D&D General Maybe I was ALWAYs playing 4e... even in 2e

[GMforPowergamers]

Arguing that fictional explanations are not needed and that the rules don't need to make sense.

actually what I am arguing is that each table and each player gets to decide for themselves what the fictional explanation means and most times it doesn't matter

It's not really terribly important. But that is vaguely related to the portion of the character's HP being lost.

its not important and vauge (and you already said it doesn't make ful sense) but it is terribly important that it be some meat...

 

[Vaalingrade]

J

Arguing that fictional explanations are not needed and that the rules don't need to make sense.

Fictional explanations for HP are not good and the rules make sense if you accept that they are the rules to a game.

The idea that 'every HP has some meat' still results in people who are on the verge of death from a thousand cuts coming back like LL Cool J refuses to acknowledge he did after a rest and spending HD.

Then you have to ask what HD is, and how the characters know what they are and what they're doing when they spend HD, which begs the question of why one should care. Just letting a game element be a game element is less troublesome just in general than trying to theorycraft them into the universe where they don't belong.

It's like the guys who have completely lost their minds over Lightyear because it 'ruins the timeline' of the Pixar Theory, despite the theory being a thing they invented that the creators never intended.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

actually what I am arguing is that each table and each player gets to decide for themselves what the fictional explanation means and most times it doesn't matter

Yes, there can be different fictional explanations and basically what we're doing here debating the advantages and disadvantages of each. But of course if your ultimate stance is that such explanations don't matter (I obviously disagree) then I can understand why you'd might find this annoying. (So sorry about that!)

its not important and vauge (and you already said it doesn't make ful sense) but it is terribly important that it be some meat...

Yes. It is important for the character in the fiction to know that they're injured, so they have in-character reason to seek healing and possibly be careful with further confrontations.

 

[Composer99]

Well, one would expect at least some rudimentary form of roleplaying being a goal in a roleplaying game, but I'm not a gaming police.

If coming up with a fulsome reconciliation of an extremely abstract game mechanic (hit points) and the in-game fiction of combat injury floats your boat, well and good.

However, it strikes me as patently absurd to assert that such a thing is in any way a "rudimentary form of roleplaying", to the point where it comes across as setting up a false dichotomy or some kind of No True Roleplayer argument (whether intended or not). I'm quite confident that the outstanding majority of players are able to roleplay just fine without feeling compelled to undertake such a reconciliation.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If coming up with a fulsome reconciliation of an extremely abstract game mechanic (hit points) and the in-game fiction of combat injury floats your boat, well and good.

However, it strikes me as patently absurd to assert that such a thing is in any way a "rudimentary form of roleplaying", to the point where it comes across as setting up a false dichotomy or some kind of No True Roleplayer argument (whether intended or not). I'm quite confident that the outstanding majority of players are able to roleplay just fine without feeling compelled to undertake such a reconciliation.

Fair enough, this particular thing of course is ultimately a minor matter in the scope of the game as a whole and I didn't mean to imply it would necessarily reflect on one's commitment to roleplaying in any greater extent. I merely do not understand why people would willingly want to create such discontinuities to player and character knowledge when it is not necessary.

 

[pemerton]

I merely do not understand why people would willingly want to create such discontinuities to player and character knowledge when it is not necessary.

They are not doing so. You are imposing that on others.

You've had answers. Recovering hit points is recovering drive and the will to live. Recovering hit points is having heart lifted and tiredness ebb away. Etc. You then ask about how hp differ from exhaustion levels, without (i) explaining how that works for you in 5e (where you have tiredness causing penalties to action, but injury doesn't, and tiredness being harder to recover than injury is - I find both those things quite absurd based on my own experiences of exhaustion and of injury) nor (ii) explaining how either injury or exhaustion differs from stat loss (say, a shadow's STR drain in 5e, or poison in 3E) and how the PCs know that healing magic won't alleviate this but will alleviate that nor (iii) explaining what HD are in 5e.

You are able to cope with the seeming incoherence or dissonance that your conception of hit points generates in relation to (i), (ii) and (iii). Presumably others are able to cope with what you take to be incoherence or dissonance in their preferred narrations of hp loss and hp recovery.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

They are not doing so. You are imposing that on others.

You've had answers. Recovering hit points is recovering drive and the will to live. Recovering hit points is having heart lifted and tiredness ebb away. Etc. You then ask about how hp differ from exhaustion levels, without (i) explaining how that works for you in 5e (where you have tiredness causing penalties to action, but injury doesn't, and tiredness being harder to recover than injury is - I find both those things quite absurd based on my own experiences of exhaustion and of injury) nor (ii) explaining how either injury or exhaustion differs from stat loss (say, a shadow's STR drain in 5e, or poison in 3E) and how the PCs know that healing magic won't alleviate this but will alleviate that nor (iii) explaining what HD are in 5e.

You are able to cope with the seeming incoherence or dissonance that your conception of hit points generates in relation to (i), (ii) and (iii). Presumably others are able to cope with what you take to be incoherence or dissonance in their preferred narrations of hp loss and hp recovery.

Yeah, decent points regarding coherency issues regarding different interpretations, including mine. (I use certain optional rules from DMG to alleviate these, but still.) My original objection was about plot arbour though, and none of the interpretations you offer are quite that. They might be more nebulous that I personally would prefer, but still something diegetic, thus some continuity with mechanics and character motivation is maintained. But yeah, even with plot armour, if it doesn't bother people using such an interpretation, then it of course is fine. I merely pointed out why I'd find it jarring. But this discussion has probably has ran its course and there is no point belabouring it further.

 

[Garthanos]

But it is something! So a character beaten to two HP actually is not diegetically completely fine like you earlier claimed.


That we don't go into detail of the injury doesn't mean that injury didn't happen! As long as HP loss caused some sort of injury, HP is not just a plot armour and is actually diegetic, if imprecise.

In AD&D one could have your full hit points and still remain injured to a degree that you were incapacitated. They were very much a threshold plot armor vs real injury for player characters.

 

[pemerton]

In AD&D one could have your full hit points and still remain injured to a degree that you were incapacitated.

I think this feature of the "going to -10" optional rule in Gygax's DMG is often ignored/forgotten. I don't know if AD&D 2nd ed had the same feature.

 

[James Gasik]

I think this feature of the "going to -10" optional rule in Gygax's DMG is often ignored/forgotten. I don't know if AD&D 2nd ed had the same feature.

It was actually optional (called Death's Door) in 2e, Gary never presented it as an option, it was just buried in the wall of text that is the 1e DMG, I never noticed it until recently.