Since people in real life are not generally main characters with loads of plot armor in a story, treating them as such in a game absolutely is a simulation issue.
There could be an in-world explanation for the plot armour, and as I mentioned upthread, it could be something represented mechanically in a way that doesn't involve out-of-character strategising. Could be some kind of divine blessing, or a Domino style luck superpower, for instance.
That of course is the issue. I want a low-key fantasy world to be an option.
I like D&D-type fantasy (and the Forgotten Realms in particular - most of my D&D purchases in the last 20 years have been FR novels or audiobooks), but not when I want a low-magic fantasy world, I don't think it's very good at that. For that I probably reach for GURPS; Rolemaster 4e or one of the other ICE RPGs; or Mythras.
But the fact that some (many) people don't want a death spiral, and hence use D&D hit points, isn't an argument that D&D hit points aren't meta. If anything, it seems to me to push the other way: because people don't want in-fiction injury, exhaustion etc they use a meta system to track progress and set-back in combat.
I think D&D type HP
could become non-meta,
if they represent the body's supernatural ability to resist injury. Might want to add a check for wounds or a hit location table to it at that point though. That is of course, distinctly not low-fantasy, and skews more toward Wuxia or Xianxia tropes.
But is that desirable in a game where combat is the main mode of play? I'd argue not, based on experience with lots of different systems. Death spirals by way wound penalties and similar almost never improve the experience or create the kind of play folks imagine they will, in my experience.
Part of the appeal, to me, is that it means you won't want to risk combat all the time, and you'll want to try to set up the scenario to rig a fight in your favour before it begins. It also leads to the players running away, and pursuit scenes. I have some fun campaign memories of Shadowrun 4e and 5e, where we're running for our lives and we're all carrying lots of strain. Good times.
OMG, we're parsing the actual text of LOTR like it's an RPG. Shark. Us. Lots of awkward jumping.
In Rolemaster, which is rather heavily influenced by Tolkien, you have three "ranks" of Men: High, Mixed, and Common. High Men are basically Dunedain, and have a specific culture as well. Mixed and Common men have different stat bonuses, but both have the same variety of cultures available (e.g. City, Plains, Woods, Mariner) (which determine starting skills). So under that paradigm, Gondorian nobility would be Mixed Men, and most other Men in Middle-Earth would be Common.
Rolemaster has entered the chat.
I was about to bring up RM4e and Shadow World and MERP.
Most of us have vastly different goals than Micah, it is what it is. I appreciate his play style, but it's very niche.
But it's the best niche. lol
I don't actually think ot is particularly niche in a field of the niche. Everyone has a specific playstyle. Few are more niche than others. It is just that Micah is not shy about stating his preferences, which I think is refreshing in its way.
I feel as strongly as Micah in the opposite direction: neither immersion nor mechanical fidelity to the simulation are of any importance to me. I expect i am as niche as he, and that is tosay: not particularly.
I say this with some comfort in my assessment, but admitting I can't prove it: while perhaps not viewing the hobby as a whole, I think your position is significanly more common in the gaming populace than Micah's. It may well have been the inverse when I entered the hobby where a simulationist streak was significantly more visible.
I think I would agree here. The simulationist-leaning demographic was much more common near 2000, and the TTRPG industry has been mostly catering to a rather different demographic for the last ~15 years.
Possibly. I don't have any particular skill at assessing the pulse of the hobby. But I do see enough people overly (IMO) embracing sulimulation and especially immersion to not feel like Micah is too much of an oulier.
I would speculate that people like myself and Micah are outliers in 2026 if for no reason beyond that so few games are made for this psychographic these days.
