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

[FrogReaver]

Other examples

I am fated to die by fire and take double damage from it.
(luck flavor)

My divine connection wants me to experience the purity of flame
(one divine favor flavor)

My god themself is a god of meadowlands and is ill equipped to deal with fire. (another divine favor flavor)

Realistically, the only way you can narrate damage in D&D is after combat is completed. There's no other way to do it since narrating any damage in the moment can be contradicted quite easily at a later moment. Was that wound lethal? Well, you didn't die and you dropped a second wind resulting in you gaining more than 1/2 your HP, therefore, you aren't wounded at all.

Any attempt to define HP during combat is bound to fail.

Well... any attempt to narrate it as meat can fail.

That’s one of the biggest objections to non-magical healing abilities as well. Magical healing covers all possible hp loss narrations. Non-magical healing specifically excludes bodily harm because it can’t heal that.

 

[Garthanos]

Well... any attempt to narrate it as meat can fail.

I think AD&D justified the meat damage narration at zero hit points but not significantly before then.

 

[FrogReaver]

that might be my longest one yet, though i feel like i did good work in that long section near the end i accidentally stopped capitalizing.

When you respond to everything someone says with nearly twice as many words...

Let’s just say if you were in a discussion with yourself then y’all would only last about 20 posts with each other before it head realistically be impossible for you to respond to each other.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think AD&D justified the meat damage narration at zero hit points but not significantly before then.

Imo every edition does as something significant enough to fictionally render you unconscious must occur between 0 and 1 hp

 

[Garthanos]

Non-magical healing specifically excludes bodily harm because it can’t heal that.

The explicit distinguishing battlefield inspiration healing from afflictions / impairing wounds just acknowledges this... It do think they needed to make wounding an explicit option in 4e (it seemed obvious to some of us that afflictions were under-developed concept). Kind of akin to what 5th edition did with its optional rule.

Imo every edition does as something significant enough to fictionally render you unconscious must occur between 0 and 1 hp

However a natural regenerative who takes more risks and real wound integrates well by converting the physicality of the meat damage into fatigue and strain. So that the modern bard or the warlord can enable the heroes to dig deep and refresh themselves. (I also like the awesome being in the hero not so much his go go juice or wands of clw or whatever)

 

[Tony Vargas]

gameplay is the common noun for all the mechanical properties of a game which make up its subordinate concepts. abstraction does not mean abstract.

Not how it seemed in the discussions I found of ludonarrative dissonance. Certainly, mechanics contribute to gameplay, but, also, clearly, so do other things - at least in the native contexts of the term, video games. In TTRPGs, other things, like the DM, will clearly contribute on both the ludic and narrative planes.

where is the narrative part? probably somewhere you chose to omit

In a CRPG, there's a narrative established by the game, the role (or available roles you choose from) you'll be playing, the backstory of that character, their motivation, beliefs, objective - and, via needing to complete certain things to advance, and cut-scenes between them, and other devices I may not be familiar with, an actual 'story' that unfolds in a certain way or branching set of possible ways.
That's a lot of establishing narrative.
The dissonance comes in when the gameplay that emerges from the game's mechanics & player's choices is at odds with that story. If the story paints the PC as a noble hero, unwilling to kill without cause, and the play is open to the PC just slaughtering his way through levels, bystanders included, was one instance I saw.

That would only seem to apply to RPGs when they're being payed in a 'storytelling mode' from the GM side of the screen (as opposed to troupe-style storytelling), or when there's a pre-packaged adventure with an over-arching story presented.

So, I might see ludonarrative dissonance happening in the context of a TTRPG, in an 'Adventure Path' style product. But, not in the details of one mechanic.

what i said
your response
what i said
your response

Like I said, you go on way too much about this sorta stuff (also, in this context, it vanishes as soon as I hit 'reply,' so really pretty useless).
I'd prefer to focus on any relevant points...

an abstractions function is to be able to be a general noun for all subordinate concepts under it and connect them to any related concepts if the abstraction of "ball" does not relate all of the subordinate concepts it has to all of its related concepts then what purpose does the abstraction "ball" serve for those subordinate concepts?

So if you were reading about an abstract concept of a ball, and it said "a 'ball' can be any roughly spherical object used in a game, whether made from synthetic or natural rubber, leather, or even horsehair" should that really be taken to exclude ping-pong balls, because they're plastic? And, if you did take it that way, would it invalidate the abstraction?
Because that seems an odd and unnecessary bar to decoding the concept.

your consistantly missing the point here.

The point is that you are making a category error. You expect two different things to be the same, and consider the fact that they are different a problem.

IRV (just going to use that acronym)

If you are going to use an acronym, please type it out at least once. To me "IRV" means "Independent Re-entry Vehicle." Because child of the cold war.

How can any creature lose hitpoints due to this damage type? = A
Within context of the rest of the games mechanics what can immunity, resistance, or vulnerability represent? = B
What subordinate concepts of a creatures hitpoints do the representations that immunity, resistance, and vulnerability apply to given this damage type? = C

I believe we've gone over this quite thoroughly. The lethality of an attack or hazard is measured in hit points. And the capacity of a creature to minimize that lethality is also measured in hit points.
But the creature is not an attack/hazard, and the attack/hazard is not a creature.
Immunity/resistance and vulnerability are qualities of the creature that make certain attacks more or less lethal against it.
Damage type is a quality of attack that can be referenced in determining if those creature qualities apply.

It's all at least as consistent and sensible as anything else in D&D.
(Which, no, is not saying much.)

color coding, my editing is improving? maybe. (#666666 and #999999)

Futile. I use browser accessibility settings: everything appears in the same font, size, and color.

a clear missing the point of my arguement which i give context later to

Try stating the point clearly and concisely.

theres no other way to lower your hitpoints besides a reduction in the 4 subordinate concepts of damage

Only if you believe that list was exhaustive. I see nothing in the phrasing to imply that must be the case. Any argument that rests on a natural language list being exhaustive, when it doesn't explicitly state that it is such, is doomed to failure.
Find another leg to stand on. That entire line of reasoning fails before it starts.

mostly just did this color coding thing here specifically to show everyone just how much you cut

More and more will be cut, as you add more and more extraneous verbiage

If you try to state you case concisely, you may finally realize you have nothing.

most of what you get wrong here is based on your lack of understanding what an abstraction is as explained

Look up abstraction.

so how do you know youve been stabbed? is the amount of hp you lose a combination of physical and the rest because you then react to being stabbed and thus the rest of the damage from being stabbed comes through with your reaction?

You don't need to know, in the intellectual sense, that you've been stabbed in order to react to it.
How do you know to snatch your hand away when you touch a hot surface? You don't, it's a reflex. After, you may or may not know, for certain, it was a hot surface - it may have been a chemical burn, for instance. But, if you were innately vulnerable to one, and mystically resistant to the other, they would likely be very different experiences.

how would a character know they have lost luck from an attack

Maybe they'd just get a feeling that "their luck was running out" - you do hear characters say that sorta thing.

im sure your saying all 4 subordinate concepts are applying at the same time so long as any physical durability is reduced

No, I'm saying, because hps are an abstract (look it up) mechanic, it doesn't matter which of those factors (and/or other similar factors), in which proportion, 'really' happened. The point of an abstract mechanic is that you /don't/ need to deal with those details.

but if a character's physical durability being reduced means that all other subordinate quantities that make up a character's hitpoints are reduced an equal measure, then whats the point in having them?

Same or different proportions doesn't really matter - they could all come up in any specific instance, they could be applied in very different proportions in the same hypothetical instance, because, for one possible instance, the available proportion is different at that moment.

The point of, instead, tracking every possible factor that might help the character avoid the lethal effect of an attack, would be to model the combat in excruciating detail, but that's not practical nor of any great value in the TTRPG in question. So there is no practical worthwhile point to having any one of those things modeled in detail (nor any one of them explicitly excluded), that's why we use the abstract measure of hps, instead.

 

[Garthanos]

Maybe they'd just get a feeling that "their luck was running out" - you do hear characters say that sorta thing.

"Boy that was lucky I surely cannot keep this up" runs through characters head... (they start feeling concerned) the Warlord sees the look on their face and says buck up chum we are gonna tear them a good one. The priest says the divine will lead the way. And the bard mentions how the character is so like a family hero.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Imo every edition does as something significant enough to fictionally render you unconscious must occur between 0 and 1 hp

Of course, it could by 'psychic damage' in a modern edition, or 'belief in an illusion' damage (among other things) in the TSR era.

So many ways to die, in D&D - some without leaving a mark on you.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

so ive decided that this is really the only thing im going to argue about here for now. i kinda dont care as much about the rest anymore because frankly ive kinda defeated myself on the arguement of what hitpoints can be as i created an arguement to explain the best arguement i could think of to argue that hitpoints have to mean something more specific in a specific context.

what i said

Why not? The requirements of an abstract is that its related concepts must have a relationship with all of its subordinate concepts. damage must relate to hitpoints by definition, what damage says about hitpoints relates to hitpoints. creatures must relate to hitpoints by definition, what hitpoints says about creatures is related to creatures by definition, creatures have immunity, resistance, and vulnerability, those concepts relate to how damage applies to hitpoints of the creatures.

your response

I am aware of no such requirement, whatsoever. Where are you getting that? That there are even necessarily "related" or "subordinate" concepts to an abstract idea or rule, let alone that they must have relationships to eachother?

my retort

an abstractions function is to be able to be a general noun for all subordinate concepts under it and connect them to any related concepts. if the abstraction of "ball" does not relate all of the subordinate concepts it has to all of its related concepts then what purpose does the abstraction "ball" serve for those subordinate concepts? now individually those subordinate concepts can have their own related terms that dont connect with the abstraction "ball" or other subordinate concepts within the abstraction "ball" but it must be able to be connected to related concepts to the abstraction "ball" to be under the abstraction "ball".

this word were using has a definition, im surprised youve been using it so much without knowing it. thats going to frustrate people you argue about it with. i know i sure am

your rebuttal

So if you were reading about an abstract concept of a ball, and it said "a 'ball' can be any roughly spherical object used in a game, whether made from synthetic or natural rubber, leather, or even horsehair" should that really be taken to exclude ping-pong balls, because they're plastic? And, if you did take it that way, would it invalidate the abstraction?
Because that seems an odd and unnecessary bar to decoding the concept.

good ol definition of abstraction as you later tell me to look up what an abstraction is, despite using its definition for days Abstraction - Wikipedia im not going to quote it this time.

you've created an abstraction "ball" and in the abstraction "ball" you listed the definition of what it "can be" which you stated as "any roughly spherical object" (2 related concepts; 1 abstract "object" and 1 specific "spherical" based on the definitions of those words) "used in" (a related concept and abstract) "a game" (a related concept and abstract) "whether made from" (a related concept and abstract), "synthetic or natural rubber, leather, or even horsehair" (a list of subordinate concepts of the "made from" abstraction).

the reason why the subordinate concept of "pingpong ball" can not be added to the abstraction of "ball" is because you state that what the ball can be "made of" is any of those subordinate concepts listed by "made of" though im not sure if plastic counts as a specific concept under the abstract "synthetics" or not.

what your last question is isnt completely clear but ill just answer it in a way that might apply to both questions it could possibly be. the invalidity of the abstract "ball" depends on it its related concept "made of" being consistent, if you decided that the "ball" abstraction could have the subordinate concept of "pingpong ball" without "made of" having subordinate concepts that apply to the "pingpong ball" subordinate concept of the abstract "ball" then it wouldnt invalidate the abstraction "ball" it would invalidate its relation with "made of" within the statement you made about its definition, your definition would be wrong.

odd and unnecessary? that's logic, its all about associations, if you create associations that conflict with each other than your statement about those associations must change or your wrong.

what this means for hitpoints is that anything stated about damage is a statement about hitpoints, because hitpoints dont do anything without damage. if a statement about hitpoints conflicts with a statement about damage, then that statement is wrong. hitpoints and damage might be correct in isolation, but if they depend on eachother, they must also not conflict with each other.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

so i've said this a few times now after my last long reply to tony but this is it in a concise chunk

i came up with an explanation for hitpoints where any type of damage in any context of damage can still mean all 4 subordinate concepts of damage are at play at the same time. all you have to do is say that if a character takes any damage, regardless of source, regardless of context, that damage has an net effect where all 4 concepts of hitpoints are lowered. so say you have a blind deaf character who is stabbed. while they technically cant mentally react to damage before it happens, they can mentally react to losing physical durability by losing mental durability, will to live, and luck as a reaction to it, in fact its forced on them. this basically defuses any arguments i can make about how damage has to be one thing at any one time, but on the same token it means that the only way for damage to only apply to one subordinate concept of hitpoints is by being inconsistent with the idea that any form of damage applies to all 4 subordinate concepts of damage at the same time regardless of context.