Flavour First vs Game First - a comparison

[apoptosis]

But they are a real-time condition tracker. It's just that the quantity they track can increase as well as decrease. The only difference is that HP are no longer as strictly ablative. This is no different from a tiring runner getting a spurt of energy/speed at different points during a race. This happens even though, on the whole, the runner's energy level is decreasing.


OK

For RC (please tell me if i am correct) i believe he wants HP to at some level model "real" injuries. While there are issues with previous editions (high level fighter HP vs low level fighter HP) he can more easily use the HP system to generalize true wounds.

In pre-4E paradigm even if some of the HP damage a fighter takes is luck, skill etc. at some base level some of it is real injuries which is why it takes days to weeks to heal.

In the 4E paradigm none of the damage is necessarily real. Now you can narrate it however you wish (and this can be a strength) but it does not really map to "injuries" in a quasi-mechanical sense.

 

[Fifth Element]

The leader in question reached him before he died though.

Two points:

1. The dying words can just be dramatic license.

2. Rangers aren't leaders, they're strikers.

 

[apoptosis]

Two points:

1. The dying words can just be dramatic license.

2. Rangers aren't leaders, they're strikers.

in 4E, Aragorn isnt a ranger (sorry had to say that)

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think at this point we've left the realm of logic and strayed into aesthetics.


I'm tempted to reply 'just because you include numbers in your argument doesn't lend it the strength of a mathematical proof'.

Obviously. But there are similarities (again) to quantum mechanics.

The term "quantum" refers to the smallest possible amount. It refers to, effectively, a scale for measurement.

When you say, in effect, that both are unrealistic, so no comparison between them about how unrealistic they are is more than "aesthetics", you are effectively claiming that the "quantum" of realism is bipolar. It is either yes/no. This is exactly akin to ignoring the difference between a 20 and a 200 foot drop because, given the question "Can it kill you?" they are both answered "yes" in a bipolar, yes/no paradigm. I do not subscribe to such a coarse measure of realism. I think that the "quantum" of what can be defined in terms of realism is much, much finer than that.

Of course, you say that we have entered the realm of "aesthetics" as though that is a bad thing. Of course we've entered the realm of aesthetics. I said as much in my first post on this thread. Whether or not something bothers you is entirely in the realm of aesthetics.

Whether or not that something exists, though, is not.



RC

 

[Fifth Element]

in 4E, Aragorn isnt a ranger (sorry had to say that)

But...but...he calls himself a ranger! How can the name of his character class not match his in-game description exactly??? You're breaking my brain!

 

[Raven Crowking]

For RC (please tell me if i am correct) i believe he wants HP to at some level model "real" injuries. While there are issues with previous editions (high level fighter HP vs low level fighter HP) he can more easily use the HP system to generalize true wounds.

In pre-4E paradigm even if some of the HP damage a fighter takes is luck, skill etc. at some base level some of it is real injuries which is why it takes days to weeks to heal.

In the 4E paradigm none of the damage is necessarily real. Now you can narrate it however you wish (and this can be a strength) but it does not really map to "injuries" in a quasi-mechanical sense.

Moreover, should you find narration of effects at the time they occur to be desireable, any system that can allow future events to change that narration (or, if you refuse to change it, make it absurd within the new context) is problematic at best.

EDIT: Some of the "mmoving people" powers in 4e suffer from this same problem. In order to prevent absurd narration, some have already begun to suggest that the use of these powers should be taken to assume that the moved character was already where the PC moved him to. Needless to say, any sort of explaination that requires the in-world arrow of time to be violated is an explaination that I have no interest in.

Should that system also promote a condition that one finds absurd in-and-of-itself (such as healing from anything overnight, or conversely never suffering something that would be absurd to heal overnight, depending upon your narration), one is likely to find that system off-putting. Unless, of course, one is looking for absurdity in their game.


RC

 

[apoptosis]

Moreover, should you find narration of effects at the time they occur to be desireable, any system that can allow future events to change that narration (or, if you refuse to change it, make it absurd within the new context) is problematic at best.

EDIT: Some of the "mmoving people" powers in 4e suffer from this same problem. In order to prevent absurd narration, some have already begun to suggest that the use of these powers should be taken to assume that the moved character was already where the PC moved him to. Needless to say, any sort of explaination that requires the in-world arrow of time to be violated is an explaination that I have no interest in.

Should that system also promote a condition that one finds absurd in-and-of-itself (such as healing from anything overnight, or conversely never suffering something that would be absurd to heal overnight, depending upon your narration), one is likely to find that system off-putting. Unless, of course, one is looking for absurdity in their game.


RC

While in general I support the reasons why you have an issue with the 4E paradigm oh hp mechanics, conversely an ablative HP system such as earlier versions of D&D have as the single measurement of injury is somewhat absurd to begin with.

You are left with deadly wounds that have no impact on the character. He is in a dichotomous state of perfect working order or complete helplessness (unconsciousness or death)

I do think a different system would probably be better for you (like Rolemaster) if this type of simulationism is what you want to capture. Of course then you might have other issues to contend with.

 

[Raven Crowking]

While in general I support the reasons why you have an issue with the 4E paradigm oh hp mechanics, conversely an ablative HP system such as earlier versions of D&D have as the single measurement of injury is somewhat absurd to begin with.

Perhaps. But I find it far less absurd than 4e. As I have pointed out now, several times, the mechanics inform play, so that an injured PC is almost never played as an uninjured PC. At least IME. Certainly anyone who understands the win conditions of the game will not wander around nearly dead as blithely as if he were at full hit points.

Earlier, it was said that a wounded PC is not dazed. Certainly, he doesn't have the 3e "dazed" condition. OTOH, he is not able to evade the killing stroke as he would be able to do were he fully alert and able. That is what hit points represent.

Finally, at the very least, hit points don't violate the arrow of time.


RC


EDIT: Here's anther way to look at it:

My nine-year-old daughter has no problem understanding hit points, and has no problem understanding how hit points work in terms of both game mechanics and the win conditions of the game. Yes, the hit point mechanic is not as detailed as some, and some claim that it is unrealistic because of that lack of detail. Yes, it is important to consider before adding subsystems (which, unfortunately, hasn't always been the case). But please note that it it the subsystem (falling damage; healing surge) that causes the problem, not the hit point mechanic itself.

If the failing of the hit point mechanic is that it is not detailed enough for some tastes, the failing of problematic subsystems is that they add absurd elements into the game. When characters can routinely fall 200 feet without injury, or get up from deadly injuries as routinely as Captain Jack Harkness, credulity is stretched to the breaking point. There is a very large qualitative difference between "undetailed" and "results in absurd occurances in the game world", IMHO.

RC

 

[Scribble]

You ignored the salient point: "In 4E mechanics, if he had had a healing surge left, he'd have survived. And suddenly, the arrows would not have been actual hits." Schrödinger's Wounding. Suddenly that cool scene Dinkeldog wanted his heroes to be part of is rewritten; it never existed as he imagined it.


RC

But again, you're ignoring that this has nothing to do with the mechanics of the system, and everything to do with your having chosen to describe the healing surge as a physical recovery. If you set out to describe soemthing as unrealistic, chances are (barring lousey ability to describe things) you will succeed.

To me, what Hypersmurf suggested seems to make the most sense. It's not a sudden re-stitching of wounds, but the ability to "fight on."

In my opinion, it's even MORE unrealistic to say HP damage is a representation of physical wounds, as I've NEVER once seen a guy take multiple axe hits straigh to the chest/legs/arms/head/groin/etc and still be 100% able to attack back. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to say that the better you are at fighting the more axes you can take to the skull.

If you DO really wan to use HP as a system for tracking physical injury then I think you also need a system to model lasting injuries.

The system would then take into account lasting injury, and it's effects. perhaps it might also limit your ability to use a healing surge, or recover to 100% as well as other effects like attack and defence penalties. I think you would also need to impliment things like critical hit effects, and a chance of instant death.

Then you could say, get hit, check to see if it's a lasting injury, and then continue on with your description.

I think the best way to do thisi, n 4e at least, would be a combination of the disease track table, critical hits, and maybe link it to the bloodied state.

 

[Fenes]

Oh, yes, all the "move powers". And I thought having a race with a short range teleport "at will" was going to be the biggest problem with movement 4E style.