What is STUN?

[Sean Waters]

We've chatted about what BODY is, in Hero, but someone recently posted the question in another thread (I can't immediately find, but I'll credit if anyone can point em the right way) 'What is STUN'?

 

It is a good question.

 

I mean, what do you see STUN as in Hero?

 

We can reverse engineer the question, look at what it does in the game and then see what that emulates in life, but I'm more interested in what you want STUN to do, simulate, emulate, and what part you want it to play in game.

 

Still, comments from any angle welcome

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: What is STUN?

 

STUN is a measure of how much damage a character can take before falling unconscious.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What is STUN?

 

When I think of what role STUN plays in-game, the analogy that first comes to my mind is two boxers battering each other. Their blows are causing considerable pain, wearing down their ability to absorb that punishment, but not causing serious long-lasting injury (i.e. little to no BODY). After enough punishment they're rendered unconscious or just too dazed to continue functioning. A potent enough single hit from either one can send the other reeling and leave him temporarily disoriented (Stunned).

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is STUN?

 

When I think of what role STUN plays in-game' date=' the analogy that first comes to my mind is two boxers battering each other. Their blows are causing considerable pain, wearing down their ability to absorb that punishment, but not causing serious long-lasting injury (i.e. little to no BODY). After enough punishment they're rendered unconscious or just too dazed to continue functioning. A potent enough single hit from either one can send the other reeling and leave him temporarily disoriented (Stunned).[/quote']

 

I think that this is probably more or less the way I see stun operating: it is only that last blow that REALLY shakes them; the rest are not actually causing much damage, but have a slow accumulative effect.

 

Mind you, a boxer would be at a substantial disadvantage if they had to have a fight two days running (certainly a professional boxer, going 10 rounds).

 

I suppose my only reservation about the 'last blow' approacg is that it does not allow for that one punch KO that you see in boxing.

 

Another thing I always have to remind myself about professional boxing is that most boxers are going for points, not just damage, so an awful lot of scoring hits are not hard enough to cause any real damage anyway. Many are, of course, when the opportunity presents itself, but even so most combat sports work off scoring rather than real-world determiners, like consciousness.

 

Still, a very good analogy and place to start our journey.

 

Oh, and thanks Derek

[Doc Democracy]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Mind you' date=' a boxer would be at a substantial disadvantage if they had to have a fight two days running (certainly a professional boxer, going 10 rounds).[/quote']

 

Well, part of that, I think, is simulated by the use of LTE. It takes a long time for the END to come back and a boxer might quickly run into burning STUN rather than END on the second day.

 

I suppose that, to attempt a very realistic feel, you might consider looking at losing CON and STR when LTE begins building up to simulate a lesser ability to do stuff and resist damage and other things.

 

Doc

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I think that this is probably more or less the way I see stun operating: it is only that last blow that REALLY shakes them; the rest are not actually causing much damage, but have a slow accumulative effect.

 

Mind you, a boxer would be at a substantial disadvantage if they had to have a fight two days running (certainly a professional boxer, going 10 rounds).

 

Doc Democracy has already answered this objection very well.

 

I suppose my only reservation about the 'last blow' approacg is that it does not allow for that one punch KO that you see in boxing.

 

Three points in response to that: One, those KO punches are usually to the head, and Hit Locations plus a good Damage roll could certainly allow one punch to do enough damage to knock a person out. Second, there have normally been some blows landed before that punch, so you can assume that some of the combatant's STUN has already been worn down. Third, IMO many of those Knockouts are actually fighters hit hard enough to have been Stunned and Knocked Down, with the referee stopping the fight after deciding that the fighter has been hurt too badly to risk continuing.

[OddHat]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I'd stay away from real world analogies. Real damage is complicated and ultimately not much like damage in action movies or comic books anyway; if we wanted to simulate it accurately, the resulting mess would be unplayable.

 

Like most things, it only looks simple when you don't think about it too closely.

 

STUN is a game mechanic, used in a game that started out simulating comic book action and later expanded to simulate cinematic action, science fiction and fantasy. So, I'd look at STUN from the point of view of damage in genre fiction.

 

STUN is the damage a character in genre fiction takes that's gone by the next scene and doesn't much impair his actions after it fades. BODY is the damage he takes that hangs around for a while, impairs his actions and can potentially kill him. The SFX of both of these can overlap.

 

If you wanted a closer simulation, you'd vary damage rules by genre and setting (something HERO is already set up to do), and maybe add rules for Long Term Stun much like the rules for Long Term END use. Damage just doesn't mean the same thing in 300 as it did in The English Patient; it's needlessly difficult to try to use the same rules to cover both.

[Reality Czech]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I'm in the Army, and one of the most important injuries all soldiers are taught to treat for is shock. Shock is the body's response to just about any unnatural environment, state, injury, or trauma. Shock is actually a defensive mechanism, but it's sort of a "panic response". It's like a fire alarm in the body... it's good to pull the fire alarm if there is a fire, but pulling it when there is none can actually worsen the situation in the building (body).

 

A relatively minor wound (flesh wound) can knock a person unconscious due to shock, and shock alone can cause death if not controlled through tratment. I think you could definitely draw a parallel between shock and STUN; even using your boxer analogy.

 

One reason a professional boxer is able to get punched for 10 rounds straight is he has conditioned his body and mind to learn that getting punched isn't a disaster... it just hurts. An inexperienced person taking most of the blows a boxed routinely absorbs would stand a good chance of going into shock as a result of the "unexpected" trauma to their system. Most of a boxer's ability to absorb damage comes from deflecting blows and not taking them on the chin, but part of it is simply that their body has learned that it's going to regularly going to take punishment and not to "panic".

 

Looked at another way, anyone who has played a contact sport (wrestling, football, soccer, etc. can look back to the first time they were thrown/knocked on their back and they might remember how they felt like they weren't ever getting up again. Years later however, after being repeatedlt pummeled and knocked down, a kick in the shins or body check from behind just dosen't have the same... impact. Sure, it hurts, but it no longer feels like the end of the world. Your body has stopped going into mild shock every time someone throws you on your back.

 

I think OddHat's comments are pretty well-reasoned (it's mainly a game mechanic), but if I were held down and forced to commit to an answer I'd probably say that STUN is shock, and a higher STUN rating on a character is due to conditioning... some of the old time soldiers I know are able to function pretty well after having been shot, shelled, hit with shrapnel, basically because their body isn't reacting with "OH NO!!! Injury! Panic!", but rather with "Great, not this again."

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Some really good points here, all round.

 

I have used a Long Term Stun mechanic (each 5 full points of STUN you take from a single attack does 1 point of LTS, and LTS is like bruising and recovers at REC/day). Worked OK and seemed pretty realistic - after a fight you had a few bruises, but after a few rounds you were significantly down on maximum stun but people, to be honest, didn't really like the extra book keeping.

 

I've seen suggestions that we remove STUN altogether as a counter and just work on some sort of CON roll, or somesuch, but that still requires some sort of counting unless you are ignoring the idea that multiple hits can wear you down and make a KO more likely.

 

Another idea I've seen floated, and one I quite like in many ways, is that we use STUN done to determine BODY damage: say 1 BODY for each full 5 points of stun from a single attack. I like this because it makes sense in a lot of situations that a hit that hurts more probably hits harder, or more intensely. Mind you there are exceptions where this approach doesn't work so well. Still, it stops even moderate superheroes being effectively invulnerable to BODY damage.

[Outsider]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Boxers also make extensive use of "roll with the punch" I think. Most one hit knockouts I've seen involve not only the blow to the head, but also the other fighter being caught "flat footed" (ie unable to roll with the punch, or having failed his roll with the punch check)

[Dust Raven]

Re: What is STUN?

 

STUN is nothing more than a measure of how long, or how much effort it takes, to knock a character unconscious. That's it. It has nothing to do with damage or pain, other than these things could cause a character to become closer to unconscious, and thus reduce a character's STUN. Lots of things can knock a character unconscious, and many of them don't involve pain or damage. STUN has to be more generic.

[Checkmate]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Credit where due:

 

Well I think we first have to understand what STUN represents.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: What is STUN?

 

STUN is nothing more than a measure of how long' date=' or how much effort it takes, to knock a character unconscious. That's it. It has nothing to do with damage or pain, other than these things could cause a character to become closer to unconscious, and thus reduce a character's STUN. Lots of things can knock a character unconscious, and many of them don't involve pain or damage. STUN has to be more generic.[/quote']Exactly. I know I made my first post with a smiley, but I wasn't particularly kidding. STUN is a game mechanic for handling unconsciousness. I'm not sure it's intended to simulate any broader concept than that.

[archermoo]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Exactly. I know I made my first post with a smiley' date=' but I wasn't particularly kidding. STUN is a game mechanic for handling unconsciousness. I'm not sure it's intended to simulate any broader concept than that. [/quote']

 

Or another way of looking at it is that it is a very broad concept, and nothing narrower will adequately describe it.

 

I'll leave it as a measure of how hard it is to knock someone out and/or how close they are to being unconscious and leave it at that.

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Whilst the point is not arguable: STUN is the Hero system mechanic for determining if you are conscious and able to act, conscious but unable to act or unconscious, I fear that this is not a particularly helpful approach at an in-game definition. It is my fault, because I phrased the question in a way that invited this very answer, when I should probably have called the thread:

 

An open discussion on the pros and cons of the STUN mechanic to model taking damage that may result in unconsciousness or the inability to act, without any implication of criticism of the STUN mechanic, which has served well and faithfully for many years and will doubtless continue to do so for may years to come, and, considering at all times that it is not meant as a criticism of the existing system, consideration of and discussion about possible alternatives and refinements.

 

I'm not sure if you can have titles that long though.

[OddHat]

Re: What is STUN?

 

If you wanted an alternative, what would you propose?

 

For myself, I hate book keeping more than anything. Having to track what's going on with my NPCs slows me down and brings me out of the game, though I do it anyway. Having to track it for Player Characters pisses me off, and so I trust my players to do it. The players in my home game don't cheat, and if a convention player does I don't really give a fig.

 

So, if I were to replace Stun and Body with anything, it would be something that reduced my book keeping and therefore probably something even less detailed. Mutant & Mastermind style damage saves, White Wolf Style soak rolls and wound bars, maybe (most likely) dropping Stun entirely and adding GURPS style HT rolls to determine if you're stunned, unconscious, or dying.

 

Unified Stun and Body Proposal

 

When the character takes BODY damage but is still at positive BODY, he make a CON roll; fail it and he's stunned, then rolls again. Fail again and he's unconscious.

 

If the character is at negative BODY, taking any BODY stuns him (no chance to resist), and he then makes a CON roll. Fail that roll and he's unconscious, and must roll again; fail the second roll and he's dying, and will finish dying in (Base BODY) turns unless he receives medical attention.

 

If he takes BODY again after unconsciousness, he's automatically dying and must make a CON roll or die immediately. If he takes BODY after he's already dying, that's it, he's dead.

 

If at any time the character is reduced to -(2xBODY), he dies automatically.

 

The above change doesn't require any other changes to the system, but obviously, GURPS style again, it's an invitation to drop the separating between Normal and Killing damage, as well as the separation between Resistant and Non Resistant defense. There would just be the "Ranged Damage" power at 15 points per d6 and the "HtH Damage" power at 10 points per d6. No such thing as a stun multiple. You'd drop PD and ED for DEF, which would now start at (STR + CON)/15, and additional DEF could be purchased at 2 DEF per 3 points. Even more book keeping gone. EGO attacks go up in price to a whopping 45 points per d6, and Mental DEF becomes a base (EGO)/7.5 + 2 Mental DEF per 3 points. NND becomes a +2 advantage, and AVLD becomes +2.5. Base STR damage is now (STR/15)d6; so, STR under 5 does 1/2d6-2 damage, STR 5 does 1/2d6-1, STR 10 does 1d6-1, STR 15 does 1d6, STR 20 does 1d6+1, and so on. Maybe add a Size stat to allow cats to more easily kill mice and such without a hand wave.

 

So, if I were so inclined, I might do the above and continue from there.

[wylodmayer]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Hey, I'm perfectly willing to call STUN a "real" thing, rather than just something used for games. I got sucker punched once and lost consciousness for somewhere between three to five seconds. I don't even remember seeing the punch. There was no permanent damage, mind you, just some bruising and swelling. But it seems reasonable to me to have one mechanic for long term damage to a fella, and another for those lose-consciousness-for-a-few-seconds types of things.

[gojira]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I didn't read most of the entries, but here goes:

 

STUN is a genre trope that says after a big fight, one side or the other falls down. But eventually they get back up again. And nobody dies.

 

STUN is appropriate for "cinematic" or Romantic genres. (Romantic in the high-adventure sense of the word, not amourous love sense of the word.) STUN is not what happens in real life.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Hey' date=' I'm perfectly willing to call STUN a "real" thing, rather than just something used for games. I got sucker punched once and lost consciousness for somewhere between three to five seconds. I don't even remember seeing the punch. There was no permanent damage, mind you, just some bruising and swelling. But it seems reasonable to me to have one mechanic for long term damage to a fella, and another for those lose-consciousness-for-a-few-seconds types of things.[/quote']

I totally agree.

Happened to me last night, in fact.

 

Well, not exactly a sucker punch... due to a combonation of ill circumstances I managed to kiss the corner of my desk with my temple. Rattled my cage quite good... I was in the -0 to -10 Stun Range where I was technically still kinda functioning but was for all intents and purposes unconcious. I lost a couple of seconds there, but had more or less walked off everything but the goose-egg in a half hour or so. By this morning the swelling was down and my eyeliner is a lovely indigo-purple

I probably took around a body or two. I suspect I have a mild concussion, but those are pretty old hat to me these days.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: What is STUN?

 

Exactly. I know I made my first post with a smiley' date=' but I wasn't particularly kidding. STUN is a game mechanic for handling unconsciousness. I'm not sure it's intended to simulate any broader concept than that. [/quote']

 

My biggest problem with that answer is that it doesn't really follow the Hero philosophy.

 

Sure it is a game effect. So is Energy Blast and Invisibility but we are encouraged to think of those in game terms and provide colour. If you limit STUN to simply a game effect then you are walking away from the special effect ethos that permeates the rest of the game.

 

People regularly use STUN only or NND attacks to simulate attacks that stimulate pain but not damaeg. There are any number of ways that STUN only attacks are defined that can be used to determine what STUN might represent in-game.

 

Obviously such definitions will shift from GM to GM, game to game; just like any other definitions and interpretations of applied Hero. It doesn't mean we should simply abandon them....

 

 

Doc

[Reality Czech]

Re: What is STUN?

 

In my mind, you can draw a parallel between STUN and many real-life injuries. The fact that the relationship between the game system and real life is not always 100% accurate should be undisputed... I hope noone here is going to claim that they can draw a parallel betwen the system and real life that cannot be questioned, refuted, or brought into question with "what ifs" and destructive logic.

 

I still contend that the fact that there is not a 100% parity between real life and the mechanics of STUN and BOD damage in the game does not mean that STUN must be relegated to "It's only a game mechanic and nothing else" status.

 

Viewed in the right (wrong?) light, virtually any rule, power, effect, or mechanic can be reasonably called into question, but in my opinion saying STUN is only a game mechanic and has no parallel with real life opens up every mechanic in the game for this kind of destructive reasoning. Nothing in HERO is 100% infallable, but if we discard anything and everything we can find any flaw with, we'll be reduced to verbal-only gaming

 

Player: "I shoot the agent with my warp strike."

 

GM: "You miss."

 

Player: "that's the 5th time in a row you've said I missed... are you sure we can't go back to using dice?"

[archermoo]

Re: What is STUN?

 

My biggest problem with that answer is that it doesn't really follow the Hero philosophy.

 

Sure it is a game effect. So is Energy Blast and Invisibility but we are encouraged to think of those in game terms and provide colour. If you limit STUN to simply a game effect then you are walking away from the special effect ethos that permeates the rest of the game.

 

People regularly use STUN only or NND attacks to simulate attacks that stimulate pain but not damaeg. There are any number of ways that STUN only attacks are defined that can be used to determine what STUN might represent in-game.

 

Obviously such definitions will shift from GM to GM, game to game; just like any other definitions and interpretations of applied Hero. It doesn't mean we should simply abandon them....

 

 

Doc

 

I disagree. It is EXACTLY the Hero System philosophy. From a system point of view Energy Blast and Invisibility are the same. They are abstract concepts rather than concrete powers. Only when they are integrated into a specific power with specific SFX to they become anything other than that.

 

You said it yourself, STUN can be used to represent a wide variety of things in game. But outside of the context of a specific example, STUN just represents how far from (or how close to) being unconscious a character is.

 

I can only come up with a more specific example of what STUN represents (or at least what STUN Damage represents) if I am given a specific power to base my analysis on.

[Dust Raven]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I didn't read most of the entries, but here goes:

 

STUN is a genre trope that says after a big fight, one side or the other falls down. But eventually they get back up again. And nobody dies.

 

STUN is appropriate for "cinematic" or Romantic genres. (Romantic in the high-adventure sense of the word, not amourous love sense of the word.) STUN is not what happens in real life.

You've never been knocked out?

[archermoo]

Re: What is STUN?

 

You've never been knocked out?

 

Personally, while I've never been knocked out myself, I am aware that it does happen to other people.

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is STUN?

 

I disagree. It is EXACTLY the Hero System philosophy. From a system point of view Energy Blast and Invisibility are the same. They are abstract concepts rather than concrete powers. Only when they are integrated into a specific power with specific SFX to they become anything other than that.

 

You said it yourself, STUN can be used to represent a wide variety of things in game. But outside of the context of a specific example, STUN just represents how far from (or how close to) being unconscious a character is.

 

I can only come up with a more specific example of what STUN represents (or at least what STUN Damage represents) if I am given a specific power to base my analysis on.

 

I think the difference with STUN is that everyone has it, and so I think there is a lot of justification to saying that, for the majority of characters, it is by and large the same thing.

 

I mean you could build a robot character where STUN is temporary disruption to electron flow caused by automatic systems diverting power to deal with low level trauma.

 

You could decide that for one character, STUN is pain, and for her brother, stun is accumulated minor damage, but it is out of character for him to feel pain.

 

I'm not suggesting that it should be any one thing and I'm not planning to criticise anyone's take on it. I just thought it would be useful to find out why it is important/useful to the game and if there is any concensus as to what it represents.

 

Totally realistic damage rules are not terribly desireable for most games: we a re pretty flimsy if the truth be known, and dealing with damage has nver been a particular forte of most fiction, not as far as the protagonists are concerned.

 

I like OddHat's take on the simplification of the rules, and IMO, Hero could benefit by having different mechanics to truly make it a toolkit: you can not only design any charcter, but the very game you are playing.

 

Personally I like the idea of extracting as much information from dice as you can, which is one of the reasons I always loved the Hero idea of using not only a dice total, but interrogating the individual dice for BODY totals as well: there is a lot of difference in HERO between:

 

4,4,4,4,4,4,4,4 and

6,6,6,6,2,2,2,2 to take an extreme example.

 

For the majority of characters I see stun as a combination of pain and minor damage, and that's not realistic. I mean you put a cigarette out on my arm and it hurts, and I've probably got no more than a normal compliment of stun, but even if you do it with the whole packet, I'm not likely to pass out. Howl a lot, but not pass out.

 

The injury AmadanNaBriona did himself the other day (those ankle manacles are real difficult to walk in, neh?) I would say could be an application of stun damage (head trauma can cause a lot of damage) or even just the stunning rules, but I do feel there is a real parallel between the mechanic and reality, even if it is not a perfect simulation.