Rebuild 1E...

[Mark]

And I suggest that D&D's own designers did not quite understand what purpose hit points served, because they devised a very different mechanism for surviving other kinds of danger -- saving throws.

I would counter that by having a leveling system and tying hit dice to levels (and capping it) they very much knew the function of hit points. It's hard to imagine anyone with a dozen or more years of wargaming background not understanding hit points as a game concept. It may be that since saving throws are, in part, a seemingly organic offshoot of morale rules that the concept of that subsystem was less understood and/or playtested at its introduction.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you mean.

You said: "anyone kill-able in one shot is weak and not powerful -- which is indeed the case in a game like D&D, with its escalating hit points."

Yet you are also asserting that a mechanic exists that would have made them equivalently powerful, but which was not escalating hit points. But if in fact, "anyone killable in one shot is weak and not powerful" in a game with escalating hit points, this is the same as asserting no such mechanic exists.

I don't believe the nature of escalating hit points was well understood at the time...

I don't have to argue that it was (although I could). There is a different and easier to advance argument available to me. Even if the designers of proto-D&D didn't fully understand the nature of hit points, they did have an advantage and an insight that let them select for hit points non-randomly and intentionally. And that insight was, they had oppurtunity to play the game in boths ways, and select the way that provided the most enjoyment for them. They knew which play experience they were trying to create, and it was most satisfyingly created by hit points. This is hardly surprising if you understand the effect hit points have on the game experience and consideri that the designers were all former war gamers.

because many, many not-stupid game designers tried to improve on D&D by removing them or reducing them, without understanding what purpose they did serve, only what "unrealistic" consequences they caused.

And again, I have only to assert here that experience is often superior to intelligence. Also, I don't have to believe that they didn't understand the purpose of hit points, in order to assert that they wanted to create systems that were more 'realistic'. They needed only to have different purposes or to desire to create a different experience of play. I don't have to believe that they thought 'hit points' to be inherently inferior. For example, I would count Steve Jackson in the crowd of not-stupid game designers, and while he reduced the importance of hit points when he introduced GURPS he did not elimenate the mechanic. And at the same time, when he developed CAR WARS or Ogre, he continued to use outright hit points as the mechanic appropriate to the play experience he was trying to create.

And I suggest that D&D's own designers did not quite understand what purpose hit points served, because they devised a very different mechanism for surviving other kinds of danger -- saving throws.

I would argue that they made a trade off between their goals and simplicity here. A truly unified game mechanic would have meant giving the players a complex array of things 'vigor points', 'willpower points', and 'fatigue points' to keep track of, and then provided various means of adjucating the loss and recovery of these things as well as what threshold on which the loss of these things actually led to the imposition of a condition (be it stunned or dead or whatever). Even had the designers struck upon such a complex system, it might well have been rejected as being too cumbersome in actual play. They would have had experience from the complex wargames of the 60's of knowing that tracking multiple resources could be a drag on play, and could have decided to leave special cases to be resolved by a table. However, I would argue that the table that they did device indicated that they retained their basic goal of reducing the influence of luck over the outcome to successsful and skilled players in that the 1e table very explicitly made it easier and easier to pass a saving throw as level increased.

Furthermore, we have some record of what the actual argument that the designers had over saving throws was, and its rather far removed from the modern perspective on saving throws. According to Gygax, the saving throw was introduced as a 'luck' mechanic to represent a chance to evade the consequences of a bad decision. In other words, they saw the imposition of a status change coming from something like, 'You see medusa, hense you should be turned to stone', as being unlike the more ordinary consequence of being in combat, and instead as the fair consequence of a failed decision making process. They were looking at armor class and saving throws as being inherently different in a way that is utterly foreign to say the modern 4e approach of considering all sorts of attacks to be ordinary and normal.

but, if we gain a better understanding of how they do and do not work, we can devise something with the strengths of a hit-point system without the weaknesses.

Good luck with that.

 

[mmadsen]

You said: "anyone kill-able in one shot is weak and not powerful -- which is indeed the case in a game like D&D, with its escalating hit points."

Yet you are also asserting that a mechanic exists that would have made them equivalently powerful, but which was not escalating hit points. But if in fact, "anyone killable in one shot is weak and not powerful" in a game with escalating hit points, this is the same as asserting no such mechanic exists.

In D&D -- OD&D through 3.5E, at least -- if you're kill-able in one shot -- with an ordinary sword, spear, or arrow, from an ordinary warrior -- then you only have one hit die, which is a weakness in itself, and you must be first-level -- or zero-level -- and thus weak and not powerful in other ways as well.

In an alternative game, where characters did not have hit points and did not get one hit die per level, the greatest knight in the world could still be extremely tough but kill-able in one shot. For instance, he could block 19 attacks in 20 -- equivalent to a high AC -- and only one of those successful attacks in 20 would be a telling blow -- equivalent in some ways to 20 hit dice, but not in others. We'd expect such a warrior to endure 400 ordinary attacks -- he'd be ludicrously powerful -- but there would be no guarantee against that first arrow finding his eye slit, unless he also had fate on his side.

A PC, of course, would have fate on his side, in the form of quasi-hit points, which he could use to modify rolls to hit or to hurt him.

 

[evildmguy]

I do not want a low-level minion to typically kill anyone with one shot at any time. I believe a low-level minion should have some chance to kill a competent character who does not have plot-protection with one "lucky" arrow in the eye, or whatever -- without side-stepping most of the combat system and making an ad hoc DM call.

That is, when an elite unit of Uruk-hai pikemen holds the pass against a similarly elite unit of Gondorian knights, some of them should fall in the first clash.

The knights who do fall should not include our intrepid PCs -- but they should be at risk of losing hard-to-replace plot-protection resources, so they have little incentive to abuse their plot-protection "unrealistically".

I was not completely clear, so my bad.

So, let me ask this: What purpose does it serve to have it so that a (non plot protected) player character can die from a lucky shot? Indeed, what is a plot protected player character and how do they exist?

I see part of the answer is so they don't waste resources in terms of NPCs. I rarely ran 1E with the PCs having lots of hirelings or henchmen. The idea was to tell the story of the heroes, the individuals, not the generals of armies. To that end, I had a very different goal than you. While I was aware of the Battlesystem sub system for mass combat, I loathed it. I didn't want to wargame.

I do agree that game terms and role playing were not in synch. The rules say that most NPCs are 0-level (which still means more potential hit points than a wizard at first level and equal to a rogue's first level total) and even the most elite of guards are only 5th level. When a DM has a party that exceeds 6th level, these rules seem strange now. How can the DM challenge the party when most monsters aren't that tough anymore? There is this disparity between what is said and how the game handles them.

Further, there is the problem of realism as well. How is it that the characters only ever face problems they can handle? What about when the fourth level PCs meet a powerful dragon or demon, whether by accident or design?

Again, to me, that's just part of the level based system 1E created. It's also why I claim that 1E stops around 12th level, and maybe earlier, because the entire game system seems to break down. Very few monsters are a tough challenge so what's a DM to do?

What I saw, then, was that players are getting excited about the higher levels and really wanting to play but I was ready for a new story with different characters. It was a constant struggle.

I think this is why, the more I think about it, level limits are actually pretty good, with no adders for high ability scores. When you consider that 12th level is really high in the game, even though it has rules for well beyond that, 5th to 7th level is a good level at which to be constrained. Again, though, then there is a disparity between what is talked about in role playing terms versus the game rules. How do the long lived PC races (elves, dwarves, etc.) have such a "low" level limit?

Unfortunately, the game mechanics offer to advice on this. Perhaps the game world should have been more written with what the game rules did. I don't know.

What I would probably do today is slow down advancing by a lot. I would hopefully manage the players expectations and try to show how they are better than most. Even now, when they don't advance at a steady rate, my players think they aren't doing well in the game. For 1E, I think that's something that has to be managed better. Or a sub system that gives them game mechanic growth has to be introduced so they can see the game mechanic changes of their characters. But, again, I don't know the specifics at this point. It would be trial and error for me, if it were to happen.

But a good discussion! Thanks!

edg

 

[mmadsen]

What purpose does it serve to have it so that a (non plot protected) player character can die from a lucky shot? Indeed, what is a plot protected player character and how do they exist?

D&D characters start off at first level both incompetent and lacking plot-protection, mechanically, at least. Arguably they have negative plot-protection, with just one hit die, because many ordinary people have survived dozens of stab wounds or gunshot wounds in the real world, but we all know the DM tends to look after them in other ways.

Then, as the PCs ascend in level, they gain both competence and plot-protection. Not only are they better at fighting, resisting poison, dodging death-rays, etc., but they know they can't be taken out by a lucky shot. Or two. Or three. Or four.

And the same is true of NPCs, oddly enough.

What purpose does it serve to have it so that a (non plot protected) player character can die from a lucky shot? Not much. For a certain style of "old school" game, it may be fun. "We play for keeps." Generally though, no, having no plot-protection, as a PC, gets old the moment you die "for no good reason". And, of course, that's what save-or-die spells do.

On the other hand, that's how real-life works, so, if you're using the rules for anyone other than the PCs, it's nice to have that kind of danger around. And even with PCs involved, it's helpful to break out plot-protection from hits doing wounds, which require healing, despite not being actual hits causing actual wounds, etc.