Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[Herremann the Wise]

I do agree with anyone who thinks all healing overnight completely ignores simulation in favour of gamist expedience - I'm not quite in favour of it myself, although I appreciate how it makes certain games (quest ones where a time factor is an issue) run smoother, especially when a cleric isn't available. I've been playing Star Wars Saga Edition recently, and the inability for non-Jedi characters to heal is a major problem in the game. If you get unlucky and get shot... well, it stops the ongoing game in its tracks.

Cheers!

My experience of different game systems is far less than yours. Can you think of a game system that plies the middle ground in this regard? How does it work?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[MerricB]

It means that your character is in a little bit of trouble. However, while I understand that you could interpret healing surges as you have, and that they are an important component of a character's health, it does not affect the point I was making in regards to a situation where a veteran heroic character could be 18 seconds from death, or a handful of surges away from being back to his best performance (just down a couple of healing surges meaning that he could most probably do the same thing again but he'd need an extended rest if he wanted to do it again after that). It is just a weird situation to be in and to try to explain to one's players. I just wish the mechanic was more intuitive and in tune with the flavour it was representing.

See my ASL example earlier. One of the points about D&D considered as a simulation is that we occasionally know things that we really shouldn't know. "Oh, I'm -4 hit points, so you have six rounds to heal me" from previous ediitons, for instance, which a bunch of DMs house-ruled to prevent negative HP totals from being revealed.

I think you can say that whenever someone does go down, they've taken a blow that looks potentially deadly to the observer (monsters and PCs). The wound is real, although its full effect is not actually known yet. People can go down from an arrow hitting them (shock), even though the actual wound isn't actually that much of a problem in the slightly longer term.

At the stage that they expend their healing surges (four of them to get back to full HP, which is normally a very large number of them), the wound is still there. In keeping with D&D's heroic mien, it doesn't affect their combat effectiveness. That they have full HP implies that the grace of the gods/personal skill has them at their full defensive power again.

Certainly, D&D 4e is modeling (as much as you can say it models anything) a heroic game. A more detailed system that places penalties on characters for wounds is feasible, although I'm not sure I'd want such myself - I'd be very, very worried about the death spiral effect.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

My experience of different game systems is far less than yours. Can you think of a game system that plies the middle ground in this regard? How does it work?

I'm having trouble thinking of one. However, let's look at Rolemaster for a moment:

There are basically two types of wound in Rolemaster. You have your general "concussive hits" which fulfill the role of hit points in D&D. If you manage to lose all of them, you die. Until then, your combat effectiveness isn't impaired - that's if I remember correctly, for it has been quite a while since I've played Rolemaster.

However, more significant than CP are Critical Hits, which provide actual descriptions of the wounds you suffer. It's been observed that hitting people doesn't kill people in RM, crits kill people. It's an observation I agree with. So, you can get a "thigh wound" which reduces your movement by 25% until healed - either through rest or curative magic.

In RM, combat is a bit too deadly for my liking, and it certainly has the death spiral effect, where hits impair your abilities so much that you can't come back.

Iron Heroes used Reserve Points - basically an additional reservoir of hit points that refilled your HP between encounters. They fulfill exactly the same function of healing surges.

Damage in the Amber DRP game was entirely narrative - with no dice, it was pretty much all storytelling, and you quickly got a handle on how much the GM liked your character or not.

In Star Wars d6, you had wound levels - either you were Unwounded, Lightly Wounded, Heavily Wounded, Incapacitated or Dead. Each would reduce your abilities, and healing was a pain. However, you tended not to be wounded that much, IIRC. Boy, it's been a while since I played it and my memory is fuzzy - and I played it for four years pretty solidly.

James Bond 007 (one of my favourite games) had a similar system, and you used Hero Points to avoid wounds altogether. First Aid could reduce the severity of some wounds, but mostly you needed to go to hospital if you were badly hurt.

In most of those systems, the effects of damage were pretty severe. The main point was that you needed to avoid being hit in the first place, and they'd give mechanisms to allow to you to do that: Hero Points in James Bond, really high Dodge scores and Force Points in Star Wars. If you got hit, you were actually hit.

D&D has a simpler system where the mechanism for avoiding being hit is also part of the hit point system. If you get "hit" for 40 hp - enough damage to kill a horse - and you still have 40 hp, then we say you weren't actually hit after all. Healing Surges are indeed confusing the issue, and the books don't actually provide guidance on how to handle the issue for those wanting a more narrative/simulated experience.

Cheers!

 

[Greg K]

I'm having trouble thinking of one. However, let's look at Rolemaster for a moment:

There are basically two types of wound in Rolemaster. You have your general "concussive hits" which fulfill the role of hit points in D&D. If you manage to lose all of them, you die. Until then, your combat effectiveness isn't impaired - that's if I remember correctly, for it has been quite a while since I've played Rolemaster.!

Actually, you are impaired by hit point loss in RM. Beginning at 50% hit point loss, you begin taking penalties. -10% at 50% hp loss. - 20% at 25% hp loss.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm wondering if you understand what you're talking about, in terms of logic.

Go back to wherever you learned about ad ignorantiam and reread it carefully. It's a double-edged sword. You can't call something true because it hasn't been proven false, but you also can't call something false because it hasn't been proven true.

Go back and read what I wrote, because I said that. It might coincidentally be true, but it isn't known to be true using your reasoning. The moon might be made of cheese, but your reasoning gives no reason to believe so.

I know this is going to sound stupid, but "death" doesn't mean exactly what you think it means either. The effects of death, under the rules, are pretty much unconsciousness plus:

No, death means pretty much what I think it means; in the 4e rules, death just doesn't mean the same thing. Much like....well, far too many things.

I lose track. Are you intentionally making my points for me?


RC

 

[MerricB]

Actually, you are impaired by hit point loss in RM. Beginning at 50% hit point loss, you begin taking penalties. -10% at 50% hp loss. - 20% at 25% hp loss.

Thanks, Greg!

 

[Raven Crowking]

The in-game meaning is objective and it is derived from the mechanics.

Keep telling yourself that. When 5e or 6e rolls around, and claims to "fix" the quantum wounding problem, we'll see what people think then.

 

[LostSoul]

Keep telling yourself that. When 5e or 6e rolls around, and claims to "fix" the quantum wounding problem, we'll see what people think then.

So you're saying that hit points don't tell you when someone stops fighting?

 

[resistor]

Read the Princess Bride. Inigo is dying. Flat out dying. He sees the ghost of his father and his teacher, cursing him for coming this far just to die like a chump. He overcomes his wound by shoving his fist into it, kills the Six-Fingered Man, helps Wesley escape, and never once collapses after his "Second Wind."

Actually, I seem to remember the very last paragraph of the book noting that Wesley suffers a relapse and Inigo passes out from his wounds. Nice try, though.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The story is not divorced from the mechanics: the hp mechanism helps resolve conflicts. It tells us when one party can no longer carry on the fight.

The in-game meaning is objective and it is derived from the mechanics. We know that the characters involved lose more and more ability to fight as their hp are depleted. How that depletion occurs is subjective and I have to decide how to describe it in a way that works for me.

That's the thing though and that's where the disconnect in the whole hit point thing is. The objective in-game meaning of the mechanic should mesh well enough with the flavour so that no subjective DM narration is required to explain it (the DM is still entitled to interpret things if they wish but the hope with an elegant mechanic is that the flavour follows the mechanic). By having hit points, "healing" surges and "damage", mixed in with the "dying" condition as well as the complete reset" mechanic after an extended rest, there is no obvious way to interpret all of this whilst maintaining an inner logic. That's where I think the mechanic has been let down by not easily relating to the flavour presented - or perhaps vice versa.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise