From: goldm@rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold)
Subject: Re: Sullivan's: The RPG (was: DAMAGE: a theoretical system)
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:44:23 GMT

The following two articles are forwarded unaltered from rec.games.frp.misc
under a suggestion to get more feedback here. [This reposting was due to
some people mentioning it didn't reach their site due to distribution.]

-------
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
From: goldm@rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold)
Subject: DAMAGE: a theoretical system
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1992 19:49:57 GMT

In article <1992Dec2.160130.24287@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu (Chris Meadows) writes:
-- It's very true; many of Palladium's rules do suck.  It's self-
-- contradictory in places, and a lot of the time leaves things
-- out, so you have to guess at what numbers you're supposed to
-- use, etc.

   I don't find many inconsistances in Palladium Fantasy and Beyond the
Supernatural, but I have noticed more in Ninjas and Superspies and Heroes
Unlimited. 

-- Many people whine about the mega-damage system, saying that 
-- it's not right for mega-damage weapons to be able to kill un-
-- armored characters in one shot; and they compare the amount of
-- damage caused by a laser blast to the amount caused by a mecha
-- footstomp.  I, however, believe that mega-damage is one of the 
-- best concepts to come along, and continue to support it.  It makes
-- so much more SENSE than having S.D.C. for everything.

Mega damage is the main reason I've avoided Rifts. On the one hand I can
give a lot of reasons to have something like megadamage (below), but to
have people wear megadamage armor which can withstand any normal blow,
and people wielding megadamage swords which will slice through any normal
person, just makes it too gross to use.

In discussions with other people I game with here, we've developed a pseudo-
system we refer to as Sullivan's: The RPG. It's more a wish list pointing out
what we see is wrong with other systems,and it is a skeleton of a system --
not something we intend to complete/publish. It's not finished and I welcome
comments.

The method that we thought about for a modification to SDC (what Palladium
calls structural damage content - how much damage an item can take before
becoming useless) that would apply to multiple levels is as follows:

1) All creatures and objects are given a class based mostly on mass, size and
  fragility.
  a) Class 0 - insects, electronic parts, objects massing a few grams
  (theoretical - this probably won't ever be used mechanically, but will
   illustrate a few points)
  b) Class 1 - small animals, objects massing under 10 kilos
  c) Class 2 - large animals, humans, objects massing under 100 kilos
  d) Class 3 - very large animals (rhino, elephant), cars, light trucks, 
	  objects massing under 2 metric tons (4400 lbs)
  e) Class 4 - heavy vehicles, tanks, medium-sized planes, small ships, trains
  f) Class 5 - cruise ships, warships, buildings
  g) Class 6 - large meteors? (filler class)
  h) Class X - planetary bodies, large asteroids, small moons

2) using only its innate ability, anything two classes above can trivially
  destroy something two classes below (if it hits); counter to that, anything
  two classes below will inflict trivial damage to anything two classes above.

  Ex. A man squashes a bug, a car hits a rabbit, a train hits a person, the
  Queen Mary crushes a dinghy. 

3) weapon exceptions to the above
  a) some insects can bite which does trivial damage, but poison will cause
 real damage (per one class up?)
  b) weapons tailored for a class above act as per that class, i.e. Class 4
 tank and artillery guns act as Class 5 warship guns, killing Class 3 humans
 on contact, and would do Class 5 damage against Class 5 buildings.
 Similarly, an elephant gun is tailored for Class 4 damage.

4) damage to one class above or below would be respectively multiplied or
  divided by an arbitrary factor, perhaps 3.

  Ex. a vicious woodchuck (5 kilos) has 15 points (C1) and our hero, the
  gardener (100 kilos) has 30 points (C2). The woodchuck bites our hero
  for d6 damage (5), divides by arbitrary factor and round, and our hero
  takes 2 points of damage. Our hero considers grabbing the elephant gun
  and turning the woodchuck into trivia, but his sense of fair play makes
  him grab a handy Whac-a-mole (tm) mallet. The gardener strikes the little
  rodent for d6 damage (3), multiplies by ye arbitrary factor and round, and
  the wood is chucked for 9 points.

  NB: In the example I've kept hit points of the individuals relative to
  the position in the class and damage small per a number of systems (GURPS,
  Warhammer FRP, Palladium). 

If there is more interest, I'll post more and I'm readily willing to discuss
the pros and cons.
--
 Mitchell Gold  /  middleman of
 sundance@rpi.edu /  rec.games.frp.archives

----- Followup

From: millerl@wharton.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: DAMAGE: a theoretical system
Date: 3 Dec 92 03:26:02 GMT
Organization: Newt World Order

In article <GOLDM.92Dec2144957@sage4a.rpi.edu>, goldm@rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold) writes:
|1) All creatures and objects are given a class based mostly on mass, size and
|  fragility.
|  a) Class 0 - insects, electronic parts, objects massing a few grams
| (theoretical - this probably won't ever be used mechanically, but will
|  illustrate a few points)
|  b) Class 1 - small animals, objects massing under 10 kilos
|  c) Class 2 - large animals, humans, objects massing under 100 kilos
|  d) Class 3 - very large animals (rhino, elephant), cars, light trucks, 
| objects massing under 2 metric tons (4400 lbs)
|  e) Class 4 - heavy vehicles, tanks, medium-sized planes, small ships, trains
|  f) Class 5 - cruise ships, warships, buildings
|  g) Class 6 - large meteors? (filler class)
|  h) Class X - planetary bodies, large asteroids, small moons
|
|2) using only its innate ability, anything two classes above can trivially
|  destroy something two classes below (if it hits); counter to that, anything
|  two classes below will inflict trivial damage to anything two classes above.
|
|  Ex. A man squashes a bug, a car hits a rabbit, a train hits a person, the
|  Queen Mary crushes a dinghy. 

If this is the idea, you could streamline it by simply using a size stat
instead of the toughness class, and saying that anything with a size 40
greater than something else will destroy it with trivial effort, and
something 40 smaller than something else can only inflict trivial
damage. 

Perhaps Size=10+10*Log_2(Mass in kg/70 kg)

And a size differential of 10 gives x2 damage or toughness, 20 gives x4,
30 gives x8, and 40 gives x16, etc...

I think the idea has merit, maybe we should move it to .design?

-- 
whoah,
+++++++++++++++++++++++23
Loren Miller                           internet: MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu
Mediocrity is a hand rail.                         -- Baron de Montesquieu

Newsgroups: rec.games.design