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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6507227" data-attributes="member: 6696971">You're one of the posters I mentioned upthread that unfortunately don't post enough anymore!I'm a big fan of the stress track system of games like Fate and MHRP (et al).  Not hit points aesthetically or functionally, but as  [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] mentioned above, kinda sorta possesses some overlap with HP or surges as an abstract narrative vessel for "what's left in the tank."  "What's left in the tank" then informing a fair stretch of the trajectory of subsequent play, only with different play procedures and guiding principles.Like Balesir's waxing nostalgic above, your line of thinking used to inform my play agenda for about a decade-long-span.  For several reasons (of which I'm sure you're probably aware of at least some if you've read any of my posts...so I won't waste time here elaborating) I've become dynamically opposed to a process-simulation mental framework and the systems, principles, and play procedures that propel a session or a campaign toward that very specific aesthetic.This is one of the many reasons that I knew that I wasn't going to fly the 5e flag.  Pseudo process-simulation informing a fair dose of action resolution and the requirement of heavy-handed GMing to play at all is literally the opposite of what I'm looking for.  That being said, if it is going to be there, I want the system to be tightly focused on that style of play.  If they would have done that absolutely awesome, I would have been an advocate.  However, drifting the game with all kinds of (not particularly synthesized into a tight feedback system) narrative bits and bobs along with D&D legacy stuff (purple prose and intentionally vague rules text) really pushes me right out of the consumer base.  The track would attack contingent upon the fiction warranting it with the attendant mechanics being either (1) a Healing Surge being lost, (2) Skill Challenge failure, or (3) single-event Blooded + HP damage coupled with a failed Death Save.  To that end, I've used it for:1)  Disease (mundane and magic)2)  Curses3)  Environmental exposure/exhaustion (specifically surviving being lost in a whiteout in the frozen tundra of the north or surviving being lost in a brutal, tropical swamp)4)  A very few times for Injury under very specific circumstances where the fiction warranted it (eg; going from above bloodied to negative HP in a fall and having a failed Death Save trigger an attack by the injury)5)  Horror in the face of Far Realm psychic keyword attacks.Using the Disease Track for such things while simultaneously altering the Extended Rest schedule (eg a week or a fortnight) will dramatically affect 4e play (and do it simply).</blockquote>

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