Quote from: Pat on August 15, 2021, 11:12:14 AM

Quote from: mightybrain on August 15, 2021, 09:21:06 AM

Quote from: S'mon on August 15, 2021, 03:30:40 AMFair enough, but we naturally tend to see hp as meat, and women have a lot less useful meat.

I don't think that was meant to be the case, although hit points are one of the worst thought out concepts in the game. In D&D you can be on 1 hit point and still be 100% effective. There are various house rules / variations to allow for injury and there is system shock, but that's about it. You might roleplay a character that has had his hit points reduced as injured, but this can only ever be superficial in a mechanical sense because it doesn't reduce your abilities. Hit points are meant to combine many things, including mental resilience and luck. Constitution is meant to represent overall health. A good constitution is not going to stop you from getting hit, but it might reduce the debilitating effects of injury, or lower your recovery time.

Hit points are an extremely well thought out concept, from a gamist standpoint. They serve a clear purpose in the game, and provide a unique experience other mechanics struggle to replicate. What they don't do is clearly map to real world injuries. But this is not a weakness, it's a design strength. Games that use escalating hp aren't trying to replicate shock and trauma. They're not even trying to emulate the genre of high fantasy that has knights of pounding away at each other for hours, at least not precisely. Instead, they're focused on the game effects.

From a conceptual standpoint, In find it best to think of hit point as an abstract degree of heroism. It involves will, persistence, skill, and other concrete qualities. But it's not something that's defined by or limited by that list of qualities, or any of the other ones you mentioned. It's primarily composed of that ineffable quality that distinguishes the protagonist from the mooks, or major heroes and villains from the sidekicks and supporting characters. Palleon's point that the Con bonus represents endurance more than systemic resilience is also a good one.

One thing that's worth noting is no matter what happens, hit points do always represent some degree of physical injury. This is usually just a scratch of some kind, but a hero down to their last hp is going to be a bit beat-up, whether it's bruises, lacerations, or singes. This won't amount to a lot, because it's nothing that impairs their functioning, but it has to involve some injury, or things like poison make no sense. A logical corollary is there is always some kind of visual indication that someone has taken a beating, so while PCs won't know a monster's hp, a DM should give them some general indication whether the monster is at full health or barely hanging in there.

There is an unfortunate connotation of hit points = meat. It was so prevalent that I had to change the name of it and a few associated mechanics (ex. how falling works) just to get around that association.

In my own system I call it Edge and its resource you SPEND to turn hits into near misses, minor cuts and bruises. Thus you spend Edge to avoid falling and instead of plunging to the bottom you are clinging from the ledge above the depths (with damage not being based on depth of fall, but how hard it would be to catch yourself) and only fall down if you run out of Edge to spend (in which case the fall is probably fatal or at least puts you at dying) or choose to drop (which may require spending more Edge to not be killed by the fall).

Likewise, weapon damage is based mostly on how hard it would be to avoid a blow that would take you out of the fight (not necessarily dead, just too clobbered to get back up and keep fighting) rather than just kinetic impact alone.

The presumption is that you're not taking anything more than trivial cosmetic damage as long as you're spending Edge, but anything you don't have enough Edge to avoid is going to put you out for at least the rest of the fight without outside intervention (and puts a big dent in your deeper reserves of endurance whenever you're dropped to 0 Edge... so it's a bit like the Vitality/Wounds system used by certain d20 systems except you can spend the "wounds" for other purposes like big rituals, taking extra actions or rallying to recover Edge).

Short version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.

One thing that one should not forget- years have gone by. We are now seeing the results of girls and women playing sports and doing activities that they did not traditionally do before we were well into second wave feminism, actually almost at third wave. This at the latest would have been the 1990's. I'm not talking exceptions here.

The injuries and long-term physical problems are showing up in much greater numbers than ever before. This is not a coincidence. If girls play rough tackle football (American, call it American Rugby if you prefer) then they will end up physically worse off than boys. In my day if a boy was unusually small for his age he was either excused or put in a much less dangerous position. This was done for the obvious reason.

So a lower Constitution for female characters is more realistic.

I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.

Actually, that is based on averages. Since men work more dangerous jobs, are murdered more often, and are the ones going to war on the whole, the average life expectancy is lower. Even the death penalty is not equally applied.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 15, 2021, 12:50:00 PMShort version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.

Mileage varies. I come from the perspective of, hit points ARE meat. And a bunch of gamers just WAAAAAAYYYY over-stated the case to the contrary. And the case that hit points are not meat is what's too ingrained when this topic comes up.

Gary includes a discussion of hit points in both the 1E PHB and 1E DMG. And although he himself seems to emphasize the non-meat aspect of hit points, this is presumably because he's defending the hit point mechanic in his game from the criticism that high level characters are unrealistic. If you read his words carefully, he does note some key things.

That hit points do also represent meat. That the bulk of them represent other-than-meat mainly in high level characters. When he points out that the 10th level fighter with 85 hit points he uses as an example in the PHB would be 4 times as tough as a horse if hit points were only physical, in so using the horse as a measuring stick, it is clear that the horse's hit points are all meat. This would presumably be true for all animals and the vast majority of monsters. And 0th level humans surely do not have their hit points buttressed by magical protections, skill, uncanny luck, and favors from the gods. Those are 100% meat, too.

So when I really stop to break it down, I get something that looks like this:
Animals. Hit Points = Meat.
99% of monsters. Hit Points = Meat.
Normal humans. Hit Points = Meat.
1st level characters. Hit Points = Meat.
Low level adventurers. Hit Points = Mostly Meat.
Higher level adventurers. The one case where hit points are substantially other-than-meat.

The hit point system most certainly is a meat point system. Like most of the systems in old school D&D, it has its exceptions. In this case, the exceptions are very rare. It just so happens that PCs often inhabit those exceptions. I'm sure this can't be the first time you've been told PCs in AD&D are assumed to be "exceptional." But just because there are exceptional PCs does not mean it's accurate to characterize the hit point system in general as an abstract, other-than-meat system.

Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.

Elves should have HUUUUUGE Con bonuses. The biggest of all Con bonuses.

Quote from: Pat on August 16, 2021, 08:17:48 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on August 16, 2021, 07:15:29 PM
I guess if we want to be realistic about Constitution then the fact that women have a longer life expectancy then men indicates that they should have a bonus to their constitution to more realistically reflect their greater physical endurance.

Elves should have HUUUUUGE Con bonuses. The biggest of all Con bonuses.

If we were going to base attributes on reality.

Quote from: Lunamancer on August 16, 2021, 08:10:08 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 15, 2021, 12:50:00 PMShort version; HP=meat actually is really ingrained to the point that I literally had to rename hit points to stop various complaints about regaining them without magic being unrealistic.

Mileage varies. I come from the perspective of, hit points ARE meat. And a bunch of gamers just WAAAAAAYYYY over-stated the case to the contrary. And the case that hit points are not meat is what's too ingrained when this topic comes up.

Gary includes a discussion of hit points in both the 1E PHB and 1E DMG. And although he himself seems to emphasize the non-meat aspect of hit points, this is presumably because he's defending the hit point mechanic in his game from the criticism that high level characters are unrealistic. If you read his words carefully, he does note some key things.

That hit points do also represent meat. That the bulk of them represent other-than-meat mainly in high level characters. When he points out that the 10th level fighter with 85 hit points he uses as an example in the PHB would be 4 times as tough as a horse if hit points were only physical, in so using the horse as a measuring stick, it is clear that the horse's hit points are all meat. This would presumably be true for all animals and the vast majority of monsters. And 0th level humans surely do not have their hit points buttressed by magical protections, skill, uncanny luck, and favors from the gods. Those are 100% meat, too.

So when I really stop to break it down, I get something that looks like this:
Animals. Hit Points = Meat.
99% of monsters. Hit Points = Meat.
Normal humans. Hit Points = Meat.
1st level characters. Hit Points = Meat.
Low level adventurers. Hit Points = Mostly Meat.
Higher level adventurers. The one case where hit points are substantially other-than-meat.

The hit point system most certainly is a meat point system. Like most of the systems in old school D&D, it has its exceptions. In this case, the exceptions are very rare. It just so happens that PCs often inhabit those exceptions. I'm sure this can't be the first time you've been told PCs in AD&D are assumed to be "exceptional." But just because there are exceptional PCs does not mean it's accurate to characterize the hit point system in general as an abstract, other-than-meat system.

All well and good, but for my system I needed them to specifically NOT EQUAL meat (as in zero % meat) so trying to still call them hit points that are non-physical just didn't work... so the name was changed and the process described changed from "losing hit points" to "spending Edge" precisely to make the description as different as possible and so that non-magical abilities could allow you to regain Edge without people like Mike Mearls going "how is the warlord shouting your hand back on?" (never mind that 4E defined hit points as far more non-physical with 1/2 hit points being the first time you take even minor injury and gain the keyword "bloodied" and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).

Well, in fairness to the critical side on the hit point issue, one of the problems with 4E is that it is a culmination of changing the underlying meaning of the terms but hanging onto the terms as if they were still the same thing.  The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example.  However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.

I'm not one of those people that think it is a good idea for a game to rename every concept just to be different.  However, if the game really is different in some way, finding the correct term for what it is doing is the best thing, and a close second is having its own jargon that is carefully explained.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 16, 2021, 09:40:37 PMWell, in fairness to the critical side on the hit point issue, one of the problems with 4E is that it is a culmination of changing the underlying meaning of the terms but hanging onto the terms as if they were still the same thing.  The use of "hit dice" in 4E is an even worse example.  However, in this 4E is merely being more blatant about a change that had been happening for some time.

Right. And that's a far more generous view of it than I hold. I mean I've seen how gamers on message boards cite things like abstract hit points or the abstract melee round where dozens of things are happening but we just sum it up with one single attack roll. And I've seen how gamers run with them. And a lot of the rules changes I've seen come up in WotC versions of D&D, I can completely understand where those came from in the context of the strained interpretations I've observed that become ingrained in the community.

What I'm getting at is, I'm not so much imagining D&D designers twisting their mustaches with a villainous laugh as they plot to foist their vanity-fueled rules changes onto us rubes. I think they just don't know any better. I think they're genuinely trying to improve the rules to better express what they believe authentic D&D is, because they've bought into the strained interpretations. It's like D&D designers don't know the first thing about D&D anymore. That's the less generous way I'd put it.

And it's not even necessarily that they got the interpretations wrong. The problem is that they took something that was open to interpretation, locked into one specific interpretation, and tried to make it as clean, clear, and even blatant as possible.

Getting back to hit points specifically, above all else hit points are intended to be a convenient mechanic. They are exactly what you need them to be when you need them to be it. To even try to criticize hit points as a mechanic, to hold up an example that you can point at as absurd, requires locking in an interpretation contrary to what is convenient.

For instance, if I'm running a low magic setting, I might interpret hit points as being 100% abstract. I still have clerics. They still cast cure light wounds. But what they're doing is healing you spiritually, melting away post-traumatic stress from some of those close calls you've had. They're not even physically healing anyone.

But what I actually do in 1E? I recognize that there is a limit on how many daily spells can be restored. That no matter how high a level a cleric is, they top out at about 80 points of healing per day on average, and divided by a 5-person party, each member is only going to get about 16 points of healing daily.

So it doesn't matter how high a level your fighter is or how many hit points you have. On a longer, epic, prolonged, high-level adventure, if you're losing more than 16 hit points per day, it's not sustainable. The extra hit points are a good for a reserve. And they're good for a buffer against some crazy improbable dice rolls. But at the end of the day, 16 hit points is your daily budget. And 16 is not a crazy high, suspension of disbelief breaking, ignoring a bunch of stabbing, doing a header off a cliff as a short-cut kind of number. I don't think the OP would be complaining if everyone topped out at 16 hit points. But in a way they sort of do.

Two completely opposite solutions to the problem, both fitting within the D&D framework. There are a lot of ways to get hit points right. The main way you get them wrong is to lock them in to being something that doesn't work for you.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).

What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?

In regards to HP as early as my original exposure to Basic in '83, I never saw them as representing the physical punishment a PC could soak.  It's nonsensical that a 9th level human can take as much punishment as an adult red dragon.  That leaves the revelation that it's a mechanic to represent what's being left out of the game: rolling to parry, dodge or shield block, tracking fatigue as the rounds of blows are exchanged, etc...

It's the first level HD that's the meat.  Everything adding to it is an abstraction around gaining skills for avoiding the damage.

The funny thing is I have seen this exact conversation before from some of my players who happen to be female, they were fine with it.
The guys however had a fit when they got limited by the penalties for being male.

Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).

What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?

Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 17, 2021, 09:20:56 AM

Quote from: Pat on August 17, 2021, 05:43:43 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on August 16, 2021, 09:33:13 PM
... and there weren't even rules for limb loss in that edition so the warlord would never actually BE shouting a hand back on... just restoring your morale and fighting spirit).

What edition of D&D have you been playing where losing hp leads to limb loss?

Talk to Mike Mearls. He's the one who made the claim in one of the D&DNext podcasts/interviews that warlords restoring hit points in 4E was "shouting people's hands back on" which is why warlords were badwrongfun and had to be excluded from 5e.

No goofier than the Exalted medicine charm combos which let you literally slap the injuries right off a person's body