Gameplay is an abstraction for all the mechanical properties of a game.
Well, an emergent quality of the game, that emerges from those mechanical & other properties ('victory conditions') and how players use them.
Doesn't seem in any way abstract, though.
So whats the narrative of D&D? well as you put it, the game can be played with minimal narrative pitting numbers that are assigned to entities the game describes against each other.
Well, that's a minimal look at the game play - the ludic part. Where the narrative part?
The DM might try to impose a narrative like the "story side" - set-up and cut-scenes and whatnot - of a video game. But he can also run a total sandbox that's prettymuch /just/ the gameplay, with no preconceived storyline or theme.
Because, until we establish that there's even a "story of the game" for the gameplay to be dissonant with, I don't think we even have a case of Ludonarrative dissonance. Just a case of picking at abstract mechanics in mere dissatisfaction with how abstract they are.
Likewise there's no good distinction as to why one class grants more than another.
It's as simple as it is abstract: they're harder to kill. Barbarians are harder to kill than Fighters are harder to kill than Wizards.
But bringing skill, experience, and class is a non-sequitur. You know that none of this is mentioned in the definition of hitpoints
Not directly, but skill/experience/class could feed directly into the mental portion of durability, for instance, and/or with will to live.
I mean, class gives you all kindsa stuff - take it up with Class.
Related concepts to hitpoint's are "creatures", "kill" "healing" (you omitted this one to shorten your definition of hitpoints), and "damage" (omitted again for brevity).
I omitted mentions of healing and 0 hps, because they were mechanical.
The point ive been trying to make is that we can better define the subordinate concepts you rightly point out as being vague, because they too are abstractions.
I mean, you
can but it won't mean anything, because you're going into a lower level of abstraction to do so.
Why not? The requirements of an abstract is that its related concepts must have a relationship with all of its subordinate concepts.
I am aware of no such requirement, whatsoever. Where are you getting that? That there are even necessarily "related" or "subordinate" concepts to an abstract idea or rule, let alone that they must have relationships to eachother?
There is a direct line of effect that goes through immunity, resistance, and vulnerability as a related concept to creatures between damage and hitpoints. immunity, resistance, and vulnerability as characteristics of creatures has a baring on what hitpoints mean in relationship to that specific creature and the type of damage it has those characteristics as related concepts. thus damage type has a meaning for hitpoints of that creature.This finally means that there is something about that creature which effects how many hitpoints it loses due to a damage type and that poses the questions; How can any creature lose hitpoints due to this damage type? Within context of the rest of the games mechanics what can immunity, resistance, or vulnerability represent? What subordinate concepts of a creatures hitpoints do the representations that immunity, resistance, and vulnerability apply to given this damage type? That tells you how the damage type lowers that creatures hitpoints.
I'm sorry, but none of that makes a sword-swing or a magic missile a creature, nor a creature an attack. They're still very different things.
What doesn't sound quite right is you implying that hit points are an abstraction used to denominate every possible thing that might kill a character.
Like I said, there /may/ be a Save-or-die mechanic lurking somewhere in 5e, and the should be a rule for death by drowning, that may well not involve hps. Those could be held up as inconsistencies.
But, the humble D&D hit point could be used to denominate any sort of lethal attack or hazard.
Thats only what hitpoints is in relation to the related concept's of "damage" and "kill". its subordinate components are physical durability, mental durability, will to live, and luck.
The hit points of a creature are those things.
The hit points of damage done by a fireball are none of those things. Because attacks aren't creatures.
Those subordinate concepts have meaning, you wouldn't say physical durability and mental durability are the same, thus when i question how the concepts of damage apply to hitpoints I'm questioning how it applies to its subordinate concepts based on the subordinate concepts of damage and the related concepts of damage.
It doesn't matter and it doesn't need to, because the resolution of an attack leading to damage reducing a creature's hit point total all happens at the same level of abstraction, a level /higher/ than, say 'physical durability' by itself.
You're not finding or uncovering, let alone proving inconsistencies, you're manufacturing them, by examining the function of a mechanic at a lower level than that at which it actually functions.
abstractions interacting to form something more abstract? Well let me try. lets say we take 2 abstract concepts, "properties" and "verb:use". If you create an abstraction between "properties" and "use" whats you get is an abstraction that only applies to them.
What would an example of such an abstraction between "properties" (in the sense of ownership or the sense of qualities? not sure what you're getting at) and "verb use"
However damage isint quite like that because damage has types, thus when damage is done to a character its not the abstract damage applied to them, its one of the subordinate concepts applied to them.
Not important, because that's happening at a lower level of abstraction. If you attack a creature with fire - that is neither resistant nor vulnerable to fire - it's hp are reduced by the basic hit-point-denominated value of the damage inflicted. A creature that is resistant takes less, vulnerable, more. That's as for as the function of the damage type go. If the creature is not reduced to half it's maximum hit points, it's not even supposedly showing "visible signs of wear" so you can't say it's burned (badly enough that it's visible, anyway) let alone 'burned more badly' than the next creature also not reduced to at least half hps. That could be true if the creature were resistant or vulnerable or neither. Heck, a resistant creature with not many hps could be killed outright by a fireball that doesn't even visibly burn a much more powerful creature that /is/ vulnerable.
This is still pretty vague, but damage as a concept related to hitpoints is not purely a matter of assigning "what happens" its also a matter of assigning "what it means for a character" which is to be closer to being killed.
It means closer to being killed. Because it's an abstract measure of how close it is to being killed.
Seriously.
However there is one more characteristic in damage and hitpoints that hasent been adressed, they are measurements.
what it is doing in the state a creature is in before they are killed.
It's an abstraction of that state, to a simple total number of hit points.
For damage's measurement, its an action which reduces a characters hitpoints in order to get that character to the state of being killed.
Well, that's at the hit point level of abstract (for once) yes.
SO a creature which has resistance to piercing damage which is dealt piercing damage by an invisible and silent creature that they have no awareness of takes less damage due to their resistance,...
Cant be mental durability
Can be, because they'd be more shaken by being /nearly/ killed by something they know is particularly deadly to them. (Seeing what's stabbing you is not the only way to know you've been stabbed!)
this likewise applies to will to live.
Not so clearly. But, sure, that will could be eroded more rapidly when already harmed by something deadlier to you than other things.
so all that remains is luck and physical damage.
You can certainly 'run out of luck' and, depending on where the attack leaves you relative to your max hps, could have received a physical injury, as well - be it too minor to be visible to those around you, visible 'signs of wear' (assuming you're not also invisible), or, if dropped to 0 something more serious.
But none of that is deterministic, it's all below the level of abstraction of the system that resolved the attack, assigned the damage, and noted the consequences of the hp reduction. So it could be whatever combination of the above makes sense in context.
i believe i have, but more abstractions lay underneath
Not 'you can't' like it's difficult or impossible, but "you can't" like it's meaningless. Though, yes, more abstractions (that are at a lower level of abstraction) may well be there, you can also get down to concrete things. But you're
not examining the original abstraction at that point it exists at it's own level of abstraction. It could be examined from a higher level, how it fits into the rest of the system, for instance, but not at a lower level, because it doesn't exist there.
