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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5834821" data-attributes="member: 40177">I like board games, too.  I just don't like when my RPGs get a bit board-gamey.  I like games with a bit of ambiguity - my personal acid test for a game is when you can explain the core of it in less than fifteen minutes and have people playing it like pros within four hours (the D6 System and Savage Worlds are both great examples of this). The problem (in my opinion, of course) with having bloodied bring both good and bad is that either the good and bad benefits affect different aspects of a character (ie, my AC drops, but my damage skyrockets), or that they influence the same aspect.  Neither of these are good.The first problem leads to characters seeing an already crappy stat get crappier, in favour of a strong stat getting better.  If each class has their own bloodied parameters, it makes sense to make your strong and weak areas sync up with that parameter.  The end effect is that the strong overpowers the weak aspect, since it was weak already.The second problem ultimately results in an added layer of complexity for little to no gain.  In essence, the same area of a character is affected, which means that the benefit for using that affected area in play isn't substantially better or worse;  just different.  If when I'm bloodied, my AC goes down, but I get minor damage reduction, is that a good or bad thing?  Because it just affects how I get hit, after all.  And while this can be fun for rules-interested players who like to fiddle with the system, if you're a casual player, what you've really done is intimidated them or, worse, alienated them.***As a sidenote, I actually like death spirals.  They encourage PCs to avoid getting hit, and when they do get hit, to take cover and proceed cautiously.  I particularly love games with death spirals and exploding damage dice or otherwise swingy mechanics, because they result in shorter, more intense combats.  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.</blockquote>

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