Quote from: boulet;359777A more honest way to present his intention would have been "If my character is covering the grenade, could he survive while protecting other characters?"

What would prompt him to think about asking the question save knowledge of the game's mechanics?

Quote from: boulet;359777Instead he thought he could do a smart ass last moment reveal about the rules hole.

"Then the Player said, 'Yeah, I have enough hit points that I'll be able to take the maximum blast damage with no problem'." Doesn't sounds particularly like a smart ass to me. And unless grenades are instantly fatal, I'm not seeing a rules hole...

Seanchai

Just to point out a part that seems to be glossed over in this arguement.

I initially thought that this Player was having his character act out heroic self-sacrifice for the benefit of the rest of the party and I was fully prepared to help that Player have his next character be Fucking Awesome at the start in order to reward that behavior in game. Instead, the Player was acting like his character had some kind of "script immunity" based on his stats that allowed him to do suicidal actions and get away with it in game.

The former motivation being a character achieving awesomeness while the latter was just a Player gaming the system.

EDIT:

Quote from: Seanchai;359783And unless grenades are instantly fatal, I'm not seeing a rules hole...

Seanchai

I'm gonna be chortling about this line for the rest of the night.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359782But do not tell me that you've compared your HP total vs. the maximum damage of a hand grenade and call it an in-character "roleplaying" response.

You don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is. It took me about two minutes of Googling to determine that it is possible to survive jumping on a grenade and I read an article in Wired recently about how to survive falling from great heights.

Seanchai

You run into these kinds of problems when the players and GM have different ideas about how you play an RPG. Sometimes, GMs try to have scenarios that are difficult to resolve, where all of the characters are acting like people, but the players are trying to "win the game."

That is the kind of shit that you need to iron out ahead of time.

Quote from: Seanchai;359786You don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is. It took me about two minutes of Googling to determine that it is possible to survive jumping on a grenade and I read an article in Wired recently about how to survive falling from great heights.

Seanchai

I've never been blown to pieces in real life, and though I've met veterans, I've not been close to anyone that was blown to pieces. I think though, that if I had, and all of them through luck, magic, and technology full recovered, I'd be pretty fucking reckless with my body during a crisis.

Quote from: Cranewings;359787You run into these kinds of problems when the players and GM have different ideas about how you play an RPG. Sometimes, GMs try to have scenarios that are difficult to resolve, where all of the characters are acting like people, but the players are trying to "win the game."

That is the kind of shit that you need to iron out ahead of time.

Not really. Any of the characters there could have just kicked the grenade back at the stormtroopers and I would have allowed that.

Quote from: Seanchai;359786Hell, with shows like Mythbusters and Deadliest Warrior, you don't even need to be a combatant to how some idea of how damaging a specific weapon is.

You're hilarious!  Remind me, the next time I'm pinned down under enemy fire, to call you in with a TiVo of "Mythbusters", a laptop with Google running, and a copy of Wired.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359792You're hilarious!  Remind me, the next time I'm pinned down under enemy fire, to call you in with a TiVo of "Mythbusters", a laptop with Google running, and a copy of Wired.

Is that a no, particularly to the first part? You know, the one about cops and soldiers.

Seanchai

Okay, see?  We're totally stuck on one anecdote, which makes this a perfect example of how certain systems can yank your head right out of the game.

Seanchai, do you really want to equate a policeman's or soldier's calculated risk of surviving an assault with grievous injury to a roleplayer's calculated risk that his character will walk away from smothering a hand grenade?

!i!

Quote from: jeff37923;359784TI'm gonna be chortling about this line for the rest of the night.

The only way a grenade can not be more or less instantly fatal, 999,999 times out of 1,000,000, is if it doesn't go off. There's a story that in one Aussie peacekeeping mission some years ago, a patrol had an old Soviet grenade biffed at it, the group was tight together in an urban area, the thing landed at one soldier's feet, he threw himself on it, everyone else scattered, and... there he was lying there, spreadeagled over the grenade, silence...

"Mate!" someone called to him.
"Yes mate!"
"It didn't go off!"
"Yeah!"
"So why the fuck are you still lying on it!"
"Shit!" He got up and ran off while everyone laughed at him.
They sealed off the area and called in the engineers to deal with it.

I guess either the attacker rolled a fumble, "weapon fails to fire" or the soldier rolled a successful Save vs Explosives, critical success, take no damage at all.

Quote from: SeanchaiYou don't think cops, soldiers, et al., in the real world use their knowledge to determine what to do in the situation at hand? You don't think they go, "Shit, he's just got a 9 mil and I'm wearing Kevlar. I can afford to be more aggressive when trying to apprehend him," or "Holy fuck! That's a grenade launcher! Get down! Get down! Get down!"?

No to the first, yes to the second. People use their real-world knowledge to err on the side of caution. See, the 9mm might not hit the vest, it might hit your neck or head and kill you instantly. Or it might hit your leg and cause a crippling injury that not only really hurts, but ends your career. You could be shot in the bollocks. You'll live, but something is missing which you were quite fond of.

Plus, when it strikes the kevlar, the law of conservation of energy doesn't cease, the energy doesn't disappear but is simply spread out over a larger area. So instead of a bullet in you, you have some broken ribs - which are fucking painful. Or at least a wicked bruise.

Soldiers are more aggressive in a firefight based not on a rational assessment of the chances of instantly lethal damage, but based on a semi-rational, emotional and instinctive (instincts based on training and experience) assessment of whether the action is likely to fulfill the mission without getting them instantly killed, or in some cases, whether there's any alternative.

For example, in Commonwealth countries the counter-ambush drill is to assault into the ambush position. No use trying to get out, they'll have set it up to cover that and butcher you horribly. Stay still and you die, run off and you die, all that's left is to assault the ambushers - they won't have set up machineguns to cover each-other, once you're among them that's where you'll be safest.

That's the sort of decision that gets made in combats. Not "well I've got a vest so let's just CHAAAARGE!" Nobody counts their hit points.

On topic, that is indeed something that can get in the way of roleplaying, players' metagaming calculation of odds. I mean, if you really want to talk about "but real soldiers..." then when deciding what to do, unless their characters are under cover and have some time to think about things, players should get not more than three seconds. In reality it's less than a single second, but we make allowances for the lack of immediacy, having to have things described rather than see them.

So you can throw yourself on grenades with calculations of odds if you want, but you have three seconds to make every single decision in a combat. Good luck with that. Any time you go "um" your character will just stay where they are, dithering. And maybe get shot to pieces.

Sure you want to make that argument about realism? Or shall we just fucking roleplay instead?

Most games systems are in the way until I'm familiar with them...the only game that I'm familiar with where the ruleset still gets in the way is D&D 4e. They may have been others, but since I don't play them (and have since quit playing 4e as well) I've forgotten what they were.


The reason D&D 4e takes me out of roleplaying because the mechanics seem so distant from the world, characters and actions they resolve. It feels more like I'm watching a character do cool stuff with minimal input, rther than coming up with the cool stuff to do myself.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;359794Seanchai, do you really want to equate a policeman's or soldier's calculated risk of surviving an assault with grievous injury to a roleplayer's calculated risk that his character will walk away from smothering a hand grenade?

No, I want to equate a police officer or soldier's informed knowledge about real world weapons and their capacity to inflict damage with a character's in game knowledge about that game's weapons and their capacity to inflict damage.

You're suggesting that there's just no way a character could know how damaging a grenade is, how likely his armor is to protect him, etc., but we both know that fails the common sense test. Of course a character could know about his such things.

And if the character knows about such things, then the player can make in character calculated risks.

Seanchai

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796The only way a grenade can not be more or less instantly fatal, 999,999 times out of 1,000,000, is if it doesn't go off.

And yet they do something like 3d10 damage. They can be instantly fatal, but that's incidental. Given that they're not instantly fatal rules-wise, I don't see not being instantly fatal as a "rules hole."

Moreover, why would a designer design around the idea that characters are going to throw themselves on grenades? They're not. So a lack of such rules is not, again, a "rules hole."

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796People use their real-world knowledge to err on the side of caution.

I linked upthread to two stories about people throwing themselves on grenades to save their fellow soldiers. People run into burning buildings, etc., all the time.

But I do agree with you in general. They err on the side of caution because they live in a world where you can't take a dip in a Bacta Tank. They face real-world consequences.

Of course, characters in Star Wars live in a different "real" world.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;359796Sure you want to make that argument about realism? Or shall we just fucking roleplay instead?

I don't believe in "realism" in gaming, so no. I don't give a hoot about what's "realistic." You may have noted that I'm not arguing about what a character wouldn't do because it's not realistic.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;359800You're suggesting that there's just no way a character could know how damaging a grenade is, how likely his armor is to protect him, etc., but we both know that fails the common sense test.

No. I'm saying that a person in real life can't see the damage range printed on the side of a grenade, compare it against his current HP total, and come to an objective and concrete conclusion that he can smother the grenade with his body and carry on adventuring. That is what fails the common sense test.

Argue away, even though I feel rather bad about it, because this remains hilarious.

!i!

I'd say that listed weapon damage only counts against targets that are trying not to take damage. The falling on a grenade after counting hitpoints thing is just as stupid as having to unload a couple of clips into your mouth in order kill yourself.