D&D 5E ludonarrative dissonance of hitpoints in D&D

[Arch-Fiend]

The reaction to giving those sub-classes abilities that reach even a bit beyond the aggressively mundane tends to be very harsh.

Also, it's just a little weird that you whinged enough over the realism of armor to come up with a fairly neat simulation of D&D armor as both PD & DR (to channel GURPS for a moment), yet are also hot to throw realism to the winds by making the most basic of character stats overtly supernatural.

my reason is the conflict between rationalizing the impression one gets from the initial interpretation of hitpoints vs damage and how these 2 systems which do interplay seem at odds with each other in what they reflect to those with only experience with regard to damage in the physical sense which is most people living in reality.

the requirements to solve what i see as a problem with what i just said is very minor compared to the requirements required to redesign the function of armor in D&D, im also not advocating for my design of armor in D&D to be the standard, and im only arguing for my interpretation of hitpoints to be the standard if WotC insists on a standard existing. if WotC will stop arguing that theres a correct interpretation of hitpoints then ill stop having people tell me that im wrong about hitpoints and ill start having people simply tell me "this doesent work with every interpretation of hitpoints but works if your doing hitpoints as durability"

 

[FrogReaver]

you and a few others who are still commenting here are the ones who concede theres no concrete narrative behind hitpoints (even if the game and the writers of the game disagree with us).

1. There is a concrete narrative behind hp - it's whatever the DM decides in that instant those hp mean. There's not a simulation behind what hp mean. But that's quite a bit different.

2. Just so it's clear - I've never conceded anything as what you are claiming I conceded has been one of the running themes in my posts since I started responding in this thread.... Nice attempt at spin though

also step 4 is easly undone as ive described, supernatural durability. thats a far simpler explanation than "theres no good explanation, so theres no right explanation, so any explanation is valid" the reason any explanation is valid isint because supernatural durability doesent make any sense or is a hard step for anyone to make in the process of taking the first impressions of the game and creating a rationality to how those impressions arnt realistic.

Let's start here - What the heck is supernatural durability?

also a complete logical fallacy to assume this is how it works for everyone because you actually have to accept anecdote as evidence to the contrary when your argument is based on the same idea of anecdote but over a longer period of time which is subject to confirmation bias.

No idea what you are talking about here

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm surprised this is still being debated in 2019.

Obviously, unarguably, there is a significant ludonarrative dissonance created by HP. I saw in my game on Saturday, just like I saw it in 1989. Often it becomes a non-issue for weeks or months at a time, yet other sessions it keeps popping up. But it's a Sacred Cow. It's not going to be changed or sacrificed now, because it's part of what makes D&D, D&D. People denying that it creates an issue are being very silly, frankly.

I mean, it's a totally solvable problem, too - as was shown by the Star Wars d20 RPG way back in 2000. All you need to do is separate things out into VP and WP or something similar. You have the VP ablated without any real injury, and the WP for when real injury occurs. You'd need to modify some rules in D&D, and a lot of spells, to reflect this, I mean really it would need a new edition to be done well, but it could be done, if it mattered that much.

But it doesn't matter that much. Not because, as some people rather risibly claim, it isn't happening, or isn't an issue, but simply because it isn't enough of an issue to overcome the fact that it's a simple mechanic that works well in most situations, and is also a Sacred Cow.

I recall many discussions about how that solution fell flat as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

my reason is the conflict between rationalizing the impression one gets from the initial interpretation of hitpoints vs damage and how these 2 systems which do interplay seem at odds with each other in what they reflect to those with only experience with regard to damage in the physical sense which is most people living in reality.

the requirements to solve what i see as a problem with what i just said is very minor compared to the requirements required to redesign the function of armor in D&D, im also not advocating for my design of armor in D&D to be the standard, and im only arguing for my interpretation of hitpoints to be the standard if WotC insists on a standard existing. if WotC will stop arguing that theres a correct interpretation of hitpoints then ill stop having people tell me that im wrong about hitpoints and ill start having people simply tell me "this doesent work with every interpretation of hitpoints but works if your doing hitpoints as durability"

What fiction are you trying to model with your supernatural durability interpretation? It doesn't look like you are tying it to anything. If not that is the bigger problem.

 

[Don Durito]

I always felt, that if anything, vitality points just draw even more attention to the issue, by trying to resolve it clumsily.

 

[Charlaquin]

it wasent fun and its my favorite edition of the game but its the kind of thing i houserule/homebrew for that edition

This is a slight tangent, but I actually do like save or die effects, when they are handled with care. Save or die effects are at their best when no one ever actually has to make the save - when the fact that a creature has a save or die ability is sufficiently telegraphed so that the players have the opportunity to take the necessary precautions to avoid risking being targeted by those abilities. The classic example being the Medusa. If the players know they’re going to be going into a media’s lair, either because that was part of the adventure buy-in, or because they see the petrified forms of its victims long before they encounter it, or both. Then they can make the choice to bring mirrors and/or fight blind, and it makes the eventual confrontation challenging because of the tactics the players are forced to use to avoid the Medusa’s gaze, not because of the gaze itself. But I recognize that such things require the DM to do all the heavy lifting to turn an otherwise unfun mechanic into an opportunity for a fun, memorable encounter. So I think it’s for the best that such abilities have been toned down by default, because it’s much easier for me to homebrew a monster with a true save or die ability when I want one than it is for others to homebrew weaker versions of monsters that have true save or die abilities by default.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I recall many discussions about how that solution fell flat as well.

As I recall most of them revolved around the fact that, mechanically, it doesn't work as well as HP (which is true, it's more complex, and slightly more annoying to work with) and doesn't create situations that are quite as pleasing for some people. Also the values that SW d20 had for VP and WP weren't great and it was slightly too easy to get around WP, but those are fixable.

But it still solves ludonarrative dissonance, at least to the extent one can expect it to be solved. There are no damage systems that do not create ludonarrative dissonance. They all do - every one I've ever come across - every edition of WoD, every edition of D&D, all the Palladium games (particularly bad when MDC gets involved), GURPS is not great for it, CP2020 has some silly situations, every version of Shadowrun has potentially ludicrous scenarios emerge (including, in what was it, 1E, or 1E and 2E maybe, where you could literally survive a nuke going off), CoC and the d100 games have plenty of problems here. Need I go on?

 

[FrogReaver]

I also felt, that if anything, vitality points just draw even more attention to the issue, by trying to resolve it clumsily.

My problem with them was that you couldn't be injured into they were depleted and then from the moment they were to death meant you probably weren't injured anyways.

Also have a worse time with poisions under vitality systems. At some point you are treating your hp buffer just like we treat D&D hp - but then you have a mechanic that doesn't really do what it proposed to do.

 

[FrogReaver]

As I recall most of them revolved around the fact that, mechanically, it doesn't work as well as HP (which is true, it's more complex, and slightly more annoying to work with) and doesn't create situations that are quite as pleasing for some people. Also the values that SW d20 had for VP and WP weren't great and it was slightly too easy to get around WP, but those are fixable.

But it still solves ludonarrative dissonance, at least to the extent one can expect it to be solved. There are no damage systems that do not create ludonarrative dissonance. They all do - every one I've ever come across - every edition of WoD, every edition of D&D, all the Palladium games (particularly bad when MDC gets involved), GURPS is not great for it, CP2020 has some silly situations, every version of Shadowrun has potentially ludicrous scenarios emerge (including, in what was it, 1E, or 1E and 2E maybe, where you could literally survive a nuke going off), CoC and the d100 games have plenty of problems here. Need I go on?

Sounds more like they needed save or die effects - or needed to drastically up the nuke damage

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My problem with them was that you couldn't be injured into they were depleted and then from the moment they were to death meant you probably weren't injured anyways.

There were actually too many ways around them, so I think you mis-remember. Re: poisons, they're not a real issue because they can be handled in a multitude of different ways, but they contribute to the issue of making the system more complicated.