Absolutely dead or just mostly dead?

[McPerth]

Mike, there was a two part medical article by Alex Greene that 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.

But I guess not due to combat injury, as, unlike accidents, it is specifically intended to damage/kill, and with TL its efficiency also raises.

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.

(underlining is mine)

Curious (and I's say paradoxal) the underlined part, as, if they can be cured and healed of almost anything, what does people die from, for death to be the exception?

This said, and returning to the discussion, as it does not define at which point a character is irreversibelly dead, we stay whree we were...

 

[Brandon C]

FWIW, against an average unarmored person (777XXX), a 6d6 attack (or two 3d6, or three 2d6 or six 1d6) will kill half the time.

Also, consider those six 1d6 wounds alternating at 3 and 4 points of damage (three 3 point woulds and three 4 point wounds.). You really can't sat the last hit destroyed his brain, pulpd his heat or severed his spine to kill him when the previous two hits for the same damage were clearly recoverable under the rules.

Hans, the problem is that despite being published this century, MgT is a nod to the days of rpgs when characters were entirely disposable. The mindset was that if a character dies, so what, you just rolled up a new one. The health and death RAW reflect this.

 

[McPerth]

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.

I see beheading as one of the examples for the ultimate killing, absolutely irreversible. While a character has even 1 single hit, he has not been beheaded, as it will take a day or so to die (without help, as if help can be applied he is clearly still healable).

IMHO, beheading would mean levaing the character at enough negative points as to be absolutely unrecoverable. And I don't believe the head can be reimplanted, as some people suggested, as there are too many effects and no way to join it again quick enough.

See that in Ringworld (with anagathics being common and lifespan near unlimited), when a Puppeteer is beheaded, Wu wonders if it could be reimplanted, counting on the fact that they have two heads, and so maybe it's not lethal losing one...

Maybe I just lack imagination about future wonders medicine can bring...

 

[CosmicGamer]

Also, consider those six 1d6 wounds alternating at 3 and 4 points of damage (three 3 point woulds and three 4 point wounds.). You really can't sat the last hit destroyed his brain, pulpd his heat or severed his spine to kill him when the previous two hits for the same damage were clearly recoverable under the rules.

Sure I can. Based on the rules, at some point those 1d6 wounds result in the character being unconscious and the last is the coup de grace death blow.

 

[mike wightman]

MgT allows a brain to be installed in a robot, MT allowed a head to be transplanted to a robot body (see the Knightfall adventure).

Providing you can get a severed head into 'cryo' within 5 mins there is still enough oxygen in the tissues to prevent cell death.

Get the head into cryo and get it to a high TL medical facility. You have a couple of choices, clone a new body - engineered to be without a brain - grow a synthetic biological body, or install in a machine body.

Keep the head in storage until you are ready for the reattachment procedure - maybe a brain only transplant is a better idea - and then 'defrost'. Arterial shunts will allow oxygenated artificial blood to keep the brain alive until the transplant/attachment is complete.

I'd introduce it at TL10+, by TL15 it should be trivial. Which opens up a rather obvious life prolonging procedure for the rich...

 

[Brandon C]

Sure I can. Based on the rules, at some point those 1d6 wounds result in the character being unconscious and the last is the coup de grace death blow.

You can't do it in any realistic way. As a player, you could not convince me that the first two 4 point woulds could be healed with little difficulty but the third magically bisects my character beyond any hope of recovery. The best you can argue is that my character succumbed to cumulative damage, all wounds of more or less equal severity.

 

[CosmicGamer]

IMHO, beheading would mean levaing the character at enough negative points as to be absolutely unrecoverable. And I don't believe the head can be reimplanted, as some people suggested, as there are too many effects and no way to join it again quick enough.

And you can play that way while others don't. Both are possible within the rules.

As I keep saying, it's up to the GM to determine what 000XXX and 200XXX and so forth represent. I see the supplements and such that detail brain transplants as optional for the GM and different play groups may not own or use the same.

Some people use the core rules and play lower tech settings, like I believe 2300AD is.

While a character has even 1 single hit, he has not been beheaded, as it will take a day or so to die (without help, as if help can be applied he is clearly still healable).

That is one interpretation of the rules. Nothing in the rules says one can not continue to take damage from serious wounds due to situations like shock or blood loss causing the heart to stop or from electrocution where only a couple points of physical damage are incurred. Off the top of my head, the rules cover situations where damage continues at 1d6 per minute or 1d6 per combat round until they get first aid or make a saving roll. All within the core rules. They just leave it up to the GM instead of a medical library of possible medical conditions, side effects, treatments and so on.

Does that damage that caused your stats to drop from 777777 to 740777 dropping ones dex affect your arm, your leg, cause blurry vision? The GM provides the role playing details, not the rules.

 

[CosmicGamer]

You can't do it in any realistic way. As a player, you could not convince me that the first two 4 point woulds could be healed with little difficulty but the third magically bisects my character beyond any hope of recovery. The best you can argue is that my character succumbed to cumulative damage, all wounds of more or less equal severity.

Please watch your wording in implying that I can't do it in a realistic way for me or even players in my game. I am not trying to convince you of changing your views, just that others can have differing opinions from yours and neither need be wrong.

First off, the GM need not reveal the results of dice rolls to the players. That's what GM screens are for. They only need provide descriptions that fit the results.

If one thinks of damage as physical force or stresses inured, high damage could be the force of a IED blowing someones legs off and they can still be alive or someones head getting blown off and they are dead. Low damage could be a cut to the leg and alive or a slit throat and possibly dead. Was that hit to the head or leg? There are no hit locations in Traveller, so one can say that the blow, high damage or low, that kills someone is to the head.

People can determine what the overall role playing results are based on the end result of the game mechanics. I believe it's impossible for a volume of books to describe all the possibilities let alone a single RPG book where personal combat is just one section of the game rules.

In the various game systems I have played, both pen and paper and computer RPGs, the very last point of damage, even if it is only one point, is all that is needed to end things.

In Traveller, someone with starting stats of 333777 is perfectly healthy and unwounded as is a person with AAA777 starting stats. If each takes 9 points of damage, one is at 000777 and possibly dead and the other is at 991777 and fighting the good fight at full STR and DEX. That character with AAA777 characteristics can get seriously wounded and then healed to 35A777 and they are still wounded even though their stats are double the healthy persons. Rolling damage and points in a health bar or in this case, basing health on stats, are game mechanics. It's up to the GM and players to roleplay what they believe is realistic and fun for them.

 

[atpollard]

Curious (and I's say paradoxal) the underlined part, as, if they can be cured and healed of almost anything, what does people die from, for death to be the exception?

It is like Star Trek, where the only thing that science can't fix is wearing a red shirt.

 

[Murphy]

People die for lack of money to afford the magical future medicine

All this boils down to the fact that when a PC dies, it creates hurdles that not everyone enjoys -- including refs who must now think of a way to introduce a new character into the group without making it look silly. Therefore many game systems offer egregious safety nets against it.

I know I'll rather be the referee who lets you play a Duke, or big company CEO, or pirate admiral, who lets you have your starships and battledress and FGMPs and other toys, and weight to throw around, and henchmen, and bootlickers, and mooks to slaughter -- but when you die, you die.

 

[McPerth]

People die for lack of money to afford the magical future medicine

Well, this is ruled out by the first sentence in the quote, as it's said to become economical enough for even the poorest have access to it...

 

[robject]

I know this is a RAW research, and I didn't do the required homework of reading beyond the first page, but I think this sort of thing is a Speed of Plot issue more than a yes but what do the rules tell me to do? kind of thing.

I know my players well; if they had a dead character and they were arguing for a he's only mostly dead scenario, I would say "sure!" and then they'd start wondering what would happen to that poor sod. Because I don't let them get away with anything anymore. There's no free lunch.

They're handing me a plot on a platter. Their insistence on having the guy not be dead turns what would have been my soft-hearted graciousness into an opportunity to make things more interesting for them. A cyborg. Or implanted suggestions. Or a devious tracking device. Or even something cool for him, with the overt stipulation that now Weyland-Yutani owns me.

Anyway, I know that's totally not the point of the thread, but ...

 

[Timerover51]

Hmm, looks like I am way too real world oriented to continue in this discussion. Guess I have read way too many actual reports of combat deaths through various means to worry about esoteric ones.

I remember one with the most horrible wound that I ever saw. We were halted for a moment by a fence, and as the men threw it down for the guns to pass, I saw in one of the corners a man sitting down and looking up at me. A solid shot had carried away both jaws and his tongue. I noticed the powder smut from the shot on the white skin around the wound. He sat up and looked at me steadily, and I looked at him until the guns could pass, but nothing, of course, could be done for him.–––E.P.A

The above quote comes from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume Three. The article is "THE GREAT CHARGE AND ARTILLERY FIGHTING AT GETTYSBURG", by Brig. General E. Porter Alexander, who was the officer in charge of the artillery for Gen. Longstreet's Corps. It can be found at the bottom of page 365. The volumes can be downloaded from the Cornell University Digital Library, and are word-searchable and suitable for copy and pasting.

My personal view is if you are going to that lengths to keep a player character alive, it is simpler to declare that NO PLAYER CHARACTER can die, he/she/it will simply be temporarily discomfited for a brief period of time. Then you, as Game Master have to live with the consequences.

 

[rancke]

My personal view is if you are going to that lengths to keep a player character alive, it is simpler to declare that NO PLAYER CHARACTER can die, he/she/it will simply be temporarily discomfited for a brief period of time. Then you, as Game Master have to live with the consequences.

What lengths? All I'm proposing is to give characters a chance to survive being shot, stabbed, mauled, or mutilated IF conditions are favorable and the proper measures taken. Comparing that to giving all player characters blanket plot immunity is wildly exaggerated.


Hans

 

[rancke]

I know this is a RAW research, and I didn't do the required homework of reading beyond the first page, but I think this sort of thing is a Speed of Plot issue more than a yes but what do the rules tell me to do? kind of thing.

It started out as an RAW inquiry, but that part seems to have been exhausted, and so many people posted their opinions that we now talk about our opinions. What should and what shouldn't be covered by the rules and what would you do about it.

I know my players well; if they had a dead character and they were arguing for a he's only mostly dead scenario, I would say "sure!" and then they'd start wondering what would happen to that poor sod. Because I don't let them get away with anything anymore. There's no free lunch.

If a character gets shot but doesn't lose enough attribute points to reduce his health to 0, he's only lightly wounded and can recover without ever being in danger of dying. Is that a "free lunch"?

In real life, a clinically dead person can be brought back to life if conditions are favorable and the proper measures are taken. How is emulating that aspect of real life in a Traveller campaign a "free lunch"?

Turns out the MgT rules doesn't cover clinically-dead-but-not-brain-damaged-yet (at least not explicitly). At attribute 1-0-0 you're not clinically dead; at 0-0-0 you are (some people insist) brain dead. That doesn't mean a Traveller campaign can't have clinically-dead-but-not-brain-dead people; it just means that the rules don't cover the possibility.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Tentative proposal for house rules about death and recovery:

If a character's three physical attributes are all reduced to 0, he is clinically dead; breathing and blood flow ceases.

Unless measures are taken and/or ultratech precautions are in place, brain damage begins after 5 minutes and is complete after 60 minutes. (Note: these figures are not exact; I chose them to correspond to the periods given for when first aid is useful).


Whether the character can be revived and how difficult it is to do so depends on how much excess damage the character has taken over and above what was needed to reduce all his physical attributes to 0. For example, if he had 2-2-0 points remaining and took 10 points of damage, he is now at -6.

0 to -X:
* A successful first aid task puts off brain damage by 5 minutes.
* Surgery to repair the damage and revive the character is an average task.

X-1 to -2X:
* Surgery to repair the damage and revive the character is a difficult task.

2X-1 to -3X
* Surgery to repair the damage and revive the character is a formidable task.

3X-1 and up:
* Revival is not an option unless special technology is involved.

Adequate medical equipment is needed to allow a surgery attempt. Ultratech medical equipment can give bonusses to the task.

I'm not sure of just what X should be. A fixed number? What? A number based on total physical attribute points?

I'm also not sure how to deal with first aid for different conditions. I don't think you can first aid someone with a wounded heart at all (?), whereas someone with a blocked windpipe can be put out of immediate danger and revived by an emergency tracheotomy.

EDIT: The first First Aid task may repair some damage. 2xeffect if performed within 5 minutes, 1xeffect if performed after more than 5 minutes but within 60 minutes. If this reduces the excess damage to less than 0, the remaining points are added to the character's attributes as per usual and the character is no longer clinically dead. If it reduces the excess damage enough to move the character up a damage category, the character's survival prospects are as per the new category.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

You could also keep it even simpler and house rule that exactly 000XXX (with no leftover damage) is clinical death but recoverable and any attack that reduces you to 000XXX with additional damage left over is unrecoverable.

It creates that narrow band of 'possibility' without creating a 'free lunch' (as others have called it).

 

[Peter Newman]

[This is a RAW and only a RAW answer, I have not applied 'common sense'.]

"A character is considered seriously wounded if he has lost at least one point from all three of his physical characteristics." [MgT Core p 74]

The rules do not say that a character who has been killed does not count as seriously wounded, and with all three physical stats at zero they otherwise meet the definition of 'seriously wounded'.

Under the Medic skill [pg 56] the rules say that successful First Aid taking 1d6 minutes will restore lost characteristic points equal to the effect. It does not say that First Aid may not be used on a character who has been killed.

The rules for Medical Treatment say, under Surgery [p 75] that "a character who is seriously wounded (after fist aid has been applied) requires surgery." Not that they specifically do not say a "live" character, they say "a character". Therefore it too can be used on dead people by the RAW.

Therefore by the RAW, in it's most literal form, you can use First Aid on characters who have been killed. Even if this fails you can use Surgery on them. Moreover since the rules do not say that this can be done only once so after the first Surgery fails someone else might try their hand at Surgery too.

I note also that, under the Unconsciousness rules [page 74] an unconscious character may make an Endurance check every minute to regain consciousness. They do not say that this roll may not be made by characters who have been killed. Nor can I find any blanket statements saying that killed characters do not get actions. Therefore by the RAW your dead character might just wake up on their own. When they do there is nothing stopping them from performing First Aid (at -2) and/or Surgery (at -4) on themselves to help themselves recover. They can't move except to hobble or crawl and they lose their minor actions in combat but, apparently, major surgery is fine....

 

[rancke]

You could also keep it even simpler and house rule that exactly 000XXX (with no leftover damage) is clinical death but recoverable and any attack that reduces you to 000XXX with additional damage left over is unrecoverable.

It creates that narrow band of 'possibility' without creating a 'free lunch' (as others have called it).

I think the band it creates is too narrow. Someone whose windpipe is blocked is not as badly off as someone whose heart has stopped and he in turn is not as badly off as someone whose heart is stopped AND damaged. Also, I have the impression that some trauma cases are easier to save than others.


Hans

 

[atpollard]

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.

[This is a RAW and only a RAW answer, I have not applied 'common sense'.]
Therefore by the RAW, in it's most literal form, you can use First Aid on characters who have been killed. Even if this fails you can use Surgery on them. Moreover since the rules do not say that this can be done only once so after the first Surgery fails someone else might try their hand at Surgery too.
I note also that, under the Unconsciousness rules [page 74] an unconscious character may make an Endurance check every minute to regain consciousness. They do not say that this roll may not be made by characters who have been killed. Nor can I find any blanket statements saying that killed characters do not get actions. Therefore by the RAW your dead character might just wake up on their own. When they do there is nothing stopping them from performing First Aid (at -2) and/or Surgery (at -4) on themselves to help themselves recover. They can't move except to hobble or crawl and they lose their minor actions in combat but, apparently, major surgery is fine....

If we combine these two, we have an event worthy of Monty Python. :rofl: