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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 2255177" data-attributes="member: 114">This ties in so nicely with what I was going to say that I thought I'd quote S'mon as my introduction.My friends an I abandoned 1e in the early 80's for Runequest.  We had got tired with the very things that have already been mentioned on this thread - mid level characters who could ignore threats (the levelled crossbow), environmental issues, falls -  which were serious matters for 1st-3rd level characters. In Runequest2, where the mechanics gave you basically static hit points but with defences (parry and armour) which gradually improved as you got more experienced, we found a game where even weapon masters could get into difficulty if they were attacked by two or three opponents at a time, where a 20ft fall was bad news for anybody, where you could have a limb severed in combat.Now RQ2 wasn't a low magic game - everyone cast battlemagic spells and eventually had access to rune spells from one means or another. Divine intervention could bring dead PCs back to life, severed limbs could be repaired. Yet amongst all that it always maintained its grim and gritty feel - the Rune Priest-Lords were still worried about a 30ft fall, or being outnumbered by half-competent opponents.The RQ2 system was easily translatable - I did an entire Sci-Fi RPG based upon it, we also had Empire of the Petal Throne and Dark Sun conversions for which it fitted admirably.So no. Grim and Gritty isn't "anything more than a prejudice". It can be used to encompass a range of possibilities, not least that of having a consistent level of threat which remains within the realm of easy believability. Some people are able to easily rationalise a levelled crossbow bolt only nicking the high level Ftr, but the point remains that the high level D&D Ftr just doesn't have any reason to fear a single crossbow wielded by a watchman. Grim n Gritty allows this to be a believable threat. Some non-D&D systems do this admirably (RQ2 certainly did), some D&D systems do so too, AFAICS.To my mind hit points are the main problem facing grim and gritty in D&D, and it is interesting that d20/OGL means of getting grim and gritty normally have to find some way of bypassing them (lowered Massive Damage Threshold, replaced hp etc).Cheers</blockquote>

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