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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8586508" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm pretty sure that [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] meant "fiction", not "function".I agree with [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] that a mechanical resolution that tells us to plug-and-play some fiction or other that we choose, that is (i) not specified or dictated by the mechanics, and (ii) doesn't matter to what happens next at the table, is very different from a mechanical resolution that actually dictates some more-or-less determinate fiction that actually does matter to what happens next. (In Ovinomancer's post, that was the opening of a lock so that the PCs can now pass through the door.)It seems to me that you are treating the fiction here as having content beyond what anyone at the table knows - eg you are saying that, because in the fiction the hit point loss is pushing the outcome of the combat towards some or other conclusion, there must be something taking place in the fiction even though no one knows what that is.I think that there are instances of D&D play that sit at odds with that sort of "platonism" about the fiction of D&D combat - eg the PC fighter suffers a large amount of hp loss, but is not debilitated by that hp loss (because that's what the rules say), and then wins the combat, and then is healed with (say) a couple of Cure Serious Wounds spells. The fact that the fighter was not debilitated seems at odds with supposing that that the fighter had suffered serious wounds; but the fact that the fighter needed CSW to fully recover pushes the other way.But even if one doesn't agree with the previous paragraph, or thinks that those sorts of cases are rare enough that they can generally be disregarded, there is still a big difference in the experience of play between positing that something or other is occurring in the fiction, though we the players don't know what it is (much like we as readers don't know the style or colour of Sherlock Holmes's underwear), and the lock-picking case where we the players know what is happening. I don't think the Holmes's stories would be so popular if they told us that Holmes had solved the case, but left it as an exercise for the reader to posit what occurred in the fiction so as to bring that about, telling us nothing more than that, as we turn each page, Holmes has done something-or-other to make the resolution of the case more evident to him!The analogue of this, on the hp model, would be to have Charlie's players make a series of performance rolls opposed in some fashion by the tavern-goers, with the numerical results of those rolls feeding into the final determination of whether or not the tavern-goers are put into a good mood, but with there being nothing determinate established about what anyone is doing or how anyone is feeling on the way through the process, at the end of each individual roll.But D&D has never used a system like this out of combat. The closest it has come in classic D&D is the wilderness evasion process found in AD&D and B/X (and perhaps also in the original books?), but while that is very abstract in its resolution I think it is a single check. (I'll have to go back and look when I get a chance.) And the closest it has come in modern D&D is the 4e skill challenge, but the rules for a skill challenge are clear in the 4e DMG (and even clearer in the DMG2) that the GM has to narrate concrete fictional outcomes following each check, as a necessary step in then allowing the next player to meaningfully declare their skill check. Whereas it's a striking feature of D&D hp-based combat that an attack can be declared and resolved without needing to know anything about the fictional position other than the physical proximity of the attacking character to the target character.REH typically narrates Conan doing concrete things, like crushing the skull of a were-hyena, or narrowly avoiding being skewered by a sword-blow.In LotR, JRRT takes a similar though less blood-spattered approach, particularly at crucial moments like when the Orc captain spears Frodo or Pippin stabs the troll.To get this in a FRPG, I prefer a system that generates a narration of events and consequences, in combat, that (i) isn't simply optional - rather, like a 4e skill challenge, the game can't progress without the fiction being established, and (ii) feeds into the resolution of what happens next. (Ideally, (ii) should be a consequence of (i).)Most RPGs I play or have played have a "death spiral" - Rolemaster, RQ, Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, Classic Traveller (not within a single combat, but across combat), Torchbearer (ditto) - but not all - 4e D&D, Agon, Cthulhu Dark.In RM, RQ, BW and Torchbearer, the death spiral mechanics also give us relative concreteness about what is happening in the fiction. And that matters to what happens next.In MHRP/Cortex+, Traveller and Prince Valiant - and referring to my (i) and (ii) just above - the death spiral ensures (ii) even if the (i) is sometimes rather abstract (ie all we know is that the character is being set back). The (i) isn't always abstract, though.Agon and Cthulhu Dark use one-roll resolution, and so even in combat resemble Ovinomancer's lock-picking case, not D&D combat. The concreteness is concreteness of outcome, and there is no abstract process that unfolds on the way through to it that is comparable to D&D hp attrition.And 4e D&D uses a lot of devices outside of hp attrition - its focus on positioning, forced movement, and effects - to generate concrete fiction that satisfies my desiderata (i) and (ii) stated not far above, even if we don't get concrete information about wounds of the death-spiral variety.I think those features of 4e D&D, which are relatively unique to it among versions of D&D, were definitely a significant change to the game.</blockquote>

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