Schroedinger's Wounding (Forked Thread: Disappointed in 4e)

[Derren]

You are ignoring that you can say that the game mechanical event of regaining hit pionts does not mean that there has been an ingame event of repair to the physical injury, but rather corresponds (on that particular occasion) to an ingame event of recovery of the will to fight.

You don't die from a lack of will.

If I asked my group about this thread, they would definitely tell me that I am thinking too much about it and let's just friggin play!

Some people simply don't want to play a game where they have to force themselves not to think in order to ignore all the holes the games has.

 

[Hypersmurf]

You don't die from a lack of will.

George Lucas says "Nuh-uh!"

... but seriously, pemerton's not suggesting someone should die from a lack of will; he's suggesting that a bolstering of that will might permit someone to continue despite wounds that would incapacitate a lesser man, or grant them the presence of mind to partially avoid a subsequent blow that would otherwise have defeated them.

-Hyp.

 

[Derren]

George Lucas says "Nuh-uh!"

... but seriously, pemerton's not suggesting someone should die from a lack of will; he's suggesting that a bolstering of that will might permit someone to continue despite wounds that would incapacitate a lesser man, or grant them the presence of mind to partially avoid a subsequent blow that would otherwise have defeated them.

-Hyp.

But then you should still slowly die, even after the warlord shouted at you (making death saves). But that isn't the case. With enough shouting you aren't even bloodied anymore.

In order for that to work you have to retcon that the PC was dying and had to make death saves.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The rules also don't say that humans aren't purple with antennas and eat through giant nostrils. Maybe that is the way humans are in this world too. We all set different levels of abstraction from our real world when we set up and play in a campaign. From earlier discussions it is also apparent that some people also have issues with people shooting fireballs out of their hands and want to play in a low fantasy world.

Sure its possible that all living creatures heal super fast and recover all their wounds overnight. This is a perfectly valid parameter change from our real world to want to play in. The difference in this case is that all players are forced to play in this super healing world while not everyone is required to play purple antenna humans that eat out of giant nostrils. Most other fantasy aspects of the game are easy to change out if it goes against the type of fantasy they want to play. It is easy to remove Elves, or Dwarves, or Fireballs, it is allot harder to throw out super healing with this ruleset.

Dead easy, characters regain one healing surge per full nights bed rest.
there now, done.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But then you should still slowly die, even after the warlord shouted at you (making death saves). But that isn't the case. With enough shouting you aren't even bloodied anymore.

In order for that to work you have to retcon that the PC was dying and had to make death saves.

With enough shouting, you no longer have the mechanical condition 'Bloodied'. That doesn't mean you can't have any blood running down your face when we film the scene.

And the PC had the mechanical condition, 'Dying', but that doesn't have to mean his wounds were fatal. Just like in 3E, someone can have the condition Dying, and with a successful stabilisation check, the wound wasn't fatal.

Let's say in the middle of a combat, I'm down to 6 hit points. I'm tired, I'm sore, I'm bleeding, and I'm starting to realise that the orc may just be too much for me.

Scenario 1: The orc attacks, dealing 8 hit points of damage.

The orc's sword sweeps in in a looping cut, and my leaden arm cannot interpose my buckler in time; I feel the impact through my armour, and an line of burning ice below my ribs... then the world goes black and I am falling... somewhere, seemingly in the distance, I can hear Strider's voice...

Scenario 2: Strider the Warlord uses Inspiring Word, healing me for 9 points, bringing me to 15. The orc attacks, dealing 8 hit points of damage.

"Don't falter!" Strider cries, in his ringing voice. "This rabble shall soon fall before us!" His words rekindle the flagging fires within me; I see the orc's sword sweeping in in a looping cut, and I smash it aside with my buckler. I grunt at the pain as my already-bruised shield arm protests the abuse, but the orc is left off-balance, and my own sword is already in motion...

-----

The Inspiring Word didn't cause any existing wounds to heal over; rather, it increased my chances of making it through the next successful attack undefeated.

-Hyp.

 

[firesnakearies]

On Earth, as far as the scientific community knows, people who are seriously injured to the point of near-death generally take weeks or months to heal.

- D&D does not claim to take place on Earth.

Homo sapiens sapiens, as a whole, are generally considered to be incapable of forcing their bodies to repair themselves at an accelerated rate, and any reports of such occurances are considered to be freak anomalies, miracles, acts of God, outright lies or hoaxes, paranormal or supernatural, or simply "unexplainable".

- D&D does not claim that its characters are Homo sapiens sapiens.

Normal people, such as you and I and probably everyone we've ever known, are not, in the mythological, literary, or cinematic sense of the term, heroes.

- D&D characters ARE declared to be heroes, right from level one.

The world we live in, modern Earth, is the "real" world, as distinguished from a fantasy world.

- D&D takes place in a fantasy world, as distinguished from our real world.


Apparently, it's considered by many people to be unthinkably "unrealistic" to imagine that the inhabitants of a fantasy world, which is already demonstrably different from our own world in many fundamental respects as regards the parameters of "reality", might experience or willfully cause biological repair of their injured bodies at a rate which dramatically exceeds that which is commonly believed to be possible for Homo sapiens sapiens here on Earth.

Apparently, these people find this idea to be so utterly inconceivable, for the heroes of such a world, a world which already contains world-shaking magic, mythical beasts, warring gods, and extraplanar forces -- as a matter of course -- that they automatically assume that any narration of events and effects which would suggest that the aforementioned fantasy heroes are able to repair their serious bodily wounds through sheer force of will, or aided by the impassioned shouts of a battlefield commander, or simply by resting for a matter of hours rather than weeks, would be entirely invalid and a shattering blow to any form of verisimilitude.

So, they say, in order to reconcile the rules of D&D, which seem to indicate that its heroes do, in fact, heal just that quickly and that easily, with their pre-conceived idea that the world of D&D works just like Earth and that its inhabitants have the same capabilities as Homo sapiens sapiens, at least so far as the capacity for bodily repair, we must play some sort of look-the-other-way, wait-and-see, depends-on-the-source-of-healing little narrative-dancing metagame in order for the story as presented in the gameplay to make sense.

And of course, if you're starting from, and unshakably clinging to, the premise that D&D takes place in a world just like Earth, populated with beings just like Homo sapiens sapiens, except with some special effects and costumes tacked on, then sure, you would have to be very dodgy with your narrations and your conceptions of in-game events and effects regarding physical injury and healing. Which would, indeed, lead to the "Schrodinger's Wounding" syndrome that is being decried here.


But D&D, itself, does not insist that we view its game world, or the heroes who adventure within it, in this limiting way. It doesn't even suggest, or remotely hint that we should do so. The idea is coming entirely from outside of the game itself, carried there by the minds of players who, rather unconsciously in most cases, are automatically imposing or projecting the pre-suppositions of modern Earth's scientific thought onto a fantasy world which is in no way bound by any of Earth's perceived physical realities.

D&D tells us that the heroes in its fantasy world can be mauled by axes and savage claws, engulfed in dragon's fire, or mangled in any one of countless other gruesome ways, to the very point of being mere seconds away from death itself . . . and yet, if they don't actually die, even given no aid at all, these stalwart heroes will get out of bed the next day perfectly fine, fit and ready to run a marathon.


Now, we could try to somehow shoehorn that vision of an epic fantasy world together into some kind of bizarre mish-mash with the prejudices we already have about how Homo sapiens sapiens' bodies work here on mundane old Earth. That would be pretty confusing though, and thus we have countless posts talking about just what a confusing mess it is, and proposing all sorts of ways to trick ourselves into ignoring the disconnect, or cleverly narrating around it, or "waiting until we see HOW the character is healed before we declare just what that greataxe blow actually did to him".

We could do that, but as the detractors of this aspect of 4E have made clear in this and many other threads, that's rather silly, and frankly a weakness in the game.

But here's the kicker: We don't have to do that, and D&D itself doesn't even ask us to. Yeah. We could, instead, take the words fantasy and heroes and damage and healing and power source at face value. We really could! We could, instead, accept that D&D isn't happening on Earth, with a bunch of mundane, non-heroic Homo sapiens sapiens sitting around for a month in the hospital waiting for their broken legs to laboriously knit themselves back together.

Seriously, it's not the "real world". It's a fantasy land of dragons and fairies and undead and fireballs and titanic, epic, mythological struggle. It's a world of heroes and monsters. We already accept so much, in this game world, which is apparently impossible or "unrealistic" from the perspective of Homo sapiens sapiens living in a scientific society on modern Earth. Is a simple acceleration of bodily repair, and a greater conscious control over that function by the heroes, really that insanely hard to reconcile with such a wildly fantastical, dramatic, supernaturally-saturated setting?


I say that, given the accepted realities of the D&D world, it's more unrealistic to assign the frailties and limitations of Earth-people to the denizens of this ultra-dangerous place. Why wouldn't the ravenous hordes of evil monsters, the countless armies of extraplanar fiends, the terrifyingly powerful forces of carnage and death have already wiped out these pathetically soft little humanoids by now? If every time a protector of civilization fought the endless tide of bestial fury that hungers to obliterate them, he had to go rest up for three months after a skirmish to get back into fighting shape, don't you think we'd have lost the war by now?

I say that it makes sense. That the heroes in such a fantasy world of such extreme peril would almost have to be capable of repairing their physical bodies miraculously fast, with or without the aid of the gods, or else they wouldn't last very long against the odds they face!


"Schrodinger's Wounding" only applies if you insist on making the world of D&D into a slightly-more-magical-but-still-bound-by-nearly-all-scientifically-assumed-limitations-of-Earth setting, and its protagonists into Homo sapiens sapiens with ear tips, flowing capes, and a handful of magic tricks to throw around.


Let the damage BE damage. Let the healing BE healing. The game doesn't distinguish between a Healing Word, an Inspiring Word, or just a plain old Second Wind. They all, actually, heal the damaged hero. No need to jump through narrative hoops. No need to pretend not to know what that lightning bolt did to the character. Narrate as you wish, free in the knowledge that this isn't Earth, and these heroes aren't just Homo sapiens sapiens thrown into a magical world that's WAY too dangerous for them.


Some dictionary definitions that I like:

Fantasy: Imagination unrestricted by reality.

Fantasy: Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.

Fantasy: An unrealistic or improbable supposition.


Hero: A being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.

Hero: A man of superhuman strength or courage.



"...unrestricted by reality . . . supernatural . . . unrealistic . . . godlike prowess . . . superhuman strength..." These are the terms which describe the D&D world and its heroes. Any wound these characters suffer which does not kill them is merely a temporary setback, and a brief one at that!


There is no "Schrodinger's Wounding", there is only the confusion which arises from trying to superimpose the limitations of one reality onto another reality in which those limitations do not belong.



$

 

[Shadeydm]

On Earth, as far as the scientific community knows, people who are seriously injured to the point of near-death generally take weeks or months to heal.

- D&D does not claim to take place on Earth.

Homo sapiens sapiens, as a whole, are generally considered to be incapable of forcing their bodies to repair themselves at an accelerated rate, and any reports of such occurances are considered to be freak anomalies, miracles, acts of God, outright lies or hoaxes, paranormal or supernatural, or simply "unexplainable".

- D&D does not claim that its characters are Homo sapiens sapiens.

Normal people, such as you and I and probably everyone we've ever known, are not, in the mythological, literary, or cinematic sense of the term, heroes.

- D&D characters ARE declared to be heroes, right from level one.

The world we live in, modern Earth, is the "real" world, as distinguished from a fantasy world.

- D&D takes place in a fantasy world, as distinguished from our real world.


Apparently, it's considered by many people to be unthinkably "unrealistic" to imagine that the inhabitants of a fantasy world, which is already demonstrably different from our own world in many fundamental respects as regards the parameters of "reality", might experience or willfully cause biological repair of their injured bodies at a rate which dramatically exceeds that which is commonly believed to be possible for Homo sapiens sapiens here on Earth.

Apparently, these people find this idea to be so utterly inconceivable, for the heroes of such a world, a world which already contains world-shaking magic, mythical beasts, warring gods, and extraplanar forces -- as a matter of course -- that they automatically assume that any narration of events and effects which would suggest that the aforementioned fantasy heroes are able to repair their serious bodily wounds through sheer force of will, or aided by the impassioned shouts of a battlefield commander, or simply by resting for a matter of hours rather than weeks, would be entirely invalid and a shattering blow to any form of verisimilitude.

So, they say, in order to reconcile the rules of D&D, which seem to indicate that its heroes do, in fact, heal just that quickly and that easily, with their pre-conceived idea that the world of D&D works just like Earth and that its inhabitants have the same capabilities as Homo sapiens sapiens, at least so far as the capacity for bodily repair, we must play some sort of look-the-other-way, wait-and-see, depends-on-the-source-of-healing little narrative-dancing metagame in order for the story as presented in the gameplay to make sense.

And of course, if you're starting from, and unshakably clinging to, the premise that D&D takes place in a world just like Earth, populated with beings just like Homo sapiens sapiens, except with some special effects and costumes tacked on, then sure, you would have to be very dodgy with your narrations and your conceptions of in-game events and effects regarding physical injury and healing. Which would, indeed, lead to the "Schrodinger's Wounding" syndrome that is being decried here.


But D&D, itself, does not insist that we view its game world, or the heroes who adventure within it, in this limiting way. It doesn't even suggest, or remotely hint that we should do so. The idea is coming entirely from outside of the game itself, carried there by the minds of players who, rather unconsciously in most cases, are automatically imposing or projecting the pre-suppositions of modern Earth's scientific thought onto a fantasy world which is in no way bound by any of Earth's perceived physical realities.

D&D tells us that the heroes in its fantasy world can be mauled by axes and savage claws, engulfed in dragon's fire, or mangled in any one of countless other gruesome ways, to the very point of being mere seconds away from death itself . . . and yet, if they don't actually die, even given no aid at all, these stalwart heroes will get out of bed the next day perfectly fine, fit and ready to run a marathon.


Now, we could try to somehow shoehorn that vision of an epic fantasy world together into some kind of bizarre mish-mash with the prejudices we already have about how Homo sapiens sapiens' bodies work here on mundane old Earth. That would be pretty confusing though, and thus we have countless posts talking about just what a confusing mess it is, and proposing all sorts of ways to trick ourselves into ignoring the disconnect, or cleverly narrating around it, or "waiting until we see HOW the character is healed before we declare just what that greataxe blow actually did to him".

We could do that, but as the detractors of this aspect of 4E have made clear in this and many other threads, that's rather silly, and frankly a weakness in the game.

But here's the kicker: We don't have to do that, and D&D itself doesn't even ask us to. Yeah. We could, instead, take the words fantasy and heroes and damage and healing and power source at face value. We really could! We could, instead, accept that D&D isn't happening on Earth, with a bunch of mundane, non-heroic Homo sapiens sapiens sitting around for a month in the hospital waiting for their broken legs to laboriously knit themselves back together.

Seriously, it's not the "real world". It's a fantasy land of dragons and fairies and undead and fireballs and titanic, epic, mythological struggle. It's a world of heroes and monsters. We already accept so much, in this game world, which is apparently impossible or "unrealistic" from the perspective of Homo sapiens sapiens living in a scientific society on modern Earth. Is a simple acceleration of bodily repair, and a greater conscious control over that function by the heroes, really that insanely hard to reconcile with such a wildly fantastical, dramatic, supernaturally-saturated setting?


I say that, given the accepted realities of the D&D world, it's more unrealistic to assign the frailties and limitations of Earth-people to the denizens of this ultra-dangerous place. Why wouldn't the ravenous hordes of evil monsters, the countless armies of extraplanar fiends, the terrifyingly powerful forces of carnage and death have already wiped out these pathetically soft little humanoids by now? If every time a protector of civilization fought the endless tide of bestial fury that hungers to obliterate them, he had to go rest up for three months after a skirmish to get back into fighting shape, don't you think we'd have lost the war by now?

I say that it makes sense. That the heroes in such a fantasy world of such extreme peril would almost have to be capable of repairing their physical bodies miraculously fast, with or without the aid of the gods, or else they wouldn't last very long against the odds they face!


"Schrodinger's Wounding" only applies if you insist on making the world of D&D into a slightly-more-magical-but-still-bound-by-nearly-all-scientifically-assumed-limitations-of-Earth setting, and its protagonists into Homo sapiens sapiens with ear tips, flowing capes, and a handful of magic tricks to throw around.


Let the damage BE damage. Let the healing BE healing. The game doesn't distinguish between a Healing Word, an Inspiring Word, or just a plain old Second Wind. They all, actually, heal the damaged hero. No need to jump through narrative hoops. No need to pretend not to know what that lightning bolt did to the character. Narrate as you wish, free in the knowledge that this isn't Earth, and these heroes aren't just Homo sapiens sapiens thrown into a magical world that's WAY too dangerous for them.


Some dictionary definitions that I like:

Fantasy: Imagination unrestricted by reality.

Fantasy: Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements.

Fantasy: An unrealistic or improbable supposition.


Hero: A being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.

Hero: A man of superhuman strength or courage.



"...unrestricted by reality . . . supernatural . . . unrealistic . . . godlike prowess . . . superhuman strength..." These are the terms which describe the D&D world and its heroes. Any wound these characters suffer which does not kill them is merely a temporary setback, and a brief one at that!


There is no "Schrodinger's Wounding", there is only the confusion which arises from trying to superimpose the limitations of one reality onto another reality in which those limitations do not belong.



$

If you insist on dragging out Hongs tired and lame ass "you're thinking too hard" argument you might have just said as much instead of making us read 20 paragraphs of rant belaboring the point. Making me wish you were Hong != a good thing.

Justify it any way you like it doesn't change the fact that things have significantly changed regarding healing/wounding with the coming of 4E as I stated upthread.

 

[firesnakearies]

If you insist on dragging out Hongs tired and lame ass "you're thinking too hard" argument you might have just said as much instead of making us read 20 paragraphs of rant belaboring the point. Making me wish you were Hong != a good thing.

Justify it any way you like it doesn't change the fact that things have significantly changed regarding healing/wounding with the coming of 4E as I stated upthread.

This response doesn't appear to have anything to do with my post. I guess I just don't understand.



$

 

[Raven Crowking]

You are ignoring that you can say that the game mechanical event of regaining hit pionts does not mean that there has been an ingame event of repair to the physical injury, but rather corresponds (on that particular occasion) to an ingame event of recovery of the will to fight.

No, he is not.

Simply because one does not include the full scope of an argument in every single post, it doesn't mean that the full scope is not there.

In a sandbox game, if you completely disjoin hit points from physical injury, as you suggest, and everyone is always in perfect (game mechanics) health the next day, the problem is worse, not better.

Your "solution" intensifies, rather than solves, the problem.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

This response doesn't appear to have anything to do with my post.

That happens to me a lot, too.

I'll say, "X causes problem Y because of Z" and the response will be about how A solves B with C.



RC