"revised" hit location chart?

[ghost-angel]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Punishing the character for the actions of the player is extremely bad form. I would walk out of a game if the GM did something that asinine. The correct approach is to simply tell the players' date=' 'It's not funny, it's getting annoying, it's negatively impacting my enjoyment of the game. Please stop.'[/quote']

 

I've never had to actually implement a penalty, mind you. Or even state one.

 

Every group I've run for (and I don't GM often) has kindly not made jokes when I've asked them not to.

 

So, while I said implement one, I've not had to. Thankfully.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

At any rate' date=' I think I'm going to try sometime next weekend to take a stab at a new hit chart. Any idea where I can find a list of outcome probabilities on 3d6?[/quote']

 

3 - 0.5%

4 - 1.4%

5 - 2.8%

6 - 4.6%

7 - 6.9%

8 - 9.7%

9 - 11.6%

10 - 12.5%

11 - 12.5%

12 - 11.6%

13 - 9.7%

14 - 6.9%

15 - 4.6%

16 - 2.8%

17 - 1.4%

18 - 0.5%

 

Personally, I just don't place a roll of 13 on a "map" of the chart. But there's the probability of rolling any given number on 3D6.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Thanks for the spread! Hopefully I'll get to tackle it this weekend. I've got to try to get some sleep; got to be up again in a couple of hours. And yes; any number can come up: that's part of the fun

 

The Rule of Nines is for quick assessment of damage to burn victims, and it neatly divides the human body (more or less) into 11 sections of 9%, with the groin and perineum represented by the remaining one percent.

 

My plan-- possibly flawed-- is to work outward from each of the 11 sections until I can get 16 reasonable body sections that are roughly scaled size-wise and center-of-mass wise with the probabilities of the various rolls. It might be doomed from the start, but I've got a couple months to get ready for this thing, and hey-- it might manage to pre-clear my problem and be a little fun. (It's not that I don't _enjoy_ math; it's just not as casual for me as it is for some of the folks on this board. .

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

There are a couple of issues with hit locations. First it may be important to know exactly where you hit because it may or not be covered by sectional defences: 'vitals' is a a problem there because it is either the crotch, which is a definable area, or it is several 'vital bits' spread through the torso, which isn't.

 

The second bit is that each area you can hit in will still have a range of different effects: get hit in the arm, and it could be a classic 'flesh wound' (aren't all wounds 'flesh wounds', even the fatal ones?) or it could nick an artery and you're empty within half a minute.

 

Moreover a bullet could go through and not hurt that much or it could hit a nerve and cripple you with pain.

 

Disabling and Impairment go some way to dealing with that, but there could be more detail, especially with bleeding: it probably shouldn't be simply related to damage.

 

The other issue with hit locations is 'aimed shots': at present there is no way to aim for the head and hit the leg because you were distracted by a grenade going off: if you aim for the head and miss the head, you don't hit anything.

 

Of course there comes a point where you have a beautifully realistic system (for any given value of 'realistic') but it takes 3 days to run a phase of combat

 

Also bear in mind that 3d6 gives you 16 possible results, rolled the way we normally do, whereas we could roll 3x1d6, use the first two as coordinates to determine where you hit and the third to determine severity and you have 216 possible results. It is all about how you extract your information. (Thinking about it you are probably best rolling 2d6x3 on the same system, with 7,7 meaning you've hit the aim point exactly).

 

You could use a single grid system, as described here, and then overlay that on a template, putting the aim point at 7,7. The better your roll to hit (or worse your miss) determines the template size: a roll to hit made exactly might mean you get the shot in a 2mx2m area, and each +2 means you 1/4 the area (halve both dimensions), each -2 you miss by doubles the area: you could roll a miss and still hit someone in the head

 

The third roll, severity, would work like impairing/disablement, but gives you 11 possible results: you could be hit int he head and it might largely bounce or hit in the hand and completely incapacitated - although both results would be unlikely, they should be possible.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

2d6x3 gives 1331 possible results.

[Markdoc]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Just a couple of comments - although there's nothing in the lower abdomen you can't "live without", significant damage to the liver or spleen (both highly vascularised) can cause internal bleeding, which can kill you within minutes. Penetrating wounds to the intestines almost always cause peritonitis. You won't die of it too quickly, but without medical care and antibiotics, it's almost always fatal.

 

In truth, there are very few injuries which in real life will kill you within seconds: significant trauma to the brain, heart and spine - that's about it. Damage to the real vitals - lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys, or major blood vessels - will usually kill in minutes to days, without care. Pretty much any other significant injury might kill you (in days to weeks) or it might get better on its own.

 

One possibility that I played with (but have never implemented) was to check for "Complications". In this approach, hit locations functioned as they do currently, but any attack that did BOD was checked for "Complications" by rolling a D6. If you roll under the BOD taken, you have a complication.

 

In that case you simply roll another D6, and take the original damage again each turn, if you roll a 1 and move up the time chart from there: each minute if you roll a two, every five minutes if you roll a three, all the way up to each day if you roll a 6. This damage continues until you get appropriate medical treatment (ie: not normally a quick paramedic roll: meaning that you could potentially linger for weeks before expiring from an injury, or end with a minor injury that simply won't heal properly, or takes a long time to heal). A Paramedic roll, however, will stabilise the patient and allow you to reduce the speed at which you lose BOD, by 1 step up the time chart for every -2 it is made by. Each time you take "extra damage" check for disabling on the optional damage chart.

 

Locations which increase BOD taken (like the head) thus increase the risk of taking further damage. Those that decrease the BOD taken (like the limbs) reduce that risk. Still, a good shot to the limbs can still cause you to bleed out inside a minute, if you are unlucky.

 

This system does not impact combat too much, since most of the extra damage is deferred beyond the length of most heroic combats: it's a pretty rare fight that lasts more than a minute or two. However, it (intentionally) makes combat both much more volatile and much more lethal and makes wounds post combat, much more of a liability. It's also (intentionally) fairly simple/abstract: so it could realistically be used in games. I haven't tried it because I decided I needed neither more lethality or more volatility.

 

I've played with the numbers and this actually gives relatively realistic outcomes with regard to real life numbers on surviving serious trauma (though it's a bit more stringent than realistic in terms of time), and by increasing volatility, you can end up with situations where someone can - albeit rarely - die from a punch to the face, or after falling off a horse.

 

The second point - on location 13 - is that while I understand it's meant to be an abstract lethal location, in games where characters have segmented defences, you are more or less forced into assigning it a groin/lower abdomen location. Where characters might have DEF8 in one location and DEF0 in another, and that defines BOD and STUN multiples, it's difficult to just "let it float".

 

cheers, Mark

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

I really like the 'complications' idea: simple mechanic, interesting effect - and the potential for death without (given some cinematic 'paramedic' rolls) instant death all over the place.

[Ki-rin]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

2d6x3 gives 1331 possible results.

Ummm, No.

 

2d6 gives 6^2= 36 possible locations.

Multiplying by a constant doesn't change the number of possible locations.

Just changes their numbering from 3-18 to 3*(3,4,5,...,18)= 9-54.

 

3d6 gives 6^3= 216 possible locations.

4d6 gives 6^4= 1296 possible locations.

5d6 gives 6^5= 7776 possible locations.

(Note also that the bell curve becomes more "spike like" as the number of dice increases.)

 

If you want 1331 possible locations, then you need 3d11= 11^3= 1331.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Ummm, No.

 

2d6 gives 6^2= 36 possible locations.

Multiplying by a constant doesn't change the number of possible locations.

Just changes their numbering from 3-18 to 3*(3,4,5,...,18)= 9-54.

 

3d6 gives 6^3= 216 possible locations.

4d6 gives 6^4= 1296 possible locations.

5d6 gives 6^5= 7776 possible locations.

(Note also that the bell curve becomes more "spike like" as the number of dice increases.)

 

If you want 1331 possible locations, then you need 3d11= 11^3= 1331.

 

You have 11 possible results from each 2d6 roll: not all are equally likely, but if you don't care HOW you get (say) '7', and count '7' as one result (be it 6+1, 5+2, 4+3, 3+4, 2+5 or 1+6), you have 11 possible results and 11x11x11 is - as you rightly say - 1331

 

3d6 has 216 possible combinations but only 16 actual results.

[prestidigitator]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Ummm, No.

 

2d6 gives 6^2= 36 possible locations.

 

He didn't mean unique rolls, he meant unique final outcomes. 2d6 gives you a range of 2-12, or 11 outcomes (though some of them are weighted more heavily than others because of the 36 total unique rolls you can make). Do that three times, keeping track of each outcome of 2d6 in an ordered fashion, and you'll have 11^3=1331 possible outcomes for three rolls of 2d6.

 

The probabilities of all the different outcomes will NOT be the same. For example, the chance of rolling <2, 4, 11> is 6/6^6=1/6^5~=0.013% whereas the chance of rolling <7, 7, 7> is 216/6^6=1/6^3~=0.46%.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Just a couple of comments - although there's nothing in the lower abdomen you can't "live without", significant damage to the liver or spleen (both highly vascularised) can cause internal bleeding, which can kill you within minutes. Penetrating wounds to the intestines almost always cause peritonitis. You won't die of it too quickly, but without medical care and antibiotics, it's almost always fatal.

 

.............

 

Taking and running with complications: take damage through defences, roll your 1d6 and if you get less then take the 1d6 roll in damage every X, where X is a period of time: possibly every turn but also, possibly, roll another 1d6: 1 to 5 is every 1 to 5 turns. On a 6 roll 1d6 again: 1-5 is every 1 to 5 minutes, on a 6 roll again: 1 to 5 is every 5 to 25 minutes, on a 6, roll again...etc.

 

That gives a wide range of bleed speeds, and does not mean that 'high Body' damage always bleeds out really fast (although fast bleeds are more likely for big wounds). It doesn't even need to necessarily be a bleed: any kind of deterioration could be dealt with this way.

 

Bleeding doesn't automatically stop, either: you need (at least) first aid to stop it OR falling into a coma (each point of Body you take from bleeding could also deal d6 stun). Deterioration from negative Body could work the same way: as a complication (which means you could be 1-Bodied down to -1 Body without having to worry about bleeding to death, but any more and it becomes a possibility: you re-roll for complications every time you take more negative Body, but only apply the largest 'bleed' result: everything else is pretty irrelevant.

 

Sorry: can't help complicating things

[prestidigitator]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Hmm. Interesting ideas. I'd probably go with something in between that "complication" scheme and the standard Bleeding rules myself. The Bleeding rules are too pansy and backwards. I've never liked that in the standard rules worse wounds are actually more likely to stop bleeding, and I've always gone with the "stop bleeding" result simply dropping a level down the chart rather than halting the bleeding entirely. I like the idea of using the Time Chart rather than (or possibly in addition to) the number of damage dice per Turn, but I think I'd want to integrate the two somehow. Hmm.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Hmm. Interesting ideas. I'd probably go with something in between that "complication" scheme and the standard Bleeding rules myself. The Bleeding rules are too pansy and backwards. I've never liked that in the standard rules worse wounds are actually more likely to stop bleeding' date=' and I've always gone with the "stop bleeding" result simply dropping a level down the chart rather than halting the bleeding entirely. I like the idea of using the Time Chart rather than (or possibly in addition to) the number of damage dice per Turn, but I think I'd want to integrate the two somehow. Hmm. [/quote']

 

 

The first 1d6 (if under the Body done by the wound) determines how many points you bleed, the second 1d6 (which is open ended) determines how often you bleed.

[Ki-rin]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Here's an idea that I think might add reasonable realisim while not slowing play much or be too hard to explain/understand.

 

Unless you are using a Called Shot, you aim Low, Medium, or High intending to hit whatever opportunity presents in those areas.

 

Hitting Low is a bell curve centered on the lower 1/3 of the body.

Hitting Medium (the default if no intent is stated) is a bell curve centered on the center 1/3 of the body.

Hitting High is a bell curve centered on the upper 1/3 of the body.

 

For each +1 that you make your To Hit roll by you can adjust the randomly generated location of the hit by + or - 1.

 

For further realism, one can take facing, height difference, etc into account when deciding which hit locations are in the Low, Medium, or High zones.

 

I ?think? this will result in greater realism while being much faster than using a full blown set of custom Hit Location tables.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

That's essentially what was done in the 2nd link I posted earlier in this thread.

 

The full chart and explanation are at the bottom of the page on this site:

http://www.realschluss.org/disavowed/house_rules/

[prestidigitator]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

I must admit, I am somewhat attracted to graphical Hit Location charts, with an attack roll to determine how close you are to your point of aim and a random angle around it for scatter. Let the attacker choose where they want to hit. Aiming for the head will increase your chances of a hit to the head, but will also significantly increase your chances of missing. Just like the reality of aiming.

 

However, I'll admit it complicates things a great deal. The choice of relation between attack roll and scatter distance, probably having to choose from different diagrams based on the direction of attack, etc., are all challenges. On the plus side, if you simply scale the scatter distance according to the target's size, the size modifiers will take care of themselves.

[Markdoc]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Taking and running with complications: take damage through defences' date=' roll your 1d6 and if you get less then take the 1d6 roll in damage every X, where X is a period of time: possibly every turn but also, possibly, roll another 1d6: 1 to 5 is every 1 to 5 turns. On a 6 roll 1d6 again: 1-5 is every 1 to 5 minutes, on a 6 roll again: 1 to 5 is every 5 to 25 minutes, on a 6, roll again...etc. That gives a wide range of bleed speeds, and does not mean that 'high Body' damage always bleeds out really fast (although fast bleeds are more likely for big wounds). [/quote']

 

Yep, that'd work too, and would make the range of outcomes significantly larger. But on the whole I am not sure that it'd add sufficient variation to compensate for the added dice rolling - the extreme outcomes would be relatively rare.

 

There is a not-obvious game design element I should emphasize - the "roll under damage" mechanism was not just to trigger complications, but using the hit location chart was designed to amplify the effects of head and vitals shots, since they themselves amplify damage. Another design element - considered but not mentioned - was that you can tune lethality: you could for example say "roll under BOD received" or "roll under BOD-1 received", etc. I also played with "Make a CON roll with the penalty being BOD received" - but didn't suggest that since how big and tough you are doesn't necessarily have much effect on how resistant you are to internal injuries. It would however be cinematic.

 

It doesn't even need to necessarily be a bleed: any kind of deterioration could be dealt with this way.

 

Yep - that's why I chose "complications" as a name. It could be inflammation, organ failure, infection, imbalance of the 4 humors, blockage in your chi flow, whatever ...

 

The origin of this concept was the old critical hits chart I made up for my AD&D game lo, these many years ago. Unlike most such charts, it didn't just dish out insta-kill or extra damage effects, but also included a lot of crippling hits, which could, if not treated, be fatal over the longer term. We had an interesting session in one game where a Dwarf PC took a crossbow bolt through the guts. The party's healer could cure the physical harm, but could not cure the infection - which resulted in a tense evening's play as they raced the clock to get him to a temple where he could be cured, with the PC getting weaker and less able to move as time went on ...

 

Bleeding doesn't automatically stop' date=' either: you need (at least) first aid to stop it OR falling into a coma (each point of Body you take from bleeding could also deal d6 stun). Deterioration from negative Body could work the same way: as a complication (which means you could be 1-Bodied down to -1 Body without having to worry about bleeding to death, but any more and it becomes a possibility: you re-roll for complications every time you take more negative Body, but only apply the largest 'bleed' result: everything else is pretty irrelevant.[/quote']

 

If you had a system like the one I described, "negative body" actually has much less relevance. We use it now, because as it stands, if you have 1 BOD, you're perfectly fine (by the rules): you can run, carry maximal loads and fight with undiminished efficacy. Negative BOD is used as short hand for "injured". If you used a complications system, then you actually abstract damage somewhat from BOD - complications really define how "injured" you are and BOD becomes a more abstract concept. After all, who's more "injured" - the guy with -1 BOD, or the guy with 9 BOD who has a wound that's going to cost him 2 BOD every turn? #1 will be just as well off in 2 minutes, but #2 will be dead ....

 

To take an example in real life, you can kill a strong healthy adult male (10 BOD) in seconds by stabbing a knitting needle in his ear. Does that mean a knitting needle does 20 BOD? So the same guy at -9 BOD will die if he takes another injury, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily at death's door - he could after all , be killed by a head wound that did 1 BOD even if at full health, if you use complications. Thus, complications (and their associated disabling effects - don't forget them) define how "wounded" someone is. Looked at in this light, someone in negative BOD has taken enough abuse that they are somewhat more fragile than normal, but they are not necessarily "wounded", if they have no disabling effects.

 

cheers, Mark

[prestidigitator]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

I suppose for really cinematic play, you could even ignore all Body damage that gets past defenses except for how they create "complications". Only "complications" would actually reduce your current Body score. That'd be a real "flesh wounds don't slow me down" game. And you could perhaps force Healing to work like Paramedics by slowing down the rate of degeneration on the Time Chart until the continuing effects stop or slow to the point where the character's Rec/Regeneration would overcome it before the Healing can actually start to repair the real damage (increase current Body).

 

It'd be nice to find a slightly different name for it, I think, as 6E now uses Complication to mean something completely different.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

I suppose for really cinematic play' date=' you could even ignore all Body damage that gets past defenses [i']except[/i] for how they create "complications". Only "complications" would actually reduce your current Body score. That'd be a real "flesh wounds don't slow me down" game. And you could perhaps force Healing to work like Paramedics by slowing down the rate of degeneration on the Time Chart until the continuing effects stop or slow to the point where the character's Rec/Regeneration would overcome it before the Healing can actually start to repair the real damage (increase current Body).

 

It'd be nice to find a slightly different name for it, I think, as 6E now uses Complication to mean something completely different.

 

That was my thought as I read Markdoc's post. Great minds...I like that in particular because it means there is no 'set' death threshold: you could - potentially - get hit by dozens of bullets but none of them hit somewhere where it 'bleeds'...so you survive...whereas you might be taken down by a single shot. Might need some additional rule for head and heart shots which can 'insta-kill', but, as Marcdoc says the hit location chart makes them more likely to have complications - and big ones at that - anyway.

 

I'm liking this a lot.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

There are a couple of issues with hit locations. First it may be important to know exactly where you hit because it may or not be covered by sectional defences: 'vitals' is a a problem there because it is either the crotch' date=' which is a definable area, or it is several 'vital bits' spread through the torso, which isn't.[/quote']

 

You voiced a lot of the troublesome issues with Hit Locations, and realistically, the bulk of them could be solved one of two ways:

 

Either actually mapping the charts, as most other games using Hit Locations do (though I don't think anything need be as extreme as Aftermath, the King Daddy of Hit Location)

 

_or_

 

by clearly defining "vitals."

 

Most everyone will agree:

 

There are some really vital organs that you shouldn't get hit in.

 

And "Chest" is clearly listed on the location chart.

 

And so is vitals. So what exactly _is_ vitals? Liver? Spleen? These are all effectively in the chest. Lower section of the ribs, passing through the open arch of the lowest ribs, but certainly "chest."

 

If we're going to call that "Vitals," then we've effectively eliminate "groin" from the chart, but we've eliminated the bulk of the abdomen as well.

 

Yes; I already know "well you role play it out, and light wounds to Location 13 can be ascribed to the chitterlings." Yes, it works, but it doesn't satisfy simply because it's using vaguery to detail specifics, and specifically it's saying that a shot to the "vitals" actually doesn't hit the vitals.

 

So we either decide that the chest stops at the lower edge of the pectoralis and the "vitals" is the area from the pecs to the diaphragm, thus ignoring nearly half of the human torso as a viable target,

 

Or we accept that the "vitals" is a badly-chosen name for the abdomen as a whole.

 

Or-- third option-- we can devise or hope for a body map clearly defining the Hit Location map. And that one seems best, given the option for sectional defenses.

 

Currently, you can build armor that covers your "vitals" without actually knowing where they are. Or I can build a breast plate that stops at the ribs and wonder if my vitals are covered or not.

 

 

Sorry; just trying to get in the mindset to tackle this project. Carry on!

[Bloodstone]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

When I first encountered the Hit Location Chart I assumed Vitals was the line across your waste, just above the top of the pelvic bone - where if you cut a nice straight line your lower and upper intestines fall out and your are disemboweled. As the Stomach is up near your belly button.

 

"groin" never once entered into my mind, and I was unamused that is appeared to be the Hero System D- Joke. To say that least. I kept wondering how many Hero Gamers failed basic anatomy in 5th grade biology class.

 

You really can't fault anyone for the notion that unlucky #13 is a hit to the nuts when it's spelled out as such in multiple places in the Ultimate Martial Artist:

 

UMA, p24.

 

Dirty Infighting has a maneuver called Low Blow that automatically targets hit location 13. This one has a bit of leeway to it based on your interpretation of what constitutes a Low Blow, though I would say in common parlance it's a strike to the groin which seems appropriate for an NND attack.

 

UMA, p29

 

Jailhouse Rock leaves less to the imagination as it has the same maneuver referred to as "Groin Blow" and is again automatically hitting the Vitals

 

UMA, p44

 

Lua has Crab techniques that involve pinching soft, vulnerable targets like the throat or Vitals. As far as I can tell, this is not meant to indicate the practitioner reaches into his opponents stomach and pulls out his guts, sicne it's an NND and not a bloody KA

 

However, if that isn't enough:

 

UMA, p186

 

The Athletic Cup clearly shows that it provides protection for... hit location 13.

[prestidigitator]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

I'm not too worried about sectional defenses. It'd be easy enough to say, "This armor protects half the 'vitals' Hit Location, because it covers the back enough to include the kidneys but doesn't include the lower abdomen or loins." It'd be easy enough to figure out or randomly determine whether the covered portion of that Hit Location was hit. Heck, I'm sure we'd do that without much thought at all if someone happened to have something that covered his right arm but not his left, eh?

 

Remember too that--at least to a certain degree--if you do a called shot to a particular Hit Location, you get to choose what specific part of that location you actually hit. So in my mind there are sufficient methods of resolution both for random determination and called shots to cope with a Hit Location that is not a single contiguous region.

[Tasha]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Technically the Vitals - at least the more clearly defined 5E version - is the Vital Organs plus major arteries, most of which happen to be in the trunk. . .

 

Nothing annoys me more than "vitals = crotch" joke, honestly. I've never thought of it that way.

 

Thank you!!! I am not the only one who feels that way! It's a joke that's even given space in Hero Designer's dice roller app.

 

in all versions of the Hit Location Chart it was understood that Vitals = Heart, Artery or other organs that are really bad to have damaged.

 

The 13= boy bits needs to die.

 

Tasha

[JmOz]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Thank you!!! I am not the only one who feels that way! It's a joke that's even given space in Hero Designer's dice roller app.

 

in all versions of the Hit Location Chart it was understood that Vitals = Heart, Artery or other organs that are really bad to have damaged.

 

The 13= boy bits needs to die.

 

Tasha

 

I strongly disagree. I think thinking of it as only, as you put it, "The boy bits" should die, but depending on the game being played, and the scene, it might be very appropriate. I am not saying that everytime 13 rolls up it should be a groin shot, but IF IT IS APPROPRIATE, then sure.

 

I saw an interview once with Robin Williams who pointed out that a joke is a joke, that there is nothing wrong with low brow humor from time to time. Now I would not want it in a serious scene (Let it be a shot to the heart or something), but at times when the scene has gotten to dark (It can happen) or something then sure why not...

[Ki-rin]

Re: "revised" hit location chart?

 

Thank you!!! I am not the only one who feels that way! It's a joke that's even given space in Hero Designer's dice roller app.

 

in all versions of the Hit Location Chart it was understood that Vitals = Heart, Artery or other organs that are really bad to have damaged.

 

The 13= boy bits needs to die.

 

Tasha

According to some female Black Belts I know...

 

Getting nailed in the groin hurts at least as much for women as for men, it's just that the "target area" is a bit harder to hit.

 

I'm sure this can be tested and verified by experiment, but having witnessed it on multiple occasions, I =REALLY= do not recommend it.

 

As to the value of location 13.

Tons of official HG material over the course of 20+ years has said that location 13 is the lower abdomen including the groin.

 

It's even reasonable since the general area is filled with critical structures like the top of the femoral artery that will cause you to Bleed Out =very= fast if damaged.

http://mnemocine.net/2008/11/03/femoral-artery-mnemonic-deep-branches/

 

In addition, there are the consequences of damage to the pelvis or ball and socket joint area of the hip.

(Picture a mace coming in from the side into locale 13 and basically shattering everything it encounters.)

Talk to someone who has fallen and broken their hip if you want a realistic feel about how incapacitating damage to the skeleton in the area of location 13 is.

 

My suggestion about "groin shot jokes" is to encourage your players to Act Appropriately.

The problem is no different than the overuse of the "smut field" when gaming.

 

There are videos on the net of location 13 damage happening in real time. Watching a few of those will stifle any tendency to view it as humorous very quickly.

 

...and of course there are times when some humor, even of this type, is appropriate. People are there to have fun after all. It's the overdoing of it or inappropriate use of it that's a problem.