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<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6257676" data-attributes="member: 58197">To me, there is a fundamental disconnect here: The idea that &quot;simulation&quot; must result in a narrative that can withstand in-depth examination. I don't think that's what most players and DMs are looking for. Rather, the goal is mechanics that quickly and simply produce a narrative that's good enough to pass muster in the heat of the game.Hit points are a perfect example of this. Everyone knows that the hit point mechanic falls apart on close inspection. You can dive down a rabbit hole of corner cases and oddities that demonstrate its absurdity. But for generating a quick and dirty narrative, hit points are perfect. They are a simple, clear, easily understood metric for &quot;How beat-up am I?&quot; When you get hit, you're wounded and lose hit points. When you're healed, the hit points come back. Simple.The problem with damage on a miss is that you have to think about it in order to make sense of it. If you roll to attack, and miss, and then announce that you're dealing damage anyway--wait a minute. You missed, but you still hurt the guy? Who with the what now? For many players, that smashes their immersion to bits. Sure, you can carefully explain how &quot;miss&quot; doesn't always mean an actual miss, and hit points aren't always meat, and so on and so forth. But as they say in politics, if you're explaining, you're losing. You lost when the players' immersion was broken. The great virtue of traditional hit points is that no explanation is required.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 6257676, member: 58197"] To me, there is a fundamental disconnect here: The idea that "simulation" must result in a narrative that can withstand in-depth examination. I don't think that's what most players and DMs are looking for. Rather, the goal is mechanics that [I]quickly and simply[/I] produce a narrative that's good enough to pass muster in the heat of the game. Hit points are a perfect example of this. Everyone knows that the hit point mechanic falls apart on close inspection. You can dive down a rabbit hole of corner cases and oddities that demonstrate its absurdity. But for generating a quick and dirty narrative, hit points are perfect. They are a simple, clear, easily understood metric for "How beat-up am I?" When you get hit, you're wounded and lose hit points. When you're healed, the hit points come back. Simple. The problem with damage on a miss is that you have to think about it in order to make sense of it. If you roll to attack, and miss, and then announce that you're dealing damage anyway--wait a minute. You missed, but you still hurt the guy? Who with the what now? For many players, that smashes their immersion to bits. Sure, you can carefully explain how "miss" doesn't always mean an actual miss, and hit points aren't always meat, and so on and so forth. But as they say in politics, if you're explaining, you're losing. You lost when the players' immersion was broken. The great virtue of traditional hit points is that no explanation is required. [/QUOTE]

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