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<blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 4293083" data-attributes="member: 9391">There are a number of roleplaying games that actually do include those kinds of effects. (e.g. in The Shadow of Yesterday, you might play out a debate essentially as a combat, with damage affecting your social abilities similar to how physical combat affects your physical abilities.)I think 4e with an add-on that uses HP damage to track the back-and-forth effect of skill challenges would actually work pretty well. Thanks for the idea! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Quick example off the top of my head: In some versions of Arthurian legend, Arthur probably did take HP damage when he learned Guinevere was unfaithful to him. It did make him less effective in the battles to come, possibly more so than a physical injury would have.These kinds of things definately require everyone at the table to &quot;buy in&quot;. As far as the Warlord side of it, if people are sitting there thinking &quot;Man, shouting at people to heal them is stupid&quot;... then why are they describing it as &quot;shouting to heal them&quot; in the first place? The Warlord is taking an action, its mechanical effect is to enable someone to continue fighting when they otherwise might not have been able to. The game mechanics don't describe what happens in the fiction, so the group's just hurting themselves by picking the simplest possible description and then complaining that the description is unsatisfying.To quote the PHB about powers:Not &quot;Your GM tells you what it looks like&quot;. Not &quot;You can house rule what it looks like&quot;. The rules flat out tell you that it's your decision. &quot;But I could describe my Cleave as pink bunnies falling from the sky and biting my enemies!&quot; Yes, by the rules, you are absolutely allowed to do that (not really, the Martial and Weapon keywords indicate the type of action it is, but you can hopefully see my point.) OH NO! But wait, we're back to &quot;buy in&quot;. If one's complaint about 4e is that someone can describe something in a silly or inappropriate fashion, that complaint applies to any game out there. It's not as obvious in some games, because the player's given more authority to describe how things look, but it's always there.Or to put it another way, if the folks at the table haven't &quot;bought in&quot; to picturing a shared imagined world where things make sense, I don't think your game is in a good place regardless of whether or not the rules make some token attempt to provide &quot;the right way&quot; to picture things.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SweeneyTodd, post: 4293083, member: 9391"] There are a number of roleplaying games that actually do include those kinds of effects. (e.g. in The Shadow of Yesterday, you might play out a debate essentially as a combat, with damage affecting your social abilities similar to how physical combat affects your physical abilities.) I think 4e with an add-on that uses HP damage to track the back-and-forth effect of skill challenges would actually work pretty well. Thanks for the idea! :) Quick example off the top of my head: In some versions of Arthurian legend, Arthur probably did take HP damage when he learned Guinevere was unfaithful to him. It did make him less effective in the battles to come, possibly more so than a physical injury would have. These kinds of things definately require everyone at the table to "buy in". As far as the Warlord side of it, if people are sitting there thinking "Man, shouting at people to heal them is stupid"... then why are they describing it as "shouting to heal them" in the first place? The Warlord is taking an action, its mechanical effect is to enable someone to continue fighting when they otherwise might not have been able to. The game mechanics don't describe what happens in the fiction, so the group's just hurting themselves by picking the simplest possible description and then complaining that the description is unsatisfying. To quote the PHB about powers: Not "Your GM tells you what it looks like". Not "You can house rule what it looks like". The rules flat out tell you that it's your decision. "But I could describe my Cleave as pink bunnies falling from the sky and biting my enemies!" Yes, by the rules, you are absolutely allowed to do that (not really, the Martial and Weapon keywords indicate the type of action it is, but you can hopefully see my point.) OH NO! But wait, we're back to "buy in". If one's complaint about 4e is that someone can describe something in a silly or inappropriate fashion, that complaint applies to any game out there. It's not as obvious in some games, because the player's given more authority to describe how things look, but it's always there. Or to put it another way, if the folks at the table haven't "bought in" to picturing a shared imagined world where things make sense, I don't think your game is in a good place [i]regardless[/i] of whether or not the rules make some token attempt to provide "the right way" to picture things. [/QUOTE]

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