From my perspective, the game is much more interesting if both the players and the DM discover the results of play together. Unexpected decisions made by the players combined with the randomness of a die roll make the experience less predictable and thus more interesting.
This is, in my opinion, one of the things that D&D is ideally suited for. D&D has traditionally included a variety of world-simulation resources (random encounters, weather, political events, crafting and item creation, etc). Other role-playing games I'm familiar with
do not have these resources to such a degree. (I'm not saying none exist, but I'm not personally familiar with them).
I play D&D specifically to get that exact experience, because D&D has been designed to better facilitate it than other RPGs.
When I'm looking for a different experience, I play a different RPG better suited to it. In the case of the sort of experiences being discussed on this thread, I feel that almost any RPG
other than D&D better supports the story-based GMing mode.
I just changed HP in my last session. I realized the PCs were going to take it out before it even had a chance to do anything. It was a Story Plot monster though (in that the direction of the story was depending on the outcome of the battle). It was a kracken attacking a ship. The scene needed flavor and the flavor it needed was danger. If they killed the sucker before a tentacle could do anything then, meh. But I bumped up HP and everything was great, more than great, it was memorable and awesome and something that will be talked about.
Unrelated to the topic, but could you give me some thoughts on the difficulty of the kraken encounter and how it played out? I'm planning on running one against 5 level 20 PCs and I want to make sure it is neither too easy nor a TPK.
If you change monster HP on the fly you can also abolish HP altogether and just let them die when you think the players had enough "fun" playing whack-a-mole with the punching bags.
I feel this really does express the essence of the position.
On one end of the spectrum you have stats as a firm indication of the state of elements within the world.*
On the other end of the spectrum the world exists in something like a state of quantum uncertainty, where the stats have no set numbers until the DM decides the outcome desired at the moment.
In the middle you have DMs doing things like acting according to the "firm state" position unless they feel that an exception is needed to create the "desired outcome". Or they may assume a "desired outcome" position, but use "firm state" numbers as a simple guideline most of the time to avoid having to constantly make decisions.
Theoretically though, it appears to me that if you do not abide totally by the "firm state" position, then you are really abiding by the "desired outcome" position. The positions are actually mutually exclusive.
*The case of changing numbers because you made a mechanical mistake at some point can be harmonious with the "firm state" position, because you are attempting to return to the firm state that was accidentally altered.
Example: You were rolling d8s for damage when you should have been rolling d6s. You discover this error, and refund a few hit points to the target based on your best estimation of how many hit points they should not have lost. You could also roll a random number for correction if you feel your estimation skills aren't the best.
We certainly could just ignore HP altogether. Many of us in the "story usually trumps mechanics" camp could probably improvise D&D combat to the point where that was possible. We could also play a game like Fiasco where that kind of thing is a part of gameplay (deciding via shared agreement when things "fall down".)
Why do we NOT do that all the time then?
Because it isn't necessary to. We have HP in the game specifically so that we don't HAVE to make group decisions and agreements on when things should "fall down" all the time. We certainly COULD if we wanted to... but that's an extra layer in the roleplaying that is not always necessary to make the story we are telling fun. And fortunately, D&D has created rules to use that make that group agreement into a GAME for us to play while we come to a consensus on when things "fall down".
That's the glory of RPGs. We don't NEED any rules to create our stories... but they are usually fun to use in conjunction with it.
If I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that you use hp as a guide or suggestion to facilitate the DMs decision making about ending the encounter. So that would be my "desired outcome" position with "firm state" numbers as play aid guides. Is that an accurate assessment?
