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<blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 5720981" data-attributes="member: 15999">I think it's a fantastic idea.I would like to start doing this incrementally, beginning with the concepts that, in my mind, should not be understandable to the PCs.&nbsp; I was in a long debate over on giantitp a while ago where the RAW-as-physics literalists were arguing that characters could figure out not only their actual level, but even their specific number of HP, and the damage range of various weapons, and that really nothing was &quot;metagaming&quot; since it could all be figured out in-world.&nbsp; Not my preference.But HP can be fuzzier if they are partly luck and plot protection.&nbsp; I think going to a WP/VP system and not telling the PCs their VP total or VP damage would better put the player in the character's mindset.&nbsp; They would know very approximate VP damage in terms their character would perceive (e.g. &quot;a bit battered, but not slowed down too much&quot;).&nbsp; Berserkers would even be unaware of their WP damage (as in 2E), with a bystander able to tell with a Heal check &quot;That is almost certainly a mortal wound.&quot;As well, magic can (and, IMO, should) be much more mysterious.&nbsp; Next game I run I will explicitly warn the players that magic is not just like science or technology, it is not safe and reliable and predictable, and its effects cannot be effectively tested by casting spells over and over under controlled conditions.&nbsp; I'd run with much more variable tables for spell results and some real chance of danger to the caster.&nbsp; Something like the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, maybe.&nbsp; The players would judge if Bless was a useful spell to cast the same way their characters would, based on how much easier fights seemed to get when they used it.&nbsp; That would work well if, to keep the effect hidden, I applied a now-variable bonus as a penalty to the enemy AC rather than telling them what to add to their hit rolls.I have gotten tired of the mathematical optimization and system mastery mini-games within D&amp;D.&nbsp; 3E just made the game too much about figuring the right bonuses to stack... not my cup of tea anymore.&nbsp; Too much time spent on the giantitp forums only exacerbated my frustration with that aspect of 3E, I think.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Brother MacLaren, post: 5720981, member: 15999"] I think it's a fantastic idea. I would like to start doing this incrementally, beginning with the concepts that, in my mind, should [I]not[/I] be understandable to the PCs. I was in a long debate over on giantitp a while ago where the RAW-as-physics literalists were arguing that characters could figure out not only their actual level, but even their specific number of HP, and the damage range of various weapons, and that really nothing was "metagaming" since it could all be figured out in-world. Not my preference. But HP [I]can[/I] be fuzzier if they are partly luck and plot protection. I think going to a WP/VP system and not telling the PCs their VP total or VP damage would better put the player in the character's mindset. They would know very approximate VP damage in terms their character would perceive (e.g. "a bit battered, but not slowed down too much"). Berserkers would even be unaware of their WP damage (as in 2E), with a bystander able to tell with a Heal check "That is almost certainly a mortal wound." As well, magic can (and, IMO, should) be much more mysterious. Next game I run I will explicitly warn the players that magic is [I]not[/I] just like science or technology, it is [I]not[/I] safe and reliable and predictable, and its effects [I]cannot[/I] be effectively tested by casting spells over and over under controlled conditions. I'd run with much more variable tables for spell results and some real chance of danger to the caster. Something like the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, maybe. The players would judge if Bless was a useful spell to cast the same way their characters would, based on how much easier fights seemed to get when they used it. That would work well if, to keep the effect hidden, I applied a now-variable bonus as a penalty to the enemy AC rather than telling them what to add to their hit rolls. I have gotten tired of the mathematical optimization and system mastery mini-games within D&D. 3E just made the game too much about figuring the right bonuses to stack... not my cup of tea anymore. Too much time spent on the giantitp forums only exacerbated my frustration with that aspect of 3E, I think. [/QUOTE]

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