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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6683156" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think approaching the game, and the play of PCs, in the way you describe here makes for a more satisfying experience than treating hit points as a literal, in-fiction, ablative protection.This isn't really consistent with my experiences. In Rolemaster, for instance, the deadliness of a combat can be very random - there are open-ended attack rolls, choice about how much of one's combat bonus to allocate to defence vs offence, crit rolls, etc. Players can't easily know the outcomes of combat, though they can have a general sense of whether or not their odds are good or poor.In real life, some people choose to take risks and others choose not to, although they don't have the sort of information that you are saying hit points provide to characters in the gameworld.Your last sentence is true only if everyone has to play the same game the same way.Different tables can play different games. That has commercial implications for game publishers, but isn't a problem from the aesthetic point of view.Different tables playing the same game can also play it differently. From these boards, for instance, there's clearly a wide range of approaches to D&amp;D play. Just look, in this thread, at how different D&amp;D GMs handle the issue of knowledge skills and dispensing backstory to the players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6683156, member: 42582"] I think approaching the game, and the play of PCs, in the way you describe here makes for a more satisfying experience than treating hit points as a literal, in-fiction, ablative protection. This isn't really consistent with my experiences. In Rolemaster, for instance, the deadliness of a combat can be very random - there are open-ended attack rolls, choice about how much of one's combat bonus to allocate to defence vs offence, crit rolls, etc. Players can't easily know the outcomes of combat, though they can have a general sense of whether or not their odds are good or poor. In real life, some people choose to take risks and others choose not to, although they don't have the sort of information that you are saying hit points provide to characters in the gameworld. Your last sentence is true only if everyone has to play the same game the same way. Different tables can play different games. That has commercial implications for game publishers, but isn't a problem from the aesthetic point of view. Different tables playing the same game can also play it differently. From these boards, for instance, there's clearly a wide range of approaches to D&D play. Just look, in this thread, at how different D&D GMs handle the issue of knowledge skills and dispensing backstory to the players. [/QUOTE]

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