The Healing Paradox

Herremann the Wise said:

Wouldn't it be nice though if the resolution mechanic that is suppose to resolve something, actually resolves something? Wouldn't it be good if the resolution mechanic separates these two aspects so the player and DM know an attack wounds the target or that a non-wounding attack is avoided by the target? Knowing one way or the other allows you the freedom within each of these situations to describe what you want. While describing a genuine wound might pin you down somewhat, the loss of non-wounding hit points/plot protection can be described any which way the player or DM feels is most appropriate. Separating the two (Wounds and Non-wounds) solves every single anomaly and problem hit points has had and would seemingly allow each side of this debate to play the style that they wish.

Just saying. Again.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

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Well, I guess at the end of the day, it depends on whether or not the practical issues are worth it. Going with a wounds/vitality system adds complexity. It does. There's no way around that. Is it worth the added complexity? How much is that added complexity going to slow the game down?

At the end of the day, does it really matter? For my money, I'd leave them both in and not worry about it too much. Those that want HP=meat can play it that way. It's not like they didn't play it that way for decades anyway, even if there were problems. For those that want the mix, well, again, it's not like anything's really changed. HP are HP, despite playing dueling definitions across editions.

I'm very, very much not about process simulation. I only care about the end result. We've (probably) all played multiple editions of D&D without this really being an issue because whatever group we end up playing with likely share our predispositions (or are nice enough not to get too fussed about it) and we carry on.

I really do think that this whole issue has been blown WAY out of proportion. No one ever really cared all that much for many years. 4e changed things a bit by adding in non-magical healing, but, really, if you want to play 4e with an earlier edition style HP, it only takes about a sentence or three to get there - remove warlords and change up the healing rates. OTOH, changing 3e to a more 4e style of HP is also ludicrously easy - PC's heal X hp after every encounter and/or use healing wands. Done.

Do we really, really need to fiddle with the mechanics here? When fixing the issue to taste can be done in a sidebar in the DMG?

Mercutio01 said:

I don't like it in my D&D.

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That's fair enough, but I think D&D's always left room for it. In AD&D, you thrust and parry for a minute, then you get in your hit. Did you strike well? Did your opponent accidently trip in a pot hole and drop his/her guard? The abstractness of D&D's resolution mechanics seems to leave this sort of thing open to narration in a way that it wouldn't be in (say) Runequest.

That's one reason why I think introducing fumble rules into D&D is something of a big deal. Because that's starting to make it definite that a bad d20 roll = bad swordsmanship, as opposed perhaps to simply bad luck.

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION], Wandering Monsters are an interesting example. Because for them to work as you describe, the players really have to buy into the premise of the game as expressd by the XP-for-gp reward system: that the PCs are mercenary adventures looting the underworld. It is very easy, in classic D&D play, to (inadvertently) change this reward system. If you have players who enjoy the game because they want to play out the activities of heroes in the mythic underworld - and the game (I'm thinking now of Moldvay Basic) certainly doesn't discourage this, with its description of victory against the dragon tyrant in the foreword, and its modestly-stated preference for Lawful alignment - then the ostensible reward system of levelling up by collecting gold breaks down, and the real reward system becomes something more informal, like pleasure in playing out the heroic activities of the PCs, and then there is pressure (i) on the players to have their PCs tackle wandering monsters, who presumably are as wicked and nasty as the non-wandering ones, and (ii) on the GM, or perhaps the group as a whole, to bring the formal reward system into line with this new underlying premise (witness 2nd ed AD&D and later).

Reaction rolls are also interesting. As I posted on KM's FitM thread, these are frequently used to generate new fictional content. Consider a reaction roll of an innkeep when the PCs enter the inn.

On one approach, the GM already has worked out a personal history of the innkeeper, including that he hates mages, because 10 years ago the wizard's college forcibly conscripted the innkeeper's youngest son when he began to exhibit signs of "the gift". The PCs' party incudes an obvious wizard (robes, staff) and so the GM applies a penalty to the recation roll. No fortune in the midle here; it's at the end (although the players are probably unaward of much of the already-established fiction that informs the resolution).

But here's another way the same scene could go. The PCs walk into the inn. The GM has no notes on the inn or its keeper, and so rolls an unmodified reaction roll. The dice come up low - the innkeeer is unfriendly, even hostile! Why?, wonders the GM. And then invents a backstory to explain the innkeepers unfriendly reaction: ever since the wizard's college forcibly conscripted the innkeeper's youngest son - when he began to exhibit signs of "the gift" - the innkeeper has hated wizards and those who associate with them.

Often there is a unspoken assumption in discussions of GMing, world building etc that the first of these ways is the "right" way to play, and the second way, involving spontaneous creation of backstory by the GM, is a second-best. But I'm a big fan of a system that makes it easy to generate content spontaneously as in the second approach, in part because I think that this second approach helps resolve the question of how do we change the situation in ways that (i) are interesting and (ii) don't give rise to conflicts of interest. (As well as reaction rolls, I think something similar is at work in the successful adjudication of a 4e skill challenge - at least if the example of play in the Essentials book is meant to be taken as a guide - and also in the resolution of failed checks by reference to Intent in priority to Task in Burning Wheel.)

[MENTION=11300]Herremann the Wise[/MENTION] - I get the sense that you like the aesthetic of the wound/vitality split, but I'd be interested to hear you say a bit more about (i) what sort of play you see it pushing towards and underpinning, and (ii) why keep the hit point component at all (and eg if hp are sometimes luck, why can't I get lucky even if I'm surprised critted - or to put it another way, does a wound/vitality split create some pressure to decrease the metagame component even of the hp side?).

pemerton said:

Wandering Monsters are an interesting example. Because for them to work as you describe, the players really have to buy into the premise of the game as expressd by the XP-for-gp reward system: that the PCs are mercenary adventures looting the underworld. It is very easy, in classic D&D play, to (inadvertently) change this reward system.

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Good point! That is precisely what we did back when I first started to play, in order to deliver on some of the promises of the game - specifically the intro in B/X.

pemerton said:

Reaction rolls are also interesting. As I posted on KM's FitM thread, these are frequently used to generate new fictional content. Consider a reaction roll of an innkeep when the PCs enter the inn.

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That's a good example. I prefer DM-side mechanics that work that way because it keeps me "honest": given the authority granted to the DM, it's easy for me to unconsciously force play towards the way I imagined the situation playing out when I created it. Reaction Rolls are one way that helps me act as "impartial arbiter", yet still allows for a wide range of creative input. Those types of mechanics act to relieve the responsibility I have and make the game easier to run for me.

And now that I think about it, maybe Wandering Monster checks + Reaction Rolls are not Fortune at the Beginning. I'm not really sure what that would look like - roll dice before you decide what you are rolling dice for? So probably FitM. Anyway, it's not a big deal.

LostSoul said:

And now that I think about it, maybe Wandering Monster checks + Reaction Rolls are not Fortune at the Beginning. I'm not really sure what that would look like - roll dice before you decide what you are rolling dice for? So probably FitM. Anyway, it's not a big deal.

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I'm not sure either. I thought that WM + RR in the dungeon context is maybe about as clse to FatB as you're going to get. In my RR example I thought it was closer to FitM, because there is already an ingame situation unfolding (the PCs have entered an inn and hailed its keeper). As you say, I don't think precise categories are that important here.

LostSoul said:

I prefer DM-side mechanics that work that way because it keeps me "honest": given the authority granted to the DM, it's easy for me to unconsciously force play towards the way I imagined the situation playing out when I created it. Reaction Rolls are one way that helps me act as "impartial arbiter", yet still allows for a wide range of creative input. Those types of mechanics act to relieve the responsibility I have and make the game easier to run for me.

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Isn't this a special case of the general rationale for using dice for resolution - they frame input and create surprise while preserving the agency of the various participants?

In 4e there is no reaction roll mechanic, but the same sort of discipline on the GM can be generated by a player's successful roll on a skill check, or in the context of a skill challenge.