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="Kannik" data-source="post: 9217065" data-attributes="member: 984">At the risk of hitting this equine so hard it turns into a death knightmare…I find the “Gary was lying” angle an… an interesting tack to take. Especially since he chose to iterate it not just once but separately in both books, with further allusions to it other sections dealing with damage, all illustrating what, to him and the game, HP represented.When it comes to “Cure Light Wounds,” I would submit that it simply sounded more evocative than a spell called “Add back a Few Hit Points.” Especially given that Gygaxian writing and flavour is one of the things that is often lauded as the beauty of the earlier editions. And, perhaps, with him being so close to the work and fully knowing what HP were and what he was going for, he also didn’t see it as a disconnect to have the word wounds in there for something that wasn’t strictly wounds.I’d also say it’s good to remember other quotes from the DMG:It is important to keep in mind that, after all is said and done, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a game. Because it is a game, certain things which seem "unrealistic" or simply unnecessary are integral to the system.Gary designed things to craft what he thought would make for an interesting game experience. Healing was slow in 1e/2e without magic because that’s the game type Gary preferred (and/or was used to). Gary seemed to want to have magic be extra impactful (including from magic items) and to have resource management be important (perhaps from his background in wargaming -- number of torches could be a thing in the game too back then, such as in tournament modules).Now, is there a problem that certain people envisioned (and can only envision) HP as being/needs to be meat-related? I don’t think it is – there’s so many oddities in the D&D structures that letting someone’s meat be more punishable as they level up might not feel all that weird. Or simply being that it’s just part of how the game runs, so, let’s run with it. Or if introduced to the game without reading the book(s) cover to cover, a meat-based concept might be the first place they land on.However, I assert that’s never been a universal view or capital T truth. Just anecdotally (FWIW), in the 15 years or so of playing 1e and then 2e, none of the players I played with, across different groups and different countries, had issue with seeing and accepting HP as being related to various things that fed into a meta-game thing, rather than needing to strictly, only, account for physical meat effects. They envisioned and could imagine HP in its Gygaxian broad sense.  (Same occurred in my 3e groups.)  4e did indeed take full advantage of what HP was in its design in a way that previous editions hadn’t yet done. But it didn’t redefine it or invent anything new for HP. Was it unfamiliar when compared to the internalized (yet very familiar) dissonances already present in the game? Might it elicit more examination in more situations?  Sure. And for some that might have been more than they could bear. Fair enough! Some might also simply have wanted slower recovery (I myself wrote a supplement on drivethrurpg to that end). Also fair!  But, once again, that is separate from whether the nature of HP itself changed in 4e.</blockquote>

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