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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8618549" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Sure, there's a bit of scale at play here. You could say that Alessa Corza is a stronger simulation than Forza Horizon which is itself a stronger simulation than Gran Turismo, and so on. At some point on that scale.... probably before we get to Mario Kart, but certainly by that point... you have to say that something is no longer really concerned with simulation beyond the most broad elements like "cars have wheels and go fast and you need to steer them!"It's not that no generic term will satisfy me, it's that there is no one thing that you're looking for here. Hit points don't represent the ability to avoid being killed because that's not a thing. Instead, all of the many and various elements that may play a part in whether or not someone gets killed are lumped together under the umbrella of Hit Points, which do not function in a way that simulates the things that it represents. If person A shoots person B in the head, very likely person B will die or be in quite a bit of trouble. Hit Point systems don't typically allow for this kind of simulative element, and instead just result in a loss of some HP, and then person B moves along. That's not even remotely simulating what would happen when someone gets shot. I'd say you're frustrated because you're trying to equate HP in a one-for-one way with something in the real world that doesn't exist. It's entirely a matter of perceived accuracy, yes. There are many folks who see simulation as a fruitless exercise in RPGs. Not that I want to get into that and muddy the waters any further, so I'm discussing with the general idea of simulation in mind. I don't think that we always need to look at it as a binary state of simulation/not simulation. There are degrees. If a game is trying to simulate reality or real world effects, then it's going to be granular. It's likely not going to take potentially dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of factors and lump them all into one figure. If you drive a car in the real world, you can measure the amount of fuel it's using. Consumption will be based on many factors including weight, drag, load, efficiency, and so on. You can measure it. Fuel is a thing in real life. Games that use fuel mostly do so in a way that simulates its real-life use. If I bash my head into a brick wall, what am I losing? Hit points are not a thing in real life. Games that use Hit Points are using them not as a simulation but as an abstraction that represents many factors. There is not the one-for-one correlation that there is with fuel in life and racing games.</blockquote>

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