Interesting Ryan Dancey comment on "lite" RPGs

[Henry]

Hit points are a D&D feature, not a D20 feature. WotC did 3 varient D20 games (SW, CoC and Wheel of Time) and they all used different wound systems & assumptions.

CoC uses the exact same system as D&D, even if the MDS is moved down to 10. Star Wars uses Vitality points/Wound Points, which is a very minor variation on the hit point mechanic. In essence, it still is hit points, even though there are some penalties associated with taking wound damage, I agree. I'm unfamiliar with Wheel of Time, I admit. But ALL work on the same principles as D&D's hit points. Alternity on the other hand, had three wound totals, with very different consequences for taking damage in each, and body armor had a definite effect to ward off different types of damage. While not quite as simple as d20 hit points, it definitely gives the feel of dramatic wounds, without making calculations too difficult, and it's a system I miss from time to time due to its lack of circulation in the d20 community.

 

[Henry]

(*) I'd really love to play an RPG where the operating entities were tribes, for example. And conflict was resolved on a social, religious, political and economic matrix rather than a physical matrix.

That sounds dead-on like Avalon Hill Civilization. It's a pity that Hasbro hasn't revamped that game to a more role-play oriented one...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Alternity on the other hand, had three wound totals, with very different consequences for taking damage in each, and body armor had a definite effect to ward off different types of damage. While not quite as simple as d20 hit points, it definitely gives the feel of dramatic wounds, without making calculations too difficult, and it's a system I miss from time to time due to its lack of circulation in the d20 community.

From your description, though, it sounds like the only real difference between this and D&D hit points is that, in Alternity, you've got: three pools of hit points (an expansion of the basic hit point mechanic), a more complicated "Armor as DR" system (i.e., a particular suit of armor has higher DR against laser fire than it does against bullets) (present in d20 StarWars), and an expansion of the Wounded mechanic to each hit point pool (present in d20 StarWars).

Since I've never played Alternity, what am I missing that makes it radically different?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've not played alternity either, but I wonder if it is the difference between physical toughness and virtual toughness?

Runequest used hit points to reflect physical toughness. It rarely changed unless your physique changed.

D&D etc. uses 'virtual' hit points, which don't reflect physical toughness - they reflect an abstract set of things that make you harder to kill.

From Henry's description it sounds as if Alternity might have been more on the fixed, physical representation of hit points rather than the abstract version.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Runequest used hit points to reflect physical toughness. It rarely changed unless your physique changed.

D&D etc. uses 'virtual' hit points, which don't reflect physical toughness - they reflect an abstract set of things that make you harder to kill.

From Henry's description it sounds as if Alternity might have been more on the fixed, physical representation of hit points rather than the abstract version.

Which is similar to what d20 StarWars does. You have Wound Points equal to your Con score, and Vitality Points similar to D&D hit points. Vitality Points represent an abstract set of things that make you harder to kill. When they're gone, you take Wound Point damage.

All critical hits apply directly to Wound Points, which don't change unless your Con score changes.

So, a putative d20-based system might have three pools of Wound Points, based on Con, Wis, and ... Cha (and even then D&D sort of has this already, too, with the ability damage / drain mechanic).

 

[Psion]

I think it's fair to say both sides have a point here.

Game mechanics do make a difference.

But the scope of those differences are often much smaller than people make out.

 

[Turjan]

Hmm... if all RPGs are the same anyway, what exactly are we discussing here? When is a d20 game still a d20 game, and when is it a completely different mechanical system? How much do you have to change of d20 in order to speak of a different system? Is Talislanta 4th edition (not the official d20 version) still a d20 game, even if it's not called a d20 game? I understand that there's no question whether HERO or GURPS represent different systems. But if you can basically change nearly everything of d20 and still call it d20, what makes for a different game then? Is it simply a matter of convention?

 

[Plane Sailing]

Which is similar to what d20 StarWars does. You have Wound Points equal to your Con score, and Vitality Points similar to D&D hit points. Vitality Points represent an abstract set of things that make you harder to kill. When they're gone, you take Wound Point damage.

All critical hits apply directly to Wound Points, which don't change unless your Con score changes.

So, a putative d20-based system might have three pools of Wound Points, based on Con, Wis, and ... Cha (and even then D&D sort of has this already, too, with the ability damage / drain mechanic).

No, in practice it is completely different - certainly in RQ which I'm familiar with there is no hit points at all. SWd20 simply ringfences a subset it calls wounds but still has a hugely variable bag of abstract hit points (called vitality points).

SWd20, CoC, d20Modern all use variations on the abstract hitpoint mechanism. MnM introduced the only genuinely different d20 damage mechanism that I've become aware of, and I haven't seen anything which uses physical, static hit points. Probably out there somewhere, but I haven't seen it. None of the WotC d20 games have moved significantly away from abstract hit points under one name or another.

Cheers

 

[Staffan]

Can you name a mechanical advantage that Alternity has that D20 (not D&D - D20) does not?

If you're going to reduce "d20" to mean "roll d20+bonus vs target number," I can only come up with one: variable success levels that can all be reached by (almost) all characters. If you roll below half your value, it's a Good success, and if it's below a quarter it's Amazing.

This kind of thing is really hard to do in a "roll-over" system. The closest you can get without serious mathematical acrobatics is to add special stuff if you beat the DC by certain numbers (like for the Knowledge skill used for monster lore, each 5 you beat it by gives you one more piece of information). However, that method means that someone who can only barely beat the DC can never get an exceptional level of success - a character with Knowledge (planes) +10 will never know more than one fact about a 16 HD outsider (DC 26). In Alternity, a character with a skill value of 10 performing a +3 difficulty task (rolling d20+d8) might have something like a 25% chance of success (I don't know the exact probabilities), which would translate to something similar to the above situation. However, he'll also have something like a 5% chance of a Good success, and maybe 1% chance of an Amazing one. In d20, that would not be possible.

There are other aspects of Alternity I like better than any version I've seen of d20, but if you're going to limit the definition of "d20" to the actual die-rolling mechanic, this is the only one I can come up with. However, if you'd go into the actual systems released (Alternity vs. d20Modern), there are plenty of other aspects that are better - and since I'm a consumer and not a game designer, those are the things I actually bother with.

 

[Psion]

If you're going to reduce "d20" to mean "roll d20+bonus vs target number," I can only come up with one: variable success levels that can all be reached by (almost) all characters. If you roll below half your value, it's a Good success, and if it's below a quarter it's Amazing.

This kind of thing is really hard to do in a "roll-over" system. The closest you can get without serious mathematical acrobatics is to add special stuff if you beat the DC by certain numbers (like for the Knowledge skill used for monster lore, each 5 you beat it by gives you one more piece of information). However, that method means that someone who can only barely beat the DC can never get an exceptional level of success - a character with Knowledge (planes) +10 will never know more than one fact about a 16 HD outsider (DC 26). In Alternity, a character with a skill value of 10 performing a +3 difficulty task (rolling d20+d8) might have something like a 25% chance of success (I don't know the exact probabilities), which would translate to something similar to the above situation. However, he'll also have something like a 5% chance of a Good success, and maybe 1% chance of an Amazing one. In d20, that would not be possible.

Not strictly true. If you use the open ended rolling variant introduced in the ELH (and bearing some resemblance to RM), you can do that.

I'm not sure I'd always want to, though. It depends on the task. You can have a lucky shot, for example, but can a neophyte musician randomly turn out a masterpeice?