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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4462319" data-attributes="member: 42582">Except for the saving throw rules, which make it clear that they aren't intended to be a simulations - using terminology that didn't exist when the 1st ed DMG was written, they're described as a fortune-in-the-middle mechanic.Arguably, hit points are the same - 8 points of damage from a sword is sometimes a devastating blow (eg vs a kobold) and sometimes a mere threat that requires avoiding (eg vs an otherwise uninjured high-level PC or NPC) and sometimes a non-fatal hacking away of a chunk of flesh (eg vs a giant slug or a gelatinous cube). The mechanics don't simulate anything - rather, they set up the parameters within which the ingame events are narrated. (Compare this to a game like RM or RQ, in which 8 hits of damage always means the same thing, whichever target it is delivered to and however many hit points they started with and have remaining.)Just like the 1st ed DMG says to do with saving throws and hit points!Of course D&amp;D 4e is very different from 1st ed AD&amp;D. But the notion that D&amp;D has always and only ever had simulationist mechanics is nonsense - this is purely an artifact of 3E. It was the non-simulationist character of these central AD&amp;D mechanics that was one factor in driving people to games like RQ and RM, and which prompted simulationist alternatives within the D&amp;D framework like vitality/wound points (which did not originate with Star Wars RPG but rather, as far as I know, with Roger Musson in an early White Dwarf article called &quot;How to Lose Hit Points and Survive&quot;).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 4462319, member: 42582"] Except for the saving throw rules, which make it clear that they aren't intended to be a simulations - using terminology that didn't exist when the 1st ed DMG was written, they're described as a fortune-in-the-middle mechanic. Arguably, hit points are the same - 8 points of damage from a sword is sometimes a devastating blow (eg vs a kobold) and sometimes a mere threat that requires avoiding (eg vs an otherwise uninjured high-level PC or NPC) and sometimes a non-fatal hacking away of a chunk of flesh (eg vs a giant slug or a gelatinous cube). The mechanics don't simulate anything - rather, they set up the parameters within which the ingame events are narrated. (Compare this to a game like RM or RQ, in which 8 hits of damage always means the same thing, whichever target it is delivered to and however many hit points they started with and have remaining.) Just like the 1st ed DMG says to do with saving throws and hit points! Of course D&D 4e is very different from 1st ed AD&D. But the notion that D&D has always and only ever had simulationist mechanics is nonsense - this is purely an artifact of 3E. It was the non-simulationist character of these central AD&D mechanics that was one factor in driving people to games like RQ and RM, and which prompted simulationist alternatives within the D&D framework like vitality/wound points (which did not originate with Star Wars RPG but rather, as far as I know, with Roger Musson in an early White Dwarf article called "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive"). [/QUOTE]

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