What Baulderstone said. This question is one the very system must answer, not the players. Trying to shoehorn color in a pure numbers system will ultimately result in boredom, at least in my experience.

I would recommend looking into games like Runequest, Unknown Armies, Risus, Over the Edge, Heroquest, Fate, Barbarians of Lemuria, Dungeon World (and other PbtA games), Hillfolk, etc. as examples that acommodate color on a system level n some degree.

Quote from: rgrove0172;915882A) The archer hits you for a single point as your armor soaks up the rest but the spear hits pretty hard, doing 5 more points of damage after armor. That's 6 total. Your down to 9 right?

Well that really depends on the game system. Some like Runequest and Pendragon have built in mechanical effects that cover a lot of the color you are adding e.g. hit location, effect of armor, disabling injuries, knockdown, etc. But in general, I'd say my style is closer to A) than to B). However, I'd probably assume they can do the arithmetic themselves without needing to announce the subtraction or new total aloud.

To me, B) loses the necessary game information amidst the color verbiage, most especially if every single hit and miss gets this much detail. Frankly this level of detail would be more useful, flow smoother, and work better if you only did it for very significant hits or if you got rid of the final sentence and played the game with the GM tracking all the hit points and without letting the players know exact hit points.

Quote from: rgrove0172;916089Ive played my share of D&D in various versions and I cant say Ive ever had issue with a bit of creative description. The way some of you make it sound D&D seems like an abstract adventure board game (Descent anyone?) where resource management and tactical decisions are front and center above Roleplaying. That's just my perception, I may be focusing too closely on a few particular posts. Obviously the game can be played any number of ways but I agree certain systems, genres, settings etc. lend themselves towards particular approaches.

Note bold section and re-read OD&D or Moldvay B/X. As it turns out, it is a resource management game! How much oil, torches, sacks, food, and armour can we carry in to maximize the amount of time we can spend in-dungeon and maximize the amount of treasure we can carry out.

Some folks get confused by that and mistakenly believe this somehow affects their ability to speak in character at the table, but the early editions of D&D are explicitly a resource management game.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;916196Note bold section and re-read OD&D or Moldvay B/X. As it turns out, it is a resource management game! How much oil, torches, sacks, food, and armour can we carry in to maximize the amount of time we can spend in-dungeon and maximize the amount of treasure we can carry out.

Some folks get confused by that and mistakenly believe this somehow affects their ability to speak in character at the table, but the early editions of D&D are explicitly a resource management game.

As someone that started with B/X that still tends to run that edition when I do play D&D, that is a big part of why I balk at hidden HP in D&D while being accepting of it in other systems. When I take D&D off the shelf, I am aiming for the particular experience it was designed for. That's not to knock anyone who takes it in another direction. It's just that I always see it as a roleplaying game centering around resource management on dungeon delves or expeditions into the wilderness. Letting players clearly see a resource deplete, hit points in this case, it a central tension of the game.

It's like with Call of Cthulhu. I guess you could play that with hidden Sanity, but the Sanity score usually informs player behavior even when it isn't actually producing a clear mechanical effect. Even if a Sanity loss doesn't result in a temporary insanity, I find players tend to act a little more unhinged immediately after it. Seeing that mechanical number drop adds color. Numbers and color aren't opposites.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;916196Note bold section and re-read OD&D or Moldvay B/X. As it turns out, it is a resource management game! How much oil, torches, sacks, food, and armour can we carry in to maximize the amount of time we can spend in-dungeon and maximize the amount of treasure we can carry out.

Some folks get confused by that and mistakenly believe this somehow affects their ability to speak in character at the table, but the early editions of D&D are explicitly a resource management game.

Perhaps but it wasn't that aspect of the game that 'took off' and birthed a whole industry. It was the roleplaying. Probably because despite how those games were presented in the rulebook it was the players taking on a role and the adventure that unfolded that caught people up in it. Played strictly as you described would have been pretty dry except to a few accounting students.

Quote from: Baulderstone;916208As someone that started with B/X that still tends to run that edition when I do play D&D, that is a big part of why I balk at hidden HP in D&D while being accepting of it in other systems. When I take D&D off the shelf, I am aiming for the particular experience it was designed for. That's not to knock anyone who takes it in another direction. It's just that I always see it as a roleplaying game centering around resource management on dungeon delves or expeditions into the wilderness. Letting players clearly see a resource deplete, hit points in this case, it a central tension of the game.

It's like with Call of Cthulhu. I guess you could play that with hidden Sanity, but the Sanity score usually informs player behavior even when it isn't actually producing a clear mechanical effect. Even if a Sanity loss doesn't result in a temporary insanity, I find players tend to act a little more unhinged immediately after it. Seeing that mechanical number drop adds color. Numbers and color aren't opposites.

That's a good point. Personally I only find numbers annoying when they completely replace color. We mingle the two pretty well.

I have found myself frowning however when players start micromanaging based on statistics, HP and the like. "OK the goblins typically do 1d6 damage and Beorne has 8 HP so with his armor he can take at least one, maybe two hits. Let him go first and then...."

I don't think that kind of abstract mechanical thinking has any place in a Roleplaying game, but I know for many, many groups it is exactly how they approach their games.

Quote from: rgrove0172;916225Perhaps but it wasn't that aspect of the game that 'took off' and birthed a whole industry. It was the roleplaying. Probably because despite how those games were presented in the rulebook it was the players taking on a role and the adventure that unfolded that caught people up in it. Played strictly as you described would have been pretty dry except to a few accounting students.

Thanks for sharing your opinions, but your opinions don't translate to objective reality. Playing strictly as I described isn't dry, and none of us are accounting students.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;916236Thanks for sharing your opinions, but your opinions don't translate to objective reality. Playing strictly as I described isn't dry, and none of us are accounting students.

We are still talking 1975 aren't we?  Didn't mean to step on your feelings.  Actually my opinion is objective and shared by many. D&D began as one thing them sort of took on a life of it's own.

It's not about "feelings", actually. You clearly state that you don't think "abstract mechanical thinking" (i.e. people actually thinking about the rules of the game they're playing) has "any place" in a roleplaying game, and you find resource management to be "dry". That's fine for you to have that opinion. But that does not translate to objective reality as being "good" or "bad" for roleplaying games. It only affects what you personally prefer in your roleplaying games.

For example, you may approach roleplaying games as an artistic expression of improvisational acting and collective narrative-building, with constructs such as dice and rules as (at best) facilitators and (at worst) impediments to this activity. That's perfectly fine, but not objectively better or worse than the "resource management board game" experience you contrast it with.

But D&D across all editions continues to be primarily an "abstract board game of resource management and tactical decisions" (as you put it). That is objectively true, irrespective of your particular implementation on it.

rgrove0172, have you played more color-accommodating games like, say, Barbarians of Lemuria, Runequest or Dungeon World ? I ask because you seem to be trying to twist D&D into a tool it was not designed to be, when there are other tools out there that do exactly what you want.

Quote from: rgrove0172;916089Ive played my share of D&D in various versions and I cant say Ive ever had issue with a bit of creative description. The way some of you make it sound D&D seems like an abstract adventure board game (Descent anyone?) where resource management and tactical decisions are front and center above Roleplaying. That's just my perception, I may be focusing too closely on a few particular posts. Obviously the game can be played any number of ways but I agree certain systems, genres, settings etc. lend themselves towards particular approaches.

An elaborate colorful narrative has little to do with role playing, likewise speaking in a funny voice or accent. These are just bits of theater added to the mix and are just fine as long as the participants enjoy them. The core activity of role playing is reacting to the imagined situation as if you were there. Everything else is just gravy.

As far as D&D combat is concerned, elaborate prose often conflicts with the reality of the situation. A fighter who normally has 60 hit points and is currently at 5 hit points is severely weakened in game terms with regard to stamina in combat but in other ways is just fine. He can carry as much weight, wield weapons as effectively as normal, march all day, and otherwise be as fit as a fiddle. Describing such an individual as having sustained a sucking chest wound, broken ribs, and similar trauma makes little sense. Doing so makes all the activities the fighter then proceeds to take part in ludicrous.

For that very reason I don't bother with dwelling on specific injuries unless they actually result in the character being taken out.

The lack of description of broken bones and severed arteries for characters who are down some HP does not impact the role playing at all. The imagined situation is that the character has been hurt and his/her effectiveness reduced somewhat. That is the reality of what happened and by NOT going into detail about the nature of the injuries, the activity that immediately follows can still make sense without altering game rules to do so.

If you are playing a system that is not abstract with regard to combat, then the situation can be different. When running GURPS combat, the injuries are very specific and the effects of them on game play are detailed enough to describe them. If you get your leg hacked off in a GURPS combat the rules are fairly clear about it. You can role play as if the effects aren't real (the Black Knight) but it is very obviously silly to do so.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;916270It's not about "feelings", actually. You clearly state that you don't think "abstract mechanical thinking" (i.e. people actually thinking about the rules of the game they're playing) has "any place" in a roleplaying game, and you find resource management to be "dry". That's fine for you to have that opinion. But that does not translate to objective reality as being "good" or "bad" for roleplaying games. It only affects what you personally prefer in your roleplaying games.

For example, you may approach roleplaying games as an artistic expression of improvisational acting and collective narrative-building, with constructs such as dice and rules as (at best) facilitators and (at worst) impediments to this activity. That's perfectly fine, but not objectively better or worse than the "resource management board game" experience you contrast it with.

But D&D across all editions continues to be primarily an "abstract board game of resource management and tactical decisions" (as you put it). That is objectively true, irrespective of your particular implementation on it.

You have to agree however that objectivity, in itself varies from one person to the next. At no point did I indicate anything was good or bad, rather I used other terms that more appropriately describe my feelings, rather than some notion of universal truth.

As to my comment on mechanical thinking in a roleplaying game I was poking mainly at the conflict with the term itself. Its a roleplaying game, wherein in some cases (D&D according to you) the roleplaying is merely a sideline. Its rather like American Football where actually kicking the ball is a rare occurrence compared with the rest of the game. Perhaps D&D should have been advertised as a Fantasy Game of Resources and Tactical Challenge?j

Quote from: Itachi;916358rgrove0172, have you played more color-accommodating games like, say, Barbarians of Lemuria, Runequest or Dungeon World ? I ask because you seem to be trying to twist D&D into a tool it was not designed to be, when there are other tools out there that do exactly what you want.

I have read through Dungeon world but regardless Im not twisting D&D into anything. I don't play nor do I care to play D&D. I had a great time with it for years when I was younger but left it long ago. I had a brief interest in Pathfinder but discovered my loss of interest in D&D included it as well.

This thread isn't about anything I want rather reading what gamer's viewpoints are on a common element of every game, description of game results. I have my own style certainly, other have theirs.

Personally I turn even a roll and miss into a few lines of narrative, from what I've gathered most systems assume a task roll, especially and attack in combat, reflects more than a single swing but rather an exchange over several seconds. I like to see how that several seconds turned out, that's all. When we look back on combats our PCs have taken part in we remember the narrative actions more so than the numbers generated. "You guys remember that time I took that Ogre's foot off and he fell down the stairs onto the Goblin Chieftain?"  Without a lot of Color, players of some games systems (those more simplistic in design) are robbed of such experiences. As its just a matter of a little imagination I don't see why every game cant provide the same drama. That's my group's take on it anyway.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;916396An elaborate colorful narrative has little to do with role playing, likewise speaking in a funny voice or accent. These are just bits of theater added to the mix and are just fine as long as the participants enjoy them. The core activity of role playing is reacting to the imagined situation as if you were there. Everything else is just gravy.

So playing a role has little to do with roleplaying? O....k....Instead only tactical decisions have any part in playing the role of a fictional character. Got it

As far as D&D combat is concerned, elaborate prose often conflicts with the reality of the situation. A fighter who normally has 60 hit points and is currently at 5 hit points is severely weakened in game terms with regard to stamina in combat but in other ways is just fine. He can carry as much weight, wield weapons as effectively as normal, march all day, and otherwise be as fit as a fiddle. Describing such an individual as having sustained a sucking chest wound, broken ribs, and similar trauma makes little sense. Doing so makes all the activities the fighter then proceeds to take part in ludicrous.

Ive never done that, nor have the GMs Ive played with. HP is a difficult and abstract concept but effectively all HP above 10 or so relate more to a PC's luck/wind/ability to avoid incoming damage or whatever. A Fighter with 60HP down to 5 should be described as getting winded, losing his edge and slowing down such that the next attack he endures might well really connect for that sucking chest wound or whatever. But that's just how we played, its been a long time.

For that very reason I don't bother with dwelling on specific injuries unless they actually result in the character being taken out.

Yes, other than nicks and bruises I would agree. No broken bones or horrid gashes until the PC drops to very low or negative HP

If you are playing a system that is not abstract with regard to combat, then the situation can be different. When running GURPS combat, the injuries are very specific and the effects of them on game play are detailed enough to describe them. If you get your leg hacked off in a GURPS combat the rules are fairly clear about it. You can role play as if the effects aren't real (the Black Knight) but it is very obviously silly to do so.

That's true but as stated above there is a place and method to including Color in even the most basic of systems, you just have to know how to use it and how it relates to the system at hand.

In FFG's End of the World for instance, Stress is accumulated in combat and later converted to injuries in order to reduce it. Stress kills if it gets to high, injuries merely inhibit you. Its a weird system but works in a gamey sort of way but is rather difficult to describe colorfully. One gets tired of the "You look down after killing the zombies and realize that somehow in the heat of the battle you gashed your leg terribly, only now do you notice the blood and feel the pain." mechanic and the GM has to get very creative to make it sound plausible...but it can be done.

Quote from: rgrove0172;916406You have to agree however that objectivity, in itself varies from one person to the next.

You seem to not understand the word "objective". That makes any discussion with you rather pointless.

Quote from: rgrove0172;916406Its a roleplaying game, wherein in some cases (D&D according to you) the roleplaying is merely a sideline.

You seem to be confusing roleplaying game with "improvisational theater" and "talking with an accent" and other trappings that some but not all people incorporate into their roleplaying games.

I, for example, incorporate those elements into many of my games, but that does not define what roleplaying is.