Welcome to The Mimic's Arms (An Inn That Will Make You Crazy)

Here's an idea for a module.

Scouts, roadwardens, travellers, or what have you report horrible shoggothy monsters attacking an isolated coaching inn, tearing it apart and slaughtering everybody within. They report a team of mighty heroes (bedecked in magic items and other loot) fighting the shoggothy monsters, and being defeated.

The PCs might go to investigate the ruins, perhaps to loot the fallen heroes.

Only there aren't ruins. The inn is intact, the people have no idea what you're talking about, what monsters? Everything is fine.

Except they aren't. Maybe the PCs have been here before, and the interior is different, the staff are gone and replaced with totally different people. Things seem off.

And then when you turn to leave, the door isn't there anymore.

So what's happened?

It's mimics. The staff are dopplegangers, the furniture is mimics, the windows have see-through mimics instead of glass. A flame-mimic burns cheerfully in the fireplace.

Once the PCs wise up it's a pretty simple dungeon to explore, full of lurking monsters in disguise. The frustrated cry of 'god dammit, not the stairs too!' should be heard at least once.

The loot you found? Small mimics. The 'heroes'? Those were dopplegangers, their fall was bait to encourage more heroes so the shapeshifters can steal their appearances too. Escape the inn, and guess what, your horses have been replaced. And those trees? Mimics.

On the other hand, the actual blob-monster they find is a stuffed trophy killed by the inn's founder in his adventuring days, and totally harmless.

Do not, under any circumstances, let the party split, for obvious reasons.

This should play out like a comedy of errors, a bizarre farce where nothing is as it seems. It should be totally ridiculous. 

Teams of Minor Characters in The Dolorous Stroke

So, inspired by discussions with JC over at his blog hobgoblinry, here are some rules for minor characters in The Dolorous Stroke. These are the cannon fodder, the nameless mooks, the screaming panicking peasants, and so on.

Using these new rules will let you expand the scope of the game from three or four models on a side, to perhaps as many as a dozen. Roughly speaking, you can expect a team of four minor characters to take up about as much spotlight as a single normal PC.
This hasn't been playtested in this iteration, although elements of how Teams work have been used in the games I've run and worked fine.

New Special Ability: Minor Characters

Minor characters are those whose roles in proceedings are brief or unimportant. They are probably not given a name or much backstory, existing more in the background of events starring our favorite knights, nobles, and ne'er-do-wells.

Rather than having four decks (for wounds, blood, willpower, and virtue), Minor Characters have only one, which is called Endurance. This has the same sequence of thirteen cards from Ace, through 2-10, and the jack, queen and king. A normal deck of 54 cards can then be split into four Endurance decks for four minor characters.

Whenever an ability or game effect would draw cards from a blood/wounds/willpower/virtue deck, a minor character instead draws one from their Endurance deck; the Endurance deck serves as all four all at once.

When drawing injury cards for a minor character, instead of setting aside the injury card and suffering its effects, drawing a valid injury takes a minor character out of action immediately. If the injury card drawn is not one that the weapon striking the minor character can inflict, instead that card (and one other Endurance card) is discarded in place of Blood cards.

Minor characters cannot duel, joust take prisoners or be taken prisoner. 

Other than this, they behave just like other PCs. Their attacks do damage in the normal way, and they have the same stats and equipment that other characters might have.

New Special Ability: Teams (and Crowds, Packs, Hordes, Mobs, Swarms and so on)

This special ability is used to represent those unimportant characters who are only really found in crowds: the peasants in a torch-and-pitchfork-wielding mob, the shambling revenants in a horde, the many masked guards in a knight's keep, the swarming vermin found in a cave, and so on.

All characters in a Team (or crowd, pack, mob, etc) must be minor characters; these are nameless masses, important only in their numbers. There should be at least 2, and perhaps as many as eight, in the team. All should be basically the same in terms of their rules, although slight differences in stats or equipment to represent the variation among the models used is acceptable.

Models in a team activate all at once. They must all take roughly the same action. For example, if they move, all of them should advance, withdraw, move into cover or whatever. Likewise, if they shoot, they should all be shooting at enemies in the rough same direction. Those that can't (or don't want to) do what the rest of the team are doing instead waste their action doing nothing. If any of the team are locked in combat when they activate, then the activation is spent resolving each fight that the team are involved. Those not yet in combat waste their action just like if they were unable to shoot when the team spent their action shooting or similar.

Designing Teams of Minor Characters

Minor characters can be statted up how you want, but there are a few guidelines you should probably follow in order to stay in keeping with their relative unimportance. 

Their actual stats should tend towards the low side except in unusual circumstances. Your average range is probably 3-4 (rather than 4-5), and their equipment should be limited to perhaps a single (probably poor-quality) weapon, appropriate armor (which should probably be light) and maybe one other item (which might be a second melee weapon, a ranged weapon, or something odder). Some supernatural beings will need multiple special abilities to reflect their particular nature, such as Undead, Mindless, Claws, and so on. Otherwise you should probably only give them one special ability, and probably a simple one such as Hide in Cover or Brute.

On PvP

Here are some observations on player vs player conflict in RPGs. This is drawn from a mixture of mushes, larps and traditional tabletop games, and should be applicable to all these forms.
Note that everything discussed here is assuming that you're playing in a game where PvP (conflict between PCs with meaningful negative consequences for the loser) is on the table. If you're playing a game where part of the social contract is that PvP just will not happen, then none of this matters to you. Well done, you are a sensible person, go and enjoy your reasonable game.

A year or so ago, I was playing a Giovanni in a vamp game who believed that one of the other local vampires (a Settite) might be conspiring against her. Now, my Giovanni had a ghostly servant who could walk through walls, locate people unnervingly, and punch them to death whilst remaining immaterial and so untouchable by physical people. This raised the question: should I send this servant to punch the Settite to death? I didn't, because I felt bad about killing off somebody's PC.
Two weeks later, the Settites burned my Giovanni's house down. She lost everything, and it was only  through sheer luck that she wasn't in the building to burn with it.

Games can function very well with no outright conflict between PCs; part of the social contract and IC conceit for the game is that the PCs cooperate. This is seen by a lot of roleplayers, myself included, as the default setup. It is possible for PCs to disagree in this sort of game without it escalating to real conflict. You discuss your options or oppinions, a disagreement arises, and then either you drop the matter (and agree to disagree) or reach a compramise (one side may be compromising more than the other). Fundamentally, though, you remain on the same side.

Once PCs are attempting to harm one another, a sort of rubicon has been crossed: now we enter into 'PvP'. It doesn't matter if you don't want to do PvP: if somebody else decides they're kicking the conflict off, it's now happening whether you want it to or not, and your attempts to wade in and end the conflict only result in you being part of the conflict.
Harm might mean all sorts of things: dealing HP damage to them, removing or reducing their assets, gaining leverage over them (Charm Person in D&D, Boons in VtM), outright removing them, or threats of the above. Once play crosses into the PvP threshold, now the other players are your enemies. They pose as great a threat to you as any wandering monster; more, because they are played by a player with intense focus on their PC's capabilities and actions and who knows intimately how your PC functions.

Furthermore, in my experience, the threat of what a PC might do to you is far higher than what NPCs might do to you. A PC is motivated to remove threats efficiently in order to preserve their PC, while the GM's characters are limited by the GM's agendas, which likely include 'giving the players a fair chance and agency' and 'not taking sides in PvP conflict' and 'maintaining the fiction of the game world'. Very few NPCs are going to slit your throat in your sleep out of nowhere and with no way to stop them, unless either you're playing on super-hard-mode or your GM is a total asshole.

The most sensible way to deal with this situation (assuming you want your PC to stay alive, to get more XP, and to succeed in their various goals) is to neutralize your PC enemies as quickly, efficiently and one-sidedly as possible. Remove their ability to do anything against you: typically this means things like hard mind-control or assassination. If you don't take them out, they'll take you out.

So we end up with the larper habit of stabbing somebody to death when they leave their camp to go to the loo, or that tabletop standby of "I wait until we camp for the night and then coup-de-grace them in their sleep". These deny the victim the chance to fight back, minimizing the risk to you. If you're not an idiot, it's pretty easy to do consequence-free PvP murders. Let's call this 'the nuclear option'.
I would add that hard mind control (dominate person, for example) is effectively a character death: the player no longer has the agency to control their own character.

In my experience, once a group has crossed the rubicon and started outright hostile PvP, it's very hard to end that pattern of behavior. There are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, once it is clear that PvP is on the cards, it remains a possibility. Now, even if you are cooperating, you know that PvP conflict might emerge in future.
Secondly, there are few consequences for attacking your team mates that de-escalate the PvP:

• If your victims agree to your demands, now you know that the threat of PvP conflict gets you what you want, which results in more of it down the line. As mentioned above, the PvP genie doesn't go back in the bottle, so all giving in will achieve (once the knives are out) is rewarding the aggressor. 
• If your victims respond in kind, you are now motivated to remove them as a threat as efficiently as possible. Knowing this, they are likewise motivated to remove the threat you pose before they can do it to you. Thus, the nuclear option becomes a desirable course of action, perhaps the most desirable.
• If uninvolved PCs push back against your use of PvP, now they are also part of the PvP conflict: the conflict has only escalated.
• If the GM has NPCs push back against those who use PvP, it is easy for players to see this as GM favouritism in a conflict that's only between PCs, leading to resentment. Of course, PCs who try to use NPC responses to PvP (threatening to call the police, maybe) as a defense are basically indirectly getting involved with the conflict themselves.

The targets of PvP conflict immediately submitting in the hope that the aggressor will be nice is the only response that might de-escalate things, but it also really fucking sucks to have to do: you are, effectively, letting somebody else hijack your agency through their willingness to play chicken with everybody's PCs.

I've seen enough larps where once you kick of PvP, everybody knows that you now revert to a sort of hobbesian state of nature where the only social rules in character are 'do unto others before they do unto you' and authority is derived from violence and the willingness to use it to remove other people's PCs. This is shit. It's no fun to play in (unless you are a particular sort of bastard who just wants to win against the other players, but if you are I have no sympathy for you: that is what wargames etc are for). It sucks for the GM who has gone from telling a story or presenting a sandbox, to managing player egos and trying to remain unbiased as players try to kill each other off. It kills games.

Why does this happen?

It happens because frequently, going for the nuclear option (death or total domination) is the best option once the knives are out, and once that dynamic has started it's hard for those involved to de-escalate.
Let's look at the likely positive and negative consequences of taking/not taking the nuclear option in PvP.
Positives to taking the nuclear option: Your PC enemy goes away, meaning you win the conflict and they can't go nuclear on you.
Negatives to taking the nuclear option: NPCs will probably react negatively to you for acting like a bastard.
Positives to not taking the nuclear option: NPCs don't react badly because you aren't being a murderous asshole yet.
Negatives to taking the nuclear option: your enemies might take the nuclear option, and even if they don't, you still haven't won the conflict yet.

The solution, therefore, is pretty simple. The negative consequences of going nuclear (the pushback from NPCs) needs to be sufficient to dissuade you from going nuclear.
I've played in large larps where all the conflict was between PCs. Some of them had a set-up where if you did a murder, you would most likely be caught by (the gods/the police/your bosses) and punished... which probably means execution. In these games, the murder rate is very low. In games where no external force punished you for doing murders, murder abounded. (I have 'fond' memories of a larp event where I created five characters in a row in an effort to get from the side of the field with my tent in to the side of the field with the bar in, without being robbed and murdered on the way over; the first four died.)
If you set it up so that Going Nuclear - IE attempts to remove rival PCs through force, typically murder - doesn't result in immediate, devestating pushback from NPCs, your PCs will resort to it once PvP kicks off in ernest, and once that's happened your game will not recover.
If you make it clear that the Nuclear Option is more trouble than it's worth, then you can have healthy PvP with political maneuvering and shenanigans.
You need this to be clear from the outset. You need your players to know that they will get caught and they will suffer when they do. You need to establish The Will Of The Gods or The Police or whatever as being potent enough to stomp on a PC who goes nuclear on their rivals.

If this is not an option (perhaps your PCs are in the wilderness), then you still need to enforce immediate, disastrous consequences for PvP. Have something powerful attack while the PCs are in their post-nuclear-war weakened state. Have monsters use their divisions against them. Punish them.


This, incidentally, is the route cause of all shitty behavior in RPGs. If your players are running about being lol-so-random idiots, stabbing kings and widdling on things, it's because you are not enforcing appropriate consequences from the world for that. If your PCs murder every monster and NPC they encounter, it's because you are not showing them the downsides of violence; they encounter no grudges, no law enforcement, no orphans, no vengeful ghosts...
Toxic behaviors in the game are, mostly, behaviors people don't exhibit in real life because there are consequences. Enforce consequences, and the behavior stops.

Or, alternatively, talk to your players like a grownup so everybody can agree ahead of time where the limits are with conflict between PCs. That too.

I wrote a Wargame and you should buy it

So, I've blogged about The Dolorous Stroke on here a bit. Well, it's done now. You can buy it here, it costs five bucks for roughly 100 pages.
I'm planning to get it into print, but that could take a while.
I'm gonna talk about it some.

So the initial thought process went something like this:

• Inquisitor is really cool but too detailed even for me. See this blogpost for more of my fangirling.
• The LOTR skirmish game is pretty good and should never have been made a large-scale game.
• Arthuriana is under-represented.
• This Dark Age Of Sigmar/AoS28 stuff is really cool!
• Fuck it lets make it a game.

So I built a game based on my particular tastes. Which is to say:

• Alternating activation.
• Simple resolution.
• Changing dice sizes rather than +/- X modifiers.
• Injuries rather than loss of HP.
• Playing cards always make tracking stuff easy.
• Tempo and timing wins games, not removing models.
• Hard to kill models, tabling your opponent ineffective. 
• Weapon choice matters.
• Freeform character creation, no list-building points-cost bullshit.

So my philosophy was to make the game as an engine for interesting encounters and atmosphere, creating a slightly darker chivalrous feel to things. Story and setting and characters are more important than tactics. If your warband aren't converted, you are Doing It Wrong.

Which is why you've got things like special rules for jousting, noblewomen as social/command powerhouses, magic as limited but devastating, a stat for Virtue.

Some of my early thoughts can be found in this post, where the commenter Alandros suggested the game's eventual title. Stuff's been modified since then, but it's a good insight into my early design thoughts.

I've been playing it a bunch with local gamers. They seem to like it. I have plans to run a big themed campaign with, like, a Quest and Tournaments and Dark Secrets.

And then graphic design wise I tried to keep things fairly tight. Consistent use of sidebars for setting stuff, little heraldic shields as page ornaments to break up the text, and big full-page illustrations every so often. It'll do.

Horrible Wounds in OSR games

I don't like death at 0HP. From a player side its abrupt and always feels arbitrary, and from the ref side it's both quite punishing and doesn't cause enough complications.

When characters hit 0HP, I want them to suffer. They get chopped up, start bleeding, lose body parts, get messed up. Characters that drop to 0HP should aquire scars and problems. They should risk death but have a chance to avoid it if swift medical attention is received. It's worth noting that, compared to death at 0HP, these rules are not as forgiving as you might think: being stuck with a PC who's missing two limbs or brain damaged is a pretty big nerf, compared to just getting to roll up a new, perfectly healthy PC.

These are the rules I use. They've been playtested a decent amount and work for what I want them to do. They are also, incidentally, remarkably similar to the rules I put in Wolfpacks & Winter Snow and Esoteric Enterprises. 

Applying Horrible Wounds

Rather than instantly dying on 0 Hit-Points, PCs and other important characters instead suffer specific horrible wounds which may kill them (either instantly or over time) or else leave them with dramatic injuries as their bodies are permanently mutilated.

When damage reduces you to 0 HP or less, or you take any damage when you already had no HP, look at the exact amount of damage dealt and get a result from the list below. It doesn't matter how far 'into the negatives' you are, just look at the result of the dice. Except for the penalties from actual injuries, you can keep on going just fine on 0 HP; adrenaline can do impressive things.

There are 6 sets of wounds to look the damage up on, depending on what caused it. They are:

•         Ballistics, for bullets, explosives and other extremely high energy impacts.
•         Ripping, for knives, teeth, claws, and other ‘sharp’ physical damage.
•         Bludgeoning, for hammers, falling masonry, fists, and other ‘blunt’ physical damage.
•         Burns, for fire, acid, digestive enzymes and other sub-stances that physically corrode, burn or eat away at flesh.
•         Shocks, for electricity and perhaps extreme cold, radiation or other dangers that suddenly stun or shock the body into uselessness.
•         Toxins, for poison, sickness, and other hazardous sub-stances that make the body ill.

Some really nasty damage ignores HP, and goes straight to causing these wounds. This is the sort of thing that would be instant-death in a game without wounds.

Being reduced to 0 in a stat still just kills you instantly; the increasing penalties for lowering stats is a good representation of the body or mind weakening. The same applies to instant death effects (such as some poisons or spells); those just kill you right away. Similarly, against a helpless victim, you can just kill them without needing to make damage rolls. It might be messy and unpleasant, but if they can’t stop you they’ll die eventually.

These rules are best reserved for PCs and significant NPCs and monsters: those important enough to earn a name and a notable place in the fiction. For minor NPCs, wandering monsters and so on, just have them die at 0 HP to avoid the game getting too bogged down.

Ongoing Damage

Sometimes a character is brought to 0 flesh by a source of damage that continues each round or turn; being on fire, breathing in toxic fumes and being immersed in acid are good examples of this sort of thing. For as long as the effect keeps damaging them, they keep taking the appropriate Horrible Wound each round (or turn), with one modification. If they would suffer a Horrible Wound already inflicted on them by that damage source, they instead take the next one down (if that one has also been suffered, look at the one below it and so on until there is a new wound to suffer). In this way, the wounds suffered from ongoing damage will get progressively worse the longer the victim is left, making death near-inevitable without some sort of intervention.

Fatigue

A character who is physically drained and cannot move without difficulty suffers a few penalties. They move as if heavily encumbered and go last in initiative. They regain only 1 HP whenever they would recover HP.

Bleeding To Death

A character who starts bleeding out can survive for as many rounds as they have hit-dice, adjusted by their Constitution modifier. For example, a first level character (who therefore has 1 hit dice) with +2 constitution bleeds to death in 3 rounds.

A character can attempt an Intelligence roll to staunch the bleeding. This takes a round, and if successful slows the bleed to a rate of turns rather than rounds. If failed, then the character loses additional blood as the medic interferes with them; they have one less round of bleed time every time a medic fails to staunch their bleeding.

A character can also attempt to properly treat the bleeding of a character bleeding at a rate of turns. Doing so is more involved, so takes a full turn. If successful, the patient stops bleeding entirely. If failed, then the patient’s bleeding is again accelerated by a full turn.

Magical healing such as Cure Light Wounds or a potion automatically ends the bleeding.

Dead Men Walking

Sometimes death is basically inevitable, but not immediate. This is referred to as being a Dead Man Walking. As a Dead Man Walking, you get one more round to act in, and then you die. If you have a constitution bonus, you get that many extra rounds.

Nothing can be done to stop this. A Dead Man Walking’s death sentence is merely slightly delayed, but still irrevocable.

Healing Horrible Wounds

Some horrible wounds create an immediate effect, such as knocking the victim unconscious or causing them to begin bleeding out. These might be fixed with an appropriate roll and a round (or sometimes turn) spent treating the victim. If the roll fails, the victim suffers additional wounds from the botched procedure; roll a d8 on the appropriate list, and they suffer that wound.

More permanent wounds such as lost body-parts and mutilation cannot be fixed in this way. Sometimes, reconstructive surgery is possible. If doctors are employed to rebuild the character, then the process will likely take several months to be finished (due to waiting times, the search for donors, recovery times and so on) during which they are effectively out of commission. Even in places where the practice of medicine is advanced, access to surgeons this sophisticated is limited.

Alternatively, magic such as Regenerate might be required to restore the body. Spells like Cure Light Wounds are not sufficient.

Ballistic Wounds

This damage table should be used for bullets and explosions, and other high-kinetic-energy impacts.

One damage:

The shot rips through internal organs, starting a slow internal bleed. You’re bleeding out, but at a rate of turns rather than rounds.

Two damage:

The bullet’s impact ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and get disadvantage (roll twice and take the worse result) to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Three damage:

The impact of the bullet ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces gets disadvantage).

Four Damage:

A deep wound starts you Bleeding Out. The bullet goes in one side and out the other, and blood’s fountaining everywhere.

Five Damage:

A particularly horrible wound ruins your leg completely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and get disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Six Damage:

A particularly horrible wound gets rid of your arm entirely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands gets disadvantage.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

You’re shot in the head but somehow survive. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Eight Damage:

You’re going to die. A bullet tears your throat wide open or goes through your lung. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

You’re messed up badly. Flesh is ripped to bits, bones shattered. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the shock of your injuries.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

A headshot kills you instantly.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re dead, ripped to bits in a hail of bullets or shrapnel. What’s left is hardly intact enough to bury or reanimate.

Ripping Wounds

This damage table should be used for physical wounds. Stabbing, cutting, tearing, crushing, grinding; anything where a solid object is tearing up flesh, use this table.

One damage:

The injury fucks your eye up. You take disadvantage to rolls involving perception, since you can’t see properly.

Two damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Three damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage.

Four Damage:

A deep wound starts you Bleeding Out. An artery’s been cut or there’s a huge injury in your torso, and blood’s fountaining everywhere.

Five Damage:

A particularly horrible wound ruins your leg completely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Six Damage:

A particularly horrible wound gets rid of your arm entirely. Maybe it’s severed, maybe it’s hanging by sinews, or maybe it’s just a mess. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage.

You are also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

You sustain a nasty head wound. You’re unconscious for d12 rounds, and Bleeding Out from the head.

Eight Damage:

You’re going to die. A blade through the skull, torso torn open, or something like that. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

You’re messed up badly. Flesh is ripped to bits, bones shattered. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the shock of your injuries.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re dead. Decapitation, totally ruined chest, skull smashed to bits, or whatever. Death is instant.

Sixteen or More Damage:

Not only are you dead, but there’s not even enough left to bury or reanimate. You’re not much more than chunky salsa.

Bludgeoning Wounds

This damage table should be used for anything that batters at the victim without having a sharp edge or point as fist, bricks, clubs and so on, where the likely result is to bludgeon the victim into submission rather than rip them to bits.

One damage:

It hurts like hell. You lose your next action.

Two damage:

A sharp blow to the head knocks you unconscious for d12 rounds.

Three damage:

You’re knocked out for d12 rounds by the blow, and when you wake up you’re groggy and dazed. You’re fatigued until somebody spends a turn seeing to you, and passes an Intelligence roll to do so.

Four Damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins a leg. With one leg, you're reduced to hopping about or relying on crutches. You can’t run, and take disadvantage to rolls requiring physical agility. If both go, you're on the floor unable to get about at all.

Five Damage:

A particularly savage wound ruins an arm. You can’t use that hand for anything. Any rolls that require the use of two hands reduces suffers disadvantage

Six Damage:

A sharp blow to the head knocks you out cold for d12 rounds. On top of that, the head injury has messed you up badly. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all your rolls.

Seven Damage:

You’ve suffered internal damage, and now you’re Bleeding Out. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll be coughing up blood, or else bleeding from the eyes or mouth.

Eight Damage:

You’ve suffered a horrible brain injury. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all your rolls.

Nine Damage:

Something ruptures in your head, doing irreparable and fatal damage to your brain. Although you might be able to cling onto life for a little longer, you’re a Dead Man Walking.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly, your head caved in.

Sixteen or More Damage:

Well, this was overkill. You’ve been squashed into a pulpy mess, so there’s really barely anything left to bury or reanimate.

Shocking Wounds

This damage table is mostly used for electricity, but could also be appropriate for things like cold or psychic damage.

One damage:

It hurts like hell. You lose your next action.

Two damage:

The force of the shock knocks you unconscious for d12 rounds.

Three damage:

You’re knocked out for d12 rounds by the shock, and when you wake up you’re groggy and dazed. You’re fatigued until somebody spends a turn seeing to you, and passes an Intelligence roll to do so.

Four Damage:

The damage has seriously jarred your respiratory system, preventing you from breathing properly and possibly sending you into cardiac arrest. You’re probably spasming, suffocating or otherwise struggling to stay alive. It counts as Bleeding Out, although depending on the injury might not actually involve blood loss.

On top of this, since you can’t breathe properly, you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Five Damage:

The shock damages your mental faculties. The brain trauma gives disadvantage to all rolls.

Six Damage:

The shock knocks you out cold for d12 rounds. On top of that, the head injury has messed you up badly. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Seven Damage:

You’ve suffered internal ruptures, and now you’re Bleeding Out. There’s a pretty good chance you’ll be coughing up blood, or else bleeding from the eyes or mouth.

Eight Damage:

You’ve suffered a horrible brain injury. You’re Bleeding Out, blood gushing from your ears and mouth. The brain trauma gives you disadvantage to all rolls.

Nine Damage:

Your respiratory system seizes up completely, and death is not far off. Although you might be able to cling onto life for a little longer, you’re a Dead Man Walking.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly, the shock stopping all life signs in one fell swoop.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re totally obliterated by the force of the shock, leaving only a smell of smoke and ozone. There’s not much left to resurrect or reanimate.

Burning Wounds

This damage table should be used for anything that actually removes your flesh; fire, acid, digestive enzymes, and so on.

One damage:

One damage fucks your eye up. You disadvantage on rolls involving perception

Two damage:

Two damage messes up your mouth and tongue, making al-most impossible to speak clearly. Charisma rolls may be required to communicate through grunts and gestures, and spell-casting is impossible since it requires precise enunciation.

Three damage:

Three damage ruins your face, turning it into a mess of burn scars when it finally heals. You’re ugly as shit now. Enemy reaction rolls are 1 point worse when you’re involved, and you disadvantage on charisma-based rolls. It will need reconstructive surgery to fix.

Four Damage:

Four damage has dealt enough damage to your throat and lungs that you can’t breath properly. You’re probably coughing up blood, suffocating or otherwise struggling to stay alive. It counts as Bleeding Out, although depending on the injury might not actually involve blood loss. On top of this, since you can’t breathe properly, you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Five Damage:

Five damage ruins your manual dexterity. Your fingers are burnt to useless nubs, or reduced to masses of scar with no sense of touch. You take disadvantage on attack rolls and rolls requiring manual dexterity.

Six Damage:

Six damage ruins your senses. Your nose is burnt away, inner ears ruined. You’re deaf and can no longer smell or taste properly. You take disadvantage on rolls requiring perception. Since you can’t hear, you can’t enunciate properly to cast spells.

You’re also Bleeding Out.

Seven Damage:

Your lungs are burnt away, and so is your face. You’re pretty grim to look at. Enemy reaction rolls are 1 point worse when you’re involved, and you take disadvantage on rolls involving charisma. Plus, you’re now Bleeding Out, and can’t breathe properly meaning you’re Fatigued until you stop bleeding.

Eight Damage:

This is brutal. Your skin is basically gone, and your body is covered in horrific burns. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

Nine damage messes you up badly. You’re more ash than flesh at this point, but still clinging to life for a little longer. You’re a Dead Man Walking. On top of this, you’re knocked unconscious for a round from the sheer pain.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re killed instantly.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You’re dead and the corpse is burnt to oblivion. Nothing but ashes or gunk is left behind.

Toxic Wounds

This damage table is for damage that comes from within the body. Poison, sickness, radiation and so on.

One damage:

You’re nauseous and can’t concentrate. Until somebody sets you down to fix what’s ailing you (spending a turn and passing an Intelligence roll), you’re Fatigued.

Two damage:

Your immune system is horribly, horribly compromised. You get a permanent disadvantage to your

Saves vs Poison.

Three damage:

Your blood is tainted, and your lungs don’t work properly anymore. You recover less slowly than normal. You only get HP back by sleeping, and then a maximum of 1 HP.

Four Damage:

You’re Bleeding Out from the nose and eyes, but at a rate of Turns, not Rounds.

Five Damage:

Your body is trying to vent the poison from it. You sweat foul smelling blood, Bleeding Out at a rate of turns, not rounds. Until you stop bleeding out, you’re also Fatigued.

Six Damage:

Something’s ruptured. You’re bleeding out at normal speed, and the stuff spewing out of your mouth is black and acrid.

Seven Damage:

Things are going badly wrong. You’re Bleeding Out from your mouth and eyes, and even if you survive you get a permanent disadvantage on your Saves vs Poison from now on.

Eight Damage:

This means you’re going to die. There’s just too much nasty stuff in your body, and it can’t cope. You’re a Dead Man Walking.

Nine Damage:

Your organs are shutting down one by one. You’re a Dead Man Walking. Plus, you spend the next round vomiting everywhere, and lose your chance to act.

Ten to Fifteen Damage:

You’re dead, and it’s not pretty.

Sixteen or More Damage:

You die instantly, your body no longer able to hold together under the toxic strain. It’s probably not a good idea to try re-animating the corpse; just burn it for the good of everybody. There’s not even enough left to bury or reanimate.

And there you go. Before long, you'll have a party of PCs missing all sorts of fun extremities.

Running War in RPGs

So, this is a technique I use where the PCs are commanding troops in battle. It assumes the PCs are reasonably strong, so that a single mook is not much threat to them: I've used it both for high level OSR games (IE once they hit level 9 and get their castle) and in the Wraith game I run for when they're at war with Specters.

The basic thinking is this: Rolling out each round of combat will get really tedious really fast, so don't do that. Assume that the PCs are able to make a difference where they focus their efforts, but can't be everywhere at once.

The method I use is to divide the scene into 'frames', each frame being a snapshot of the battlefield as the situation develops. 

Each frame presents the general situation of the battlefield, and the results of the PCs actions in the previous frame. It then lists a number of points where the PCs might want to intervene.

Here's an example from tonight's (text-based) Wraith game, in which wax-themed spectres were besieging the city of Barcelona:

FRAME 3 RESULTS: Ember, you're able to cut down the wraiths hauling the bell, and then turn your attention on the bell itself - you attempt to cleave it in twain with your blade, but only succeed in striking it and producing a mighty GLONG! that causes the very walls to shudder and both wraiths and spectres to drop to the floor clutching their ears. Sophia, the waxy priests shriek and burn, and their torrent of angst ceases as Moire and her pet squid-monster smash into them from the flank, totally destroying the formation. Sun-Come-Dance, fucking EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE - this is a problem for the spectres pursuing you, the survivors you're with and yourself, but for now you're outrunning the flames. The spectre's seige engines remain pinned down by the hierarchy's firepower.

FRAME 4: More spectres swarm over the breaches in the walls and into the city, running amock and cutting down civilians and wounded legionaries where they catch them. Waxen knights climb the walls, hoping to secure the beach-heads their more expendable cousins have made. The approaching collumns of spectral reinforcements are held at bay by all of Sun-come-dance's fire, at least for now. Out of the wax moat, crude hulking wax giants emerge, lumbering towards the walls. A cadre of spectral engineers scurry from cover to cover towards the now-damaged seige-engines, attempting to repair them and bring them to bear. Following the giant squid-spectre, a small warband of creatures resembling a cross between toads and sea anemones crash gibbering and shrieking into the wax-army's flank, and a densely-packed melee breaks out. Lord Soot, Ember's second-in-command, is cut down by a wax knight and falls from the walls, bleeding plasm.

Here, I'm responding to the player's previous actions first. Ember dealing with what is basically a Skaven Screaming Bell used by the specters, Sophia attacking spectral priests, Moire allying with fish-monsters to attack a vulnerable flank, and Sun-Come-Dance* leading scattered wraiths behind the enemy lines to do arson. 

The I introduce potential problems. Most notably, the breach had been ignored for two frames already, so now it's going to mean horrible defeat if not dealt with. Other elements pose threats, attack the PCs assets, or add complications. For example, not dealing with the siege engines getting repaired will mean the specters are able to start a full bombardment, resulting in heavy casualties on the wall's defenders.

(*One of my players asked if she could play the ghost of a dead neanderthal. it's like they know my tastes or something)

Each frame, the PCs get to do one thing that responds to one element of the frame. If an element goes ignored (like the breach here), then the enemy succeeds and the situation gets worse. If they choose to deal with a problem (by a method that makes sense) then that problem goes away. Where there's doubt, a simple roll might be needed. In OSR, this is probably 'roll d20 and hope its under a stat', in WoD it's normally 'Int + Strategy' or some such.

If the PCs command their minions to do something, then that uses their action for the frame, and the minions will keep doing it (or things like it) until given new orders. So a PC can throw orders out each frame to bring more and more minions to bear.

Once you've seen what the players are doing, work out how they succeed, what happens to the threats they ignore, and narrate the results.

It's pretty simple.

The key thing here is to do four things:

• Minimise the use of game mechanics and focus instead on the PCs as directing the flow of a large battle that's handled through narration.
• Divide the battle into distinct snapshots where the PCs are presented with many problems to fix: more than they can fix in one go.
• Punish them for the problems they don't fix, reward them for the problems they do.
• Keep introducing new factors and moving the dynamics of the battle forward.

Eventually either the PCs bring enough forces to bear that they have an obvious advantage, and you can call the battle as a win for them, or else they ignore a problem for long enough that it becomes unstoppable, and you can call a loss.

So yeah. That's how I do battles in my games. My players seem to have fun with it.