NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9216806" data-attributes="member: 8461">I've been very clear about this: it represents an actual problem because it off-loads the task of determining what's happening within the context of the game world onto the player(s), rather than informing them itself. Is the hit point loss an injury, or just accumulating stress/fear/loss of luck/less divine protection, etc.? You have to figure it out, rather than the game telling you.I mean, that's not the best example, since the blurb on page 145 of the 4E PHB expressly says: "You call out to a wounded ally and offer inspiring words of courage and determination that helps that ally heal." But we'll ignore the last five words, there. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Yeah, and that's the crux of the issue. Having hit points potentially represent two different things creates a cognitive gap that the player(s) then have to bridge. That some players have no issue doing that is fine for them, but if other players want the game to tell us what's happening, having one mechanical result be indicative of two different things is a hindrance that doesn't need to be there.Having a mechanic aggregate something isn't the issue, though (hence why there's no problem with hit point loss representing all different kinds of injuries); it's having an operation (i.e. a function that the mechanics take part in) be representation of two different things happening within the context of the game world. Wisdom damage would be a much better example for what you're trying to state, and even then it'd be fine because it represents one thing: an attack on that particular part of the character's mind. When you have it represent two different things, then you have a problemWhich is why the game is at its most elegant when it takes up the metaphorical "heavy lifting" on your behalf, at least as much as it can without becoming burdensome. Now, that will naturally vary from person to person insofar as what constitutes "burdensome," but again, just because you don't find a task difficult doesn't mean that it's not a task in the first place.Whereas I find nothing "liberating" in the game telling me that I have to keep track of one more thing that's happening, in addition to everything else that I'm keeping track of. If it wants to present two different things, injuries and stamina, then it should have two different mechanics for injury and stamina.Either way, it's something that the people sitting around the table have to deal with, rather than the game system taking care of that burden for them.Yes, but what effect? Physical? Psychological? It doesn't seem to want to say, and so that's now something that the players need to figure out on their own. The game could do more to convey what it's trying to model, is my point.Yeah, that doesn't really narrow things down. It's a vague nod in the direction of maybe being physical damage, but doesn't commit to it, and doesn't explain how a "miss" is still a hit.In this metaphor, the game isn't saying a rose at all, which is a problem because without informing us of what's going on in the setting, we don't actually know if it smells as sweet.I'm glad you agree that what I'm saying is wise; now you just need to abide by it.And you would do well to remember the converse of that.</blockquote>

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