Death and Dismemberment in All for Me Grog

Combat in All for Me Grog is largely free-form as befits a cinematic swashbuckling game, but it is missing two ingredients that are fundamental to pirate fiction: the dangers of loss of limb and loss of life. The risk of either makes for high stakes and high adventure, so I've worked up some simple house rules to cover both.

First: Death. The rules do not state the circumstances under which a character expires, so the house rule is this:

A character starts with 9 points of Salt. A character's Salt is only reduced by physical harm. A player may never roll more dice in a Bloode action than his or her character's current Salt. Death occurs when a character's Salt is reduced to 0.

A character also starts with 9 points of Influence. A player may never roll more dice in a Skull or Grog action than his or her character's current Influence. A character's Influence is only reduced by mental or emotional harm. Despondency (or insanity) occurs when a character's Influence is reduced to 0.

Healing occurs as per the published rules, but Bloode wounds only restore Salt; Skull or Grog wounds only restore Influence.

Second: Dismemberment. Complicated rules are contrary to the spirit of All for Me Grog, so this is my solution:

A character may avoid the loss of Salt from an injury by taking loss of limb (or another body part) instead. If the Salt loss to be avoided is only 1 point, the character may lose a finger or ear if the player so chooses. If the Salt loss to be avoided is greater than 1 point, the character may lose an arm, leg, hand, foot, or eye as determined by the player.

Loss of a body part will affect a character in logical ways and may result in penalty dice for actions affected by the disability. It may also result in monetary compensation for pirates injured in the line of duty.

This option is subject to GM approval. Circumstances may restrict a player's options for loss of limb (or body part) or not allow for it at all.

[All for Me Grog is a piratey role-playing game by Ryan Shelton available in PDF and print.]