HP?

>it's another 'OP hasn't played anything but D&D' episode

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Dark Heresy does it well. Even one shot will fuck you up. Sure, you might survive, but you're fairly likely to get fucked up from it. Obviously once you factor in armour, powerful weapons, mutations, and daemons it changes it a lot, though. You could take a lot from that OP and keep the ballistics basic with terrible armour and it should work fine. /tg/ loves the critical hit charts from it.

Have a slav for your trouble.

>>51247190
Why is the first post always the most tryhard one?

>>51247132
Learn how bullet wounds kill and portray them without abstraction. Is it that hard?

>>51247207
>Even one shot will fuck you up.
It's very unlikely that it will. The average gun deals 1d10+3 damage, and the average guy has 3 toughness, so the damage is just 1d10. 6-8 wounds (HP) on the average joe means there's a 40-20% chance to take a critical wound, which I don't think is ever lethal with any damage type. And everything that isn't a critical wound is just HP damage and has no real effect.

>>51247217
Why is the first reply to the first post always the most conceited one?

>>51247254
Just make everything critical damage then.

>>51247285
>just ignore the rules then
Just don't use the 40k RPGs if you want lethality then.

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>>51247190
Thank you for your imput.
Well, you got PbtA with Harm checks, WoD with sucesses, Runequest and Pendragon that use HP but with highly random damage... but all those systems still have the same problem, they don't make you fear serious damage. If you're shot in PbtA, you think "phew, still have two Harm cheks!" and so on.

The only system that I can recall using something different is Dread, with the Jenga tower.

That, and calculating HP loss and recovery can become a pain in the ass, WoD and NWoD being examples. Calculating Normal damage plus Aggravated Damage plus armor plus whatever turns WoD combat to an annoying grind.

>>51247285
>>51247294
Actually, having every shot roll for critical damage would be a pretty good way to do it, since its not just lethality. Some crits don't add anything, while some main characters without outright killing. If you want every shot to be terrifying, that'd do.

>>51247327
Yeah, I think it's only a handful of critical attack that actually kill outright, most stun/panic or cause you to lose fingers.

>>51247294
I'm using the experiences of what I've played pal. We're all trying to help OP here.

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>>51247132
Low HP and powerful guns works fine. try to have people getting killed all around them to scare them

Listen to some accounts of people who were actually there, you'll get some great ideas:

Try "Four Weeks in the Trenches" from this playlist. Its written by a german soldier who was on the eastern front in WW1
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYIx7audKFzw4SyvD7Kq3QCjt1BhdEoCB

There's some other great audiobooks there, written by people who were actually there. Well worth checking out - pretty riveting stuff!

>>51247132
Sword and Sorcery games tend to do it. Blade of the Iron Throne is exceptional in that regard.

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You could do a system with suppression and mental fortitude under fire instead of hit points but I have no idea how that could be implemented.

>>51247346
Depending on the location, I think the head is mostly death, while the foot and such mostly living.

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>>51247207
Will do. Downloading as we speak.

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>>51247378
Make sure it's second edition. I hope it helps!

>>51247347
Nice. I usually take my "war is hell" atmosphere from Tim O'Brien, but WWI obviously had a very different feel.

>11 replies
>no GURPS suggestion
Okay, I guess I'll do it. GURPS. Gunshots are scary and lethal; even if you don't die immediately there are bleeding and infections to contend with afterwards that very much fit the 'plausibility' vibe it seems like you're going for.

It does use HP, but it doesn't scale like it does with other systems and it also has hit location stuff; meaning, even an errant .22 in the liver or eye/heart/brain/whatever is bad news.

Combines nicely with defensive options like dodging, cover, dodging and dropping, etc. to let players keep some options and agency when reacting to attacks.

GURPS with the 'realism' toggles on has some of the most nail-biting violence, and more importantly, avoidance of violence of any system I've run.

>>51247319
do what Traveller does and have damage applied to your physical statistics.

So you have no HP at all, but damage is done directly to you STR, DEX, and CON.

Say you take a hit from a .303, it does 3D8 damage (for example) Say I rolled 15 for damage.

You're all level 1 characters, and to make them even weaker you roll 2D6 for each stat. (they can swap them around, but must use their 6 rolls as one of their stats.
Say this specific character has 8 STR, 7 DEX, and 7 CON

One stat has to get hit first, you can randomize or make it CON. So the 15 damage goes on the CON - it is now 0, then the rest of the damage goes on another stat they can choose - say its STR. strength is now 0 too. they would also lose 1 point from DEX as there's 1 point of damage left over.

Once 2 of the physical stats are 0, a player is unconscious, once all 3 are at 0, the player is dead. permanently dead.

So in our example the player is unconscious from a single .303 shot, and would take weeks in hospital to recover. The other PCs could visit him... hey maybe he'll even get a leg amputated and be invalided home...?

>>51247351
It would be a matter of trading Hp for Morale.

Each player could have a "Bravery" stat, that begins at 0 as they are fresh from boot camp.
Accomplyshing something the character wanted since the beggining (earning a medal, having his face plastered all over the Motherland, saving civilians, killing loads of the damn germans/russians/serbs) will give him some permanent bravery, while everyday factors like shellshock, starvation or disease will reduce it.
Reaching 0 Bravery means he panics and forgets training - putting himself in harm's way like an idiot and most likely getting a bullet for his trouble.

>>51247132
Call of the Void has very scary wounds that happen to you when you are shot. They cause constant pain and blood loss, there's no HP.

If you don't mind stating your own firearms it's great.

>>51247529
This could work. You might feel inspired by the warm meal or have a big boost from earning a medal or a trip back home, but the slow incessant shelling might chip off a bit each day until you can't take it any more.

Read Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger OP. It's western front, but might give you some more inspiration. We had a good WW1 thread on here a few weeks back about horror things that could happen.

>>51247437
GURPS is good for two things:

-When /k/ is the GM.

-Hard Sci-Fi and the Fantasy equivalent.

After that, it's everyone's last resort. The simulationist game mechanics really don't do a good job of reinforcing the themes and tones of the setting the GM is trying to project, which is fine if you've got an exceptional GM. Otherwise I'd rather find a system that does a better job of reinforcing the feeling of the game I'm trying to run.

>>51247485
That's a pretty elegant solution actually.

>>51247572
As someone who plays GURPS a lot, but have played a huge variety of systems, I strongly disagree with most of your points. GURPS is not 'just' for simulationist campaigns, can be run in a wide variety of styles with different 'flavor' modules plugged in akin to what you would find in many dedicated systems, and once "prepped" it reinforces the theme and tone of most campaigns about as well (and in some cases, better) as most other popular systems mentioned on /tg/, barring highly specific games like AW and DitV where the world flavor is 1:1 with the mechanics themselves.

That said, you're entitled to your opinions and I'm not going to derail OP's topic by posting excessively about this, so suffice it to say I simply very much disagree with you and your current perspective.

>>51247132
>"hey, with some luck I can survive two-three bullets"
You can simply adjust the weapon to deal enough damage to knock you down in single shot twice, but giving it a spread big enough that you won't be cock-sure you will die. Something like
>Your HP is 10
>The rifle deals 2d6+3
Bam, most shots can easily end up lethal.

Or just use GURPS

>>51247572
>GURPS is last resort
What next? That it lacks flavour? Or some other meme from 2005?

D6 and Mini Six have a wound levels system where you incur die penalties according to the damage you've taken. It's more suited to cinematic campaigns but characters do have a low threshold of damage they can take before becoming dead or incapacitated.

>>51247132
As if you just couldn't adjust damage and HP accordingly

>>51247741
That's what Runequest does. And I like it, in fact. it's my go-to system for swordy games.

You could crib Riddle if Steel's wound charts and effects.

>>51247132

Make an injury table
Characters can suffer up to their toughness bonus
Make a mortal blow table
All injuries on this table are ways that the player can die after hitting max injuries then next time they get hit they die

I really have no idea, I'm just spitballing here

>>51247132
Use mooks as HP. That way you can have plenty of deaths without your PC's having to roll new characters constantly.

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>>51247132
You could try something like Rivet's combat system.

Against a competent shooter your players have a good chance of catching a headshot, and even if they don't die right away they'll die in a few hours without proper medical treatment.

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>>51247132
Here's what you are looking for, OP. Ruleset+setting, in one package to solve your troubles. And the gunplay is great, too, while keeping it simple.

You could apply the change to the action system and how it ties with the narrative. What I mean, take the fear and make it part of the actions players take, eg make a difference between being in cover or standing in the open, make move action into "move from cover to cover".
So dont have attack (in this situation against players) rolls per say, but rather "what do you do to avoid being shot". Failing the above move action means you get shot. Standing in the middle of the street in a gun fight means you get shot - roll to see if it was only a graze and not headshot.
Make duration' and 'trigger/ready' actions a key part of the action system. "Keep shooting at the guy in cover" keeps him in cover. Should he risk moving he will be shot. Overwatch, coverfire, distractions. Many of these things dont work well in the usual DnD turn structure, so dont have that.

>Zoom in on interaction.
>Make fear/respect part of the actions

These advice are taken from my limited knowledge of narrative systems such as Fate and PbtA. I only read those and played a little Dungeon World. Played a lot of DnD and found many of the stories I want run, dont fit into the ruleset. I dont see how gunfight fit in either.
>>51247207 have suggested DH, and it works well, but it does it by making rules to make the players fear on the characters part - I dont think that is a good idea, as it just takes one joke and tension is eased or one player who dont care enough.
You want a game with high tension gunfights, well, you make the character have high tension gunfight, dont let the rules try do that, have rules that do that. My argument ended up sounding very Yoda-like, but instead of building tension from players, build tension from the characters. Dont let the character be a marionette dragged around by the player, making the marionette flung around off-tune, instead force the character to dance to the tune of the game.

>>51255258
Dont make the mistake of thinking this is removing player agency but if you dont it wrong it will be. Assuming you are playing a modern non-fantasy game, a player could easily make his character pick up a stick wooden and yell "avocado", but if you let character expect a a killing curse, you are doing something wrong. This is of course an overly aggressive example but it still applies in the same vain that you cant expect players to have a high tension gun fight if they can stand 20 ft apart and have a gun fight have is mechanically just "you coin flip, I coin flip - first to 3 heads wins."

Dark Heresy works by making the players fear consequences, my advice is after many revisions and reformulations

>Make the character fear the consequences.
Not the player, the character - but maybe also the player.

>>51247924
>WW1 game
>Swordy

i like Sillouette core, basically your "HP" pool called system shock works as a negative modifier pool to all your dice.

keep in mind that in this game, damage is multiplied by the difference in opposed rolls. and dices are d6's keeping highest. so when your only results are from 1 to 6 and you have a -2 modifier your dice rolls are cut in "half". and that can make the difference between life and instant death.

>>51247132
GURPS with low-point characters.
A bolt action rifle that does 7d6 damage is really fucking scary given your low health, plus there's things like weapon malfunctions, shock, and all the types of injury. You can take some damage without outright dying, but it takes very little to send you from top shape to fighting for your life.

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>>51247132
Use wound levels instead of HPs.

I like to use those four levels (pic related):

Light: Hurts, might bleed, but doesn't really impede on the soldier's function (flesh wound). Will heal without after-effects.
Serious: Hurts like a bitch, bleeds profusely, impedes on the soldier's function. Healing without moderate after-effects can only be guaranteed by adequate medical care (doctor/medic).
Critical: Character is most likely out of combat. Might fight in desperate situation. Might die without first-aid within the next hour or so. Will only heal without serious after-effect if adequate medical care available (field hospital).
Mortal: The character is KIA if hit in the head or vitals. If he was hit in a limb, the limb is gone (don't need to cut it's falling off). The character is going to die unless first-aid is available within the next few minutes. Will only heal without after-effect if medical care available (major hospital).

>>51255258
>>51255334
Thanks for the overview.

I was thinking of stealing the Pendragon turn structure - either you attack or you defend, not both, and every player takes turns DECLARING their action but they all happen at the same time in-game. Players could either shoot or run for cover, since of course you can't dodge bullets.

The classic swordy pacing of attacking, then waiting your opponent to attack so you can block or dodge simply doesn't apply to gunfights.

>>51256392
That's clearly the best option. Each wound could be your last one.

LW = DMG 1-4
SW 5-8
CW 9-12
MW 13+

Pistols and SMGs do around 2d6+1
Rifles and machineguns do around 5d6+1
Shotguns do from 6d6 to 1d6 depending on distance
Grenades 7d6 in a 2m radius
Artillery transforms you automatically in chop-suey if you're in its kill radius (5 to 30m depending on caliber)
Shrapnel from grenades 1d6
Shrapnel from artillery 2d6
Spades and knifes 2d6
Bayonet 3d6

DMG is multiplied by 2 for head shots and 2.5 for shots in the vitals (torso) after deduction of armor

Pickelhaube offers 2 points of armor
Stahlhelm, Brody and Adrian helmet offer 10 points of armor
A breastplate offers 12 points of armor but reduces speed and gives a penalty to athletics and endurance related rolls

>>51247132

Neotech 2, uses Blood loss, pain and trauma. hard to find in english though

>>51247132
Use Call of Cthulhu/Basic Role Playing.

Use SAN and assign SAN loss values to various warfare events.

Your players are not tough and they could lose their mind amidst the warfare.

>>51247132
Check out what they do in Song of Swor-

>>51247319
>WoD and nWoD constitute "Pain in the ass" level complexity
Never mind.

>>51247319
>PbtA with Harm checks
All PbtA systems don't have Harm checks and there still are the clocks, which are basically hp, you just count up instead of down.

>>51247132
I liked how LoTRO did HP, where it was valour and you were forced to retreat if you ran out.

>>51247132
You've got 15 HP
Rifle does 3d6+6 damage

Problem solved

>>51266325
It's not complex, it's just slow and feels clunky.

>>51251932
this desu senpai

>>51255658
Cavalry sabers on the eastern front son.

Maybe not swordy, but melee was a big thing in the trenches when you're too close for rifles. Even bayonets were a bit too cumbersome in tight trenches. spades and clubs played a bit part in trench clearing.

>>51247319
Runequest's guns are nasty. Rifles have a good chance of putting you down on the spot, no questions asked. And even if they don't, they'll get a near guaranteed special effect on whatever they hit.
Throw in a sanity-mechanic, and your trenches will be littered with corpses and disabled soldiers quicker than your players can roll up new ones if they're not paying attention.

>>51247132
every time a player takes a bullet, they have to let you punch them.

>>51247132
Advanced Squad Leader

>>51247294
>this nigga's never heard of house-ruling
I have run my players through "hard mode," and "hardcore mode," in regards to the 40k RPGs.

Hard mode is just halving the amount of wounds and continuing as normal. Hardcore mode is anything that gets through soak rolls on the critical chart; damage only adds to it as normal.

Both give various ways to play, and all will give your players pause. Though I wouldn't suggest it in things like the whimsy of Rogue Trader, just for a super-crazy oneshot of Only War or something. Or a full campaign if your players are okay with having a lot of character sheets.

>>51267453
At that point, why not just put the dice away and play airsoft?

>>51247924
RuneQuest is actually rather good, but I don't like a lot of their firearm stats. They're purely dice rolls, and are therefore way more random than a lot of melee weapons.

>>51251932
PDFs?

>>51268137
Why settle for airsoft?

Every time a player takes a bullet, they have to run around the far end of a shooting range until you land a potshot on them.

Hope you got dosh, OP, nuggets ain't cheap anymore.

>>51269092
And for melee damage I hit them with a sharpened spade?

>>51247254

Under those rules, you can have a single "near miss" with a gun.

After that near miss, you can easily get to 7 on the critical damage table, which is typically fatal, with the average firearm.

Add a bit of armor, and you get a few extra bullets off you... which just means you get a little extra gun...

>>51268361
mega:///#F!axkmmbKT!NKiex_659PAGOlaKBbukFA!K0dAyaaQ

one folder up there's even Weir War II if you'd like

>>51270010
and actually I might've lied, I'm not 100% sure - you might want to also grab a current core rulebook for savage worlds, but it should be in the same MEGA dump

>>51270058
I copy-pasted and got a google search showing me nothing? I'm afraid I'm making a newfag mistake.

>>51270066
Fixed it. Thanks for the link.

>>51247132
From what i know of it, shadowruns system seems to work well.

It has two sets of HP, and each one can give up to three wounds, which is just a cumulative -1 on everything, up to -6 at max, assuming you haven't died.

I think the most common misunderstanding in systems is that a simple numeric representation isn't enough, when we are in a medium that relies entirely on imagination. DnD is an example where this isn't properly accounted for, but literally every other system with some sort of wound mechanic works just fine for these purposes.

>>51247132
I'd homebrew it myself. Would be super easy. Roll for hit, roll for where on the body it hits, wounds to legs heavily impede movement, arms impede carrying/shooting ability, torso is a debuff, head/heart is instakill.

Each combat round drains health from an HP bar depending on where the character was hit, until the wound is tended or the character dies.

Assign different levels of treatment with different roll modifiers, then roll for infections.

It's a lot of rolling, but that's sort of the point of not getting hit. Getting shot would be running the risk of the game ending.

>>51247346
>We're all trying to help OP here.

I've never read something so optimistic on these boards before.

In Nechronica, your body parts work as your weapons and tools.
When you receive damages, you lose equal numbers of body parts.
Any part lost will disable the corresponding function; lose all, and you are gone.

In Shinobigami (iirc the system should be Dice Fiction), skills are divided into 6 categories,
whenever you lose 1 HP, 1 random category is disabled, you need to use other skills to compensate the lost one.