Wednesday 22 December 2010

How would you model the common cold?

Stamina type check, maybe buy a Willpower type check for "I don't have time for this!" determination, with failure resulting in a negative modifier to all rolls for bloody days?

Thinking a bit wider, there's a vast spread of normal diseases that player characters are never in any danger of. I don't recall ever seeing a Call of Cthulhu character with TB, or a Werewolf with lockjaw. If characters get sick, it's A Big Deal, and probably a curse or an alien bioweapon or something.

Mundane illness is generally ignored, left to the players, or maybe the GM could discuss it with them. I can see suggesting something like Buffy, Killed By Death where our hero saves the day while hospitalised with flu.

2 comments:

  1. Had Deadlands character almost die from Lockjaw once (tetanus) after being shot to hell, then locked in a POW camp. For the longest time I thought I would lose him. Not a good way to go.

    From a gaming perspective, it,s alright to lose a character from a bad run of rolls in combat. Not preferable, but allowable. To die in his bed is not fun, from either a gaming or role-playing perspective.

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  2. That's some pretty harsh GMing (for a fairly GRIMDARK! game) but yeah, dying in one's bed would only be an interesting roleplaying thing one time. Maybe twice if the dying character was a Viking or something and really wanted to die in battle..

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