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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6302563" data-attributes="member: 42582">The objective reality in which the powers are different, and in which hit point damage is dealt, is the real world. The powers are differentiated in rulebooks and on character sheets. Hit points are tracked on a tally that goes up and down in accordance with the rules of action resolution.This does not quite make sense. I think you mean that &quot;one attack does result in unconscious whereas the other would not&quot;. And that is also a claim about the real world, not the gameworld. In the gameworld the counterfactual, &quot;Had Joe been attacked with Twin Strike rather than Biting Volley Joe would not have fallen unconcious&quot; is not true, at least as I run my game. This is in part because the counterfactual refers to things - like Twin Strike and Biting Volley - that don't exist in the gameworld.In the gameworld, there is simply the fact that, having been shot with arrows, Joe fell unconscious. There are true counterfactuals about this - eg had Joe not been shot he would still be conscious, or had Joe been luckier he would still be conscious, or had the archer who shot him been less skilled Joe might have ducked, or caught the arrow on his shield, or whatever.But these true counterfactuals in the gameworld are true in virtue of properties of the gameworld. They are not connected to game-mechanical features - like those things written on character sheets - that exist only in the real world as part of the apparatus of playing a game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6302563, member: 42582"] The objective reality in which the powers are different, and in which hit point damage is dealt, is the real world. The powers are differentiated in rulebooks and on character sheets. Hit points are tracked on a tally that goes up and down in accordance with the rules of action resolution. This does not quite make sense. I think you mean that "one attack does result in unconscious whereas the other would not". And that is also a claim about the real world, not the gameworld. In the gameworld the counterfactual, "Had Joe been attacked with Twin Strike rather than Biting Volley Joe would not have fallen unconcious" is not true, at least as I run my game. This is in part because the counterfactual refers to things - like Twin Strike and Biting Volley - that don't exist in the gameworld. In the gameworld, there is simply the fact that, having been shot with arrows, Joe fell unconscious. There are true counterfactuals about this - eg had Joe not been shot he would still be conscious, or had Joe been luckier he would still be conscious, or had the archer who shot him been less skilled Joe might have ducked, or caught the arrow on his shield, or whatever. But these true counterfactuals in the gameworld are true in virtue of properties of the gameworld. They are not connected to game-mechanical features - like those things written on character sheets - that exist only in the real world as part of the apparatus of playing a game. [/QUOTE]

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