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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 6720068" data-attributes="member: 23240">In general, I strongly prefer various "status effects" to damage. In most games, damage means nothing until the character is removed from play; in some cases, it introduces blanket numeric penalties that also do nothing interesting.On the other hand, status effects restrict some activities while leaving others intact. This requires adapting, changing tactics. Status effects make interesting things happen both on story level (for example, someone being blinded and trying to fight despite that is much more interesting than someone being hit in a way that doesn't change their behavior) and on tactical level.As a person who loves both interesting stories created through play (as opposed to pre-planned ones) and tactical conflicts, I see availability of status effects as a big advantage of a game. Of course, status effects can easily be done poorly. In D&D 3.x some were too debilitating, some too long-term and hard to remove and some too trivial to really affect anything. 4e did it much better, with effect durations of at most a few rounds and many ways of removing them (the whole leader role, honestly). I really like the tactical play that results from that.The best approach, for me, are freeform status effects, like situational aspects and consequences in Fate, or complications in Cortex+.</blockquote>