D&D General Do you think video gamers experience existential crises over the nature of Hit Points?

[Coroc]

I've been confused by things that aren't hit points but are in some ways similar (stamina or magic points, that sort of thing) a few times but as long as the gameplay is fine, I generally don't linger on it.

Meanwhile in TTRPGs, I wish hit points would either shrink significantly or just go away.

Yea partially I am on your side, I love it that in the now level-less DSA your characters health might be the nearly the same throughout the game or lets say 28 in the beginning and 44 in the end. It is DSAs take on bound accuracy, but, they got a wound system, means dropping to 3/4 1/2 1/4 and 5 HP left has severe consequences mechanically depicted as debuffs, and the armor system is based on damage reduction, not on hit chances.

Where I disagree is on low levels, you should have some bolster there. E.g. let us say a 20the level fighter gets 80HP at best, if he starts out with only 10 then it is still 8x as much.

The other application where I bigly agree with your POV is in computer games (Also D&D ones!)
At first level you got 20 HP and hit for 1d8, at 10th level you got 1000HP and hit for hundreds.
But that may be to grant linearity and still a level up experience.

 

[Bohandas]

I remember playing Diablo 2 back in the day. In Diablo 2 you can go back to levels you've already beat and all the monsters respawn, and I remember fighting the world 1 boss again after I was already a bit into world 2 or 3 and thinking "how did this lady get to be one of the seven great evils when she can't take or throw a punch as well as a mook in world 3?"

But that's more leveling in general than just hitpoints

 

[Prakriti]

I remember playing Diablo 2 back in the day. In Diablo 2 you can go back to levels you've already beat and all the monsters respawn, and I remember fighting the world 1 boss again after I was already a bit into world 2 or 3 and thinking "how did this lady get to be one of the seven great evils when she can't take or throw a punch as well as a mook in world 3?"

But that's more leveling in general than just hitpoints

Sort of like in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs when you reach max level after defeating the greatest evils in the universe and becoming the savior of mankind, then a new expansion hits and you go off to a new continent to fight...

Rats.

Yes, common, ordinary rats, just like you did at level 1. Except now the rats are level 80!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Do you think video gamers experience existential crises over the nature of Hit Points?

Short answer: No.

But, y'know, whining at the screen over your precious immersions changes nothing, while DMs can sometimes be influenced.

What is so hard to get, on HP? They are just an abstract endurance metastat, which reflects how long a character is likely to survive a combat.

Ultimately, it's not that hit points are hard to get, it's that willfully misconstruing the abstraction of hps can be used to criticize the game.

That's what EGG's 1979 DMG hp-treatise was, a response to bogus criticisms of the game, by pretending that hit points could only be physical structure - you have twice as many hps? Your character must weigh twice as much! Ha! Stupid, D&D! Come back to the sandtable, kids, and play a realistic wargame!

Look at the good thing about it: you can make the game suitable for all ages.

Nice point, actually. Hit points work for anything from the BS&P of an old Saturday-morning cartoon right up to NC-17.

I bet all those people who think otherwise (e.g. HP down to 10% the PC sure should miss a limb or two already) never argue when magical healing giving few HP, is applied, to interrupt the death saves and put the PC back into the game that the PC technically should not look much better than before.

Of course, it's maaaaagic! (But, yeah, technically, in every edition I can recall, putting a limb back on required something far beyond a mere poor-baby Cure..Wounds spell.)

 

[Uller]

Something I came to realize of late: characters in my D&D games DO behave differently when low on hp. It doesn't require death spiral rules to make you feel like a character is wounded...it can be narrated...

The player of a PC with 50 max hp but only 5 hp left is going to behave very differently than his compatriots who are near full health.

The wounded PC that just took 15 damage from a troll and now knows he is 1 hit away from dropping to 0 hp is going to be looking for an out to avoid going down. He might disengage or risk a single AoO to avoid the full fury of a multiattack action. Or he might spend resources he was going to conserve. Other PCs invariably change their plans to help the wounded friend.

I do the same with NPCs amd monsters...if a wolf pack is attacking the party, the wolf that just took a big hit from the fighter is going to slink away and avoid anymore attacks while packmates move to help its escape. Some monsters become more dangerous, using any unexpended resources they have remaining. Abilities that triggered off the bloodied condition in 4e were cool for this.

But honestly...I have never been bothered by what hitpoints are and are not. They have always just been whatever we needed them to be at the moment.

In a recent game at my table the player of a PC that was low on hp was asked by others if he could do something...he responded "I don't think so...I'm pretty badly wounded."

So I chimed in with "you see Sebastian is bleeding and staggering. He is holding firm against the enemy but you realize it wont be for long..." to which the acting player responded "okay...then I'm healing Sebastian and will cover for him to retreat."

HP worked just fine.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

Roleplaying games doen't require verisimilitude. That is simply one way to make it easier to play a role. Another way to make it easier to play a role is to have simple abstractions that don't require mental effort to process. Hit points are in the later area. Hit Points are a way of saying "I don't care about detailing realism for this part of the role I want to play" -- they prioritize the game aspect (which is required to be an RPG) over verisimilitude (which is not required, but is usually desired).

It's the same with any form of art or entertainment -- some things you just don't care about enough to make a complicated deal of. Original Star Wars is a great example of this. "The Force" is maybe magical, maybe religious, maybe science -- don't care; we don't see any explanation of it or any details, it's just "the force" and that's all the story needs.

Hit points are D&D's "the force". Are they Physical? Magical? Morale? Luck? -- we don't care; all we need is a measure of ability not to fall over and that's all the game needs.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

The day video games suffer from existential crisis is probably going to be a bad day.

Isn't that what happens with Skynet?

 

[cbwjm]

The only thing about hit points I care about in both video games and DnD is whether or not I have any left. If yes, If no,

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*