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Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8503950" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Given as much of the last 15 pages of discussion has gone WAY over my head, I'm not 100% sure what you mean here.</p><p></p><p>If I interpret the question to mean what I think it means, describing hit point loss is the same as describing anything else that happens in the fiction: you make something up that suits the moment and narrate it. Therefore, there is no inherent impossibility in describing hit point loss.</p><p></p><p>But if you mean something else, which is quite likely I think, please clarify. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Exactly, meaning you've already answered your own question (above) for me. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Maybe, but a character will usually know if their attack has had any real impact on a flesh-and-blood creature and will usually within the fiction be able to get a vague idea of what that impact represents, and this is what I try to narrate. Thus, if you hit a 12-h.p. Orc for 8 damage the narration will be different (something like "You really wiped the smirk off its face with that one - not sure if it can take another one of those!") than if you hit a 100-h.p. Giant for 8 ("You hit it, sure, maybe even scratched it; but it largely ignores your feeble blows- it'll take a lot more like that to make much impact!"), even if the underlying mechanics are unaffected.</p><p></p><p>With some creatures - oozes, jellies, shambling mounds, and wafty undead are some - there's often almost no way for an attacker to know in the fiction if any real damage was in fact done; and this is reflected in the narration: "Well, your blow sunk into it nice enough but it's unclear what if any effect it had."</p><p></p><p>Spell damage can also sometimes be hard to discern, the character there is looking for a reaction from the creature as if it had just felt some pain.</p><p></p><p>This doesn't follow. The fiction is what drives the game mechanics; or - in reverse - the game mechanics are often simply abstract ways of representing the fiction. In the fiction my PC hits the Orc with a solid blow, which causes a mechanical change at the table when I-as-DM adjust that Orc's running hit points from 12 down to 4.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8503950, member: 29398"] Given as much of the last 15 pages of discussion has gone WAY over my head, I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. If I interpret the question to mean what I think it means, describing hit point loss is the same as describing anything else that happens in the fiction: you make something up that suits the moment and narrate it. Therefore, there is no inherent impossibility in describing hit point loss. But if you mean something else, which is quite likely I think, please clarify. :) Exactly, meaning you've already answered your own question (above) for me. :) Maybe, but a character will usually know if their attack has had any real impact on a flesh-and-blood creature and will usually within the fiction be able to get a vague idea of what that impact represents, and this is what I try to narrate. Thus, if you hit a 12-h.p. Orc for 8 damage the narration will be different (something like "You really wiped the smirk off its face with that one - not sure if it can take another one of those!") than if you hit a 100-h.p. Giant for 8 ("You hit it, sure, maybe even scratched it; but it largely ignores your feeble blows- it'll take a lot more like that to make much impact!"), even if the underlying mechanics are unaffected. With some creatures - oozes, jellies, shambling mounds, and wafty undead are some - there's often almost no way for an attacker to know in the fiction if any real damage was in fact done; and this is reflected in the narration: "Well, your blow sunk into it nice enough but it's unclear what if any effect it had." Spell damage can also sometimes be hard to discern, the character there is looking for a reaction from the creature as if it had just felt some pain. This doesn't follow. The fiction is what drives the game mechanics; or - in reverse - the game mechanics are often simply abstract ways of representing the fiction. In the fiction my PC hits the Orc with a solid blow, which causes a mechanical change at the table when I-as-DM adjust that Orc's running hit points from 12 down to 4. [/QUOTE]
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