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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 6682830" data-attributes="member: 6775031">The degree to which I detest meta-gaming and narrative mechanics cannot possibly be overstated within the context of this forum. The inclusion of such things within a game, unless they can be removed entirely, will make a game entirely unplayable to me. They are anathema. They are the enemy, which destroys and corrupts an otherwise-enjoyable game into worthless junk. The decision on the part of the designer to include such a thing is a decision to overtly abandon and disregard a significant portion of the RPG fanbase.That one side-bar was probably the best move they could have made, regarding the controversy at hand. It says that you could play up HP as some weird abstraction of plot-armor and whatever else, but you also could play HP as corresponding to something knowable within the game world. It's entirely possible for the character to make the same decisions as the player, and for the same reasons. You can play your character as knowing that he can take ten hits from a greatsword without dying (during combat, at least - while you're aware and wearing armor and can react to the attacks). And you don't need to invent some weird metaphysical explanation for it, either - just look at professional sports, where some people are just better at taking a hit without going down. It's a real phenomenon that corresponds to what we know about the real world. No further explanation or suspension of disbelief is needed. And it's also possible to work in a resource for powering special moves, or other Encounter/Daily powers, that doesn't create any issues; it's just on the game designers to bother to design it that way.I know my character has 40HP - that she can probably absorb the impact of four arrows which aren't fully deflected by her armor, and she won't drop - and I can make my decisions accordingly. If I disregard that knowledge, for the character, then there's not enough information left to make a decision. If she doesn't know that she can take a few hits - if she really thinks that one lucky shot can put her down, despite all evidence to the contrary - then she would likely make far different decisions than I would as the player.And that's not interesting in any way. You might still be able to roleplay it, sure, but only in a pure role-playing sense. There's no game to it. A game is defined as a series of interesting decisions, but without any accurate information on which to base those decisions, none of them can be meaningful. It's just four people wandering around blindly, failing to accomplish anything because of their severe delusions. Thus, when we are given a choice of which model we should use to describe the game world, the only interesting choice is the model where character knowledge aligns with player knowledge to the greatest extent possible (preferably without getting silly - e.g. the player shouldn't need to acknowledge luck as a measurable and expendable quantity); the other option is a nonviable solution. Likewise, when we're deciding which system to use, the interesting choice is the system where characters are roughly balanced across class and level. And where one choice conflicts with the other choice, you have to decide based on personal preference and priorities.</blockquote>

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