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Re: (TFT) Falling in TFT --> New rules posted.
Experience Falling
I've been sky diving, clift diving, olympic high diving, bridge
jumping, pushed out of a moving truck, and had a rope swing break at the
peak of its swing. I've never broken a bone, but of course gymnastics has
been a life long asset. I have also seen someone fall from 2 meters (their
feet almost on the ground) and break their arm. One sky diver landed on his
butt (feet pointed to the horizon) and compressed a cartilage resulting in a
trip to the hospital on a stretcher. I've even seen a guy break both his
feet swinging over rocks. But my favorite story is one I didn't see first
hand.
This guy I worked with as a tower climber took a fall from 25 meters.
He was painting a mono-pole. A single support tower with pegs on each side
and cellular antenna on top. To paint it he has his climbing belt with a
bucke of paint, and a glove on one hand. He climbs to the top, puts his
hand in the bucket of paint, smears it all over the tower, and works his way
down.
About half way down he is adjusting his belt and holding onto a rung
with the paint encrusted glove. He said he couldn't tell his hand had
slipped off the peg because he could still feel something in his hand. It
was caked up paint. By the time he realized he was falling away from the
pole it was too far to reach with either hand, and he realized he was going
down. A quick glance over his shoulder and he spotted a small tree growing
next to the electronics shack. So he kicked off to aim for the tree.
"Maybe it will break my fall a little." He wakes up in the hospital.
The doctor tells him he landed flat on his back and the only thing
that happened is his stomache split on both sides like a water balloon.
"You may be ok." The doctor says "but we would like to go in and clean
things up a bit just incase."
So this guy asks him "What kind of scar will there be?"
The doctor goes on like he didn't hear the question. "It won't be a
very invasive proceedure. We'd like to get you in tommorrow."
He says a little stronger. "You didn't answer my question. What kind
of scar will there be?"
Again the doctor keeps ignoring him. "Hopefully you will fully
recovered in a few weeks."
He says even stronger "WHAT KIND OF SCAR, will THERE BE?"
The the doctor goes over to the counter and picks up a stainless steel
device. It looks kind of like a collapseable sphagetti strainer. It's
narrow on one end and the doctor starts turning a knob on the other end.
The narrow end begins opening up.
The doctor starts to say "We go in through the rectum...." When they guy
sits bolt upright in the hospital bed.
He shouts "NO FRIGGIN WAY YOU'RE PUTTIN YOU'RE GOLF CLUB SWINGING HANDS
UP MY BUTT."
Surprisingly the guy lived without the opperation. He was still aive
when he told me the story anyway.
At a regulation olympic diving platform in Miami I dove from 75 meters
three times. After a long climb up stairs and a short wait in line I went
to the edge of the cement platform. Now I knew that a person in free fall
tends to turn over an fall head first, so I just hung my toes over the edge
and fell forward slowly. 75 meters is a very long fall. Took a long time
to turn over. I had an upside down view of other people on lower platforms
waiting their turn and I flew by. I had time to look around. I formulated
a last will and testament. I had time to sing a song. Anyway it seemed
like I fell forever.
As I neared the water put my hands together and held them tight. I knew
that the surface tension of water is about 1/8th that of cement. So this 75
meter dive could be like falling about 10 meters onto rock. I held my hands
tight over head to slice the water tension.
Unfortunately I forgot to point my feet. Or more precisely one foot,
the right one. The other one was pointed, but the right foot slapped the
top of the water. When I crawled out of the pool and limped over to the
bench I could see the entire top of my right foot was red and blue. Owch.
But after fifteen minutes I knew I could do it right so I went back up.
The same long slow fall. I made sure both feet were pointed. I hit the
water and was very much surprised to feel my hands split away from each
other from the surface tension of the water. So I took the dive full on the
top of my head. By the time I crawled out of the pool I had a pounding head
ache.
Thirty minutes on the bench and I was ready to try again. This time my
fingers were locked hard, and my feet pointed perfectly. I sliced through
the water like it wasn't there. I was thrilled.
I was thrilled till I ran out of breath trying to swim to the surface. I
hadn't realized how deep a perfect dive from that height would take me. I
swam up harder. Still not there. I swam up in a panic my lungs starting to
scream at me. I should have arched my back after impact so I didn't go so
deep. When I broke surface and finally took in that first breath, everyone
at the pool could hear me.
Later when I went clift diving everything went without a hitch. I had
the technique down. It really is a lot of fun to fall that far. Bridge
jumping on the other hand is really dangerous.
We were jumping 10 meters, feet first into a slightly deep spot in a
bayou. Every time you jumped you hit the muddy bottom. And every once in a
while someone would get stuck down there in mud above their calf.
Being a bayou you couldn't see through the water, so we always had
people down their spotting for you. If you stayed down too long they would
swim around and see if they could find you, and help pull you loose.
Also you had to swim around down their before even thinking of jumping.
Just to see if drift wood or a tree had clogged the deep spot. I heard
years later that someone actually died jumping off that bridge. Apparently
they didn't check first.
Once when very young I was home alone and trying to reach new heights on
the rope swing. It broke at the peak of the swing. I am certain I went
higher because of where I was in the arc when the rope broke. I estimate I
landed flat on my back from a height of 10 meters.
Getting the wind knocked out of me didn't bother me. Feeling totaly numb
from my elbows to the back of my knees didn't bother me. It was feeling
that numb, knowing I had to pick my self up, and no one was going to come
get me, that bothered me. But other than that I was fine within an hour.
One time comming home from soccer practice I got pushed out of a moving
truck. I was sitting up on the side of the truck with my back to the ditch.
Instead of waiting for the truck to round the corner and stop, like normal
on of my mates said "This is you're stop" and pushed me out backwards. The
truck had slowed to about 40 kph approaching the turn.
I got pushed into a ditch. Now Louisiana is low country and the ditches
are fairly deep for drainage of massive rainfall. So the Ditch was about 1
meter, and the side of the truck was about 1 meter off the ground. A 2
meter fall at 40 kph. I rolled a lot further than I fell. Surprisingly to
me, the experience was totally painless. I was more surprised, and mad at
the jerk, than anything.
When I learned to sky dive in Vancouver Canada I was surprised to find
out about something they called 'white out'. Apparently their are two
different kind of people who jump for their first time. Those that remember
every detail and those who don't remember the first five seconds. They said
you can tell the later type because they make the strangest facial
expressions when they jump.
They were right. I saw one guy go out before me, and his face contorted
in the most bizzare way. He almost looked like he was trying to will
himself back on the plane. Anyway that's why you have to use a static line
to automatically deploy youre chute the first few times.
Thanks for the new falling rules Rick. Brought back a lot of memories.
I read them close and don't really see anything wrong with them. Below is
the only contribution I could think of.
Falls below 10m
Save vs. ST on 3D and all damage is subdue.
For multi-hex figures divide their ST by their Hex size for the save.
(a ST 25 giant of 3-hexes has to make 8 or less)
Falls below 20m
Save vs. DX on 3D
+1 D if you fall because of a blow or force back.
+1 D if landing on broken terrain.
A failed roll means you don't get a save vs. ST
Even if you make the DX and ST save, any subdue damage in excess of your
ST is lethal.
Falls of 20m or more
Save vs. IQ on 3D
A failed roll means you don't get a save vs. DX or vs. ST.
David Michael Grouchy II
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