Be honest, how long would it really take you to notice all of this stuff...?

Neonchameleon said:

The ogre has a physical form. Hit points aren't an inherent part of the game world.

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Hit points aren't an inherent part of the gameworld. They can model an inherent property of some element within the gameworld. But they don't have to.

Consider hit points - or, rather, concussion hits - in Rolemaster, though. In RM a typical 1st level PC has around 100 hits, and falls unconscious if 20 or so are lost. The toughest human warriors tend to max out at around 250 hits, and fall unconscious if 150 or so are lost. There are abilities - both non-magical frenzies and magical/psychic powers - that can change the unconsciousness threshold.

When playing RM, a creature's hits are a measure of a certain aspect of its physique - its ability to withstand pain, bruising and blood loss. Because this doesn't change depending on who the creature is fighting, its number of hits doesn't change depending on who the creature is fighting.

Now consider 4e. In 4e, a creature's hits aren't a measure of any inherent property (physical or magical) of a creature. They measure a relational property of the creature relative to the PCs - roughly speaking, its likelihood of standing against them in combat. Hence it makes perfect sense to change them depending on how powerful the PCs are.

Different RPGs use superficially similar systems for quite different purposes. For me, part of learning to play and GM a game system is learning what purpose(s) its mechanics are meant to serve. Saying that 4e is ridiculous because it doesn't use mechanics for the same purposes that RM does makes no sense to me. There's nothing ridiculous about designing a game to do thing X rather than thing Y.

Lanefan said:

If a Giant (Elite) has 95 h.p. against a 3rd-level party that same Giant has to have 95 h.p. against a 20th-level party, even though those 95 aren't going to last nearly as long.

If a Giant (Minion) has 1 h.p. against a 20th-level party then that same Giant has to have 1 h.p. against a 3rd-level party, whcih is ridiculous, of course.

If a Giant (Elite) has 95 h.p. against a 3rd-level party but that same Giant has but 1 h.p. against a 20th-level party then your game-world's mechanical consistency just went out the window; also ridiculous.

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The gameworld doesn't have mechanics. The game has mechanics. A gameworld, therefore, doesn't have mechanical consistency. This is a property of a game, not a gameworld

In Rolemaster, the number of concussion hits a creature has tells you something inherent about the creature. Change it, and you change what the description of the creature. If this changes without ingame explanation, the gameworld has become inconsistent.

In 4e, the number of hit points a creature has tells you nothing inherent about the creature. It tells you something about a creature only when you relate it to the level of the PCs with whom the creature is fighting. 4e applies these mechanics very consistently, to yield a consistent gameworld.

In Rolemaster, it wouldn't make sense for a giant to have 95 hits against 3rd lvl PCs but 1 hit against 20th level PCs. In 4e this makes perfect sense. Because the games use superficially similar mechanics for really quite different purposes.

Lanefan said:

Hit points are every bit as much a part of a game-world creature's (or PC's) makeup as strength, wisdom, and AC. They're a part of what you are

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This is utterly system relative. It is true in Rolemaster. It is not true in 4e. I don't think it's true of Gygax's AD&D, either, given that he says expressly that with higher levels hit points (for PCs at least) correlate to the blessings of supernatural forces - and blessings aren't a part of a creature's make up, but rather some external benefit bestowed upon it by an outside force.

As Rolemaster (or RQ, or D&D played with hp as meat) shows, it is possible to have a game in which hits points (or something similar) are part of the makeup of a creature. But that is not a mandatory feature of any game using a mechanic of that sort. (In 4e AC does not correlate to any inherent property of a creature either. AC is in part a function of level, and the level of a creature can be adjusted, in conjunction with its status - minion, standard, elite, solo - to correlate with the level of the PCs it is confronting.)

Lanefan said:

Gameplay convenience suggests that off-screen things carry their stats with them at all times as they could become on-screen at a second's notice.

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That's not my personal experience. I've found, through play experience, that 4e's system of multiple-statted creature versions is more convenient than Rolemaster's system. The convenience manifests itself both in ease of encounter design, and ease of and pleasure in encounter resolution.

pemerton said:

Now consider 4e. In 4e, a creature's hits aren't a measure of any inherent property (physical or magical) of a creature. They measure a relational property of the creature relative to the PCs - roughly speaking, its likelihood of standing against them in combat. Hence it makes perfect sense to change them depending on how powerful the PCs are.

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Even if we did want to completely dissociate hit points and go down this road, that logic still doesn't hold. If it's a matter of relative judgement, the PC's hp and capacity to deal damage presumably increase with his level, meaning that relative to a static opponent, the ratios shift in his favor as he gains levels. Changing the other half of the ratio is redundant and unnecessary even if you ignore the in-game implications.

The gameworld doesn't have mechanics. The game has mechanics. A gameworld, therefore, doesn't have mechanical consistency. This is a property of a game, not a gameworld

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Both the game and the world have some kind of mechanics. Presumably, the rules in the book represent an overlapping portion of those mechanics, but even if (for some reason) one wants to assert that they don't the world still follows some set of natural laws. Stuff doesn't just happen randomly.

Ahnehnois said:

Both the game and the world have some kind of mechanics. Presumably, the rules in the book represent an overlapping portion of those mechanics, but even if (for some reason) one wants to assert that they don't the world still follows some set of natural laws. Stuff doesn't just happen randomly.

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There's no reason to assume that there is any meaningful overlap between the rules under which the world operates, and the rules under which the game operates. If you look at modern-era-set games like from CoC to d20 Modern (uggggh) to Smallville you'll see that few of the rules have any really meaningful crossover with the science reality operates on - many will even oppose it.

Ahnehnois said:

Even if we did want to completely dissociate hit points and go down this road, that logic still doesn't hold. If it's a matter of relative judgement, the PC's hp and capacity to deal damage presumably increase with his level, meaning that relative to a static opponent, the ratios shift in his favor as he gains levels. Changing the other half of the ratio is redundant and unnecessary even if you ignore the in-game implications.

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I gather from this that you're not familiar with 4e's mechanics (and/or didn't read all of my post).

When you change the hit points of a 4e creature (eg elite to minion) you also change its level, and hence it AC and to hit bonus, and also the damage and other effects of its powers.

The changes are not redundant and unnecessary. They are fundamental to the play of the game, for those who actually are playing it. For instance, it is the 4e treatment of creature level, AC, to hit, hp etc that made it feasible for me to render a hobgoblin army as a series of phalanxes (ie swarms) and thereby run dramatic encounters between the PCs and said army. That can't be done in Rolemaster in any practical fashion, and I know from experience is boring, not dramatic, to resolve in AD&D.

Ahnehnois said:

Both the game and the world have some kind of mechanics. Presumably, the rules in the book represent an overlapping portion of those mechanics, but even if (for some reason) one wants to assert that they don't the world still follows some set of natural laws. Stuff doesn't just happen randomly.

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I assume by "mechanics" of the gameworld you mean the same thing as "natural laws". Of course whether natural laws cause things to happen, or rather are generalisations of what happens, is a vexed question (see eg David Armstrong vs David Hume).

But whatever exactly those natural laws are, I very much doubt they include such rules as "Roll a die", "Change a tally on a record sheet", etc, which is what game mechanics look like. Game mechanics can, perhaps, model such laws (though even Rolemaster and Runequest, the most simulationionst FRPGs I know, don't aspire very strongly to that - they want to simulate processes, not the laws that one would use to characterise those processes), but they can't be identical with such laws.

Ruin Explorer said:

There's no reason to assume that there is any meaningful overlap between the rules under which the world operates, and the rules under which the game operates. If you look at modern-era-set games like from CoC to d20 Modern (uggggh) to Smallville you'll see that few of the rules have any really meaningful crossover with the science reality operates on - many will even oppose it.

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So you're suggesting that people don't know what their maximum Jump distance is or realize that they have roughly a 5% chance of reaching it? They don't recognize that people seem to be categorized in some class-based function based on what they can do? They don't know approximately how high of a fall they can survive before picking up a potentially lethal wound?

It seems common sense to be that most rules create observable in-world consequences that people would understand. Many of them correspond to some aspect of applied gravity, inertia, or other basic principles of physics. Others are necessarily fantastical, but still eminently comprehensible to the character who's experiencing them (for example, I'm sure wizards know how many spell slots they have).

That doesn't mean your character is picturing the d20 rolling in his head. When someone throws a ball at you and you catch it, you can't articulate the calculus equations necessary to predict the ball's motion, but you know where it's going.

Ahnehnois said:

Of course, though it has its limitations, not everyone thinks that Chutes and Ladders (or 4e) terrible because they're deriving enjoyment from something other than the exercise of skill to sway the odds in their favor.

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You have now shifted from taking potshots at a game, to taking potshots at the players of that game. Enough. Take a few days off.

Folks who think we have not had enough of edition warring, take heed. Enough is enough.

Ahnehnois said:

So you're suggesting that people don't know what their maximum Jump distance is or realize that they have roughly a 5% chance of reaching it? They don't recognize that people seem to be categorized in some class-based function based on what they can do? They don't know approximately how high of a fall they can survive before picking up a potentially lethal wound?

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Given that most people in reality do not know these things in any but the vaguest terms and certainly long-jumping does not even work on a "percentage" basis, sure, I am happy to agree that they probably only have pretty vague ideas on that stuff.

FireLance said:

So, it fails in just about every aspect of a simulation, and it is more of a fantasy role playing game than a rules-as-physics simulation of a world?

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I would say that's exactly where 4e fails. It lost the balance between game and fantasy/adventure world simulation. And, frankly, I noticed that right away and was convinced the game was the first edition of D&D I didn't want to play.

Obryn said:

Oh goodness, no. They're not. The players have one character each, and are invested in fulfilling their goals, leveling them up, guiding them, ensuring their survival, and getting loot.

The DM has the rest of the world, and just because Terry the Butcher might secretly dream of being a dancer doesn't mean I have anywhere near that level of investment in his survival or well-being as my players have for their PCs. That's not my job as the judge and facilitator of a game where people come over to my house to sit around my table and play D&D.

Giving NPCs depth does not give me, the DM, anywhere near the same level of agency over their well-being or actions as the players deserve over their PCs. Because there's only (say) 5-6 PCs in the whole game, and real people - my players - are sitting around playing them.

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I think we're going to have to consider issues like these differences in GMing philosophy. I may not invest as heavily in the well-being of Terry the Butcher as my players invest in their characters in general... but when they encounter him, I will be trying to make him as valid and interesting a character as I can and I will be invested in his survival. That's my job as a GM - to breathe life into the NPCs as the players do the same with their PCs. It has been my experience that the gaming is much more fun that way. I may play a set of orc raiders differently, but then, none of them are likely to have an ambition of becoming a dancer rather than a butcher. Their motivations are more about personal glory and plunder, even at the risk of grave personal harm.

billd91 said:

I would say that's exactly where 4e fails. It lost the balance between game and fantasy/adventure world simulation.

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This is like saying that the failing of AD&D is that it lost an adequate sense of realism.

Gygax, in the introduction to his DMG (p 9), explains that he is not setting out to achieve realism, and this point is reiterated at other places in the game (eg hit point rules, saving throw rules, XP rules, etc). For those who prefer the sort of "realism" that Gygax eschewed, there was Runequest, Chivalry & Sorcery and (not very many years later) Rolemaster. But Gygax didn't lose it - he never had it.

4e doesn't set out to present mechanics for simulating the processes of a fantasy world. It takes for granted that the GM and players can write backstory for such a world without using mechanics. It presents mechanics for resolving player action declarations. It is, in that respect, very close to Gygax's approach with 1 minute rounds and saving throws, and quite a way away from weapon vs armour tables, or 3E's replacement of AD&D saving throws with Fort, Ref and Will. It hasn't lost anything, though, any more than Gygax had - it never set out to achieve it!