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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6505439" data-attributes="member: 42582">Or (4), the event of hit point loss corresponds to serious injury, but the lost hit points themselves don't correspond to that injury, but rather to the ability to fight on.On approach (4), which is closer to my preferred approach, the restoration of hit points by way of inspiration doesn't represent the injury being healed, but rather represents the injury ceasing to be a burden on fighting on - because the character has been inspired to fight on in spite of it.How serious an injury can be, under approach (4), depends on how much fighting on despite the pain and debilitation you are prepared to allow in your fantasy RPG. In my own mind, broken limbs and punctured lungs are probably out, but broken fingers probably are OK, and cuts and bruises certainly are OK. On this point I think I'm closer to AbdulAlhazred: I think of myself as valuing verisimilitude, but the drivers of that for me are about character motivation, a sense of mythic depth to the fantasy world, etc. (That's one reason I've never got into Forgotten Realms - for me, at least to the extent I've encountered it, it fails on both these points and hence fails my verisimilitude test.)For me, the relationship between hit point loss/restoration and verisimilitude is also probably enhanced by my adoption of option 4 described above: I focus on hit point loss and gain as representing events (of being set back, and of overcoming that setback) rather than states (of being injured or uninjured).This sort of heresy, on the other hand, needs to be stamped out right quick!Although, truth be told, I would never run Rolemaster again - the mental overhead is too much, and it breaks down too badly around 15th to 20th level (depending on exactly what spell effects are in play). If I felt like running RM, I'd run HARP instead. But then if I was going to run HARP I'd run Burning Wheel instead, which is similarly complex but has nicer, and more tightly designed, bells and whistles to push play in the sort of direction I'm interested these days.One attraction of RM, which BW replicates, is the intricate richness of character build (they have comparable, very lengthy, skill lists). For me this helps verisimilitude in non-gonzo fantasy. In gonzo fantasy (which is the category I put 4e into) nuances of character aren't that important, because characters are defined more by their mythic resonance and the mythic conflicts they find themselves in. But in non-gonzo fantasy, where the focus is more on personal or human-level situations, individuals nuances of character become more important to bring a character to life. And a detailed skill list really helps with that, for me: I can look at this PC and see the high ranks in (say) Falsehood and Insight, and note the absence of ranks in Etiquette and Pleasantries, and realise that the character is manipulative, scheming, but socially unpleasant; and then look at another character and see the high ranks in (say) Falsehood, Pleasantries and Seduction, and realise that the character is a manipulative charmer. Another character might have low ranks in Falsehood but high ranks in Negotiation and Leadership and that suggests a different personality again, perhaps a stalwart paladin or clerical type.In 4e, with only Diplomacy and Bluff to cover all that field, these sorts of nuances disappear. Which is fine in a gonzo context - "gonzo" being pretty much the antithesis of "nuance" - but can lead to shallowness, and very same-y characters, in a less gonzo context. (And I would include classic low-to-mid level D&D - eg B/X and AD&D - as less gonzo, and hence suffering for this lack of nuance.)Of course nuance can be introduced purely by roleplaying, but putting it into mechanics helps make it matter in play when play is adjudicated by reference to mechanics - which is another thing that BW has in common with RM, although BW's mechanics are much tighter, benefitting from 20 years of RPG design development between the two games!</blockquote>

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