D&D 5E ludonarrative dissonance of hitpoints in D&D

[Arch-Fiend]

1. There is a concrete narrative behind hp - it's whatever the DM decides in that instant those hp mean. There's not a simulation behind what hp mean. But that's quite a bit different.

2. Just so it's clear - I've never conceded anything as what you are claiming I conceded has been one of the running themes in my posts since I started responding in this thread.... Nice attempt at spin though

a concrete narrative would imply one that is defined by the rules, yes the narrative can be whatever the dm wants it to be, and the dm can be completely consistent, however that consistency is only subject to the scenario of the hypothetical dm in question not so for the game as a concept outside its play as a tool to be used for play.

it wasnt an attempt at spin, ive just been arguing with a lot of people here so im going to habitually respond with a bit of everyone in my head all at once. its incorrect for me to say concede and apply it to you or most of the people arguing that HP is purely abstract, what i should say is that is what youve been arguing this entire time and while, im not against that you arnt the only people ive been arguing against, will argue against or made this thread for.

Let's start here - What the heck is supernatural durability?

supernatural durability is the interpretation of hitpoints being a supernatural power to endure physical injuries that would instantly kill those of lower level. i think that is the interpritation of the way the entire game works best however i dont think its the best interpretation for the game as hitpoints should be abstract. but the supernatural durability reinforces the natural interpretations that people picking the game up for the first time will likely have about how hitpoints and damage work together.

No idea what you are talking about here

what im talking about there is that if your going to tell me you know how everyone's experience is with this game the best answer i can give you is "same, weird how different what we know is from each other despite it being something we know to be true"

 

[FrogReaver]

There were actually too many ways around them, so I think you mis-remember. Re: poisons, they're not a real issue because they can be handled in a multitude of different ways, but they contribute to the issue of making the system more complicated.

Yea - all the hundreds of issues can each be fixed with a special exception. When that's the mindset there's no wonder they flopped hard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

, and im only arguing for my interpretation of hitpoints to be the standard if WotC insists on a standard existing

Well that's, not an arrogant over-reach.

You're 40 years late for establishing "the standard," the guy what wrote the game already got to it.

5e is nice enough to acknowledge that a DM can up and do whatever he wants, anyway, and gives you unlimited licence as such to narrate damage - or any other success or failure - as you see fit.
Be happy with that.

 

[Don Durito]

But it still solves ludonarrative dissonance, at least to the extent one can expect it to be solved. There are no damage systems that do not create ludonarrative dissonance. They all do - every one I've ever come across - every edition of WoD, every edition of D&D, all the Palladium games (particularly bad when MDC gets involved), GURPS is not great for it, CP2020 has some silly situations, every version of Shadowrun has potentially ludicrous scenarios emerge (including, in what was it, 1E, or 1E and 2E maybe, where you could literally survive a nuke going off), CoC and the d100 games have plenty of problems here. Need I go on?

I think Riddle of Steel may have solved it. In that game you target an area of the body and then you roll to see which segment of that body you actually hit and then you do wounds on that area based on the degree of success and the damage type of the weapon you are using. Then the person damaged is affected by shock and also has any negatives from the wound and has to keep track of bloodloss.

Every round after you take an injury you make a roll to see if you pass out from bloodloss. If not you can try to keep fighting but may suffer big negatives due to shock and broken limbs etc.

So no dissonance, but no doubt a lot more gritty and a lot more complex than most of us actually want to deal with.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm surprised this is still being debated in 2019.

Obviously, unarguably, there is a significant ludonarrative dissonance created by HP. I saw in my game on Saturday, just like I saw it in 1989. Often it becomes a non-issue for weeks or months at a time, yet other sessions it keeps popping up. But it's a Sacred Cow. It's not going to be changed or sacrificed now, because it's part of what makes D&D, D&D. People denying that it creates an issue are being very silly, frankly.

I mean, it's a totally solvable problem, too - as was shown by the Star Wars d20 RPG way back in 2000. All you need to do is separate things out into VP and WP or something similar. You have the VP ablated without any real injury, and the WP for when real injury occurs. You'd need to modify some rules in D&D, and a lot of spells, to reflect this, I mean really it would need a new edition to be done well, but it could be done, if it mattered that much.

But it doesn't matter that much. Not because, as some people rather risibly claim, it isn't happening, or isn't an issue, but simply because it isn't enough of an issue to overcome the fact that it's a simple mechanic that works well in most situations, and is also a Sacred Cow.

I don’t think it even requires significant changes to 5e. Just leave HP as-is, maybe call them VP if you feel it necessary, and say that failed death saves represent serious injuries. Don’t have them reset when the PC regains consciousness, and set whatever recovery method you feel is appropriate. If you’re feeling extra saucy and don’t mind a (mild) death spiral effect, ditch the whole tracking failed death saves mechanic and have failed death saves cause levels of exhaustion instead.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

This is a slight tangent, but I actually do like save or die effects, when they are handled with care. Save or die effects are at their best when no one ever actually has to make the save - when the fact that a creature has a save or die ability is sufficiently telegraphed so that the players have the opportunity to take the necessary precautions to avoid risking being targeted by those abilities. The classic example being the Medusa. If the players know they’re going to be going into a media’s lair, either because that was part of the adventure buy-in, or because they see the petrified forms of its victims long before they encounter it, or both. Then they can make the choice to bring mirrors and/or fight blind, and it makes the eventual confrontation challenging because of the tactics the players are forced to use to avoid the Medusa’s gaze, not because of the gaze itself. But I recognize that such things require the DM to do all the heavy lifting to turn an otherwise unfun mechanic into an opportunity for a fun, memorable encounter. So I think it’s for the best that such abilities have been toned down by default, because it’s much easier for me to homebrew a monster with a true save or die ability when I want one than it is for others to homebrew weaker versions of monsters that have true save or die abilities by default.

my sort of solution to save or "blank" for 3e hasent really been completely playtested yet because i need to get players to at least 20th level before i know how it really goes. it has its flaws but yeah a tangent. specifically i do still want save or "blank" to be part of the game, and doing that while balanced against how harsh it can be is a tough juggle, i may eventually scarp my idea for it and try something else, but i think the concept of save or "blank" is sound just not how it is executed in a larger context of the entire game (and 3e is big game)

 

[FrogReaver]

a concrete narrative would imply one that is defined by the rules, yes the narrative can be whatever the dm wants it to be, and the dm can be completely consistent, however that consistency is only subject to the scenario of the hypothetical dm in question not so for the game as a concept outside its play as a tool to be used for play.

Not my definition of that term. Concrete narrative would simply mean that something has been established in the fiction. Nothing more IMO.

supernatural durability is the interpretation of hitpoints being a supernatural power to endure physical injuries that would instantly kill those of lower level. i think that is the interpritation of the way the entire game works best however i dont think its the best interpretation for the game as hitpoints should be abstract. but the supernatural durability reinforces the natural interpretations that people picking the game up for the first time will likely have about how hitpoints and damage work together.

So question. Do you think new players start playing the game under the natural interpretation that their character has supernatural durability? I don't.

So in either case you are having to change something about how a new player naturally interprets the game. Why do you think changing their interpretation about hp being supernatural durability is better than changing their interpretation about the fictional meaning of damage being ambiguous until the DM declares it as something that makes sense in the fiction?

what im talking about there is that if your going to tell me you know how everyone's experience is with this game the best answer i can give you is "same, weird how different what we know is from each other despite it being something we know to be true"

I never made a claim about everyone's experience. I said there was a typical pattern.

 

[Tony Vargas]

- What the heck is supernatural durability?

The Asgardian or (even funner, because it also embraces exp) Highlander model of hps.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

I think Riddle of Steel may have solved it. In that game you target an area of the body and then you roll to see which segment of that body you actually hit and then you do wounds on that area based on the degree of success and the damage type of the weapon you are using. Then the person damaged is affected by shock and also has any negatives from the wound and has to keep track of bloodloss.

Every round after you take an injury you make a roll to see if you pass out from bloodloss. If not you can try to keep fighting but may suffer big negatives due to shock and broken limbs etc.

So no dissonance, but no doubt a lot more gritty and a lot more complex than most of us actually want to deal with.

well most of us, ive heard good things about riddle of steel, but im kinda married to D&D for as long as i can see. i must remind myself that even though im having fun and i wont just end it prematurely, i must never ever again run a west marches game. life is to short.

 

[Bawylie]

This all makes me picture an hourglass.

Sand, running down from the top portion through a bottleneck to a lower portion. Altogether, it takes one hour for all the sand to empty out of the top portion and collect at the bottom.

But no two grains of sand are exactly alike. So no two grains of sand are ever worth the same exact amount of time. Even those that are bigger and heavier, that we might expect to fall first, must wait their turn to be filtered through the bottleneck.

And yet we’ve never bothered looking at the hourglass and concluding “we’ll this is poorly designed nonsense! The grains of sand should all be precisely alike and should all correspond to the same precise fraction of one hour!” And while we’ve definitely iterated in the design (waterclock, sundial, mechanical watch, atomic clock, etc, etc.), we’ve all accepted an hourglass as “Yeah that’s basically an hour, and a second or two here or there doesn’t really matter.”

If that second or two really did matter, we wouldn’t use the hourglass.

I feel like hit points are in a similar situation. No two hit points are ever alike, and they never represent the same amount of luck, endurance, life, blood, stamina, grit or whatever. They’re not consistent across characters, across instances of damage sustained, and they’re not even valued equally. That last hit point lost is a million times more valuable than the first one lost. And when it’s gone, well, your time’s up.

Functionally, an hourglass and hit points are about the same: good enough for what we’re doing with them.