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Fred's musing on Damage Ratings

My opinion is that this system is basically like having no system at all and I really like the current one and don't want to get rid of it. If people want to use this method instead of the official DR system, though, that's fine too. The current DR system is optional for GMs. It's only required for submissions.
 
My asking for the NTSE was a mistake. I meant Setting Discussion (where the other DR discussion threads were) so we could talk some more about it.

My mistake, not Wes'. Fortunately, Soresu was kind enough to correct my screw up. Thanks Soresu.

This said, while it's obviously not ready to be implemented, this is one idea that I'm hoping we can discuss and garner as many positives while trying to get rid of most of the negatives. Many people have had critical opinions of the DR system, so this is pretty much the time to see if we can make something good of this or not.

There's also Nashoba's opposition. Maybe there's a way to engineer something that can let us have our cake and eat it too.

Wes has told me about his disagreements with it (summed up in his post above) but maybe if it can be streamlined from those giant blocks of text, it might become something he'd warm up to in time. Or at least become a viable option to what is presently mainstream for the more mecha-oriented plots?

This said, Toshiro, you're pretty spot on regarding my intent for it. Also, as I understand it, arms races are over.
 
I approve of what Fred's proposed system wants to achieve. Actually, it was basically what I did for Task Force Phantom, during its (brief) run. With a little work on the specifics, it can be done -- even surpass the current system.

For the record, the reason I stopped being an NTSE mod was because of the current system -- both Uso's "Structural"... stuff... system, and the DR, as well as all the drama associated with it.

I don't use those, never planned to use those, because I feel that they don't accurately portray things.

Arms races are over. If there ever is PvP combat (which, as far as I've seen almost NEVER happens) then we can act like the adults we are and suck it up.
 
Fred,
I will agree that the current DR system has its faults. My concern about this was it is in my opinion more flawed, and I reserve the right to say so.

When I first voiced my concern, you made a reply of 'what you could do.' and then summarily rejected it because in your opinion it would just put complexity back in.

Is there and easy fix? I honestly don't know. Every time we try to come up with a rule for DR or other things, someone later comes along and complains and says they have a better idea.

My biggest concern is without a some sort of value to delineate the power of a weapon, when much of what we are dealing with are fabrications of fiction. How can the players or GM's effectively evaluate we can't, because your current system says all weapons of xxxx class are the same.

Bottom line without some kind of value to delineate every weapon is automatically treated as the equivalent of 5 DR in the current system. It pretty much kills any reason to create new weapons or such because every weapon is the same. Sorry but I just don't like that concept.
 
Nash, if I understand you correctly, you like the idea -- you just don't like that everything is theoretically the same?

If that's it, it's something that can be worked on and hammered out.

I'd suggest maybe every weapon has a 'Purpose' and that effects what it can do within its class? If that makes sense.
 
Mm, Nashoba, I kind of see where you come from... but if weapon variety is your primary concern and that you believe it's tied to damage values - then the possible 13 variations we have presently (from PDR1 to SDR5) is also pretty restrained.

In a way, perhaps I could work up an equivalency: PDR1~5 is anti-personnel, anti-armor is ADR2~3, anti-mecha ADR4~5, anti-starship SDR2~3 and anti-capital ship SDR4~5. The numbers felt crude, though, because we could be more evocative while granting more spotlight/credence to each role.

If we take a good look at the damage values we have now, PDR is for the most part useless, because we usually ignore it/rarely use it. People don't exactly have hit points, weapon lethality is a little hard to gauge when anything well placed could kill someone too (how much does a bullet hurt? How much does a sword hurt?), so, the real demarcation that appears to be noticeable is whether your weapon will, or will not, harm a power armor (PDR 1 through 4, or PDR5).

So, right now, it's not 13 variations and more like 9. We're not that far away from my proposed 5 damage roles here.

Given how the very widespread Star Army Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol is, handheld weapons that can harm power armors are actually rather common. This looks to me like it reinforces the 'can harm power armors or cannot' split, and brings home the fact that while a power armor probably can shrug off anti-personnel fire... it probably can't afford ignoring it (maybe even the less potent one - even Robocop couldn't shrug off continuous firearm pounding from an entire police force without being chewed off and staggering in retreat).

So, what we get here is the Anti-Personnel role. Where some weapons obviously won't be viable against power armor, and some might be. Personally, I thought common sense and weapon description kind of implied the distinction without anything more.

Was a category for the more crummy weapons truly needed? Or a qualificative (standard Anti-Personnel? heavy Anti-Personnel? Eww...) It looks to me like most of the special effects granted by smallarms would be due to their ammunition rather than their actual lethality. Armor-Piercing-type ordonnance could be that which might cause some harm, while incendiary could stop regeneration (on both neko and mishhu) and so forth.

But then, that's still within the bounds of just the anti-personnel role. Another thing could simply be weapon type. We take the simple firearm as the benchmark, but there's also the machinegun which sprays a single target with metal hail, or might inaccurately hose down several. A shotgun spread of pellets can prove devastating up close, and perhaps have the kinetic push to inconvenience a power armor. A sniper rifle ability to line up careful shot could count for something if a shot could be made against the relatively yielding neck section of a power armor, or to get at some other tender spot.

A M6 Daisy's forearm pulse cannon could also count as an anti-personnel weapon, since it's supposed to mimic the NSP. It's made to mow down anti-personnel targets, but can be of some limited usage against power armor.

The usual grenade as we know it would appear more like an anti-personnel weapon than anti-armor, as I bet you'd usually throw it to get at a bunch of people. However, it appears feasible to believe it might inconvenience a power armor. A bazooka/rocket launcher is probably not an anti-personnel weapon, though, since you'd usually think of bringing this up to shoot at a tank or an helicopter rather than shoot it on people.

*headscratch*

So, taking a step back, most of what I discussed still seem like weapons made to kill people, but some under that umbrella - under the right applications - could prove damaging to the tier above them. Those applications seems squarely based on the actual nature of the weapon itself... which appears centered on its descriptive text.

So... what's missing here? It seems to work out, offer plenty of variety within a damage range via the expected role of the weapon, and there's plenty of apparent room for everyone of those weapons to feel different. The damage tiers for anti-armor and anti-mecha pretty much are the big brothers of anti-personnel so if the problems can be ironed out at the bottom, we might be able to go from there.
 
I talked with Fred, so we're all clear.

The PDR scale is a hard fit because no one uses it. The entire DR system is a bad fit at times when it's used in RP.

Which is why, I'm pretty sure, very few people use it in actual RP.

The DR scale's a device that keeps factions honest, right? It's a design shackle to keep every single weapon from doing universe-blasting damage. Why don't we want that? Because factions don't trust each other.

Because we don't trust each other. Right?

I think the PDR scale works because it's a design shackle. It doesn't work as a narrative device.

The Priss Scale works for narration, but as long as we have the specter of PvP combat, we need some kind of numbers to rate a weapon's damage.
 
Why don't we kill a bunch of birds with one stone by giving bodies (Nepleslian, NH series, ID-Sol, ect) a DR rating? This would serve to give a bit of a difference between the 1-5 PDR range and help establish how much tougher races like ID-Sol or the NH series are over their conventional counterparts.

(PDR weapons are used heavily in Nepleslian RP largely because they are easy to get ahold of for badguys and goodguys alike. Naturally PDR 1 causing an injury and PDR 4 blowing off an arm is good to know)

---

One of the major reasons why we have a DR system instead of a 'describe the damage' system is that when damage is based on how destructive your description is, everyone starts using weapons that fire anti-matter or blow holes in the universe because that is what is better.

The DR system discourages this because a DR 5 laser is just as good as a DR 5 black hole gun. This removes the incentive to build ridiculous weapons and makes the setting play better.
 
Giving bodies a DR rating would not work well because it says "Okay, your character has to die when he takes X Damage". It removes a degree of control we have over our characters. Not so much invincible plot armor as the ability to choose creative ways of dying or surviving a mission by the skin of their teeth. How we control our individual characters should stay narrative, Uso.
 
Actually I think it could work, because it is up to the GM to actually determine if a shot hits, how effective it is. And the player can affect that by describing the steps they take to stay safe. For example, a person who just stands in the street facing his opponent, and fires his gun, is probably going to get killed if the other guy is faster. Such as the old gunfights in the west.

But if the same person says, that he is crouching behind a stack of crates, waiting for his target to be a ideal position, and is then firing and then ducking back down. It might even help encourage higher quality posts in some of our players.
 
I'm against adding any kind of DR ratings for bodies. Pretty it up all you want to, all it really is doing is assigning hitpoints. And like several people have already said, most of us want less numbers, not more. If I want something like that, I'll go play D&D, or any of hundreds of other tabletops, which do exactly that. I don't want that here, I want roleplay where it's just that.
 
I'm going to have to join in the 'no hitpoints on people' crowd. SARP is a freeform roleplay that probably shouldn't go there. In a way, it even a little appalling - it's already bad enough that we have those elsewhere. ~_~

Nashoba, care to chime in on my previous post and convey what's missing in that in your eyes, and how you think it could be improved on?
 
In a way, perhaps I could work up an equivalency: PDR1~5 is anti-personnel, anti-armor is ADR2~3, anti-mecha ADR4~5, anti-starship SDR2~3 and anti-capital ship SDR4~5. The numbers felt crude, though, because we could be more evocative while granting more spotlight/credence to each role.
Click to expand...

This is a good start, but I would have to see how you plan to use these kinds of values for stay a gunship attacking a capital ship, or gasp a Space station.
 
Encourage higher quality posts by hurting characters, if that's what it takes. This still is not D&D. Besides, how long before we have players adding AC to their armor, modifying their clothes, yadda yadda yadda? More submissions, less RP. That's not what we should want.

Also, trying to assign HP to bodies will create a pissing match not yet seen on this site. "Neko regen 1 HP per round! Round is TWO SECONDS!" "No it's not, it's five seconds!" "Who cares, my ID-SOL's AC is 29, bitches! You can't even roll that high!" Adding HP is a slippery slope and heaven help us if we start sliding.

Use. Narrative. If a player can't trust the GM to be fair with damage, player has a simple recourse — stop playing with that GM.
 
We should all know by now that having no system is bad. Ship submissions have been greatly improved by the DR system because by leveling the playing field people have to focus on adding quality to their submission (and as such their RP) rather than writing the most bombastic thing possible.

If we had PDR for bodies, it would prevent things like the NIWS and the kohana 'invulnerable to everything but knives' because regardless of the description the body would only be so tough. Just like how DR has improved the ship submissions, this would improve combat body submissions.

This would improve player's understanding of PDR weapons greatly. After all, how much damage does PDR 1 do to a person? or PDR 3? If, for example, a standard Nepleslian had a PDR of 4 the player would know that a PDR 1 pistol is going to hurt badly, but it isn't going to put you completely out of action unless it hits something vital. A PDR4 sniper rifle on the other hand, would be something that could rip off arms and otherwise incapacitate in one hit (awp whores?). An ID-Sol or NH series might have upwards of 8-10 PDR or more, these characters could get shot and not have time to bleed.


'Your character has to die when he takes X damage', 'more submissions less RP' or even starships going full DnD hasn't happened with the DR system so there is no reason to think it would happen to characters as well. Bodies wouldn't be able to go over some arbitrary PDR value (probably 25, that seems fairly standard as a cap number in this setting) and this would prevent people from gaming the system as long as that is enforced by Admins (though, I'm not ruling out a massive PDR godzilla style monster, That'd be a load of fun).
 
Again, you're going on a submission standpoint for the ship thing. It's helped with submission balance and quality for the tech reviewers, but that's not even our concern with gameplay.

Also, you speak as though there are PLAYERS causing NIWS or Kohanian problems. I know almost no one who plays the former as a PC and few of the latter if any. If there's a problem with how they're played, it's probably just bad GMing of an NPC.

A lot of such issues could be nipped in the bud in the submission process by the reviewers asking some common sense questions, rather than an automated system...that's how it should be done for characters anyway. Tech too, though I understand we're overwhelmed in that department.

Also, a "you die when X" stat is inexcusable. "you pass out when X" would be bad enough, but I wouldn't want to lose my character to some numbers game -- especially if it's one of my civvy characters that can only ST Backup 3 times a year or so. Worse if it's a character in a faction with no ST Tech.
 
The implication there being that characters should be able to absorb infinite damage without being killed or going into shock? It hasn't been that way with the starship DR system so there is no reason to think it would happen with a PDR system for bodies. It currently works as a guideline for understanding how much damage something can absorb before being taken out of the fight and adding a DR value to the species pages wouldn't change that.


The idea behind rules systems is to give players and GMs tools to improve the setting. Relying on common sense doesn't work because everyone has a different idea of what common sense is. Tech Mods need tools for determining what is and is not acceptable and the DR system is one of those tools. We already use it for ships, weapons, buildings, clothing, and power armors, I don't see why we wouldn't use it for bodies as well. After all we have DR values for everything else we want to shoot at. If you want to replace a DR system with a series of questions I assure you that you'd need many questions to accurately detail how much damage a body could absorb and even then you would still have no method for filtering out absurd responses by people wanting to have immortal (NIWS, or Super Kohana) bodies for their faction/plot.
 
You don't need that stuff at all. You just need the GM to step in and say "Soldier X is killed for being an idiot and running out into the street in a hail of gunfire" when it's needed.

Case by case is how it is, and case by case is how it should stay.

Also, it has nothing at all to do with what Fred proposed and therefore doesn't belong in this thread to begin with.
 
What 'Shiro said. I got off track a bit.

My point was this: The Priss Scale works for actual roleplay; the DR scale (albeit flawed) works for submissions. Let's not start mixing the two.

As long as Wes stands by the DR scale being optional for roleplay, I don't have a gripe.
 
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