Re: New Life for Millennium's End

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

> Add an optional 'average damage' rule, where all
> damage is modified by a positive D6 result and a
> negative D6 result, giving various wound effects.

Rob (MathesonT) and I wound up independently inventing ways to handle this
some time ago--eighteen months, maybe?  It's based on the presence of bone
in the body; where a head shot will strike the skull at a severely glancing
angle on a D10 roll of (0..x), moderately so on an (x..y), and dead-on o a
(y..9).  Severely glancing shots would just be superficial, at a greatly
reduced DD, moderately glancing shots less so, and full-on shots as normal.

Do the same thing for the torso regions, to reflect the ribcage, and you're
well on the way to introducing variant damage.

Truth be told, I think the body maps could be made simpler.  We don't need
God-knows-how-many sections, really.  We need hands, arms, legs, and a
relatively-complex torso/head.  Just try overlaying a typical milk-can
silhouette on a body map, then mark off hands/etc., and you've got something
with considerably less trouble.

> things up too much. Maybe make a random location
> system based on 'aiming for centre of mass' or
> something *shrug*. I like the templates when I'm

A couple of thoughts:

Top Secret/SI, for all its numerous faults, gave skilled shooters the
ability to "bump" their shots up and down hit locations.  If the random hit
location said that the target got hit in the upper arm, the skilled shooter
would be able to bump it over into a center-mass shot, while the unskilled
shooter would be left with an upper arm shot.  This is appealing, but
definitely not my favorite.

Phoenix Command had a -lovely-, if complex, aim-point system, in which
highly trained troops had a good chance of hitting their aimpoint and, even
if they missed, would likely hit -close-.  Green troops would be lucky just
to hit their targets at all.

I've always found it strange that Phoenix Command and Millennium's End have
such widely different views when it comes to combat.  ME tends to take the
attitude of "even a poorly-trained person can get a headshot at 30 feet",
while PC seems to take the side of "you're scared, you're running, you're
getting shot at, you're looking for cover, and if you're aiming for the
guy's head you're just as likely to hit him in the crotch as anywhere else".