The whole "Check on it later and convert stress to trauma" thing works in theory but in the game is constantly an issue of complication.

Guy gets shot, takes 4 Stress - doesn't affect him in the least until later?

Guy gets hit with lead pipe and takes 2 stress sending him over the 2nd Tier, no effect till later?

Guy falls from a building. Takes 5 stress and enters his 3rd Tier. Gets up and walks away till later when he discovers how hurt his leg is?

Its just seems odd, especially when it happens to NPCs. You club the crap out of a guy and he runs off, to tend to the huge bump you put on his head later?

Surely somebody has had the same questions in their game. Is there a house rule on damage out there or maybe just a good explanation for how to run it this way in your game?

Ill add in that it seems odd there is no chance for an unexpectedly critical result when taking damage. You cant, well get LUCKY and flat out kill somebody (other than the matching successes head shot). What about natural damage. How could you lets say, get really UNLUCKY and fall from a building and kill yourself when you land. 9 stress is quite a bit.

Seems like there should be a mechanism to extend damage somehow.

Guy gets shot, takes 4 Stress - doesn't affect him in the least until later?

Actually, the book does cover this. If I remember correctly (I am not near my rule books at the moment), for each level of stress received, the player gains a negative die. If the player were to actually fill his stress tiers, he would have to make a role to see if he falls into unconsciousness (success) or dies (fails). (in the first game I played in, this happened to me, though I succeeded in not dying, but passed out amidst two zombies, essentially killing me).

Trauma has long term effects, but also serves to mitigate stress short term. Traumas will add complications for the players, usually in the form of negative dice for the situation.

Think of it this way. In the thick of battle, the player will get hurt. Stress represents the pain the player experiences in the situation. He know he is hurting, but he really does not have the time immediately to figure out how badly the injury is. It is only afterwards that the player has a chance to check himself out and realize that he broke a couple of fingers.

This is what I remember off hand. If anyone else can clarify this (possibly with actual page references), that would be cool.

Im reading the book right now and it says nothing about a modifier from just filling your Stress Tiers. Only Traumas cause modifiers and they don't occur till you get down time to process them from your stress. The stress Tiers filling don't have an effect immediately unless you fill the 3rd one and possibly die.

On page 32 it states, regarding Acquiring Traumas

"You can choose to remove your stress early and often, building up a large number of small traumas but are easy to heal but weigh on you. Alternatively you can ignore your injuries, avoiding immediate setbacks, but risking them becoming even more severe before you have a chance to start dealing with them."

I think that makes it pretty clear you don't suffer until you convert to trauma, which is the oddity I'm concerned about.

Your version would work I suppose, might make a good house rule.

Are you this flabbergasted by D&D/Pathfinder/d20's hit points method? In those, damage NEVER affects you aside from sudden unconsciousness. Why is it such a problem here, where it at least does translate into mechanical effect eventually?

It's just a different abstraction of the whole health thing. The game is lethal enough, I understand how you feel the fluff doesn't match reality but that's not the purpose of it, I've found no problems with this aspect of the system in play.

Im not flabbergasted... just a little annoyed that a game that obviously is intended as 'narrative' based has a mechanic that is so difficult to narrate.

Every injury or traumatic effect is delayed. Granted, this can happen sometimes. (I was a 22 year paramedic, Ive seen people walk into the E.R. with a broken back, call an ambulance hours after falling off their house etc.) but generally speaking if someone falls and breaks a leg, gets shot with a gun, takes a ball bat to the face, etc. they show some immediate signs and symptoms.

Trying to narrate how there is never an effect from a wound of any kind, or a mental trauma or social engagement, until later when the player can reflect just comes across really weird in the game.

Im wondering here if its how we play, since it doesn't seem to bother you guys.

STYLE A:

GM: Ok roll the dice pool, you are jumping about 20 feet so 2 extra negative dice.

Player: Alright. Crap! I made it but that's 3 physical stress from the jump.

GM: Yeah well you were going to make it in any event, gravity took care of that, but its going to take effect later when you convert it to trauma, for now though just mark it off on your Stress Track. Your on the street, now what?

STYLE B:

GM: You've got a 20 foot drop to the highway from the top of the overpass. You seriously jumping?

Player: We have to, theres no way we are getting through that hoard. Here we go - rolls dice - Crap! 3 stress but I made it.

GM: Well yeah, you hit the ground alright, making it down was never an issue, but looks like you landed hard. Something gives in your knee and the air is knocked out as you hit. Adrenaline will keep you going but you know something isn't right with that leg.

We play more of a Style B, with more realistic descriptions and less attention to game mechanics in the narrative. Its fine but the constant reference to delayed injuries is a bother.

Take the above example. If later the same character took a bullet to a shoulder we would again have..

"You feel the bullet burn through and stifle a cry as it rips out the back. You have no time to worry about it now but it will have to be looked at soon."

and then a moment later take a single stress as you stumble through an ally full of debris.

"Something snags your leg as you rush by, tearing the skin but it will have to wait.. you keep running"

Later its seems even weirder to tell a NORMAL PERSON, not a Hollywood Hero that they have been running around WITHOUT DIFFICULTY, with a bullet hole in their shoulder, twisted knee and torn calf, none of which required medical attention until perhaps hours later.

Im not bitching, Im trying to wrap my head around how to narrate this.

Its also a little weird that a series of minor injuries can cause a single injury to become far more severe later. I realize its a game mechanism but it seriously interferes with a somewhat realistic narrative.

example..

Guy takes 2 Stress from a fall while jumping over a fence.

Guy takes 2 Stress from being hit by a bat in the arm. (into 2nd Tier)

Guy takes 1 Stress from a punch to the stomach.

Guy takes 3 stress from a knife wound to his back. (into 3rd Tier)

Yeah, he had a rough day. As he limps into camp he assesses his wounds and converts all of them to a single Trauma. The rules are not very explicit in how to do this. Their examples refer to single sources of stress. In this guy's situation he has 4 different incidents that are now causing a single -3 trauma.

If it were me I would have to label the Trauma "All beat up to hell -3" and have it affect almost anything the player did until healed in a month. According to the rules though the player could just as easily shrug off 3 of them and give himself a -3 Arm Injury and make it a lot easier for him to get around. Rules seem to indicate Traumas are the Player's responsibility so guess Id have to step in as GM and overrule.

Anyway, it shouldn't be that arbitrary, or at least Id like it if it weren't. It creates problems. Not to mention how this Grocery Store Clerk was running around saving the world all beat to crap for several hours, adrenaline or no.

I think you're giving it too much attention in your narrative if it's causing that big of a problem.

I go for the narrative descriptions too, but never had a problem with just; "OK, he got you good that time, there's a lot of pain and a lot of blood.", or "Trying to hotwire that car really stressed you out. You can't get the image of those futilely sparking wires out of your head...", or "You think you twisted your ankle clambering over that railcar, it hurts... bad.", etc.

You don't have to give attention to every aspect of the mechanic in the narrative every time. And you don't have to address every element of the fluff in the narrative every time.

Basically I think you're making much ado about nothing.

There's lots of worse things about this system.

No argument there.

For the time being Im going to test the following house rule.

When a Stress Tier is filled up the character receives a Negative Dice in any task related to that category and/or appropriate to the general nature of the incident that caused the majority of the stress.

When converting Stress to Trauma all current Stress is converted to a single Trauma Condition with a description that "attempts" to encompass the entirety of the causes of the associated Stress. If these are too varied to offer a single consensus, or if some causes caused far more stress than others, lesser causes can be ignored in the conversion as minor and no longer an issue.

Example

Dave is running for his life from pursuing infected and climbs over a 10' chain link fence onto a tennis court. He succeeds but takes 2 Physical Trauma when he drops to the far side.

A few minutes later an infected surprises him in the parking lot and he crawls under a bus to escape taking 1 Physical Trauma as he scrapes his back across the undercarriage. (1st Tier Full)

As the first Tier is full he immediately receives 1 Negative Dice modifier to most physical activities due to a sore leg and back.

After finding a temporary spot to rest he inspects his injuries and elects to convert his stress to a single "Sore Ankle -1 Trauma" and ignore the scratch to his back as minor. His Stress Track is now completely empty again and ready for action.

He could also have ruled the Trauma something like "Bumped and Bruised -1" considering both incidents/injuries which might have affected more varied tasks than just an ankle injury. This might have been more appropriate if both incidents had incurred equal Stress but as one caused more than the other, it made sense to ignore the Single Stress causing scrape.

For the record, I was confusing the negative dice traumas can add to a dice pool with the resistance stress can bestow (+1 resistance for a filled tier 1 stress track, +2 for second tier).

I was right about filling all stress tracks of a trait and death. All of that is listed under DEATH on page 31.

Yep, no argument there either, when all 9 of your Stress boxes are filled you get an immediate reaction.

I realize, as emsquared mentioned above, that many if not most games don't levy any sort of penalty for being hurt (ie. taking hit points/wounds etc.) but EotW actually has a mechanic in place that already does, Trauma dice. Given this level of detail is already in play it feels, well, weird to ignore the effects of the incidents that caused them until some arbitrary rest period in the future.

I know, I know - its a game mechanic, its not supposed to be a simulation. I get all that, I really do, and have no issues with the extremely abstract nature of system used here. Typically anything 'wierd' in a set of rules can be waved away by a good GM, and this can too for the most part but after several sessions it becomes harder to explain, at least in a way that doesn't begin to sound repetitious.

In my younger days I was incredibly active. (triatholons, weight lifting, fire dept. trainer, etc.) I've had numerous surgeries unfortunately and a few of them were as a result of an injury. A torn shoulder and bicep from falling off a ladder (and catching hold to avoid hitting the pavement), a destroyed knee during a bicycle wreck and another knee blown when stepping in a gopher hole while playing soccer. (Yeah, it sounds funny but it wasn't!)

I would call all of these the result of several Tiers of Physical Stress converted to a -3 trauma. There is no way in either of these cases I could have used the offending limb unimpeded immediately afterward, regardless of adrenaline and pursuing zombies, and Im a pretty tough guy. I managed to hang on till the fire was out with the shoulder, walked to a waiting aid station after the bike wreck and made it to the ambulance on foot in the soccer game but with considerable negative modifiers for sure.

It just doesn't make since to have allowed someone like me to just jump up and head off unaffected until later that day when suddenly the ripped tendons, torn cartilage, severed muscle and chipped bone suddenly become a reality.

If your going to include limitations for injuries in a game system, they should, I don't know, reflect reality just a little bit, don't you think?