D&D 5E (2014) ludonarrative dissonance of hitpoints in D&D

[Garthanos]

i think you miss the point of my statement when you only cut part of it out to respond to and ignore the rest

Acknowledging missed most of your intent

 

[Garthanos]

Or, a not immediately-visible injury. How often does a movie/TV character get through a fight visibly unscathed, then, later, there's a close-up showing that, oh no! they were hit by the poison weapon/bit by the zombie/exposed to the disease/curse/whatever, afterall?

Yes the adverse of "Not as bad as it first seemed" - could be fun to include trope references explicitly like have characters making rolls after the fight even if they never went below zero hit points to show one of those situation and call it "Well worse than we thought" and you have a wound / affliction / impairment.

 

[Garthanos]

you've argued a bit that it represents a lesser cost compared to how powerful the frightened condition is to the game, but i would ask to what extent is it lesser?

Or at minimum potentially less visible, its hard to argue something that sticks around is actually lesser so whether we can balance the cost of that visible vs not so visible impact or not is kind of smh the tactical vs strategic conundrum perhaps. Can we elegantly lock step them? not sure of that either as I said with a multiple of outward signs being possible I think maybe not.

i disagree that fear is evidence for lass will to live, its actually a reflection of a higher will to live, but maybe fear isnt being used as a will to live connection but instead mental durability

Yes the latter its mental trauma and has a measure of realism associated

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, you cannot talk about whether the mechanical and narrative bits are aligned without coming to agreement on the abstraction first.

That doesn't even quite sound like the definitions I found, though. They seem to be about theme vs gameplay.

As I pointed out, the theme in the genre D&D emulates, and even the themes sometimes presented in D&D adventures, can be very heroic. But, the way the system actually plays encourages much more selfish, un-heroic behavior that that would suggest.

Of course, since folks in general don't agree on the abstraction, that means you never get to consensus to then talk about whether those abstractions are dissonant with the fiction.

That's just it, though, abstractions aren't dissonant with fiction, they're just dissonant with different levels of abastraction. Indeed, the more abstract you get, the more you just paste in whatever the fiction's supposed to be.

FREX: You could have an RPG "EPIC COIN TOSS" - two players, one, on the villain side, tosses a coin, the other, on the hero side, calls it in the air - the winner narrates the story. No dissonance nor even potential for dissonance due to the abstraction.
OTOH, the resultant play would be quite dissonant with the themes typical of heroic fantasy, since the story gets told from the victorious villain's side, half the time, which is pretty far-removed from genre.

Hps are presented as very abstract (not quite that abstract), so picking them apart like these threads tend to do (this one's nothing new or unique in that regard) is changing that level of abstraction, without changing the mechanic... which is not going to work. That is, the attempted analysis is not going to work - the hp mechanic & related sub-systems will continue to work as well (or badly) as ever, regardless.

 

[Garthanos]

FREX: You could have an RPG "EPIC COIN TOSS" - two players, one, on the villain side, tosses a coin, the other, on the hero side, calls it in the air - the winner narrates the story. No dissonance nor even potential for dissonance due to the abstraction.
OTOH, the resultant play would be quite dissonant with the themes typical of heroic fantasy, since the story gets told from the victorious villain's side, half the time, which is pretty far-removed from genre.

Make it rock paper scissors and hero wins on a tie... have the DM narrating npc wins in ways that allow story advancement at a cost and similar things which follow the conventions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Make it rock paper scissors and hero wins on a tie...

That'd still have Sauron ruling Middle Earth a lot more than you'd expect.

have the DM narrating npc wins in ways that allow story advancement at a cost and similar things which follow the conventions.

I was kinda assuming no DM.

 

[Lanefan]

Your thesis has been read and disagreed with. Repating yourself isn't going to change anyone's opinions. What your saying is understood and is still being disagreed with.

1. The damage types argument doesn't stand scrutiny.

Fair point.

2. Your hitpoints definition is incompatible with 5e's hitpoints definition

Not fair point. If what's being put forward is based on the idea that 5e's definition of hit points is fundamentally wrong in the first place then of course whatever other definition is used is going to be different.

(and while I don't agree with most of the rest of the - I must admit very detailed - proposal, I do agree that the way 5e does hit points has some very big holes in it)

 

[Lanefan]

There is none. There is no dissonance with hit points. Hit points are a game mechanic and that's all there is to it. They are a game mechanic that can be interpreted as needed, based on the situation and narrative of the game and imagination of the player.

Only true until and unless one wants to look at hit points as a representative simulation of a creature's actual condition, at numbers other than 0. I want there to be a fictional and narrative difference between a creature's condition at full h.p. vs its condition at 3/4 or at 1/4 or at just a few left - this doesn't need to be reflected in the mechanics (though bloodied-at-1/2 is a cool mechanic, I don't see it as essential) but does in the fiction.

At that point dissonance rears its ugly head all over the place.

 

[Arch-Fiend]

That doesn't even quite sound like the definitions I found, though. They seem to be about theme vs gameplay.

As I pointed out, the theme in the genre D&D emulates, and even the themes sometimes presented in D&D adventures, can be very heroic. But, the way the system actually plays encourages much more selfish, un-heroic behavior that that would suggest.

So ludonarrative dissonance is when the story of a game is describing something to you the player that the narrative the gameplay would imply is contradictory to without the game's narrative presenting an explanation for this.

I may not be using the traditional use of this term but i am trying to describe something i think is very close to it. What my initial thesis seeks to examine is if the narrative about what hitpoints represent that i presented as being argued to me is accurate when compared to what the mechanics of hitpoints informs us. I did this somewhat incorrectly by not just going to the definition of hitpoints and saying "look its more abstract than that" but i was working from the idea that the arguments being made to me were on good faith rather than just what was thought by other people with no bases in the game.

I then went about explaining what can be interpreted about hitpoints by what related concepts mechanics has in constitutions and leveling, i argued that those elements could be used to reinforce the interpretation i was arguing against. I then went to examine damage, from what i found in damage i dont think i need to reexplain, but i found that damage did not very well reflect the interpretation i was arguing against when you take damage in its full context.

I've sense created an errata that explains how i was arguing against an unofficial narrative.

So wheres the ludonarrative dissonance in the argument i initially made? If hitpoints are told by one gameplay element to mean one thing in narrative form and then another gameplay element contradicts that then we have conflicting narratives. through the gameplay there is a dissonance in the narrative.

That's just it, though, abstractions aren't dissonant with fiction, they're just dissonant with different levels of abastraction. Indeed, the more abstract you get, the more you just paste in whatever the fiction's supposed to be.

FREX: You could have an RPG "EPIC COIN TOSS" - two players, one, on the villain side, tosses a coin, the other, on the hero side, calls it in the air - the winner narrates the story. No dissonance nor even potential for dissonance due to the abstraction.
OTOH, the resultant play would be quite dissonant with the themes typical of heroic fantasy, since the story gets told from the victorious villain's side, half the time, which is pretty far-removed from genre.

Hps are presented as very abstract (not quite that abstract), so picking them apart like these threads tend to do (this one's nothing new or unique in that regard) is changing that level of abstraction, without changing the mechanic... which is not going to work. That is, the attempted analysis is not going to work - the hp mechanic & related sub-systems will continue to work as well (or badly) as ever, regardless.

Your right though, abstractions themselves arnt dissonant by definition, they just are when they must relate to one another. Abstractions do have meaning, otherwise they would be purposeless as a conceptual tool. when you say hitpoints you either mean something, or the game tells you that you can mean whatever you want, if its the latter then once you assign it meaning, you have the expectation to be consistent up until the point a new element is added. my main question tends to be why hitpoints mean all these things other mechanics in the game that arnt hitpoints mean when we create narratives around what losing hitpoints means for a character? The answers to these questions matter, because confusion occurs when a mechanic can represent anything, is used to represent something thats already represented, and now a distinction must be made between them.

If on the other hand abstractions do have meaning specified in the game, then that meaning is expected to stand the test of comparison between how its association is used in relation to other abstractions. If hitpoints are "physical durability, mental durability, will to live, and luck" (all abstractions themselves btw) and the game tells you that hitpoints are lowered via damage, then that means hitpoints can only be those 4 things, but also that those 4 things have to relate to damage, which itself is an abstraction that has meaning and its own relationships to other abstract concepts and its own subordinate concepts.

Abstractions when defined are no longer arbitrary.

This thread is examining how the abstraction of hitpoints can be picked appart and figuring out what associations between hitpoints and damage are possible in a narrative world while also sharing some of our rationality (as perspective can simply disagree with what is possible or not). The analysis works when there are things defined by the game, and they ARE defined by the game despite your insistence to minimize the degree of definition it has and maximize the degree of abstraction it has.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I do agree that the way 5e does hit points has some very big holes in it)

5e hps - all D&D hps, really - work at a very high level of abstraction. You can imagine there are holes underneath that abstraction. Or not.

Only true until and unless one wants to look at hit points as a representative simulation of a creature's actual condition, at numbers other than 0. I want there to be a fictional and narrative difference between a creature's condition at full h.p. vs its condition at 3/4 or at 1/4 or at just a few left

You can have whatever fictional & narrative difference among those as you like. Characters could yellow at 3/4, Orange at 1/2, and red at 1/4, then start blinking at single-digit hit points, if you wanted, for instance.

this doesn't need to be reflected in the mechanics (though bloodied-at-1/2 is a cool mechanic, I don't see it as essential) but does in the fiction.
At that point dissonance rears its ugly head all over the place.

Again, only if you create it, yourself.