Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (
More info?)
niccoloFILTRO@turnipsrl.it postulated:
:: 1'd go with 1 to 3 letal damage per 10 miles per hour of speed.
Someting wrong with your math or you're misreading Rex's request. He's
asking for damage inflicted in a crash, presumably two cars, for example,
crashing, not a pedestrian getting hit by a vehicle. I can drive my car at
10 miles an hour and hit a wall and I'll probably just come away with some
bad bruising and perhaps whiplash. A bit faster and then things start
getting dangerous, but it really depends on the safety of the vehicle and
the age. For instance, is it an old tank or one of these quick crumple
papier-mache Japanese cars? Does it have airbags, are they wearing
seatbelts, etc.? While you don't necessarily want to get *too* technical
with these things in a game, they should be taken into consideration. They
can change the outcome of what might be a fatal crash into being just one
leaving a pain in the neck and a bruised shoulder.
:: small vehicles (motorcycles) would inflict 1 lethal damage per 10
:: miles per hour
:: medium vehicles (cars and vans) would inflict 2 lethal
:: large vehicles (trucks) would inflict 3 lethal
This might work fine as a guideline for pedestrians being hit by a moving
vehicle, but not for vehicle vs. vehicle collision. As a working game
mechanic, use your judgement on what the lethal damage might be if there
were no safety features. In other words, work out just how bad the crash
*could* have been. It doesn't actually take that much to go flying through
the windscreen, so it all gets a bit fuzzy. Look at what kind of safety
features the vehicle has (and the exact circumstances of the crash - did the
car roll or was it a head-on slam?) and use judgement again in converting
potential Lethal into Bashing. If you think they're getting off lightly,
convert 1 Lethal to 2 Bashing. Again, this depends on safety features and
common sense. As I said, safety belts are of much greater benefit at higher
speeds than the damage you'd recieve if you weren't wearing them, so you
can't go on a strict "every 10 mph" for occupants in this case. But after a
certain speed they're next to useless, and that's where airbags have more
worth.
Someone might provide you with some rules for this, but I don't think any
set of hard and fast rules can completely deliver a believable result since
there's so many factors to consider. I'd say use a bit of common sense,
really, coupled with drama (unless you're going for gritty realism). Think
about the event. Would that likely kill someone? In which case ensure the
*risk* that it could kill the PCs. To avoid death, perhaps substitute a
driving roll for a soak (especially if they have no soak against lethal) to
try to minimise the damage (if that's possible - this could be slamming
breaks, swerving so that it's not head-on, etc.). Safety features might take
away fatal levels of Lethal but then they also need to soak against all the
Bashing it would also cause. If you're going for gritty then you might find
the levels of damage inflicted, if the crash is bad enough, leaving everyone
Crippled, Incapacitated or dead. If you're going for dramatic, then at very
worst it should be Incapacitated, with the possibility of crawling away just
Mauled. Likewise, cinematically, a crash that should leave them at least
Mauled will have them staggering away a little dazed, aching and no Lethal
much above Injured.
In a Werewolf game I put my players in a train wreck and the only one to
actually recieve any real damage was the poor Theurge who while in his
native Homid form was Incapacitated by falling luggage!
🙂
In short, use judgement and just decide as to whether or not you think the
crash deserves to be potentially fatal or not.
After all, it's a game and unless the crash is a particularly profound
moment - like a PC driving at 180mph into the bad guy's vehicle to prevent
them from escaping with the Uber-Doohicky of World Conquest - then most
players don't want to have their characters die in a car crash. They want to
heroically survive it. That's assuming you have the "hero" approach to your
game. If it's gritty realism, then, well, just about any crash you see in
the movies would likely kill or permanently cripple them or something.
Just my thoughts,
Nimrod...
--
"I'm going to sing the Doom Song now." -- G.I.R., 'Invader Zim'
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram