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Antall Innlegg : 209
Join date : 2012-07-18
 |  Subject: Violence is dangerous, a roleplaying resource.  Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:17 am | |
| Violence is dangerous, a roleplaying resource - Gahalla defias brotherhood
One thing I've noticed when playing on this server through the years, is a blatant disregard for the danger of combat. I understand why of course, we all want to play heroes and villains. Epic characters in stories of heroism, valour and valiant struggles. There is nothing wrong with this of course. But at times I get the impression that there is a wide ignorance as to just how increadibly dangerous violence is.
I discussed this with a few friends ingame a while back and came to the conclusion that I should write this for everyone. A resource that can be used, should you be willing to add that danger flavour (which makes the acts of heroism and valour all the better. Epic is not really epic with no real danger).
I will try to keep it a bit simplified and will try to avoid medical jargon where unneccesary. Remember, this is just a resource. If you want to use it or not is up to you. Also, it will be described primarly on how things are or were IRL (but in a simplified form, it's much more complex).
Injury
I think everyone of us realise that with violence comes injury. It's more or less the definition: Violence is the attempt of causing injury to another. What kind of injury that is caused vary based on how good the hit is, what one hits with and if the hits is cushioned by something. In general every hit one takes will have four effects:
Pain
Bleeding
Exhaustion
Tissue damage
This isn't much of a surprise to anyone I think. Fairly straighforward and obvious. What most people seem to think however, is that it's the tissue damage that determines wether you can continue the fight or not.
This is not entirely incorrect, as if you recieve enough tissue damage you simply cannot continue to fight. Most likely however, you're also dead. If not now, then very soon (alternatively you'll live but never fight again).
Instead it's the pain, the exhaustion and the bleeding that will determine your capability to fight;
Everyone of us have at some point felt that numbing pain, that makes one unwilling to move and slows all reactions. The same thing applies in combat. Pain makes you slower and incapable of positioning yourself correctly and in combat that is everything that matters. Even a single bruise on the arm can make you that split-second too slow that allows your foe to plant a axe in your face.
Bleeding is what kills. Virtually all deaths from violence are due to bleeding, even if one is shot through the brain it's the bleeding that kills (there's so many bloodvessels in the head that it happens within seconds though). Furthermore, bloodloss directly affects your ability to continue fighting. Just losing about 1 L of blood (out of 4-5 L) decreases your mental and physical ability with about 75%. After that you can do little more than sit or stumble around. With a open wound and a elevated pulse due to fighting... that does not take very long. One can go down as little as 10 seconds after being cut.
The exhaustion is also a determining factor. We all know how it feels when lactic acid hit a body part. It becomes slow and dulls reflexes. This is directly lethal in a fight. Furthermore, both pain and bloodloss makes you more exhausted.
What this means is that every hit you take, even that little graze in your arm or the bruise on your shoulder will directly affect your ability to survive the melee. Every hit will make you a little more tired, a little more sore and cause a little more bloodloss (remember, a bruise means it's bleeding under the skin. These can be just as lethal as an open wound). It adds up and gives your enemy a little easier to score a good hit. A good hit will always end the fight.
The only tissue damage that is likely to affect the fight and not kill, is broken bones. Partly because it robs the injured of the ability to use that bone (unable to stand, unable to use an arm or having difficulty breathing)
No such thing as instant death
That's right. There is no such thing as instant death.
With two exceptions: 1. decapitation. 2. Blown to bits.
In all other cases it's the bloodloss that kills you. If you're lucky, it's an artery and you're unconcious. But chances are you'll be aware that you're dying and slowly die as you lay there helpless. The pain crippling you to the point where you cannot move. It's slow, it's agonizing and it's scary.
After battles in past ages, the victors would send out soldiers out on the battlefield to collect one ear from each enemy fallen and mercy-kill those that were still alive.
It has not been unheard of that there have been survivors of a fight that have been lying unaccesible on the battlefield for days before finally succumbing to their wounds.
However, there's a flipside: It's not unheard of that men who have recieved a fatal wound to keep on fighting until they fall over dead. Men who've been impaled on spears that attacks their killer. This is a very common thing with firearms, crossbows and bows. Often men would take fatal wounds, but if they weren't knocked over they'd keep on going. Potentionally taking their killer with them to the realm of the dead.
Armour = lifesaver
Violence is extremely lethal. Particularly armed combat. This is the very reason that armour was invented in the first place. It allows the wearer a sporting chance, by turning a fatal wound into a bruise. By turning a amputated arm into a broken arm instead. Deflecting both blade and arrow.
A sword (as an example) generally have the ability to cut through all human tissues with ease. It cannot however, pass through metal. Which is the very reason people started wearing maille. Maille provides the advantage that it is impossible to cut through the ring-weave. Thus allowing you to avoid the fate of having the arm severed and you bleeding to death.
Maille have a great weakness though... pointed weapons can easily pierce the weave (by splitting the rings). Particularly arrows (but also spears). The counter this people generaly used various combination of cloth armour. the most common kind, the gambeson (or jack, padded jack or a multitude of other names) consisted of about 20-30 layers of linen. Which was not only capable of stopping and absorbing an arrow but also quite useful against bladed weapons. It was often combined with maille for knights, particularly during the crusades IRL. There's plenty of records of how knights would ride looking like pin-cushions due to all the arrows that sat in their cloth armour but had failed to injure them.
Later, during the renaissance the maille+cloth was changed for the plate-harness. It is much stronger and durable and even less likely to cut through that the other armour. Like cloth-armour it's also very resistant to weapons such as bows and firearms.
Even today we wear armour, namely: Kevlar body-armour. Nowadays they also include maille or plate into these body armours, to help protect the body.
However, armour doesn't mean you're guaranteed to live. Not even if you face someone unarmoured. It's also not guaranteed to protect against a good hit. Generally, they also have weak spots and the face is always a weakspot.
As an example, this man wore a full helmet: 
It didn't help him at all
Similarly, firearms can penetrate even plate-harnesses if they get a perfect hit (but they are not guaranteed to do so if they don't).
Also, the impulse (change in momentum, a physics-term) will not be stopped by armour (it might be deflected away however, which is why armour relies on many angles and sharp edges) and a strike that would cut you in two might not cut you in two, but the impulse will still move through the armour and break the bones underneath.
Similarly, armour can be circumvented. When fighting against someone armour, one generally directs all strikes towards the unarmoured areas. You don't have to impale their chest to kill them. Severing a unprotected hand works just as well.
One can also use something that can punch through armour, this is why all those maces/warhammers/healberds and such have a spike on their back. To be able to punch through armour. Pikes are good at this too.
A common thing many roleplaying games have going is that if you're swift and agile, you're better off with light or no armour. This is a myth. Armour is generally made to suit it's wearer like a glove and is suprisingly light. All it does however, is prevent the armoured part of the body of taking a worse injury. Yes, it's heavier and more exhaustive to wear. But it will save your life if you are a split-second too slow or unlucky enough to get hit by a missle-weapon.
Basically:
Armour isn't made to keep you in the fight. It's made to allow you to survive the fight. If you get hit you'll still have to pull back and recover as soon as you can.
Multiple adversaries = suicide
This is also very important to note. Multiple adversaries are much much more dangerous than a single skilled one is. Even multiple unarmed enemies are more dangerous than a single unarmed opponent.
The reason is that combat is generally a shift between the offensive and the defensive. When the enemy attacks you, you go defensive and focus on dodging, blocking parrying or steeling yourself against the blow. Then you'll go offensive and try to hit him and he'll be forced to defend himself.
However, if you face multiple opponents then they can essentially rotate being offensive. Constantly attacking and forcing you to constantly defend yourself. Never giving you a moment to strike back.
Also, I'm sure some of you have seen a fist fight broken up before? On tv if nothing else. As you might notice, it's very common for the ones breaking up the fight to grab hold of the fighter's arms. Redering incapable of hitting each others.
That's a tactic that works just as well if the fist-fighters had held weapons. So, if you face multiple enemies they can encircle you and grab your arms. Allowing one of them to approach without risk of being hit with your weapon to say... lift your visor and stab your face.
Several opponents can also rush forward against riders and overwhelm their ability to strike at them and pull the riders off the horse. This is the fate of the knight who can't ride at full speed.
There is a way to survive multiple enemies though and that is too keep moving backwards, forcing them only to engage you one at a time. It's not easy though.
As a rule of thumb:
1 opponent = dangerous
2 opponents = survival unlikely
3 opponents = probably suicide
4 opponents = limit of how many you can physically fight at the same time. Death more or less guaranteed. Likelyhood of even harming them very low.
Veterancy and experience
The age old expectation that experienced soldiers are better at killing. It's both true and false at the same time.
Generally, experienced soldiers are very good at surviving. Not neccesarily killing the enemy. They have learned what is a smart idea, what is not a smart idea. What the sound of incoming arrows sounds like. How to brace themselves against the charge. When to run. How to spot the unit banner. How to hide among the dead.
Things like that is what they pick up through experience. Some will also become a bit better with weapons, yes.
In addition they will have become steeled. They will not hesitate before killing. They will be more difficult to scare and less likely to paralyse in fear. This too gives them a better chance at surviving.
The reason most mediveal (or semi-mediveal) soldiers won't become better at fighting as such is because they grow up fighting. Most melee soldiers spend their teenages training to use weapons. They generally specialise in a specific type. It takes years to learn to fight by reflexe (which is needed, anything else is too slow). It isn't conscripts that take a few months to learn how to point a rifle and shoot.
It takes years because they need to build the strength and the stamina needed to fight for hours unhindered. That means that most veterans aren't much better at fighting than when they were deployed, because they fought both now and then by reflexe. As long as they kept in shape they're just as good now as they were then.
In fact, most veterans will probably be worse due to the injures they've taken throughout the years and the toll of age.
Weapon-masters are generally veterans too old and injured for the battlefield but still in good enough shape that they can train the young ones at fighting. Generally between 40 and 50 years old. They are the ones that lived through campaigns and realised: "Now is the time to stop, or else I'll get myself killed".
Basically... it's very unlikely that you become better and better at fighting. There is a peak after a few years of fighting, before age and injures start to pile up.
Recovery and old injuries
Recovery from wounds of violence takes time. A long time. The deeper the wound the longer the time it takes to recover. We are talking months but it can easily take years. During this time you have to rest and allow the body a chance to mend itself. It's a slow and boring time. Not only can you not fight, but you can't practise, you can't stay in shape and not even help with physical labour.
So not only are you weakened because of the injury. You body will also weaken due to not using it and not keeping in shape (it also gets some help form the hormones tasked with recovery. It boosts muscle-degeneration to get materials for the recovery)
There is also plenty of wounds that you'll never recover from fully or at all.
First of all are the organs, this is fairly straight forward. If you take organ damage you won't ever fully recover due to that it's function will be disrupted a bit. This is if you survive it. You'll survive losing a single lung (you'll run out of breath a bit faster) or a single kidney no problem, but the others aren't that good to hurt. Not only is it extremely cripplingly painful, but you'll feel bad for weeks as the body adjusts to the change in functionality.
All the body's tissues are a bit like elastic ribbons too, particularly muscles and tendons. That means that if they're cut straight through, they'll snap back. So if the tendons in the elbow or the biceps is injured it can snap back and end up inside the chest. If a tendon or muscle is severed it is extremely unlikely or even impossible to recover from that.
Bones will almost always recover and be stronger afterwards, they are really the exception to the rule. Bones will almost always regrow as stronger. Unless the bone is shattered. Then it won't be able to regrow at all.
The other part is that one never really recovers from really bad injuries. Not fully. You can go back to living like you used to, but the old wound will be there. They might even burst open if they are in body parts that are used often. Even years after having recieved them. If nothing else, it will always be painful at night or when moving reminding you constantly of it. As a soldier of the melee, this is a hazard.
The body will more or less mend around the wound, leaving a tiny fraction of scar tissue where the injury occured. This will eventually add up and make you weaker and weaker. All those flesh-wounds will perhaps not kill you, but in a few years they'll directly impair your ability to move.
Old injuries also have a nasty habit of becoming infected time and time again. Long after you'd think they'd healed.
This worsens with age.
Magical healing
Yes, this is a setting of magical healing. You can recieve healing that will help you recover faster and better than in real life. You can even be ressurected.
However, this should not be a guarantee. You shouldn't count on that healing can save you anymore than you can count on modern medicine to save you. Even with priests you can still die by being stabbed on the steps of the cathedral.
Even with healing, there's no guarantee that the wound won't affect you afterwards. Just look at Aedis Brom and Christoph Faral in Stormwind. Two old veterans constantly complaining about their old injuries that to this day haunts and torments them. Zul'jin lost and arm and a eye. There are many more examples.
Even if you can count on the local priest to save you, remember that getting beat up is extremely painful.
There's also one thing magical healing will never bring back... your friends that did not make it. The horrors you've seen cannot be reased from your mind. The mental scars of years from fighting will never heal.
Few veterans relish the idea of returning to war.
There is a reason why most cultures cheer and celebrate war-veterans and why armies celebrate victories. It's to take the veterans minds off these kinds of things. It's too make them feel better. Because war and violence is not fun. Not by any stretch of imagination.
Like the old saying goes: "War is hell"
Magical violence
Violence caused by magic is a tricky things to define. It is simple to think of it as insanely, supernaturally dangerous or not very dangerous at all. But what I think is important is to deconstruct every spell a little.
First. What is the power source. Fire, Cold, Nature, Fel, Shadow, Light, Earth, Air, Arcane or something else?
Second, is it a physical object (like a ball of ice), a physical effect (like fire) or a mental effect (like a mindspike).
Third, is it prolonged or immediate.
The powersource will define what kind of injury it will cause. Fire, lightning and acids will cause burns. Water and ice will chill. Fel will corrupt. Earth will probably hit you like an object. Shadow and Light (or other holy magic) will probably cause less physical injury but more burn at your soul.
The second helps us define the injury more. Physical objects, like the ice-lance, will hit you like just that: a physical object. The injury caused less by what it is, as much as how it hits you. The Ice lance for instance, is just like an arrow and will cause the same sort of injury. Physical effects, like fire, won't hit you with a force. But they can still be cripplingly painful and could, for instance, put your gear on fire. Mental effects, only affect your mind or soul and leave little to no physical injuries. But they are no less dangerous.
Wether the effect is immediate or prolonged finalises the picture. Immediate effects are when magical projectiles hit you, whereas prolonged are things like dots, flamethrowers, cone of cold and such. Something you get caught in.
All spells will cause injury. But just like weapons, the effect of injury falls into the categories of pain, exhaustion, bleeding and tissue damage. Most spells will cause a lot of the first two. Fire hurts. Being pummeled by sheets of ice hurts. However only physical trauma can actually cause a bleeding (possibly some shadow spells too).
As for tissue damage. It is important to remember the law of energy transfer: specifically that it is not instant but based on exposure. Most spells only affect you for a split second and are thus very unlikely to cause any significant change in temperature. That means that most fire-spells, for instance, is unlikely to put you or your gear on fire. They are still painful, dangerous and not to mess around with. But it is unlikely that you'll light up like a candle.
Similarily, a ice spell is very unlikely to freeze you solid. Electricity is more likely to disrupt the heart if it exposure is constant, rather than temporary. Most electrical injuries is caused by the build up of heat.
Mind, many spells consist of a physical aspect like a block of ice, a rock or some other physical projectile... or a shockwave... and these works exactly like weapons do on the body. They can break bones and cause blood vessels to rupture and cause internal bleeding. This is certainly a great danger, much more so than the heat/cold aspect.
Prolonged spells on the other hand, cause a greater energy transfer at the expense of kinetic force. They're more likely to put you on fire, less likely to knock you off your feet.
Right. So now we've discussed what dangers spells cause. How can I protect myself? The answer is quite simply: the same way you protect yourselves from other violence. Dodge it or use armour.
The spells that shoot projectiles can still be blocked with shields and deflected by armour. It'll hurt for sure, but won't hurt you much... unless it hits a weak spot. Physical effects can also be shielded against... a shield could easily be used to protect the face against a flamethrower-spell or a cone of cold. It is sturdy wood, and even if those spells are prolonged it is unlikely to catch fire. If you look away, a helmet could to protect your head from fire or cold.
Leather is almost impossible to burn and even clothes need to reach a certain temperature to catch fire. These are natural cloth-types and they tend to be more resistant than synthetic cloth. Metal armour cannot stop lightning, but will carry it along itself towards the ground. It won't go as much through as along, heating it in the process. It'll take more than one to make it so hot it starts frying the inhabitant. Same with fire on metal.
If you do catch fire. Drop and roll.
Magic can however be protected against with mundane means. It need not be an instant succes. That said... it is very dangerous. Definantely not less than other form of violence. But neither is it more dangerous. It is about equal.
Painful. Scary. Lethal. Like all violence.
Roleplaying potential
How can this be used in roleplaying?
Well, one thing I find makes most roleplaying that involves any kind of violence is to treat it as something to fear. If you're attacking mobs, clearing an instance, participating in w-pvp or face cultists in an alley. Treat it Ic as if it is really dangerous. Every fight risks being the last one you'll ever fight. There is no such thing as a trivial fight.
Allowing yourself to get injured or just suffering from an old wound can be used nicely as a roleplay hook.
Imagine for example the old veteran that trips on the cathedral steps because his leg locked itself again due to that wound two years ago? That dwarf that visits a priest complaining that his back hurts when it's cold because of the arrow he took in the war of three hammers? The wound needing surgery?
For w-pvp participants it could work nicely to say your good byes to your friends before each battle. Perhaps entrusting them with something for your old man should you die? To work up a atmosphere of genuine dread and nervous jokes before the battle? Trying to help raw recruits who genuinely fear for their lives? The hours before a battle are generally very nervous and pessimistic.
For w-pvp organisers perhaps you could organise toasts to the dead and digging of graves after the battle? Genuinely showing remorse over the losses. Perhaps making up a number of how many that died or became crippled and informing people of that when reporting about the victory or loss.
Guards in cities should ensure that they always outnumber the enemy before they try to capture anyone and always accept surrenders (people who fight to the death is the last thing you want... they generally take someone with them) and try to break up all fights. Even if it is between another guard and a foe. Fights can not only end up with the fighters dead, they might also kill innocent bystanders! Keeping the peace is very important.
If you're outnumbered, running away is always the best idea. Regardless who you are. Even if you're the best warrior in the world... an untrained peasant can still kill you if you're unlucky. This is something every experienced soldier knows. Skill does not make you safer.
Ultmately... it's good to keep in mind: All fights are dangerous. All violence can kill you.
Violence is dangerous
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