I don't get the dislike of healing surges

[molepunch]

D&D is ultimately a game and not Acting or Dramaturgy 101, so even if healing surges are "video-gamey" I think it's fine. I currently play 4E and while I feel that the system often flatlines RP (because it's too easy to sit back and let the system take over the story or battle), it is also as to be expected; we cannot ignore the G part of RPG. Let's not be haters and think that it's suitably derogatory for 4E to resemble a (video) game.

Besides, roleplaying is not the same thing as make-believe or acting workshop. I am a stage actor by profession and to me they are quite different. You shouldn't have dice in your game if you crave RP-or-else...

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think it's notable here that how a player reacts to such a situation is often quite different when he puts himself into it knowingly and willingly, rather than at the hands of the party, the Dm, or the dice.

True, and that's a good distinction. I've tried to get him more active, since he normally is, but he just hasn't budged on it, really.

JC - what does this player do when the other PC's are out doing other stuff? Does he just sit there and watch the session?

He'll give his input on their situation. And, to be fair, most of the session takes place in or near the castle, so he gets to talk to them in character a lot of the time (well, "talk"... he's mute). But, when they leave to go on diplomatic missions, gather resources, confront threats, and the like, he stays back, hammering away in his forge.

I've tried to see if he wants to build something into his character to make him more proactive, or if he wants to swap characters, or if he wants to be more proactive in other ways. He wants to establish a court to socialize in, but that's about it. He's pretty insistent. And, I'm not afraid of him losing interest, either. We'll talk about the campaign between sessions (this happened today), he compliments me on my game versus past GMs (this happened today), and I've known him for over ten years, so we're pretty open to each other (we got into a discussion today where he voiced his frustration, so there's no problems there).

I think what happened is that he made a crafting character, built him to be mostly noncombat (though he got a wicked crit with his warhammer on a bandit the one time he left), and is stubbornly sticking to it, playing him as he thinks his character would act. I just don't want him to get tired of the game because he's so passive in-character.

Like I said, out of character he likes to give advice, give input, and the like, but he rarely does stuff with this character. And, since this hasn't been a problem with past characters, I'm sort of surprised to see it.

As always, play what you like

 

[Herremann the Wise]

D&D is ultimately a game and not Acting or Dramaturgy 101, so even if healing surges are "video-gamey" I think it's fine...
Besides, roleplaying is not the same thing as make-believe or acting workshop. I am a stage actor by profession and to me they are quite different. You shouldn't have dice in your game if you crave RP-or-else...

I think D&D can be such an amalgam of so many different things for so many different groups that I don't think I'd ever feel confident saying something particular was not D&D (and particularly something as intrinsic to the game as role-playing and sometimes acting). For you as a professional stage actor, it is an interesting perspective to say that taking on a role and acting it out is not part of your particular group's style. You seem to be focusing more on the mechanical game. Our group on the other hand loves "acting" things out at the table; it forms an important immersive element of how we play. For our group healing surges work with the style of our 4e game even though for many in the group there are many strange looks when the use of healing surges produce conflicting narratives between what the DM is saying and what the mechanics are resulting in.

On a different thread I have highlighted the central issues our group has with this (as well as potential solutions). If we get into the 4e mindset though, we can generally ignore the various issues with the ruleset.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[molepunch]

[MENTION=11300]Herremann the Wise[/MENTION]

I agree somewhat but I'm more inclined to understand D&D as a game on top of it being about group storytelling.

We do take on the roleplaying, you misunderstand. We do not play D&D like it's Monopoly. I grill my players on their characters and can often properly RP them when they are absent. However, we also accept the game conventions that come with the system, healing surges included. The narration for negative hitpoints is never a "sucking chest wound" unless the player wants it so, in which case we pile on the negative modifiers etc. We do not always take the Dying condition literally.

I guess I just wanted to share that even as someone who values RP I do not dislike healing surges because I can work around it as a gaming convention. Is it gamey? Yes. Does it challenge "realism"? Yes.

Is it okay to hate HS? Sure is!

I think D&D can be such an amalgam of so many different things for so many different groups that I don't think I'd ever feel confident saying something particular was not D&D (and particularly something as intrinsic to the game as role-playing and sometimes acting). For you as a professional stage actor, it is an interesting perspective to say that taking on a role and acting it out is not part of your particular group's style. You seem to be focusing more on the mechanical game. Our group on the other hand loves "acting" things out at the table; it forms an important immersive element of how we play. For our group healing surges work with the style of our 4e game even though for many in the group there are many strange looks when the use of healing surges produce conflicting narratives between what the DM is saying and what the mechanics are resulting in.

On a different thread I have highlighted the central issues our group has with this (as well as potential solutions). If we get into the 4e mindset though, we can generally ignore the various issues with the ruleset.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[MichaelSomething]

How would injuries impair a PC long term in a 3.X game? With healing items or a Cleric in the party, you should be able to bounce back in two/three days!

 

[JamesonCourage]

That's been discussed at some length.

 

[Guest 85555]

I would argue that most players are far more inclined to be okay with losing the character than having their character sidelined for significant periods of time. If you lost the character, you can promote an NPC and be playing again in a matter of moments. Or parachute a new PC into the story, or whatever works for you. IOW, you can add in a new character as soon as you make one.

If you character is sidelined for a month, unless the entire party decides that they will sit by your bed and hold your hand, you get to ride the pines and watch the game for however long it takes to roleplay through the next extended period of time.

I don't play RPG's to sit and watch for three hours. No offense to the other people at the table, but watching D&D for 3 hours is not my idea of fun.

And I pick 3 hours specifically because I've actually HAD DM's who did this. Character gets sidelined, but not killed, and play continues. FOR AN ENTIRE SESSION. Did it once, will never, ever do it again.

This depends on the group and there are numerous ways around the problem. I think this is a case where it is important to know your players. In my current group for example, my players would mostly prefer to keep things believable, if the character is seriously wounded, they would rather be sidelined or stay in the action knowing it may kill them (provided it is in character). But like I said, we are an RP heavy group and do a lot of urban investigations. So a sidelined character can still stay involved much of the time even if he isn't directly participating.

One solution to the problem of sidelined characters (and this doesn't just come up from taking damage but can also be a product of the storyline of the campaign) is to allow players to take on the roles of NPCs when their character isn't present.

I even have one player who is more than happy to sit out three hours if it keeps him immersed in the game. This is very much a taste and style thing. Just like some groups don't mind character death being an ever present threat, and others prefer script immunity.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, BRG, I can see that being a taste thing. If a DM sidelined me for 3 hours (the entire duration of a session), I'd thank him politely for the game and walk. Sorry, not interested in wasting my time thank you. Either come up with a way to get me back in the game, or let me know and I'll just skip today's session and go do something else.

Like I said, I had a DM who did that before. And, that's exactly what happened. He sidelined my character, more than a few times, and we spent huge amounts of time screwing around not accomplishing anything. To give you an idea, we were playing the first module of Shackled City and it took us SIXTEEN sessions to complete it. Sixteen three hour sessions to do that one module.

I thanked him politely and walked.

 

[pemerton]

Pre-4E HP allow a much greater narrative range than 4E's Healing Surges, which create absurd narratives if you describe them as actual wounds; this means that there's more scope for how you decide to narrate wounds and healing using pre-4E HP.

What I'm confused by is what narrative has actually been lost.

I JUST WANT SOME DESCRIPTIVE OPTION OF THE POTENTIAL DEATH INJURY THAT DOESN'T SHATTER MY IMMERSION BY HEALING WITHIN THE SAME DAY WITHOUT TREATMENT.

Surges "take away" the narrative connection between receiving actual wounds and recovering from actual wounds.

What I disagree with is the notion that surges remove wounds. You're willing to say a hero ignores flesh wounds the day he gets them, why do they have to vanish overnight? Why not do like the action heroes do, and just keep ignoring them the second day?

I'm with Pentius. Why does the surge expenditure have to be narrated as "removing wounds"? Why can it not just be narrated as "ignoring wounds"?

full healing after an extended rest prevents certain common fantasy-genre narratives, and rather needlessly in my mind. I don't care if people get up earlier than they should -that's heroic. I want there to be a possibility of them staying down for a while, though.

For NPCs, the GM can just stipulate that they are "still recovering". For PCs, it goes without saying (in 4e, at least) that they are heroic and therefore get up earlier than they should!

I feel like a large bit of this has moved away from surges themselves and into just the rate of HP recovery, which, though related, is at least tangential.

Agreed. Healing time is a red herring - it is a trivial house rule. The real contribution that surges make to the game is to dramatically change the dynamics of combat on the player side of the table.

 

[pemerton]

It's my belief - biased by personal preference, I'm sure - that RPGs are more engaging when those choices are grounded in "fictional positioning". That is, when you make your decisions, they are based on the details of the game world.

A good bias. I don't think any edition of D&D has ever made the extent and consequences of injury part of the fictional positioning (except perhaps in some very marginal cases, like the rules for caltrops in Unearthed Arcana), but I could be forgetting something.

HP and Surges. If we look at the difference between them in terms of choices the players make - how HP support one set of choices and Surges another - what do we get?

I don't know what the answer to that is, but I'd bet that there is a fundamental difference in the kinds of choices a player can make.

The most obvious difference that I see in action resolution is that the 4e mechanics make a whole lot of choices about how to gain access to a PC's surges very important - whereas, back when I played AD&D, recoving hit points during combat was at best a very minor element of play.

The dying rules also make a big difference to choices too. Being knocked unconscious, in 4e, is closer to being stunned or paralysed in earlier editions of the game, than to being knocked to negative hit points.

And I'm sure there are a lot of other differences too.

My 4E Hack has some rules for "maiming" characters.

<snip>
Severed limbs/appendages, missing organs Remove Affliction

I've also treated Remove Affliction as what is required to restore severed limbs, heal major organ damage etc.

My take on maiming in 4e is that, so long as action is being resolved in accordance with the combat resolution mechanics, then no PC can be maimed by an attack, and no assailant can maim an NPC with an attack other than by dropping that NPC to 0 hp or below.

So I've had the PCs meet, and help, maimed NPCs, but that maiming was not the result of the application of the combat rules. (Also, the players had no trouble with the ruling that their Healing Words and the like couldn't restore missing limbs - they accepted it as obvious that healing which simply triggers a surge can't do that, since a surge can be triggered by getting one's Second Wind, and getting one's Second Wind obviously cannot regrow a limb.)

A simple example in game: A PC was hanging onto a wall from one hand. On top of the wall were some goblins; they hacked at his hand and brought him below Bloodied. Since he had no way to avoid the attack, his hand was chopped off.

The way I run my game, I would be obliged to narrate that the PC moved his hand to dodge the goblin attacks. If he also failed his climbing check and fell, we would know why! If he didn't, that would mean that he was able to get his other hand up before dropping, and the goblins weren't quick enough to chop it off!