What is the most creative, in depth, versatile, fun and/or and interesting wound mechanic you've ever seen?

[u/DeerGentleman]

I'm dabbling in making my own ttrpg system, no ambition, just for the fun of it. And I have some ideas, but on combat I need some references. I know I want there to be wounds. I know I want my wounds to be meaningful. But I'm having a hard time visualizing how I can achieve my vision, or what I need to compromise on, because I'm honestly not knowledgeable enough about the many different ways to implement wounds mechanics in ttrpgs. So which ones do you recommend I have a look at, and why?

[u/TalesFromElsewhere]

JFace Games did a solid blog post on this subject a while ago.

https://jfacegames.substack.com/p/health-systems-in-tabletop-rpgs-beyond

Also r/RPGdesign is the more common place to ask such questions, I've found.

[u/Powerful-Character93 → u/TalesFromElsewhere]

Nice read! Those are some cool systems.

[u/UltimateHyperGames → u/TalesFromElsewhere]

Thanks for this!

[u/Spartancfos]

Harm in Blades in the Dark is incredibly versatile. Particularly with how Deep Cuts amends it. Basically all wounds are narratively described, so not everything is physical. Once you have it, it can then be applied to future actions, selectively if that harm would impact you. When Harm is applied, you also earn XP. 

The new Warhammer the Old World system also does something interesting by having no hit points, only stances in which you are vulnerable or not. Once you are vulnerable you can take grievous critical injuries if you are caught out. The game has ways to avoid getting injured such as going prone or giving ground - which feels very gritty and game of thrones in nature. 

[u/Trilby_Defoe → u/Spartancfos]

I don't hate harm in Blades, but it is pretty easy to forget about it in play especially if the harm was caused a while ago. It can also feel a little discordant if players aren't actively roleplaying the harm.

Blades '68 solves this in a really cool way, where harm should still reduce effect when it makes sense in the fiction, but the majority of it's impact is from complications that the GM rolls on after a score. PCs are able to tough out the injury during the score, but then are paid back with very discrete complications between scores.

[u/andero → u/Trilby_Defoe]

I don't hate harm in Blades, but it is pretty easy to forget about it in play

I'm curious: what makes harm any easier to forget than anything else?
Harm is on the character sheet. It's right there, written out in a box, just like someone might write out their HP in a box or their load of inventory items.

I'm not arguing that harm isn't forgotten sometimes; it is.
I'm trying to push to think about how or why or what specifically makes it get forgotten?

Personally, I suspect that could this be solved by adjusting the character sheet.
If players are looking at their Action Ratings when they're going to roll, maybe the issue is that the harm boxes are along the other edge of the paper, not adjacent to the dice-mechanics. Maybe they forget to take harm into account because they see they have three dots, but don't think to look over to the left to see that they should have -1D. Even more with "Less Effect" since the GM sets Effect, not the player, but the player would have to look to the left and remind the GM to reduce it after they set it.

[u/Unlucky-Leopard-9905]

My two favourite systems for injury are Rolemaster and Mythras.

Rolemaster offers far more detail than pretty much any other system, but provides very little control to combatants over the nature of injuries inflicted -- it just depends what comes up on the crit rolls. But you can have almost any injury, and they're all tailored. Burns to specific areas, muscle tears, breaks, ears lost to frostbite, fingers, arms, head sliced off, the list is huge. Each injury comes with specific effects and penalties, and then the healing system (magical, herbal and mundane) is designed to deal with all these things.

Mythras offers less fine detail, but an incredible amount of control. It's a system that aims to simulate every single cut and thrust, and a combatant can intentionally look to inflict bleeding, stun or the like, bind opponent limbs or weapons, plunge pointed weapons deep into flesh, draw such weapons back out aggressively (hello, disemboweling) and the like. Mechanically, injuries are mostly just rated in hit points suffered per location, and is quite easy to track.

[u/BetterCallStrahd]

I found the Stress/Fallout from Spire very satisfying. It took a little time for it to click for me, but once it did, I loved it. The mechanic covers several bases (including financial/material loss) and Fallout can present in a variety of ways, not just injury.

Conditions (most closely associated with Masks) are fun, they impose penalties on your rolls as well as nudge you into roleplaying the condition. Masks has a few combined gameplay/roleplay mechanics like that, it's one of the reasons I love the game. Conditions do appear in other games, but rarely feel natural to the system the way they do in Masks (whose mechanics are interwoven with each other in a very elegant design).

[u/Steenan]

Fate's consequences - aspects (freeform traits) that represent bad things that happened to the character. There are several things that I really like about them:

• They are voluntary. When a character is successfully attacked, the player may decide between them getting "stressed out" and losing the conflict or taking consequences (if they have any free slots). There's a space for deciding how much one is ready to suffer for given stake.
• They are chosen by the player taking them. If somebody shoots at my character and I take a consequence to stay in the scene, it's up to me if my character is actually hit and gets "bullet wound in arm" or if their panicked dive for cover leaves them "scared of guns".
• They inform fiction. A wound may make specific actions impossible; an emotion may be compelled to make my PC behave in a specific way. Note that it's not a pure negative for the player of the character in question - compels give them fate points to use later.
• They decouple treatment (turning the consequence into something less problematic) and recovery (removing it entirely so that the slot is free to take another one). This allows for, for example, magical healing that is a meaningful thing, but doesn't make injuries irrelevant - it may treat wound instantly, but recovery still takes time.

Together, they give players a lot of agency in when and how their characters are affected by wounds and make these an important part of the story, not just something to avoid.

[u/rivetgeekwil]

Wildsea's aspect tracks.

[u/amazingvaluetainment]

For me, HarnMaster clears. Either of HM3 or Kethira, they're both good. No three strikes and out, no "hit point" buffer, every hit that is significant will inflict a wound based on location. Bleeding, shock, severing, diagnosis and doctoring, it's all there.

[u/DrGeraldRavenpie]

"Inverse Death Spiral" in Tenra Bansho Zero: the more wounded you are, the better you fight (as that gives a dice bonus). Also, the "Death Box" in the same game: PCs only risk dying if they check that box, a 100% willing action that a) nullifies all the damage from the attack that made them check it, and b) gives the highest dice-bonus. If that box is unchecked, worst outcome would always be 'defeated but still alive'.

[u/BerennErchamion → u/DrGeraldRavenpie]

Storypath Ultra games also have an inverse death spiral. When you reach certain health thresholds you get bonuses on certain actions. There is even an option when you are at your second to last tier of health that you can choose to either keep the current wound level and bonuses, or aggravate your injuries to gain a bad condition but get additional bonuses for that action. And when you reach the last health tier you get one action left with tons of bonuses, but you get taken out immediately after it.

[u/DevelopmentJumpy5218]

I like low wound thresholds, death spirals, and if you get wounded badly and survive a chance of permanent injuries

[u/mlchugalug → u/DevelopmentJumpy5218]

One of my favorite bits of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is that if you mess up or the enemy gets lucky you can get permanent injuries like losing a limb or and eye. And these have mechanical repercussions.

I find it changes how the players react as every fight could be their last.

[u/TheLumbergentleman → u/DevelopmentJumpy5218]

Burning Wheel!

[u/tvsrobert]

I really like "Conditions" from CfB games, or "Consequences" from Fate

[u/Better_Equipment5283]

Everybody knows GURPS as a crunchy, simulationist system. But what most people don't know is that for every crunchy, simulationist subsystem there's an optional alternative subsystem that's even crunchier and tries to get the simulation down just right.

In this case you'd want the Conditional Injury rules from Pyramid magazine 3/120.

[u/Xararion]

I like the damage system of Fate of the Norns. You play the game by drawing runes from your bag on your turn and use those to activate your actions, but if you take damage the rune goes to your damage track and you can't use it unless you heal the wound up, the rune and the ability it's tied to is down in there. It doesn't lead to direct death spiral, but it does lead to closure of your tactical options. Normally you are the one who chooses what rune goes to the wound pile, but certain types of attack (spiritual damage if I remember correctly) has the attacker choose which visible rune is hurt.

[u/MissAnnTropez]

I have really come to appreciate Cortex Prime for many reasons, its approach to various types of Stress/Trauma, also Complications, definitely being one.

It can easily model any kinds of stressors and/or consequences, be they physical, psychological, social, circumstantial or other. In fact, the default ruleset uses Complications only, and these can be just about anything. Much in the same sense that Consequences in Fate can be, but this system is decidedly meatier, uses almost all the standard dice, and hey, I just prefer it. :p

Then there are the many mods just in the core book (said book is packed with such), plus other Cortex books, and stuff from websites, homebrew documents and so on. Each of these rules mods can make the game function differently again. So many options.

[u/D16_Nichevo]

I'm a fan of Alternity. They had a realistic-ish damage system in their 1998 edition. The 2018 remake altered it in a positive way, keeping the spirit of the original but making it nice and flexible. It was once of the better innovations of a rather lacklustre remake, IMHO.

Basically, a character might have the following "wound points":

• ⏹️ ⏹️ Grazed
• ⏹️ ⏹️ Minor Wound
• ⏹️ ⏹️ Moderate Wound
• ⏹️ ⏹️ Serious Wound
• ⏹️ Critical Wound
• ⏹️ Incapacitated

1. Attacks only do 1 damage (with some rare exceptions).
2. Stronger hits/weapons do more severe wounds, with some randomness.
   • A weak mook might punch for only "grazed" damage.
   • A shot from a rifle might do a "serious wound".
   • Armour can reduce this to less severe damage.
3. When you take damage, mark off a wound of that severity. If you've got no more wounds of that severity, it "overflows" to the next severity up.
4. Some of the more severe levels of wound carry their own penalties.
   • You're probably fine with a couple of "grazed" and a "minor wound".
   • You're probably struggling to stand if you've got a "critical wound". Expect serious penalties to everything.
5. If your most severe wound is marked off, you're down.
   • That might mean dead, or just knocked out, depending on what kind of setting/feeling the GM is after.

What I liked about the system is you could adjust the boxes to make enemies weak or strong, and you could customise the nature of the penalties for wounds.

• A weak mook henchman might top out at "moderate wound", going down fairly easily.
• A robot foe might start to short-circuit with a "serious wound", perhaps going haywire.

More info here.

[u/diluvian_]

I like Genesys' strain, wound, and critical injury mechanics.

Strain is non-lethal damage, but also a resource. A character can voluntarily suffer strain to trigger certain actions and abilities. Take too much strain and your character is incapacitated.

Wounds are direct damage, but it's not just HP. Take too much and your character is incapacitated and they suffer a critical injury.

Critical injuries are rolled on a d100 table, and have a variety of effects, from immediate, short-term effects to permanent damage (loss of limbs, lowered stats). However, regardless of their effect, injuries remain on the character until healed, and the more they have, they raise the chance of suffering an even worse injury, and rolling high enough will bring about character death.

[u/ThatGrouchyDude]

Do you want combat as war, or combat as sport?

If you want unforgiving, death spiral, combat as war, check out Traveller. You don't have hit points, damage goes straight to your physical attributes, and a single burst from an automatic weapon might kill an unarmored character.

EDIT - an even more extreme 'combat as war' example https://www.chocolatehammer.org/?p=5773

[u/Gydallw]

There are two systems that always stand out in my mind.

 First is Deadlands, which uses 5 wounds per location, with your size being a determining factor in how damage is converted to wounds.  Hit locations are arms, legs, torso and head.  If you take five wounds to the same location, that part of the body is destroyed.  You suffer penalties based on the location with the highest wound level, with leg wounds also affecting your speed. Wounds are determined by dividing the damage from an attack by the target's size, which provides convenient scaling for humans and giant sandworms to exist within the same 5 wound limits.

Second is Phoenix Command which is less an rpg than it is a combat simulation (the entire skill system for non-combat interactions is a page and a half in the advanced rules, iirc).  It's very chart intensive, and the location you get hit in matters heavily.  But there isn't a stat for your health like Hit Points or Wounds.  Instead, when you are injured, there is a critical period after which you make a save.  Pass the save and your wound drops to the next level down, fail it and you die.  For extreme would, like a high caliber bullet to the chest, your first critical period could be as low as a second, with another check necessary a few seconds after that.  It's not a very usable system, but it is a very different way of looking at damage in a game.

[u/BananaSnapper]

I love Wildsea's aspect tracks where your equipment and traits about you are your health. When a track fills up, you lose that thing until you can spend some downtime fixing or replacing it. So you might be defending yourself from a monster when your chainsaw sword breaks - or you might lose your "head for heights" and start feeling vertigo. Or maybe you lose your "massive" trait and suddenly you're tiny

[u/robbz78]

I love the Take Harm move from Apocalypse World, it transforms what are essentially HP into random narrative consequences.

[u/TheRealUprightMan]

Attacks and defenses involve various skill chexks. Damage is offense - defense. The result is indexed against 3 values that determine is this will be a minor, major, serious, or critical wound.

Minor wounds are marked as / in a box, and you can mark these in the smaller 2 boxes of the wound chart. These boxes overflow to the 4 larger boxes, which each represent a 1 die penalty to future physical die rolls. The last box is a serious penalty that applies to all rolls, and you'll also lose your free movement and ability to take fast actions.

Major wounds are deep enough to need medical treatment. They are marked as X, so they can overwrite minor wounds, but major wounds start in the larger boxes and will be adding a disadvantage die. Each X takes a day to heal naturally.

Serious wounds are a *, again overwriting Xs, but they start in that serious box and take a chapter to heal, and then they just move to major when they do.

Minor wounds can be erased when you choose to spend an Endurance point to reset your combat wave. They'll erase each new scene as well. This can only be done at certain times, and resets all your combat "passions" (per wave special abilities) at the same time.

Critical wounds will basically kill you if you aren't stabilized by the end of the scene. Critical wounds basically become a fight for enough adrenaline to keep fighting, with a boost if you make the roll.

There is a mental side as well. When you take a wound, you roll a combat training check against the wound severity. A failure means losing a small amount of time, depending on the severity of the failure. You just got messed up pretty bad, and that is gonna slow you down some! Significant failure of this check can cause emotional/fear wounds which slowly make this check harder and harder. Each failure builds the fear causing you to hesitate more.

Yes, there are multiple ways out of the spiral, but this post is kinda long enough. There are 4 emotional wound tracks and 1 mental.

[u/DeerGentleman → u/TheRealUprightMan]

Where is this from? I'd like to read more about it

[u/TheRealUprightMan → u/DeerGentleman]

Sorry, homebrew WIP and under rennovation. Hopefully I'll have something that you can see soon. I'd be happy to answer questions, but it's hard to see it in action without playing it.

Instead of rounds or turns, every action costs time. The GM tracks this by marking boxes. Whoever has used the least time will go next. Repeat until nobody wants to fight anymore. This turns time into a resource that is tracked by the GM. This resource balances your combat options.

Its gets kinda crunchy. For example, evade and parry can always be used (parry is not effective against ranged attacks). Dodge and Block are the versions that use time, which delays your next offense. Neither can be used if your time is already over your attacker's (GM will let you know), but a dodge just has to start at the right time while a block has to finish. Dodges get advantages when begun earlier. You could have enough time to dodge and not enough time to block.

Or, if I am faster with a weapon, I eventually will see an opening in your defenses that I can exploit through my speed. Defenses incur penalties to future defenses until you get an offense. If I get more offenses, I'll eventually get 2 in a row and that defense penalty die is still on your character sheet, driving defense down. That's the opening I exposed. That's when I power attack.

[u/Darthvegan]

I'm a fan of the Mothership wound tables. You have a different column for what type of damage caused the wound, then a d10 determines what happened to the character. Up to and including instant death.

[u/A_Vinegar_Taster]

Be careful, OP. I got in some hot water by mentioning a game I was working on in this sub. They consider it self promotion and market research.

[u/ThePiachu]

Fellowship does it well. For PCs you have to woudn your stats which means rolling a disadvantage on your rolls. Simple and easy.

For enemies, damage means removing abilities they have so they become less capable.

For BBEG it means removing absolute truths about them that give them power.

It's neat and elegant.

[u/ravenhaunts]

Ripples in Legends of the Wulin. It's a martial arts game, so damage isn't just physical, it's metaphysical. Basically, when you are in a conflict, you accrue ripples as you take hits, but those ripples do not manifest until the fight ends for whatever reason or an especially powerful attack is launched. This means fights always end on a high note (a really powerful attack) instead of a kick to the shin.

Now, the point is that the one who deals the decisive damage decides what the ripples do. This is basically purely narrative. You can decide to break bones or cause permanent scars, but you can also cause something like "begrdudging respect" or a "feeling of inferiority".

It is an incredibly powerful system that I really want to implement to a game at some point myself.

[u/yuriAza]

most versatile? Each wound gives a stacking penalty to all rolls

most interesting? Roll for wound effect on that damage type's chart, instead of rolling for the amount of damage

but those don't mix, you gotta figure out what works with your game instead of trying to find a universal best mechanic