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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 5596894" data-attributes="member: 21169">I'm pretty sure the minion rules in 4e are intended to simulate the source material for D&D, such as Legolas and Gimli at the Battle for Helms Deep. Action Points in Eberron and 4e have a similar origin, I think. It's a bit weird though, because D&D wasn't intended to simulate adventure fiction originally. It started out as a wargame, a real world combat simulator (albeit emphasising playability) with fantasy elements added. 4E still isn't primarily a fiction simulator, it just has a few nods in that direction, imo.As an aside, an alternative version of 3e would have been a rules-lite story simulator, akin to Dragonlance SAGA System, but the rules-heavy, real world sim tendencies of Skip Williams and Monte Cook won out.It's odd to talk about hit points in the context of simulationism because hit points don't really simulate anything, fictional or real. It's a mechanic that very much emphasises playability over sim. As I understand it, the concept originally came from a naval wargame – Don't Give Up The Ship – written by Arneson, Carr and Gygax. It does make more sense when applied to ships than to human beings, as inanimate objects can be steadily degraded.However, consistency in and of itself is a high virtue for the simulationist. It may be because consistency is certainly a feature of the real world, and is also deemed by many to be an important feature of good fiction. So even if the game system doesn't actually simulate fiction or real life, as is the case with hit points in D&D, purely by virtue of its internal consistency it will resemble a significant feature of real life and good fiction, aiding suspension of disbelief.</blockquote>

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