Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6890004" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm not trying to persuade anyone to narrate hp in any particular way.</p><p></p><p>I'm arguing that D&D combat is not process-sim. It doesn't, as such, model any particular ingame causal process, nor tell you what exactly has happened in the fiction (no hit location, no physical debilitation, no bleeding (except when dying), positioning that does not correlate to the passage of time because of freeze-frame initiative, etc).</p><p></p><p>Someone who wants to treat every hit as a strike that makes contact, and every event of hp loss as physical injury, is free to do so. But the rules don't themselves force or even really engender that sort of interpretation. The contrast with systems that I regard as genuinely process sim (RQ, RM, HARP, Classic Traveller, elements of Burning Wheel, etc) is very marked.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you're being ironic.</p><p></p><p>Irony or not, from my point of view a process sim system <em>actually correlates the mechanics to independently conceivable processes in the gameworld.</em> Eg distance and time. Physical locations of people, weapons, injuries. Etc.</p><p></p><p>It can be more-or-less abstract: Classic Traveller tells us how severe an injury has been caused by a hit, and the degree of debilitation, but not where the person was injured. RQ and BW both go one step further and tell us the general location of the injury (torso, limb, head). Rolemaster distinguishes between (say) hand, forearm and shoulder injuries, bruises vs broken ribs, etc, and has a correspondingly intricate healing system. But in all these systems, the combat resolution forces some general conception of what is going on in the fiction. They don't define so-called "processes" and the outcomes of so-called "processes" purely by reference to mechanical concepts. (What you call "self-referential".)</p><p></p><p>Where this loses me is <em>I don't actually know what that is</em>. Eg why can't I use that dragon's hide to make armour of comparable toughness? In fictional terms, what is this actually supposed to mean?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6890004, member: 42582"] I'm not trying to persuade anyone to narrate hp in any particular way. I'm arguing that D&D combat is not process-sim. It doesn't, as such, model any particular ingame causal process, nor tell you what exactly has happened in the fiction (no hit location, no physical debilitation, no bleeding (except when dying), positioning that does not correlate to the passage of time because of freeze-frame initiative, etc). Someone who wants to treat every hit as a strike that makes contact, and every event of hp loss as physical injury, is free to do so. But the rules don't themselves force or even really engender that sort of interpretation. The contrast with systems that I regard as genuinely process sim (RQ, RM, HARP, Classic Traveller, elements of Burning Wheel, etc) is very marked. I think you're being ironic. Irony or not, from my point of view a process sim system [I]actually correlates the mechanics to independently conceivable processes in the gameworld.[/I] Eg distance and time. Physical locations of people, weapons, injuries. Etc. It can be more-or-less abstract: Classic Traveller tells us how severe an injury has been caused by a hit, and the degree of debilitation, but not where the person was injured. RQ and BW both go one step further and tell us the general location of the injury (torso, limb, head). Rolemaster distinguishes between (say) hand, forearm and shoulder injuries, bruises vs broken ribs, etc, and has a correspondingly intricate healing system. But in all these systems, the combat resolution forces some general conception of what is going on in the fiction. They don't define so-called "processes" and the outcomes of so-called "processes" purely by reference to mechanical concepts. (What you call "self-referential".) Where this loses me is [I]I don't actually know what that is[/I]. Eg why can't I use that dragon's hide to make armour of comparable toughness? In fictional terms, what is this actually supposed to mean? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Do NPCs in your game have PHB classes?
Top