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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6003529" data-attributes="member: 42582">The "dissociated" aspect of hit points is this: when the hit point pool is low the player knows that the next hit will be fatal; but how does the PC know that? (Given that the PC is not tired, or slowing down, nor carrying a "divine favour and luck" meter to measure his/her current state of Gygaxian "health"). In other words, unless you interpret hit points as meat, hit points are an example of the "dissociated" Fate Points that [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] mentioned upthread.Another similar example, that relates to the falling example or the crossbow example, flips the situation around: the "dissociation" is not produced by the fact that the PC can survive the fall, or the multiple crossbow bolts while tied to a pole; it's produced by the fact that the player knows in advance that the PC will survive (because s/he has enough hp left), whereas the PC cannot know this (unless hit points are meat).In other words, hit points are dissociated because they give the player a power to predict things, and have his/her PC act on that prediction, that the PC does not enjoy him- or herself.This keeps being said, as if those who like 4e are interlopers in the garden of D&D.D&D has always had two aspects: its story elements, and its mechanical elements. For about 20 years I abandoned the mechanical elements, because they were not up to the task of supporting and delivering the story elements. 4e brought me back to D&D's mechanics, because finally they were able to deliver on the story elements that I had been using for those nearly 20 years. Here is how I put it on another recent thread:I particularly want to reiterate that last line. Those who don't like 4e don't have any monopoly over the question of what D&D really is, or whether 4e was true to it or departed from it. For me, 4e is mechanically truer to those D&D story elements than any earlier version of the D&D system.</blockquote>

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