Absolutely dead or just mostly dead?

[CosmicGamer]

chances when the heart stopping

What is your definition of death? Any time there is no pulse?

I am aware of CPR, heart and lung machines to keep someone alive and other current day medical science (let alone future medical tech) so, to me, no pulse and no heartbeat is not dead.

 

[McPerth]

First aid is also less effective than surgery. You can stop someone from bleeding out by applying a tourniquet, but you need to sew up the wound to get the blood flowing the right way in the body again.

I disagree in this point. First Aid and Surgery are different fields with different goals, and each of them is effective in its field. If you try to use first aid in the opareting room, results are likely to be disastrous, but that is also true if you try surgery when first aid is what is due, even if it will only serve to gain time for the surgery.

One could make an argument for letting first aid prevent further deterioration and death temporarily, but not giving back any attibute points at all.

I agree with you here, in that First Aid does not restore health, just avoids (or reduces/slows) lossing more of it. I've also seen any HP gained by first aid in any game as just avoiding losing them in first instance.

As I see it, if a wound does 15 damage points to a character (in any game, I'm talking now in generic mode), and 6 of them can be healed by First Aid, this means that it des in fact 9 damage points, and 6 more will be accrued son due to the wound, but those last ones may be avoided by applying First Aid.

So seen, your character in the OP could perhaps be saved by first aid, with some luck enough time to betaken to a hospital, if he was not left at too many negative stats.

And as a side question, while I can (with difficulty, as I guess we cannot imagine them) envision some wonders for ultra-tech medicine (incluiding surgery), I don't expect First Aid to change too much with TLs, as we are using more or less the same techniques that centures ago, just with better materials, response time and having improved some of them (as CPR) with more cientific studies.

 

[Murphy]

That might work if the rules didn't allow someone with two atributes reduced to 0 to linger for several days before dying. Admittedly, he'd have to have more than 3 in the last attribute to last more than a day. But somone capable of living for a day is not suffering from a stopped heart.

In other words, in the sliding scale of

"wounded but standing"
"unconscious but will recover"
"unconscious, few days to live"
"near death, few minutes to live"
"dead for good"

...we're skipping over the "near death" stage. It's not realistic, yes. Then again "few days to live" isn't realistic either. If I was making that scale, I'd probably make it much shorter, like this:

"wounded but standing"
"unconscious -- if untreated, bleeds out fast, otherwise lasts days till hospital"
"dead for good"

In fact, even "wounded but standing" should be prone to bleeding out after the shock wears off. If left untreated, that is.

Ahem. Sorry for the slight tangent.

EDIT: I agree with the post above which wasn't there when I typed It really makes a lot of sense. It sort of lets us contract the sliding scale of wound severity without losing out on the detail.

 

[McPerth]

What is your definition of death? Any time there is no pulse?

When a doctor (if various are present the team leader) certifies it.

Not a true joke, as the border among life and dead is sometimes quite blurred (or at least not so evident as to take the decision easily. In principle, death is the cessation of all life functions (not only heart and lungs).

I am aware of CPR, heart and lung machines to keep someone alive and other current day medical science (let alone future medical tech) so, to me, no pulse and no heartbeat is not dead.

What is legaly considered critical factor is when the brain has irreversively stopped funcioning, but the heart may still beat (lungs cannot, as its fuctioning depends on the brain, and must be maintained with a respirator).

This is when someone is considered dead for trasplanting pourposes.

 

[CosmicGamer]

When a doctor (if various are present the team leader) certifies it.

And if in game terms 0 0 0 stats = dead under those conditions of death...

I don't expect First Aid to change too much with TLs, as we are using more or less the same techniques that centures ago, just with better materials, response time and having improved some of them (as CPR) with more cientific studies.

Non Traveller, or optional:
For future tech, how about a first aid kit which is a miniature, or specialized, version of a auto doc. Just set it next to the patient and it sets bones, tends cuts, administers drugs, and so on.

Nano medical tech injections.

 

[Timerover51]

The rules as written for Mongoose Traveller when it comes to damage are as follows, quoted from the bottom of page 65, first column, rule book as of my most recent download of January of 2014.

Damage is applied initially to the target’s Endurance. If a target is reduced to Endurance 0, then further damage is subtracted from the target’s Strength or Dexterity (target’s choice, but all the damage from a single attack must be subtracted from a single statistic). If either Strength or Dexterity is reduced to 0, the character is unconscious and any further damage is subtracted from the remaining physical characteristic. If all three physical characteristics are reduced to 0, the character is killed.

Your character looses a broadsword combat on a low-technology world, and is reduced to unconsciousness. The victor then beheads your character, using your character's broadsword to demonstrate his/her/its complete victory and waves it gleefully about. The rest of your party retaliates by blasting the gleeful victor with fusion guns, and recovering the head and body take several hours to return to the party's star ship and put the headless corpse and severed head into the ship's autodoc. Is your character dead or not?

Your character takes a direct hit from a Tech Level Three 9-pounder cannon, doing 9D6 damage. As I tend to like to know where someone is hit, I roll for location, and said roundshot hits the cheat area, and inflicts 40 points of damage. In the real world, a roundshot of that size hitting in the chest area would have a good chance of cutting you in half. In not doing so, it will likely spray your heart, lungs, ribs, and spinal column several dozen yards downrange. Is your character dead or not?

Your character is shot in the head with the equivalent of a .600 Nitro Express heavy hunting rifle using soft nose ammunition, or at very close range with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with a Double 00 buckshot shell. In the case of the Nitro Express round, large portions of your skull, to say nothing of the skull's contents, are splattered about the landscape downrange. In the case of the shotgun load, a hole approximately 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter is blasted through your skull. (Note: I have seen autopsy photos of precisely this kind of wound. The skull is severely distorted.) Is your character dead or not?

I am not including the case of the character being inside of an armored vehicle which had just been hit by a large penetrating round which sets off both the vehicle's fuel and ammunition. Again, I have seen photos of what a body looks like in that case. Nor have I included the cases of a person being hit directly by a 105mm to 155mm artillery round, or a 40mm grenade exploding in the chest cavity. I assume in those case, everyone would assume that the character hit is, indeed, dead.

 

[atpollard]

Oh sure, when you put it that way, dead sounds so final.

 

[rancke]

Your character looses a broadsword combat on a low-technology world, and is reduced to unconsciousness. The victor then beheads your character, using your character's broadsword to demonstrate his/her/its complete victory and waves it gleefully about. The rest of your party retaliates by blasting the gleeful victor with fusion guns, and recovering the head and body take several hours to return to the party's star ship and put the headless corpse and severed head into the ship's autodoc. Is your character dead or not?

After several hours he's absolutely dead.

Now, if the incident took place in front of the starship and the friends reacted fast enough to pop the head into an autodoc like the one in Larry Niven's Procrustes in a couple of minutes, is the character dead? If the friends quickly pop the head into a Schlockiverse nannybag, is the character dead?

Now, both the Known Space autodoc and the nannybags are (presumably) above TL15, but MgT is a generic rules set, right? So given a sufficiently advanced TL (17 or 19 or whatever is the appropriate level), the MgT rules ought to accomodate this sort of thing.

Your character takes a direct hit from a Tech Level Three 9-pounder cannon, doing 9D6 damage. As I tend to like to know where someone is hit, I roll for location, and said roundshot hits the cheat area, and inflicts 40 points of damage. In the real world, a roundshot of that size hitting in the chest area would have a good chance of cutting you in half. In not doing so, it will likely spray your heart, lungs, ribs, and spinal column several dozen yards downrange. Is your character dead or not?

Dead, but if the head is intact not irretrievably so. (Given sufficiently advanced medical technology).

Your character is shot in the head with the equivalent of a .600 Nitro Express heavy hunting rifle using soft nose ammunition, or at very close range with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with a Double 00 buckshot shell. In the case of the Nitro Express round, large portions of your skull, to say nothing of the skull's contents, are splattered about the landscape downrange. In the case of the shotgun load, a hole approximately 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter is blasted through your skull. (Note: I have seen autopsy photos of precisely this kind of wound. The skull is severely distorted.) Is your character dead or not?

It's irretrievably dead. What's your point? Just because some events that kill a character leave it retrievably dead in a split second doesn't mean that all events that kill a character leave it irretrievably dead right away.

If a character gets a heart attack, is it dead? If it happens just outside a hospital, is there a chance that it can be brought back from the dead?


Hans

 

[rancke]

In other words, in the sliding scale of

"wounded but standing"
"unconscious but will recover"
"unconscious, few days to live"
"near death, few minutes to live"
"dead for good"

...we're skipping over the "near death" stage.

That's very well put. Yes, that's it exactly.

It's not realistic, yes. Then again "few days to live" isn't realistic either.

What's not realistic about someone taking several days to die? My father had an aneurysm and died five days later. Granted, he was on IV and probably would have died of thirst in less time than that without the medical help, but you hear plenty of stories of people who take days to die.

If I was making that scale, I'd probably make it much shorter, like this:

"wounded but standing"
"unconscious -- if untreated, bleeds out fast, otherwise lasts days till hospital"
"dead for good"

For game purposes you can do with even less than that. You could make do with 'alive' and 'dead'. But for roleplaying purposes, for verisimilitude, I'd really feel a need for all five.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

While it certainly seems possible for a character to drown in icy water or suffer an electrocution ... either of which could stop a heart and have a fair chance of recovery even with modern medicine, I have never had a character die such a non-violent death.

At the same time, I have also never had a character suffer a head shot from a 3 pound cannonball.

So let's move away from the extreme cases and towards something a little more common in Traveller.
What if the character was shot twice by a shotgun and reduced to 000777?
There is no Classic Traveller hit location in the core rules, but I think that it is safe to assume that he was probably not shot twice in the thumb and bled out. Statistically, a shot to the center of mass is more likely than a head shot.
So for the sake of argument, let's call it a shot to the chest and arm and a second shot to the belly and leg (this is a shotgun after all).

The group's well equipped Medic-0 immediately administers Fast Drug slowing the victim's metabolism to 1/60 normal. The 4 minutes for brain death, now requires 4 hours. The trip by air raft from the Starport bar to the nearest hospital will require 10 minutes ... Leaving 3 hours and 50 minutes for the hospital to provide suffient artificial life support to prevent brain death.

At a fairly low TL, MegaTraveller will allow organ transplants and artificial organs. By average imperial TL they can regrow biological organs and limbs. So IMhO, this more typical character has an above average chance of avoiding brain death and making a full recovery.

I suppose that my position is that with first aid, much is possible, and without first aid, totally dead is a likely result.

 

[CosmicGamer]

I will 100% grant you that the rules do not have the granularity some may want and do not discuss "verge" of death type situations in as much detail as one may like. I don't believe this is some big undersight as much can be role played. Stats that are total obliterated into double digit negatives can be brain splatted when applicable. Stats that are barely into death can be role played as verge of death and didn't make it when applicable. Stats where one is just barely alive and receives medical care can be role played as verge of death and brought back by the miracles of modern medicine when applicable.

For some, perhaps many? It is not an issue as their games are more about diplomacy, trade or other things.

So let's move away from the extreme cases and towards something a little more common in Traveller.
What if the character was shot twice by a shotgun and reduced to 000777?
There is no Classic Traveller hit location in the core rules, but I think that it is safe to assume that he was probably not shot twice in the thumb and bled out. Statistically, a shot to the center of mass is more likely than a head shot.
So for the sake of argument, let's call it a shot to the chest and arm and a second shot to the belly and leg (this is a shotgun after all).

Who in Traveller doesn't wear some form of cloth armor or other body armor? (rhetorical question) Especially if they are the type to get into combat. Doesn't typically cover the head though. My point is that someone who lives in a Traveller society would know the medical and combat norms and if they want to kill or even stop someone would likely be aiming at the head, not the thumb, not the chest.

Despite that, I'd say stipulating 000777 occurs from non head shots is biased toward an argument for 000777 stats not really being dead or killed or for death to be recoverable.

For someone that does not believe such, 000777 could reflect a hit to the head which cause unrecoverable damage and 200777 would possibly be "a shot to the chest and arm and a second shot to the belly and leg".

Who hasn't been on a low tech world and thrown a comrade into a Cryoberth until they could be taken to a high tech world with proper medical facilities? (rhetorical question) My point is that I believe the rules are written around a higher future TL where a gunshot to the heart is recoverable and only represents 000XXX when you role play it that way, not because the rules say so.

Now, both the Known Space autodoc and the nannybags are (presumably) above TL15, but MgT is a generic rules set, right? So given a sufficiently advanced TL (17 or 19 or whatever is the appropriate level), the MgT rules ought to accomodate this sort of thing.

No reason a rule can not have exceptions. There are examples in the core rules. For example there are rules on dodging and it's effect on initiative but an item in the equipment list, Combat drug, allows a dodge with no effect.

I believe there is a MgT publication that covers putting a brain into a cybernetic body?

So the rules allow for all sorts of possibilities even if they don't spell them out.

Details of a setting and deciding the capabilities of technology not fully described in the game are the norm. I don't think it would be against the rules to clarify for ones play group what a field med kit, medical lab, and fully equipped hospital can do at different tech levels. For example, the rules provide only the briefest descriptions of the difference between a TL8 and TL14 medkit and there are also TL10 and TL 12 versions. What could one do with a TL16 medkit? As I've mentioned before, I believe it is possible for one to interpret the rules to allow surgery to be performed on someone who's stats are 000XXX or below. You could say this is only possible at a certain TL or higher hospital and these are the type of facilities that could grow organs and such. Same with first aid and medkits. You could start writing volume one for your Traveller medical library and detail all kinds of possible combinations of trauma, poison, diseases and other medical conditions and the ability of different first aid, medkit, medlab, trauma centers, and hospitals to handle such.

Or you could wing it and roleplay based on the situation that occurs in the game.

For a bit of realism, how about in real life more young fit military folk die from causes other than combat. (2012 statistics) Or the odds of dying in a fall are 1 in 184.

Imagine your character taking a shower before bed, slipping in the fresher and hitting their head, unconscious, bleeding out, and nobody going to check on them until the following morning.

Dead?

 

[Murphy]

What's not realistic about someone taking several days to die?

I retract my statement.

 

[McPerth]

While it certainly seems possible for a character to drown in icy water or suffer an electrocution ... either of which could stop a heart and have a fair chance of recovery even with modern medicine, I have never had a character die such a non-violent death.

At the same time, I have also never had a character suffer a head shot from a 3 pound cannonball.

So let's move away from the extreme cases and towards something a little more common in Traveller.
What if the character was shot twice by a shotgun and reduced to 000777?
There is no Classic Traveller hit location in the core rules, but I think that it is safe to assume that he was probably not shot twice in the thumb and bled out. Statistically, a shot to the center of mass is more likely than a head shot.
So for the sake of argument, let's call it a shot to the chest and arm and a second shot to the belly and leg (this is a shotgun after all).

The group's well equipped Medic-0 immediately administers Fast Drug slowing the victim's metabolism to 1/60 normal. The 4 minutes for brain death, now requires 4 hours. The trip by air raft from the Starport bar to the nearest hospital will require 10 minutes ... Leaving 3 hours and 50 minutes for the hospital to provide suffient artificial life support to prevent brain death.

Several points here:

- if the caracter is put at 000*** (no negatives) with more than a wound, I'd say he has suffered no really killing wound, and his condition is due more to bleeding and shock, so I'd allow First Aid to be tried (albeit not easy) and, if a single point is regained, he's not yet dead and can be brought to the hospital for better treatment. Should he be reduced to 000*** by a single blow, I'd make it moe difficult yet (assuming this blow is more critical), and if he's reduced to negatives, those negatives must be overcome by the first aid in any case.

- fast drug will take some time to be absorved amd begin its effect, so I'd say you will have only 2-3 hours at best to take him to the hospital. I know this doesn't change your point, but may change it in other cases, when there's less plenty of time. See that a stopped heart difficults any drug to reach the target organs and take effect...

At a fairly low TL, MegaTraveller will allow organ transplants and artificial organs. By average imperial TL they can regrow biological organs and limbs. So IMhO, this more typical character has an above average chance of avoiding brain death and making a full recovery.

In Megatraveller there is the possibility to ressurect a dead carácter in a TL 13+ hospital explained in the rules, as long as he's put in cold berth within few minutes from "death". I guess yo ucan buy additional time by using fast drug too. But in MgT this is not even refered to...

I suppose that my position is that with first aid, much is possible, and without first aid, totally dead is a likely result.

This is the intent of First Aid: to buy time for full medical treatment.

 

[CosmicGamer]

In Megatraveller there is the possibility to ressurect a dead carácter in a TL 13+ hospital explained in the rules, as long as he's put in cold berth within few minutes from "death". I guess yo ucan buy additional time by using fast drug too. But in MgT this is not even refered to...

Similar in MgT Core Rules

A cryoberth can therefore be used to place a severely injured character into stasis until he receives medical treatment. While in a cryoberth, a character’s wounds neither heal nor degrade and all disease and poison activity is halted. In effect, all biological functions are suspended until the cryoberth is deactivated and the character thaws.

 

[atpollard]

Imagine your character taking a shower before bed, slipping in the fresher and hitting their head, unconscious, bleeding out, and nobody going to check on them until the following morning.
Dead?

Dead ... but the Ref should come prepared for a lynch mob.

I admit that I hadn't considered the prevalence of body armor increasing the likelihood of a head wound. Good observation.

For me, I prefer more of a Big Darn Hero tone to the game.
I don't want a superhero like two minutes of enemy machine-gun fire result in no hits, and I don't want such utter realism that your character contracts an antibiotic resistant strain of a local disease and dies of pneumonia.

So IMTU, a character brought BELOW 000*** and healed to 000*** (or higher) within the 10 minute Classic Traveller turn ... or even better, the shorter combat round ... should have every expectation to live to fight another day with a great story to tell and a bunch of free drinks owed to the ship's doctor.

My two house rules are:
1. Have fun.
2. Don't break the 2D6 curve.
Dead at 000*** - no chance for extraordinary actions - violates Rule #1 IMTU.

 

[McPerth]

Similar in MgT Core Rules

What I meant in that in Megatraveller rules are clear about when one carácter hits are reducet to 0, he is killed but may be ressurected at a TL 13+ medical facility.

If such rule is also in MgT, I guess I skipped it...

 

[CosmicGamer]

So IMTU, a character brought BELOW 000*** and healed to 000*** (or higher) within the 10 minute Classic Traveller turn ... or even better, the shorter combat round ... should have every expectation to live to fight another day with a great story to tell and a bunch of free drinks owed to the ship's doctor.

And I believe the MgT rules can accommodate such.

People live their whole life with this tech. Keep in mind how allowing anything but a irreversible head injury to be the norm effects the overall setting.

More violent games of recreation where injuries are the norm. Bring back the gladiators! How the law treats criminals of violent crime as knives and other weapons may not be considered deadly. (explains those law levels allowing the average joe to walk around packing - it's just not a big threat) Shooting someone may not be more of a crime than punching them. Teens often shoot and stab each other just to see how long they can go before calling uncle.

You mentioned a "Big Darn Hero tone". If there is little risk based on setting and not special rules for just the characters, the general population will be more likely to participate in daring activity and whatever your character is doing will not be seen as heroic. Children don't get icecream when they fall off their bike and skin their knee because a high tech bandaid almost instantly stops bleeding and pain and promotes quick healing. When your character tells their story in the bar they don't get drinks paid for, they get laughed at while every other person in the bar talks about the times they did such and such.

"I was so dead it took months to recover."

"Oh shut up John, you were only in the hospital for a day. It was the ten parsec trip to the high tech hospital that took so long and you didn't age a day in cryo."

I guess there needs to be more special medical ships made to transport cryo berths and people traveling to higher tech worlds for medical care.

 

[CosmicGamer]

What I meant in that in Megatraveller rules are clear about when one carácter hits are reducet to 0, he is killed but may be ressurected at a TL 13+ medical facility.

If such rule is also in MgT, I guess I skipped it...

I do believe the intent in MgT was 000XXX is killed for the core rules however there is room for interpretation as to what killed means.

The rules do not describe what 000XXX or 200XXX is, that is up to the GM!

A GM could declare a 300XXX person who just received 17 points of damage from an excellent cutlass blow as beheaded. Nothing in the rules against it.

If the GM says the person is beheaded, they will lose 1d6 damage per round. Get first aid and Fast Drug in the round following beheading and it's now 1d6 every 6 minutes instead of six seconds. Get the head and body quickly into a cryo berth and take it to the appropriate medical facility and your comrade is saved. But they were never dead, just seconds from death. I believe this is all within the rules.

So what specific situation is it that you feel the rules do not accommodate other than a persons individual view as to what 000XXX means?

 

[mike wightman]

Perhaps what is needed is a MgT supplement detailing high TL medicine - would have made a good Signs and Portents article...

 

[CosmicGamer]

Mike, there was a two part medical article by Alex Greene in Signs and Portents. It has things like medical innovations and drugs broken down by TL, over a dozen medical specialties, a bunch of medical task examples, variation of task difficulty by medical TL, additional drugs and equipment, and so on but it was not specific to high tech nor specific to the issue being discussed, death and stats and recovery. I never read it, just skimmed it in the past and reskimmed it to comment on it now.

The closest info that pertains to this discussion was

Tech Levels 11 – 12
Medicinal Slow Drug provides the ultimate tool
in the medical treatment of injuries. Coupled
with cryoberths, modern cloning and regenerative
techniques and speedy grav ambulance services,
death as a result of accidental injury becomes
almost unheard of, except amongst the poor.

and

At TL 15 medical treatment becomes economical
enough to bring its benefits to even the poorest
disenfranchised among the population, who can
be cured and healed of almost anything except
death itself.

There is also supplement 8: Cybernetics.
Here is says

At Tech Level 13 it is possible to completely transplant the brain,
without any detriment to the mind, personality and memories, to
a full replacement body.

However, this Full Body Simulacrum costs Cr. 10,000,000 and it is a body composed of a full array of all the replacement arm, leg, torso, heart, lung, and so on. The composite need not match the patients height, girth, or race. It has a synthetic skin that can appear similar to the prior body of the patient or they can opt for something different. A version that has no appearance enhancement is cheaper but looks robotic. It has 777 stats (pay more for slight enhancements max of A/10 possible at TL 15). Cloned bodies are discussed too for TL15+.