Back in my RPG-playing youth, though we kept using D&D materials like modules, we switched our basic system to Rolemaster.
That has an extensive system of combat criticals: when you hit someone they tend to suffer specific debilitating injuries rather than just attrition to a hit-point number. At one level, that adds flavour at the expense of adding complexity, but at another it affects the players' entire outlook on combat.
In D&D, if you lock a tenth-level fighter in a room with a kobold, the fighter will walk out alive. With barely a scratch, even. In Rolemaster, there's a significant risk the fighter won't be using their left arm for a couple of days and a non-negligible risk the kobold will get lucky and manage to stick its sword somewhere really nasty.
The difference in a player's attitude between entering a battle they have a 100% chance of coming out of alive, compared with one in which they have a 99.95% chance is actually significant, once you've been playing the same character for a few weeks or months. Fighting is now a thing to be done sparingly, and avoided where possible.
no subject
Date: 2015-08-19 04:30 pm (UTC)That has an extensive system of combat criticals: when you hit someone they tend to suffer specific debilitating injuries rather than just attrition to a hit-point number. At one level, that adds flavour at the expense of adding complexity, but at another it affects the players' entire outlook on combat.
In D&D, if you lock a tenth-level fighter in a room with a kobold, the fighter will walk out alive. With barely a scratch, even. In Rolemaster, there's a significant risk the fighter won't be using their left arm for a couple of days and a non-negligible risk the kobold will get lucky and manage to stick its sword somewhere really nasty.
The difference in a player's attitude between entering a battle they have a 100% chance of coming out of alive, compared with one in which they have a 99.95% chance is actually significant, once you've been playing the same character for a few weeks or months. Fighting is now a thing to be done sparingly, and avoided where possible.