Re: [DL] shootin' hostages

[balance@tubas.net]

On Thursday, February 7, 2002, at 08:02  PM, Jeff Shoffner wrote:

>> Now one of the heroes, who's this real mean, tough
> 'uphold-the-law-by-breaking-the-law' type hasn't got a clear shot at 
> the bad
> guy - so he shoots the hostage in the shoulder.....
> [snip]
>
> All the concepts of blow outs, & knock down aside, just one question:  
> if
> you're the good guy, & a crack shot, shouldn't you be shooting the BAD 
> guy
> to begin with?  I mean, even in the movies, Dirty Harry manages to tag 
> the
> guy in the small spot of head showing from behind the hostage.  Or 
> Robocop
> manages to shoot through the skirt INSTEAD of the hostage.  Who'd want 
> to
> reenact Keanu Reeves' stunt in Speed?

Excellent point, although the idea of treating the hostage as armor 
after he or she takes full damage seems workable. Of course, there's a 
lot of PCs that only seem to be able to shoot accurately when it doesn't 
matter...

I had a situation where I joked that I would have to set the armor value 
gained by shooting through an underfed cat. Of course, one friend 
suggested it should do more damage due to shrapnel from  the cat's bones.

The moral of the story is that ripping scenes off from horror mvies 
always makes things interesting. Have a cat jump out of a close and, if 
described vaugely enough, you may get two players to shoot each other.

--
Brett

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER 
MAN? (Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett)