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="Balesir" data-source="post: 6460151" data-attributes="member: 27160">I don't think that's actually true; the rules that eschew DoaM, non-magic healing and "gonzo" non-magic capabilities DO "pick a side". They pick the side of "anything magical that happens must be due to magic".This I find a shame on two levels.Firstly, while I see many movies where strength of human spirit, inspiration and grit works miracles, that can't happen in an RPG where magic has to be a result of literal magic. You can have drama, for sure, and courage - even (with luck) success against the odds - but not the attractive fantasy of sheer human(oid) spirit, of grit and of sheer determination. Games where this fantasy of larger-than-life heroes really works are only really possible if "hit points" are manipulable by heroism, (demi-)human spirit, grit and swashbuckling gung-ho - with or without glowy stuff called "magic".Secondly, if an intensely rational, "physical" game with all the fantasy hard grounded in tough realities is what is desired, I don't think a game using hit points does it well. The ingrained "accepted wisdom" that RPGs have to treat the life of characters as a resource "pot" has, it seems to me, stifled development of games that treat health and injury in a more grounded, non-gamey way. As long as we treat life as a pot of points or "levels" that get abraded away instead of as a fragile thing that is endangered by accumulating nasty consequences, any one of which can snuff it out, roleplaying "life" will never really feel as delicate and fragile (and yet as resilient and energised) as it is in the "real world".There is a place for both these styles of game, and more. Let's try to learn to appreciate them for what they add, not attack them for what they take away.</blockquote>

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