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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8585096" data-attributes="member: 7026617">Understood.While true, there's still room for people to suggest that this is an element that skims out context about what's going on that has effects well beyond versimilitude.I will just note there are plenty of games, even fantasy games, that somehow still manage to work while not being that abstract.&nbsp; There are ways to bake defensive capability and luck into a game that doesn't require rolling all that into hit points.Basically, there are degrees of abstraction that end up compounding things together to a degree that end up making process so amorphous that any story extraction from them is despite them, not as a consequence them.&nbsp; Hit points are one of these.&nbsp; And it only exists in its form because its archaic and people had gotten used to it and thus passively attached to it so early there was no real chances it was going to get changed no matter there were better solutions.The irony of this thread is that for all the discussion of the tone and feel of changes over time is that the fundamentals have almost not moved at all from all the way back in OD&amp;D.&nbsp; D&amp;D is still wrapped around classes.&nbsp; It still has the same six attributes.&nbsp; It still does attacks fundamentally the same way, with bonus to hit versus armor class.&nbsp; It still has level elevating hit points.&nbsp; The basic approach to handling spells is still pretty much the same.There have been extensions of some of these, and some elements that were more important earlier have less importance (races, alignment) but none of the basics have every really changed.&nbsp; And its unlikely they will, no matter what they are, because there are too many decades of inertia behind them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 8585096, member: 7026617"] Understood. While true, there's still room for people to suggest that this is an element that skims out context about what's going on that has effects well beyond versimilitude. I will just note there are plenty of games, even fantasy games, that somehow still manage to work while not being that abstract. There are ways to bake defensive capability and luck into a game that doesn't require rolling all that into hit points. Basically, there are degrees of abstraction that end up compounding things together to a degree that end up making process so amorphous that any story extraction from them is despite them, not as a consequence them. Hit points are one of these. And it only exists in its form because its archaic and people had gotten used to it and thus passively attached to it so early there was no real chances it was going to get changed no matter there were better solutions. The irony of this thread is that for all the discussion of the tone and feel of changes over time is that the fundamentals have almost not moved at all from all the way back in OD&D. D&D is still wrapped around classes. It still has the same six attributes. It still does attacks fundamentally the same way, with bonus to hit versus armor class. It still has level elevating hit points. The basic approach to handling spells is still pretty much the same. There have been extensions of some of these, and some elements that were more important earlier have less importance (races, alignment) but none of the basics have every really changed. And its unlikely they will, no matter what they are, because there are too many decades of inertia behind them. [/QUOTE]

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