladesinthedark.com/greetings-scoundrel
I'll toss in a little bit from the Consequences and Harm chapter of the book itself, which gives an example of what your sheet looks like for various harm notations, plus gives some examples of types of harm.
As I noted earlier, those types of harm can be physical or emotional or intellectual and their impact within the context of BITD is often to reduce your possible position or your effect
For example, let's say that you are Seduced as a state. That's not going to make much of a difference for climbing a brick wall. However, it will make a significant difference by reducing your probable effect or position if you want to do something other than what the character who has seduced you wants you to do.
Compare that to having a Deep Cut to Your Arm. That's not going to really impact your ability to choose to do things in relation to another person, but it's definitely going to make it harder, by a considerable margin, to climb that brick wall.
The Forged in the Dark games are probably one of the most straightforward examples of how this can be applied mechanically.
#TTRPG #BladesInTheDark #BitD
(cont)
Compare this to Fantasy World, which is a more straightforward descendant of Apocalypse World. Again, I've included a bit from the Elements of a Protagonist chapter for reference as regards harm and healing.
https://unplayablegamesrpg.itch.io/fantasy-world
Effectively, you acquire three different categories of tag which impact your ability to engage with the fiction and which change your narrative position. This is much like you see in Blades in the Dark.
You'll see a reference to HP there, but Hardiness Points in Fantasy World are handled in a very different way than you're used to seeing in more classically designed RPGs.
Fantasy World, because of the context of the conflicts it usually involves, talks a lot more about the fictional harm being physical, and it does do a very good job of making it more than just counting off and counting down numbers until you hit zero. It's very strongly driven by questions of fictional positioning.
Things which are generally considered conditions are handled in Fantasy World as tags. And there is an entire mechanical system for using, attaching, and removing tags, which is really fascinating to watch.
You can have Fantasy World for free, which is quite possibly the best price.
(cont)
Finally, I'd probably be deeply remiss if I didn't point out another free option which takes elements from all of the above and puts them in a package that lets you play solo, co-op, or guided. I'm talking about #Ironsworn.
https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn
On an initial glance, you probably would say that Ironsworn has a very classical HP system just split between multiple types of impact: Health and Spirit
It is intended as a very fiction-forward game, so you are encouraged to make your decisions based on what you know of the fictive things that have happened to your character.
If you took 2 health damage and you described that as taking a shot to the arm, your fictional framing should follow suit and continue maintaining that injury within the context of your interaction until you do something to remove that injury.
However, once health or spirit get down to zero, further negative consequences have mechanical impact by imposing actual serious Conditions, Banes, and Burdens.
You can think of the counter itself as a sort of timer until narrative consequences pile up deep enough to have serious ongoing mechanical impact.
Again, you can look at this game design for free, and I definitely suggest that you do if you're thinking of doing up your own TTRPG.
@GrahamCampbell In a lot of modern #TTRPG design, there is really no differentiation between combat as a means of conflict resolution in any other.
As such, repercussions from both get handled exactly the same. If you don't already own one, pick up a copy of one of the Forged in the Dark books, depending on your particular preference for genre and period. I think you will learn a lot from it.
Definitely pick up both Fantasy World and Ironsworn too, since because they're free it makes it very easy.
You might even want to look at #Wushu , which has a _very_ different approach to mechanics in general but positions fiction-first. Plus, again, free.
@GrahamCampbell That said, the very first thing I did was replace the injury table - it was too random for my tastes. Players could be stunned one turn and decapitated the next. I modified it so it has a more gradual escalation, and players get more warning signs that they’re losing.
But honestly, Fate is more my kind of thing.
Graham Campbell
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