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With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base
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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6003300" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>That's an odd conflation; I couldn't imagine <em>D&D</em> without hit points, but that doesn't mean in the slightest that I think of hit points as an essential part of <em>RPGs</em>. D&D is just one (and first, chronologically) among a plethora of RPGs that have tremendous variety and scope.</p><p></p><p>What?? Those must be some of the most well known RPGs out there - so, what you're saying is, basically, "only D&D counts"??? FFS - recognise that there are a whole range of roleplaying games out there, and they all have different design aims (well, many of them do, at any rate) and they support many styles of play. You don't need to warp D&D to the "one true style" of play you want to play - there will be a game out there that does it much better already.</p><p></p><p>As for the hit points thing; I would actually count all those games as doing "hit points lite" - along with the World of Darkness games and the like (which give saving throws to avoid losing each hit point, and name each hit point, to boot!)</p><p></p><p>For "non-hit-point" games, I would look at games more like HârnMaster (the original "a wound is a (bad) thing that you gain, not a pool of 'life' you lose", game), PrimeTime Adventures, Fiasco, Universalis and the like. It's true that these are not so well known - a shame, in my view - but for a simulationist game this approach works much better on several levels. It would actually not be too hard to do something similar using 4e mechanisms; each wound becomes essentially a "disease" that is tracked on the disease track. Of course, the whole combat system changes fundamentally, since taking the number of "hits" that D&D combat typically dishes out is completely unmanageable in this sort of system. </p><p></p><p>I can't xp you at the minute, but thanks for more food for thought.</p><p></p><p>If I put my "running Hârn" hat on, I think I can see the uses of this tool. For D&D I have found it unnecessary (and have been put off it - see below), so I just avoid it, for the most part.</p><p></p><p>This is a really good insight, I think. I can recognise elements of burnout around the time I "fell out of love" with the "describe everything" style of roleplaying. I think there is an element of players demanding the GM create a whole world for them to play with - and they had better damn well make it believable - out there. Nowadays I expect the players to take a role in envisioning the world and making it real for themselves; if they aren't prepared to engage to that extent on their own initiative I don't see why I should spend time preparing stuff to support their play.</p><p></p><p>That is very much a play style thing tied to the aims/agenda of play. For D&D it would bug me no end; the aim of play is to explore "dungeons" (where a "dungeon" could be above ground, even on a cloud, or could be a plot or intrigue just as well as it might be an actual hole in the ground) - to go on an "adventure", basically - so time spent making small talk with a grunt is time wasted.</p><p></p><p>When I run Hârn, though, the <em>players</em> will likely <em>want</em> to chat to the gate guard, because he may well have news that they want to know. The kind of "interesting stuff" the characters are involved in - and the players are engaging with - are very different between the two games. Time for an example:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">A recent sequence of events led the Hârn PCs to investigate a murder in a fairly remote manor. The situation was complicated considerably by a young man who, while very much enamoured of a maid who clearly had feelings for him, refused to consider marriage to her. It turned out that this was because, on a trip to a town on a neighbouring island, he had apparently been seduced by a local girl while rather drunk and had married her and slept with her while inebriated.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Thus it was that our 'heroes' pitched up at the said town - on business of their own - with an interest in finding and interrogating the lass whom the rather gullible lad had "married". Despite impromptu "pirate raids" (actually a clever ploy by a thief seeking to rob a rich smithy in the town) and sundry red herrings, the PCs did manage to track down and obtain a confession from the guilty locals.</p><p></p><p>In a setting like this, talking to gate guards (and market traders, and innkeepers, laundry maids, fishermen and smiths) can be a vital step towards getting what you want done actually done.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6003300, member: 27160"] That's an odd conflation; I couldn't imagine [I]D&D[/I] without hit points, but that doesn't mean in the slightest that I think of hit points as an essential part of [I]RPGs[/I]. D&D is just one (and first, chronologically) among a plethora of RPGs that have tremendous variety and scope. What?? Those must be some of the most well known RPGs out there - so, what you're saying is, basically, "only D&D counts"??? FFS - recognise that there are a whole range of roleplaying games out there, and they all have different design aims (well, many of them do, at any rate) and they support many styles of play. You don't need to warp D&D to the "one true style" of play you want to play - there will be a game out there that does it much better already. As for the hit points thing; I would actually count all those games as doing "hit points lite" - along with the World of Darkness games and the like (which give saving throws to avoid losing each hit point, and name each hit point, to boot!) For "non-hit-point" games, I would look at games more like HârnMaster (the original "a wound is a (bad) thing that you gain, not a pool of 'life' you lose", game), PrimeTime Adventures, Fiasco, Universalis and the like. It's true that these are not so well known - a shame, in my view - but for a simulationist game this approach works much better on several levels. It would actually not be too hard to do something similar using 4e mechanisms; each wound becomes essentially a "disease" that is tracked on the disease track. Of course, the whole combat system changes fundamentally, since taking the number of "hits" that D&D combat typically dishes out is completely unmanageable in this sort of system. I can't xp you at the minute, but thanks for more food for thought. If I put my "running Hârn" hat on, I think I can see the uses of this tool. For D&D I have found it unnecessary (and have been put off it - see below), so I just avoid it, for the most part. This is a really good insight, I think. I can recognise elements of burnout around the time I "fell out of love" with the "describe everything" style of roleplaying. I think there is an element of players demanding the GM create a whole world for them to play with - and they had better damn well make it believable - out there. Nowadays I expect the players to take a role in envisioning the world and making it real for themselves; if they aren't prepared to engage to that extent on their own initiative I don't see why I should spend time preparing stuff to support their play. That is very much a play style thing tied to the aims/agenda of play. For D&D it would bug me no end; the aim of play is to explore "dungeons" (where a "dungeon" could be above ground, even on a cloud, or could be a plot or intrigue just as well as it might be an actual hole in the ground) - to go on an "adventure", basically - so time spent making small talk with a grunt is time wasted. When I run Hârn, though, the [I]players[/I] will likely [I]want[/I] to chat to the gate guard, because he may well have news that they want to know. The kind of "interesting stuff" the characters are involved in - and the players are engaging with - are very different between the two games. Time for an example: [indent]A recent sequence of events led the Hârn PCs to investigate a murder in a fairly remote manor. The situation was complicated considerably by a young man who, while very much enamoured of a maid who clearly had feelings for him, refused to consider marriage to her. It turned out that this was because, on a trip to a town on a neighbouring island, he had apparently been seduced by a local girl while rather drunk and had married her and slept with her while inebriated. Thus it was that our 'heroes' pitched up at the said town - on business of their own - with an interest in finding and interrogating the lass whom the rather gullible lad had "married". Despite impromptu "pirate raids" (actually a clever ploy by a thief seeking to rob a rich smithy in the town) and sundry red herrings, the PCs did manage to track down and obtain a confession from the guilty locals.[/indent] In a setting like this, talking to gate guards (and market traders, and innkeepers, laundry maids, fishermen and smiths) can be a vital step towards getting what you want done actually done. [/QUOTE]
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