Bloodied and why it is cool.

[herrozerro]

Plus, a death spiral that is the same for every character, NPC, and monster across the board is much more interesting to me than having each character having his own mechanical interpretation of being hurt.

I find this interesting, because i find that when different races or classes react differently to being hurt much more interesting. For monsters, I like that they get more dangerous sometimes, much like real life sometimes the most dangerous creatures are the hurt ones.

 

[Wik]

I find this interesting, because i find that when different races or classes react differently to being hurt much more interesting. For monsters, I like that they get more dangerous sometimes, much like real life sometimes the most dangerous creatures are the hurt ones.

Meh. I think this is really one of those "agree to disagree" sort of situations, more than anything else - it's a matter of personal taste. But I could argue that while combats are more ferocious when people are "bloodied", it is more because they are desperate to survive and therefore don't hold anything back, rather than actually becoming better fighters. In other words, they're more likely to use things like grenades, rockets, or call in resources they would otherwise be afraid to use.

I guess what it comes down to is whether you want to see that mirrored through mechanics, or through in-game actions. Personally, I prefer the latter approach; others might prefer the former.

 

[pemerton]

I could argue that while combats are more ferocious when people are "bloodied", it is more because they are desperate to survive and therefore don't hold anything back, rather than actually becoming better fighters. In other words, they're more likely to use things like grenades, rockets, or call in resources they would otherwise be afraid to use.

I guess what it comes down to is whether you want to see that mirrored through mechanics, or through in-game actions. Personally, I prefer the latter approach

I've tended to find that D&D is not all that good at the latter approach, because there is no way to make my dice roll higher just because my PC is desperate - and if there were, I'd use it even when things weren't desperate, thereby defeating the narrative point.

Runequest and Rolemaster have similar problems.

4e shows one way to do this - metagame mechanics like "+1 to hit when bloodied". I don't mind that, but I can see why you might object to it.

Burning Wheel has an interesting way of handling it - for various reasons to do with the PC advancement mechanic, you don't always want to be rolling your maximum number of available dice. This then means that, when you get desperate, this can be reflected in play by brining all your dice to bear, even if this undermines your PC's prospects of advancement.

D&D, at least up until now, has never been very good at providing either mechanical or story reasons why players don't want to roll as high as possible. Until it does, I think it's ability to generate desperation-reflecting play of the sort you describe will be limited.

 

[Li Shenron]

True, but complexity by itself is not necessarily good or bad, whether a system is complex or simple, the goal is to be enjoyable.

For me mandatory complexity is bad.

Your proposal looks very nice if it works in a modular way, and is presented as an option. But if it was integrated in the game in a way that could not be taken out of it, then I wouldn't like it.

 

[Hassassin]

But I could argue that while combats are more ferocious when people are "bloodied", it is more because they are desperate to survive and therefore don't hold anything back, rather than actually becoming better fighters.

I feel the basic hit point system models this well enough. When you are injured you fight ferociously to compensate, so you are as good at offense. However, the down side is that you are likelier to die, and even a lowly kobold can manage a serious hit.