In the end, it's just a game. There's no sense getting worked up about it. I have a feeling, in the end, this is just a case of, "Let's agree to disagree." It's also why I'll refuse to respond to anyone who decides to take this out of the realm of civil discussion, and into the realm of the childish, the insulting, or anything beyond what this is...a discussion about a game.
Cool, looking forward to the civil discussion, and ready to call it a day with, "agree to disagree" whenever you feel it's appropriate
I actually agree with you here. I even mentioned in my post that I'm willing to accept the oddities of the system, for the sake of fun. Does it throw off the narrative? Yep, sure does. But for me, it's better than the option. And I think this is where we may disagree.
Possibly, but I honestly think it's more because I find the oddities can detract from fun. Responding as I read the post, though, so let's see if I'm right.
Again, I do agree with you here. Simulationist games are rarely fun for most people. Extremely "gamist" games usually start off pretty fun, but it tapers off quickly. The best would be somewhere in the middle.
First of all, I'd consider even the most simulationist game to be very, very abstracted. I mean, you have to heavily abstract things in order to make any game. You definitely have different levels of abstraction, no doubt, and some are much more simulationist than others, but to truly account for details without heavy abstraction is pretty much impossible. That is, really, because you have to leave the description open, and the more ways you can describe something, the more abstracted it is.
So, a system without a called shot system is more heavily abstracted than a called shot system that merely increases your damage, which is more heavily abstracted than a called shot system that disables certain body parts, which in turn is more heavy distracted than a system that describes the type of attack ("you get down on one knee, lunging forward as you duck under your enemies swing, your right first slamming into their gut, knocking the wind from them), which is less abstracted than other systems could be.
I would also argue that the point of having some realism, or roots in realism, or whatever you want to call it, is done, simply because those aspects make it fun, exciting, and interesting. A players character I was DMing for died a couple months ago. He told me, "Man, it's no fun dying." I asked him how much fun he'd have if there was no threat of death. He thought for a moment and said, "The game would be f'ing boring." That's a perfect example of what I'm saying here, and I think you would agree as well. But again, for me, Healing surges fix a serious (in my eyes) flaw with previous editions.
I agree with you about including the roots of realism only to a point. I do think it's done because it's so hard to get away from. Many, many people have a problem feelings immersed in a game when there's no connection to what they know. I have a player who prefers to play humans when possible, actually, because they feel that trying to get into an alien mindset causes them to lose immersion because he constantly have to ask himself if it would be okay to act this way (this is reasonable to a certain extent to me, since I felt alignments did the same thing).
However, immersion is the goal of my group because it's fun. However, immersion isn't the goal for some people. They want strongly narrative play, including director and author stance. These people can definitely appreciate and enjoy immersion, but by setting themselves up to be in a position where they aren't taking a first-person stance on things, they end up losing a lot of potential for true, deep immersion. And there's nothing wrong at all with that type of game. I like it in games like Mutants and Masterminds.
The point, however, is that the game is about immersion to my group because it's fun, but it's not as much fun for other groups to feel as limited as an immersion-first approach can make you. It can really limit your options as a player, and a lot of people want to put the story first, and be really hands-on with it. I can totally understand why that is.
Both approaches, however, tend to include many,
many nods towards realism. Gravity nearly always works. Things can be created or destroyed. People die. RPGs tend to be nods to realism, tweaked by design focus and sprinkled with genre expectations. Realism is the base for most RPGs, in my experience, though not the goal for most. Is it simply because it's "fun, exciting, and interesting"? Maybe, but I suspect it's much easier to do than changing all aspects of realism, and I suspect it's because it gives the players a base for the game right away.
That's not to say that a realistic base cannot involve gravity being different, making all matter in the universe indestructible, and all creatures immortal. It can definitely have that as the base of the game. And while that universe would look drastically different from ours, there would be so many other similarities to ours that it's truly staggering. Just the assumption of sleep, for example. Things like emotions. These things will make massive changes to the game world, and it's much more logistically sound to say, "here's the base, and here's how it's different from the base" than to say, "there's no basis for things, here's how things are."
Hell, back in the mid-90's we were so sick of the whole healer bot/healer stick problem with 2e, we made a bunch of house rules to help us not have to worry so much about having a cleric in a group or at least the requirement for a cleric to memorize tons of heals. The first thing we did was use the 3e cleric spells system (before it was even published). Clerics didn't have to mem heals. The next thing we did (and I forget what we called it) was allow each character to heal half their HP every couple hours with some restrictions (I don't remember exactly how we did this, there were some limits). We ran clericless 2e games without any issues. There were times heals would have been nice, but they were far from needed. Especially the second rule, these were very gamist, but they allowed us to have more fun with the game, so we were willing to suspend disbelief to make it happen.
Personally, I've run campaigns without any magic users in my 3.X-based RPG system. Where everyone is healing wounds naturally (and I slowed down 3.X's healing system!). They didn't have a problem with it. It's going to depend on the group. If your group has a problem waiting for two weeks if you just got really injured, then it'll be a problem. I figure a lot of groups do, but I think people would like to see that as an option in the narrative. By eliminating that option, you can't have a hero be incapacitated for a while, healing up while the bad guy advances his plans, and pushing on
only if it's completely necessary.
That's one of my problems with the "healing to full" rules of some systems, and something I tie slightly into healing surges (I don't know if I should, honestly). But, by doing so, you don't have a situation where your hero is injured and unable to participate while the setting progresses (or story, for the narrative-minded). I like that style of play. It's one reason (though not the main reason) that I eliminated long distance travel magic (well, for free, anyways). If you have to walk, ride, fly, or swim everywhere, time passes. You get to see the setting evolve, enemies fall before you reach them, new enemies rise around you, friends get married, have children die of old age, and the like. I'm sure you see the upsides to it. There are also downsides, though. It prevents people from being constantly in the action. It makes them vulnerable to attacks, and less mobile. Considerable, real downsides to consider.
To that end, though, I think the option of "consistently quick healing by adding an element (via a cleric, or whatever)" or "consistent quick healing at all times (via extended rests or healing surges)" means you've just eliminated a style of play in the name of narrativism. This sort of baffles me, as your story-first approach just eliminated a common type of story from unfolding. I mean, The Princess Bride can't happen now, because Wesley can't be that injured. If you're going to embrace a narrative approach, at least let The Princess Bride be possible!
Seriously, though, I think it is a style issue. Your group didn't like the recovery time, and wasn't sad to see it go. I would be, and indeed was. I also prefer gritty fantasy games, though, so I have more of a niche taste in that regard, in all likelihood.
In other words, it's fun to imagine we're in these situations, and the closer to real life the system is, the more opportunity there is for fun. I do agree.
Well, this, and logistically speaking it's a lot harder to create a game where realism isn't the base. But this is definitely a factor in my mind.
It's funny how much I actually do agree with you. The difference here being, I personally believe (with the exception of the obvious) that Healing Surges make things more realistic. In medieval style combat (like D&D) in reality, you either survived, or you were dead. If you took more than minor wounds, you were likely dead. The healing surge represents the idea of "licking your wounds" or "walking it off" or "rubbin' some dirt on it" or the burst of adrenaline (which are all very real "ideas") you get sometimes.
Which is why I support two pools of abstraction: physical, and "other" (fatigue, luck, fate, skill at dodging, etc.). Keep the physical HP pool relatively small, and keep the other HP pool bigger, and you eliminate a lot of this issue. Now, if you're getting an adrenaline burst, or heroic surge, or whatever, you're recovering your "other" HP pool, which makes perfect sense: it was never physical wounds to begin with.
When I played football in high school, I played both offense and defence. I got tired, I got bruised, scraped, cut, etc because I was on the field for 40 out of 60 minutes. Every 10 minutes or so, I'd get rotated out for about 5 minutes. That 5 minutes was enough to rest myself up and be almost at 100% again by the time I hit the field. That's the kind of thing the healing surge is meant to represent. The name they chose for it was bad because it immediately got people thinking, "Oh, characters can heal themselves now??" when that's not exactly what's going on. And I was the same way when I heard that term, and it immediately through me off. Only through playing the system, and understanding exactly what it was trying to do did I change my mind about it. To me, it was an improvement.
Yep, still in favor of the two pools. This is you getting your breath back. That's part of the fatigue from the "other" pool. The "other" pool sets it up for so many different possible abstractions: fatigue ("you're catching a second wind"), luck ("his sword is going to connect, but your footing buckles, and you slip, falling out of the way before his sword hits you"), fate ("as the arrow comes in directly towards your face, you flinch, closing your eyes as blood and feathers spray you... wait, feathers? Yes, a bird flew into the path of the arrow."), skill at dodging ("you deftly dodge out of the way, stopping what would be a sure strike against a lesser warrior"), or even plot protection ("his weapons doesn't work on you, because you're Rand and it has no chance of hurting you!").
This separation of pools leaves an incredibly amount of narrative abstraction at the table, and it also addresses people who have the problem of physical wounds only sometimes being bad, maybe. It prevents things like falling damage (which would just bypass the "other" HP pool. Step off that 80' cliff? Well, too bad it bypasses most of your hit points. Splat.
I can understand why you feel this way. For me, the benefits of HS outweigh the drawbacks. For you, they do not. And that's perfectly fine! If you invited me to come to a Pathfinder, or 2e or 3e or whatever game, I'd be like, "Date and time? I'll be there!" I just want to play. I prefer 4e, but really, in the grand scheme of things, these are minor issues.
Well, I don't like them for HP as it stands now, but I have a feat in the game I created that allows you to restore your THP (temporary hit points) as a move action. THP in my game is more fatigue than anything else, so it's taking a moment to catch your breath. This makes sense to me, and I wouldn't be against a healing surge mechanic where you get 25% or that HP back or whatever. I'm against it's current implementation, but not it's goal whatsoever.
And, yes, it's a relatively minor issue. Healing surges definitely don't make or break the game for me, or for you, but they definitely augment the play experience one way or the other, depending on the poster
I think this is a very viable idea. I always thought Gary Gygax's description of what HP represent was kinda half-assed. However, I couldn't think of anything better without getting into the ridiculous, so I accepted it. If 5e is around the corner, I would be totally ok with this type of a system. For now, I'm find with healing surges.
That makes sense to me, and I'm glad you like it. I'm not sure if it'll get implemented. I think we'll see even more abstracted mechanics, if the new skill system is the track they're on. Personally, I didn't like Monte's skill system, but I know a lot of people do. It's too abstract for me. Then again, I like narrow skills and skill points, so tastes vary!
That comment about not being ok with HS means not being ok with D&D was tongue-in-cheek. I tend to throw a little hyperbole around to help make a point. My point was simply there's a lot of abstracting in these types of games. D&D is, and has always been, one of the more gamist games out there. Pathfinder, being essentially an extension of 3.5e D&D falls in that category too. For me, it's not much to extend a little more suspension of disbelief to healing surges, for the sake of fun.
I see that, and agree that's D&D tends to be more gamist than a lot of other games I've read about (same for Pathfinder). And I get your feelings on healing surges, and they're valid.
And please don't get me wrong. I don't think healing surges are the end all, be all cure. I personally believe they work well at what they do. If a new system comes out that replaces them, as long as it's not a regression back to what we had before, I'll welcome it with open arms.
I would too, if they separated the HP pools like I've said, or something similar. I think it'd win over a lot of people. At any rate, thanks for the discussion. And, as always, play what you like
