A discussion of metagame concepts in game design

[The Crimson Binome]

Hit points have never been treated consistently. All you have to do is look at how, even in the early editions, a high-level fighter who was only down half his hit points and not really injured significantly at all might require a cure critical wound or similar higher magic to heal. Meanwhile the princess you just rescued can be brought from near-death too full with just a cure light wounds.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the Hit Points are inconsistent; it could just means that the spells are inaccurately named. (It doesn't necessarily mean that, either, though.)

Suffice it to say, at any given table, it was entirely possible to play the game while treating HP damage in a consistent fashion and describing the effect as it happens. I could name three such internally-consistent models, just off the top of my head.

 

[Arilyn]

Hit points have never been treated consistently. All you have to do is look at how, even in the early editions, a high-level fighter who was only down half his hit points and not really injured significantly at all might require a cure critical wound or similar higher magic to heal. Meanwhile the princess you just rescued can be brought from near-death too full with just a cure light wounds.

Numerous threads and arguments have gone on about HP, regardless of the edition. Heck some are preserved in the early books. That's hardly the hallmark of a consistent mechanic.

Yes, HP in DnD has always been a mess. Are they an actual representation of physical damage or skill? Why do they go up so fast? How come there is no actual pain involved in getting wounded? Wouldn't cure spells make way more sense if they cured a percentage, rather than a number?

Are they fatigue, cuts and bruises or actual serious injury? There is no firm answer. Best not to examine the issue too closely. So yeah, pretty meta, or at least so far into the abstract that there is no bearing on reality.

 

[Ratskinner]

Don't you agree that you calling it "the fiction" indicates a certain perspective on playstyle? It's not about feeling and thinking as your character. It's about creating a story with your character but the player does not share anything with the character (talking viewpoints here).

No. At least no more than calling it the "story" (as you just did) or the "gameworld" (which seems to common parlance, IME.) Its a term we use when talking about the game or gameplay. Refusing to acknowledge that we will be creating a fictional narrative while we play the game seems delusional to me.

They are an abstraction, perhaps a poor one, and not metagame. The player has to interpret information coming from the DM and translate it down to the character. Once he has received the information, the character can then act as the character. It is a conceit of all roleplaying games that information has to be passed verbally from the DM to the player to the character. As long as the information describes the world etc.. then it's not metagame. Hit points are just a way of telling the character how close he is to death. We can have another thread and argue what THAT means but abstractly it means that. In my campaign, that is absolutely character knowledge.

Wouldn't it be better if you actually had information about the injuries (or lack thereof) that the character had suffered? Any information about the type, cause, or nature of your wounds disappears (dare I say disassociates) into that abstraction. How many injuries did you suffer? How bad were they and who or what caused them...all gone. If you pay careful attention to the narrative at a D&D table, things get ridiculous in a hurry. Wounds appear and disappear without Fate at least gives you half a shot at that.

I have never once, thought to myself "I have 13/22 of my vigor, skill, luck, divine providence, or any of that other stuff Gygax describes HP as being, left." Have you? I submit that a combatant who pauses to do the accounting homework that my players often do would be dead. IRL, a warrior doesn't think "another swing of that sword and I'm dead." because ANY/I] swing of that sword could kill them. I suspect any realistic combatant who took the time during combat to do the HP accounting that my players do would be dead.

If anything, HP are a pacing mechanic, and not much else.

It is related to that. So you have character view only, director, and author. I want character view only. A director will make decisions for the character that cannot possibly be character decisions. Like accepting a fate point. An author will go further. An author will as the player be able to actually bring new information into the world that does not come from his character's genuine knowledge. So all three of these approaches are popular. They probably were discovered in the order I listed them.

HP definitely break that character view for me (Not in a huge way, mind you, but still it grates). From what I can tell, the only thing that keeps it from being so for folks like you is familiarity. For me, Fate points (and the compel mechanic you seem to be focusing on) don't. "You took 14 points" is a non-fictional abstraction, and immediately mechanical and not character-facing. "Since you're an Unrepentant Alcoholic Doesn't it make sense that you'd spend the night in the bar?" isn't, that's just playing the character as described.

 

[Ratskinner]

That doesn't necessarily mean that the Hit Points are inconsistent; it could just means that the spells are inaccurately named. (It doesn't necessarily mean that, either, though.)

Suffice it to say, at any given table, it was entirely possible to play the game while treating HP damage in a consistent fashion and describing the effect as it happens. I could name three such internally-consistent models, just off the top of my head.

All I can say is that years (decades now) of debate and argument and multiple DMs running them different ways would argue otherwise.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

All I can say is that years (decades now) of debate and argument and multiple DMs running them different ways would argue otherwise.

That doesn't actually go against what I said. I said that, under the previous rulesets, you could run Hit Points in a consistent manner at any given table. There might be a difference in that interpretation between different tables, and individual DMs might not agree on what the best interpretation was, but any one of them could run Hit Points in a way that made sense to them.

It's only since 4E that HP damage has needed to remain uncertain, such that it could only be explained in retrospect.

 

[Emerikol]

No. At least no more than calling it the "story" (as you just did) or the "gameworld" (which seems to common parlance, IME.) Its a term we use when talking about the game or gameplay. Refusing to acknowledge that we will be creating a fictional narrative while we play the game seems delusional to me.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your use of that word. My observation has been that people with your playstyle preferences are more apt to use the term the way you did but that is anecdotal.

Wouldn't it be better if you actually had information about the injuries (or lack thereof) that the character had suffered? Any information about the type, cause, or nature of your wounds disappears (dare I say disassociates) into that abstraction. How many injuries did you suffer? How bad were they and who or what caused them...all gone. If you pay careful attention to the narrative at a D&D table, things get ridiculous in a hurry. Wounds appear and disappear without Fate at least gives you half a shot at that.

I'm not seeking an absolute simulation. I am though wanting the information to be character information. And the player is the one who calculates and interprets. The character is acting on what would likely be instinctual knowledge. And in my games wounds don't appear and disappear without magic being involved. I can imagine that magic can in theory do anything and is constrained mainly by the type of game you desire.

I have never once, thought to myself "I have 13/22 of my vigor, skill, luck, divine providence, or any of that other stuff Gygax describes HP as being, left." Have you? I submit that a combatant who pauses to do the accounting homework that my players often do would be dead. IRL, a warrior doesn't think "another swing of that sword and I'm dead." because ANY/I] swing of that sword could kill them. I suspect any realistic combatant who took the time during combat to do the HP accounting that my players do would be dead.

I explained this above but let me emphasize it. The character is not thinking about numbers. The player gets the number from the DM and it is interpreted down to the character. This is necessary because the DM is our senses and language is our medium. The DM paints a picture and the character view comes into focus by filling in the details. So when you are in a terrible fight and are being driven back and are taking a few wounds, your anxiety over potential death will be the same anxiety generated by dwindling hit points.

HP definitely break that character view for me (Not in a huge way, mind you, but still it grates). From what I can tell, the only thing that keeps it from being so for folks like you is familiarity.

That is a common accusation but for me it is not a correct description of my thinking on the matter. Abstract descriptive information about in game state used to convey information to a character is different from a player driven mechanic happening outside the character's mind and which the character would likely not choose. And I have no issue with anyone objecting to Hit Points for a variety of reasons like you don't like that level of abstraction. My only assertion is that I am consistent in what I like.

For me, Fate points (and the compel mechanic you seem to be focusing on) don't. "You took 14 points" is a non-fictional abstraction, and immediately mechanical and not character-facing. "Since you're an Unrepentant Alcoholic Doesn't it make sense that you'd spend the night in the bar?" isn't, that's just playing the character as described.

If my PC was an unrepentant alcoholic, I wouldn't have to nudge him to spend a night in the bar. He's just roleplay that he did that.

Look, I'm not trying to make you quit playing Fate or using Fate points. I'm just not interested in systems where the player chooses to use some abstract pool of points based on nothing in game to achieve advantages. So hero points, luck, fate points, bennies, are all not the kind of thing I'm interested in playing.

I do concede that Fate has an interesting take on how and why you get Fate points. I bought the game just out of interest and I've read the book. So I'm not hating on Fate and I wish people well who want to play it. It would be like me hating on the game of Sorry because I like Monopoly better. It really is about taste.

 

[Emerikol]

Emerikol there was a whole generation of fantasy RPGers who, because they disliked metagame mechanics, dropped D&D for metagame-free systems like RQ, RM and the like. (At the time, these were promoted as "realistic" systems.)

I think your mistake is you are confusing metagame with realistic. Hit points are undoubtedly an unrealistic abstraction even when used as I use them. They are though the reality of the D&D world. Hit points do represent how close your character is to death. That is real in game knowledge. So a player being told he takes 14 damage and the player then conveying that knowledge to the character (This would be no different than a DM describing a serene lake) is not metagame.

I don't doubt in those days there were people wanting more realistic games. So a wound system could be added or not added. Added wounds though would not in any way make the game more or less metagame. It's about players doing things that affect the game world which the character could not do himself nor even imagine doing himself.

And I am not going to say that some unrealism doesn't bother me. It's all a matter of degrees. I'm just saying this thread is not about realism.

Those systems all drop AC. They all drop combat-as-hp-attrition. (Though they may use hp for other purposes - as meat points in RQ, as a measure of bruising, blood loss and (some) exhaustion in RM.) Armour becomes a source of damage reduction (in RQ it affects damage dice; in RM it affects the attack-and-damage chart, and can also mitigate crit results).

They all drop D&D-style classes. (RQ in total. RM uses class as a device for allocating skill costs.)

They all drop D&D-style casting, which promotes metagame thinking (as in, "What spell load-out do I probably need to beat this bit of this GM's dungeon?").

They all drop XP-from-gold, and move towards a more realistic mode of progression (practice and training in RQ; XP through "hard field training" in RM).

There were, at the same time, D&D players who were proposing different approaches to XP, and defending hp and AC as "realistic" or "simulationist" - which often involved adopting different rules for falling damage, and sometimes for fireball damage also (see eg Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive" in a fairly early number of White Dward).

I am a long-time RM player who has also played plenty of Traveller, RQ and other metagame free systems. I look at, say, AD&D or 3E and cannot see how anyone can see those as metagame free except by dint of familiarity (as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] suggested) - eg the action economy in 3E is obviously metagame, and so is hp as soaking falling damage or dragon's breath in all of them (the parrying rationale only makes sense of a fairly narrow category of melee combat).

If I had your preferences, I would be playing RQ, RM or HARP - or perhaps HERO or GURPS (I don't know those systems as well, though.)

No. If you understood my preferences you'd be doing what I am doing. It's clear from all those examples that this division in the hobby was not at all about metagaming. It was about realism and maybe to a degree simulationism if you want to go there.

The real key here is what does the character know. You will claim that your characters don't know about a lot of things that I will claim my characters know about. My characters know the perhaps unrealistic abstractions of D&D. They know what HP represents. They wouldn't use the term HP but they'd know their general well being. They know how hard it is for them to be hit. They know this stuff. It is highly abstracted so maybe some don't like abstractions. I like them in some instances but not in others. None of it is about metagaming though.

I'd probably separate RQ/GURPS/HERO from D&D by the term low or high fantasy. Another example is WOIN. It is on the GURPS end of the spectrum but it has metagame elements. You can be a highly realistic game (not saying WOIN is highly realistic) and still be metagame. It's about player/character view and how you derive your pleasure from the game.

 

[Emerikol]

So to answer your question, possibly 3-4 attributes.

I don't think I'd go this route but I think I would come up with a different set. Game design is always fun.

I didn't like Numenera's approach. I love Monte Cook's work in the past especially Ptolus so it saddens me to lose him to mostly his own stuff. But hey he is doing well so I wish him well. I just feel the loss on the D&Dish side of the world.

In fact I think Ptolus is the finest roleplaying product ever made that wasn't a full system.


As for spells, I liked vancian because preparation is something I like. Trying to figure out the best setup for a particular adventure / encounter can be a lot of fun.

 

[Shasarak]

Multiclassing and dual classing are both fraught with peril in my book. Multiclassing if you don't do it right up front doesn't feel right to me. In 1e, 2e, the only multiclassing we did was right at the start you took fighter/magic user. You'd never go to 5th level as a fighter and then take magic user for a few levels. That style didn't come around until 3e. We never did it then.

1e multi classing is way to metagamy for me and I love the meta game. If you play a Fighter who because of game reasons wants to become a Cleric then you are stuff out of luck if your stats are not exceptional and if you are not human. 3e fixed that problem.

 

[pemerton]

Hit points are undoubtedly an unrealistic abstraction even when used as I use them. They are though the reality of the D&D world.

I think this is quite an idiosyncratic view.

I would say that the reality of the D&D world is that people suffer light, serious and critical wounds, suffer maiming (which requires Regeneration to heal), and have mystical "life essence" which some undead can drain and which requires Restoration to restore.

Nothing in an D&D rulebook or setting has ever made me think that hit points are the reality of wellbeing and injury in the gameworld.