D&D 5E [Warlords] Should D&D be tied to D&D Worlds?

[Ratskinner]

RE: warlords, unity edition, and hit points

The hit point mechanic may suck, but in a way, its faults are genius.

It is its very ambiguity that once unified at least 2 conflicting playstyles.

For years, D&D hit points got away with it.

Arguments about HP as a system and its myriad faults predate 4e by a long stretch....a several edition long stretch. I mean, I've got a list of Gygax quote about HP and several of them are in response to questions/gripes about HP before the publication of 1e. (at least, so I'm told, I haven't been able to verify it)

So, no.

 

[urLordy]

Arguments about HP as a system and its myriad faults predate 4e by a long stretch....a several edition long stretch. I mean, I've got a list of Gygax quote about HP and several of them are in response to questions/gripes about HP before the publication of 1e. (at least, so I'm told, I haven't been able to verify it)

I know its myriad faults predated 4e. The arguments you refer support this. I was talking about actual gameplay. A hodgepodge of player types all at one table.

 

[Savage Wombat]

You know, if modern video games didn't have D&D's arbitrary HP system, they'd have had to invent it - or else have everybody die in one hit like Mario.

 

[Ahnehnois]

You know, if modern video games didn't have D&D's arbitrary HP system, they'd have had to invent it - or else have everybody die in one hit like Mario.

Depending on what kind of games, it's hardly uncommon to see video games with much more advanced approaches to health. It's a lot easier to make a big thing out of hit location, for example, in a visual game where the math is done by a computer than it is to do it in a D&D context.

 

[Manbearcat]

I know its myriad faults predated 4e. The arguments you refer support this. I was talking about actual gameplay. A hodgepodge of player types all at one table.

I've been playing (GMing) for 27 years, through all editions of D&D, and multiple hardcore process simulation games and light narrativist games. I've GMed ever table agenda out there and run games for all manner of people. As long as I can remember, people have been debating the idiosyncratic elements of various player character "staying power" ablative schemes/tracks; HP being at the top of the heap. I think the implementation of, and exposure to, hardcore, granular wound schemes with injury tracks and death spirals caused this examination as much, or more, than the Warlord; specifically because the granularity was so much more in accord with how the HP as meat lobby wanted the process simulated whereas HP worked in the opposite direction in so many grating ways.

That's my recollection of it at least. Trying to get those folks to move back to HPs after those systems was akin to teaching a fish to ride a bicycle.

 

[Weather Report]

Depending on what kind of games, it's hardly uncommon to see video games with much more advanced approaches to health. It's a lot easier to make a big thing out of hit location, for example, in a visual game where the math is done by a computer than it is to do it in a D&D context.

I remember the 2nd Ed Fighter's Handbook: Numbed and Useless points.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That's my recollection of it at least. Trying to get those folks to move back to HPs after those systems was akin to teaching a fish to ride a bicycle.

No kidding. There's no way I'd run a game without at least vp/wp, if not more. Playing with hp is unthinkable.

 

[Obryn]

Well, no, of course not. That would be like saying modern society is possible "because ***SCIENCE***." But that doesn't mean that science isn't still responsible for damn near everything.

Not even close to the same thing. Mundane characters and fantastic characters should both be viable and fun concepts. And the players of the mundane characters should have as much fiat capability as the players of the magical ones.

And indeed, not everything fantastical/awesome does. Your garden variety D&D (non-4e) fighter can do all kinds of fantastical/awesome things, many of them impossible in real life. If it ain't broke...

It is broke, is the problem, pre-Bo9S. And Bo9S still is stuck on "because magic" but at least it's giving more fiat capability to sword-swingers.

...ooh, that seems quite transparently antagonistic, I would just prefer to make the agenda crystalline.

So, what do you want, aside from 4.5?

I've said numerous times I don't want 4.5. I want a bold and experimental 5e that takes direction from modern games. Regressing to "because magic" for perfectly workable metagame mechanics is not it.

-O

 

[JasonZZ]

I've never understood the cadre of D&D players that depises magic to this degree. Admittedly, the game is not called Dungeons & Dragons & Magic, but one might've thought you could infer the third from the first two.

It's not a case of despising magic. It's a case of despising the idea that magic is the source of all awesome--that only casters and supernatural creatures should be capable of epic feats. And correspondingly, the idea that anyone without magic should be a mere lackey or sidekick.

 

[billd91]

I've said numerous times I don't want 4.5. I want a bold and experimental 5e that takes direction from modern games. Regressing to "because magic" for perfectly workable metagame mechanics is not it.

What's a "modern" game and what does magic being the source of really outlandish powers have to do with whether a game is modern or not?