Roleplaying Injury - How Long?

[Verad]

For a variety of different reasons, some planned, some not, Verad gets injured on a fairly regular basis. This is a bit tricky for me, because I've always had trouble getting a feeling for the best way to RP convalescence. I admit I speed the process along much farther than would be the case IRL, due to a mixture of a willingness ot accept magical healing options and a simple OOC desire to keep things moving and not force myself to be the center of attention through scenes that always seem to be about pitying my character.

 

I'm therefore curious as to how people handle getting hurt, and for how long they handle it. Do you try to adopt real-world healing times and physical therapy for the sake of immersion, or speed things up for the sake of expediency? Do you allow magical healing, and if so, how much? And how much do OOC concerns like the ones I mention above influence your decisions?

[Coatleque]

I think it depends on a wide variety of factors. The two that stick to mind are:

- Does it make sense in the current primary story arch?

- Do you NEED to be better by a certain date for another planned event?

 

I'd tend to favor a faster healing rate due to magic alone.

[Okichi]

I've always thought this was a tricky subject, considering we have healing magic in the world and that it's hard to gauge how much it can really do beyond filling up our hp bars some.  What I like to think is that healing magic simply speeds up the body's natural regeneration process, and that it still takes some time for the body to heal itself, just not as long as it would without magic.

 

Surface wounds and the like can probably be closed up within minutes or even seconds depending on how powerful your healer is, but something serious like a broken bone is certainly not something that can be done away quickly, not without some serious exertion on the healer's part.  Injuries like that I think would be fair to give a few IRL days worth of recovery time.  That way, it doesn't discount the effectiveness of magical healing, but also doesn't make it seem too overpowered.

 

I hope that made sense... I tend to ramble at times. :cactuar:

[Berrod Armstrong]

I mix it up a little bit. 

 

Berrod has a 'get out of hurt free' card in the form of his Sacral Chakra, which provides him with a burst of regeneration and rejuvenation. Once he uses that, however, he can't do it again for three to four days, and any injury he sustains in that time is played out for however long I think it would last without magical healing (he doesn't like being healed magically by anyone other than himself. Silly street thug).

 

It's a very character specific/personal formula, but it tends to work out really well for me!

[Askier]

Askier recently went through an injury blender rp arc and he is still feeling the impact and will all his life.  I figured I'd cover three types of injuries and how I handle them.

 

Normal injuries: cuts, flesh wounds, knife wounds, broken bones. These can be healed by magic at varying rates but normally a single rp session of magical healing fix these in my mind, while traditional healing take longer.  Course scars and marks will remain if they are bad enough but these don't impact a character during other rp after they have been healed or at least been bandaged.

 

Major injuries: these are injuries that require direct roleplay, such a missing limb, and sometimes cannot be healed by magic quickly, or at all. Askier currently is missing his entire left arm cause of an explosion and I rp that it cannot be regrown or healed. It has been a bit of a change rping him with one arm but the injury has developed him as a character and created interesting rps.

 

Mental trauma. This is the kind of damage I do not think can be healed with magic directly at all. In my mind, this has to be rped out over and over to some degree until the character comes to terms with the trauma or memory.in a natural way. Askier is suffering from PTSD currently and I have one hundred percent stuck with him being a victimof the disorder as I have a few sessions where people work with him to help him but they knew going in that was the point of the rp session.  I don't have Askier bring up the issue in his mind if the scene isn't about recovery for the sake of the others involved .

 

Overall I think the important part is that, in the end, the amount of recovery time is appropriate but also let's you keep enjoying the character. If your character sees a healer and comes back relatively okay so you can rp again next time I think most people won't have a problem with it.  Rp isn't a ton if fun when your character just spends all day in the sick bay. Lol.

[Faye]

I generally ask myself:

 

1. How badly is my character hurt?

2. Is there a reason her recovery would be sped up more than usual, or even slowed down?

3. Does my character need to be better by a certain time/event?

4. Will I be offline/busy anyway?

 

Then depending on the answers, I try to decide how long my character should remain injured. There is the occasional person who will shout at you about realism and kick and scream if they think your character has recovered too fast. However, I think it's important to remember that role-play is fantasy and fiction. Sure, we need practice some degree of realism, however, we do this for entertainment. It's more important that role-play be fun than realistic, and having your main character bed-ridden for a month just isn't fun.

[Shayrei]

My two cents on the matter:

 

 

 

I accept that there is magical healing in the game. It's there, why wouldn't I?  

 

This is used to expedite the healing process. It can stop most bleeding and begin the process of mending bone/tissue/muscle etc, but it will rarely ever completely and fully heal an ailment/injury in one shot. The exceptions to this, I feel, would be small (see very minor; 'bandaid') injuries and instances where a healer has really given themselves entirely to the task to the point of nearly injuring themselves in order to heal another.

 

If you took a blow and were healed, it's still going to hurt in the morning. You're going to bruise. If you were run through, it'll take a day to get right again. You're not going to have a sword poking through your gut one night and get out for training the next... and if you do you should be playing out the pain. Broke your leg? You've got a limp. Dislocated your knee for the fourth time this month? That puppy is now a trick knee, congratulations Achilles you have a weak spot!  

 

I may be a bit extreme in my thinking, but I honestly enjoy the thought of not everyone being untouchable heroes. We're good, but we're not perfect. Let your character develop a bit through the combat and injury they sustain.

 

I usually do no less than a week (earth time) to play an injury ( think the last I did, was a character getting jumped: busted a knee, messed up a hip, bumps and bruises), more if it was really severe, less if it was negligible, but I figure one earth day is like a bajillion Eorzean days so, it works out in the wash.

 

 

... I think I answered the topic in there somewhere... >.> 

 

:bouncy:

[LiadansWhisper]

It is entirely up to you.

 

That's right - you, and you alone have the right to say how fast or slow your character is going to heal.

 

I also disagree (to an extent) that a major healing takes "a lot" out of a healer - at least in the case of Conjurers.  99.99% of Conjurers are not Selphie.

 

 

The reason healing was taking so much out of Selphie is that she was ripping the aether out of herself to heal people.  Which, I might add, did actually kill her mother, but was clearly not the "correct" way to heal as a Conjurer.

 

 

When Conjurers heal, they actually take all the energy that makes up the healing from the lifestream/aether around them.  So the question is less, "Will this take a lot out of me" and more "will the lifestream in this area support this kind of a healing" and "can I replace what I'm taking"?  I'd liken it to an extended surgery - I am sure that a serious healing would tire the hell out of someone if only because they have to hold that level of concentration for an extended amount of time.  But I don't think that it's the healing itself that's causing it.

 

That said, when Liadan heals people, I normally speak to them and ask what they want out of the healing.  Because, again, your healing is your choice, not mine.  Your character, your choice.  Generally speaking, Liadan's healing patches up major wounds and repairs life-threatening injuries, but will probably leave some deep bruising and other "owies."  That just requires a few days to heal, though.  

[Siha]

My two cents on the matter:

 

 

 

I accept that there is magical healing in the game. It's there, why wouldn't I?  

 

This is used to expedite the healing process. It can stop most bleeding and begin the process of mending bone/tissue/muscle etc, but it will rarely ever completely and fully heal an ailment/injury in one shot. The exceptions to this, I feel, would be small (see very minor; 'bandaid') injuries and instances where a healer has really given themselves entirely to the task to the point of nearly injuring themselves in order to heal another.

 

If you took a blow and were healed, it's still going to hurt in the morning. You're going to bruise. If you were run through, it'll take a day to get right again. You're not going to have a sword poking through your gut one night and get out for training the next... and if you do you should be playing out the pain. Broke your leg? You've got a limp. Dislocated your knee for the fourth time this month? That puppy is now a trick knee, congratulations Achilles you have a weak spot!  

 

I may be a bit extreme in my thinking, but I honestly enjoy the thought of not everyone being untouchable heroes. We're good, but we're not perfect. Let your character develop a bit through the combat and injury they sustain.

 

I usually do no less than a week (earth time) to play an injury ( think the last I did, was a character getting jumped: busted a knee, messed up a hip, bumps and bruises), more if it was really severe, less if it was negligible, but I figure one earth day is like a bajillion Eorzean days so, it works out in the wash.

 

 

... I think I answered the topic in there somewhere... >.> 

 

:bouncy:

 

I have to agree with everything said above, I've always had the mentality that healing magic shouldn't just completely heal something serious in one go. Minor stuff like cuts and bruises, yeah sure, but as was said above again if you're taking a sword to the gut I don't think that should just be all taken care of in one healing session. Closed so you can recover? Sure! Though I'd say it should be taxing on the healers part in the case of serious injuries such as that, even if they're just sealing it and staunching the bleeding that's still some serious damage and I'd imagine it would require a lot of effort to channel the aether. As Liadan did say the aether doesn't come FROM them in Conjurers cases at least but the mental toll is still there and I still believe to a degree there is a physical one as well but it would only be say exhaustion in the case of the healer.

 

((I don't think that all came out right...sorry about that.))

[Shayrei]

 I'd liken it to an extended surgery - I am sure that a serious healing would tire the hell out of someone if only because they have to hold that level of concentration for an extended amount of time.  But I don't think that it's the healing itself that's causing it.

 

 

Thank you, I didn't clarify that enough in my post, but yes, this is what I was touching on. The level of skill and work necessary to complete a task like that would be difficult.

 

 

I play Daphine as a doctor more than a healer. She's a physicker, she knows how to heal with the arcanum, but she's first and foremost a medic, prefering to use alchemy and more traditional 'doctoring'. Get them stable with magic, get them back for surgery. ... then follow up again the next day.

 

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me to see someone get riddled with arrows, have Daphine patch them up and then see them out starting fights again the next day. >.<

[Maril]

I've noticed a general tendency for people to get over their injuries surprisingly fast, even when it was something serious beyond your average broken toes. Which is something that, I wouldn't say bothers me greatly, but it does kind of make injury seem pointless if you're going to be fine the day after. 

So some extend it just feels like people are over-exaggerating what magical healing can do, though I don't know precisely how powerful your average conjurer would be. Even in the case that the healing as per lore is rather OP, I'd go as far as to say as a roleplayer you need to try and keep it in check for the sake of having a sense of balance in everything. 

 

Some of the things I've implemented in my own RP through the times is assuming that a fast magical heal runs the risk of complications - bones could be put together in the wrong way, leaving one with a limp and so on. So as to discourage that it just becomes a fast zap of healing. I also tend to let scars and bruises remain even though the healing could take care of it, because I find it gives more flavor. Scars can be testimonies of awesome fights, and a bruise can make it uncomfortable for a while, without being crippling.

If my character broke a leg tomorrow, there would be consequences stretching a month into the future, or there abouts - not nescessarily always on cruthes, but then a mixture of being on them and then off, learning to support properly again etc.

[LiadansWhisper]

 I'd liken it to an extended surgery - I am sure that a serious healing would tire the hell out of someone if only because they have to hold that level of concentration for an extended amount of time.  But I don't think that it's the healing itself that's causing it.

 

 

Thank you, I didn't clarify that enough in my post, but yes, this is what I was touching on. The level of skill and work necessary to complete a task like that would be difficult.

 

I play Daphine as a doctor more than a healer. She's a physicker, she knows how to heal with the arcanum, but she's first and foremost a medic, prefering to use alchemy and more traditional 'doctoring'. Get them stable with magic, get them back for surgery. ... then follow up again the next day.

 

I'd be lying if I said it didn't bug me to see someone get riddled with arrows, have Daphine patch them up and then see them out starting fights again the next day. >.<

 

I'm waiting for someone to get mad at me when Liadan accuses them of being a barbarian for cutting someone open and then using stitches.  >.>

 

Edited to Add: I forgot to add this the first time, but Liadan does use potions - with things like sugar and vitamins in them. I RP her healing as basically massively boosting the body's own regeneration abilities to close wounds, so it has to have SOMETHING to work with (calcium for bones, iron and fluids for blood, etc). As a side effect, anyone Liadan heals is incredibly hungry afterwards.

[Verad]

A lot of good responses here. A follow-up question:

 

Those of you who prefer lengthier healing times: How do you balance the play such that every scene in which your character is involved doesn't eventually become about the injury, especially when it's a serious one?

 

As an example, I had a character on WoW temporarily lose the use of his legs after losing a particularly nasty fight. I was game to try it at first, but it rapidly became exhausting on an OOC level both accounting for the scale of the changes being made in his movements and in how it would affect his mindset. Further, it seemed like every scene focused on his state, which appeared to drag on the RPers around me and made me concerned that I was overplaying the injury for attention. How, then, do you balance the need to portray injury with the need to not make every scene exclusively injury-related?

[Maril]

A lot of good responses here. A follow-up question:

 

Those of you who prefer lengthier healing times: How do you balance the play such that every scene in which your character is involved doesn't eventually become about the injury, especially when it's a serious one?

 

As an example, I had a character on WoW temporarily lose the use of his legs after losing a particularly nasty fight. I was game to try it at first, but it rapidly became exhausting on an OOC level both accounting for the scale of the changes being made in his movements and in how it would affect his mindset. Further, it seemed like every scene focused on his state, which appeared to drag on the RPers around me and made me concerned that I was overplaying the injury for attention. How, then, do you balance the need to portray injury with the need to not make every scene exclusively injury-related?

 

Because FFXIV doesn't have a RP addon (yet?) I tend to just emote for things such as injuries "now and then" - maybe twice per hour or less, depending on if anyone new comes in. Sometimes I dont even emote it, but rather state it in FC char or a linkshell. It's true that some people can become overly fixated on the injury, which I believe comes down to the fact that they'd wanna try and fix it too, even though it's already helped as far as it could be. In those cases I try to make it clear that nothing else can be done, and that it just is as it is, also by making my character pull away e.g a leg if anyone wanted to touch it. And also by grumping over that everyone is looking at the injury or talking too much about the injury. 

It does get really tedious to constantly emote for it, and especially whenever walking is involved, but I kinda see it as a way to easily immerse myself into the kind of bother it is to have an injury. 

In most cases, once the curiousity is over then the subject gets very little attention, but if you have 50 curious people in a row that might take a while.

[Shizuka]

Okay, so as a warning here, I'm super tired so I'm sorry if I don't manage to connect my thoughts well here.

 

On the point of healing taking "a lot out of" a healer, I can see how channeling that kind of aether all day can be a bit of a drain on the body. It's not that they're drawing from themselves (though perhaps if they're doing a MAJOR healing and the aether can't support it, they might draw slightly from themselves?), but that their body is the conduit and gets tired.

 

I actually think major healing takes more out of the injured than the healer. The body would still need to provide the necessary materials to repair the damage, to regrow new bone cells and blood cells and all that. I imagine it'd have to yank that from somewhere, so someone who has just had a major healing done would need some really good supplements and might feel like crap for a few days afterwards. 

 

But that idea is also why I like to generally have injuries take a little time to heal. I envision it being generally healthier to magically set a bone and encourage the body's natural processes to speed up a bit, than to just magic it all fixed right away. I'd think the longer, more involved process would also be less likely to produce problems such as cold weather aches down the road.

 

Lalah is a magic based healer, yes. But she also very much uses natural healing such as herbs to supplement that. Come to her with broken ribs, and she'll get the bones set, but you're going to be sore for a few days while it fully heals. More life threatening injuries are another matter entirely, of course, but she's probably not going to be able to regrow your arm.

 

As to the follow up, I think that's kind of a hard balance to strike. A lot of times the RP DOES kind of end up centered around the injury or illness, even if you don't want it to be. The important thing (I think) is to make sure there is progress of some sort being made, and make sure you're in tune with the people you're RPing with. I've sped up healing times to suit people before, and other times I've managed just the right pace. There's always a balance to be found between realistic and fun.

[FreelanceWizard]

In general, I say that how long it takes for an injury to heal depends entirely on the narrative needs of the player whose character is injured. If you want natural healing to be important, then for some reason, the magic just doesn't heal you quickly. If you want Benediction to bring you back into the action instantly, then it does. Story considerations are key here. However, we do know one key aspect of magical healing in XIV: you can't regenerate souls with magic -- once you're dead, you're dead (excluding some supremely rare and very temporary exceptions).

 

Personally, I find the setting supports instant healing more than long-term injury. I find it an interesting challenge to achieve gravitas and fear of injury in a setting where the vast majority of injuries are trivial for an adventurer to deal with. This also leads to some interesting contrivances in RP, such as a trap with, say, basilisk venom; it'd be fatal to non-adventurers, typically, but those with access to magical healing would find it just an annoyance. However, I realize this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and so I hew entirely towards "the recipient of healing determines its effect." There's a lot of ways to justify that metaphysically, from "the Elementals don't will a complete healing" to "magic's just an inexact art, sometimes it doesn't work exactly right."

 

Those of you who prefer lengthier healing times: How do you balance the play such that every scene in which your character is involved doesn't eventually become about the injury, especially when it's a serious one?

 

The one time I had a character suffer long-term injury was in City of Heroes, where my character quite literally had the skin and soft tissue of his face and much of his upper torso melted off and his skull crushed. While CoH has "magical healing," more or less, it also has more mundane hospitals, and the way I spun it was that he needed extensive reconstructive surgery (which while eventually perfect thanks to superpowers, would take some time to do safely). What I did was put the character in the hospital, set up scenes for people to visit him, and largely played an alt during his recovery time. By giving everyone confidence IC and OOC that he was being properly treated and healing up, the "medical drama" was eliminated, and people could come RP with him if they wanted without every scene being consumed by "is he going to die? Will he be okay?"

[Naunet]

Do you try to adopt real-world healing times and physical therapy for the sake of immersion, or speed things up for the sake of expediency?

 

Usually the former. Very, very rarely the latter. I'm more apt to just deal with the reality of the injury and how it may affect the rp than try and meta-game it out of existence. It may not be the roleplay initially expected, but what fun is roleplay that goes as expected? For example - in TERA, I've had to deal with one of my character losing pretty much all function in their arm. I had initially thought she'd find healing at some point, but enough time passed that I eventually had to accept that it's irreversible damage. And well, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

 

As for your other question, I utilize magic healing as appropriate for the universe and for the characters involved. It depends entirely on whether or not the characters know how to heal magically, or have access to someone who does, can afford it, whether or not something comes up that unexpectedly diverts them, how powerful magical healing is or can be in the universe, how powerful the particular magical healer they see may be, and so on.

 

I value realism above expediency in most matters of roleplay, save time - where I'm perfectly willing to either time skip or handwave a few real life weeks as having been only a few RP days, because it's impossible to RP a one-to-one ratio of time most of the time.