Consider the negative hit point thing from the perspective of the writers, charged with designing a system that will at least be reasonably palatable to fans of all editions as a 2nd choice.  And the system is going to be modular at key points to accommodate that design:

1. Originally, in D&D it was hit zero, die, correct?  Then very rapidly optional rules were added for people that didn't like that, including various versions of negative hit points.
2. Negative hit points can be made to work for particular groups, but they have oddball side effects such as those Willie discussed above.  The fixes for those side effects can become complicated for some groups aiming at a particular style of healing.  
3. Death saves were introduced in 4E (or perhaps late in 3E, but I wouldn't know about them there).  Fans of that mechanic must also have an option that minimally satisfies them. Plus, whatever their issues, death saves have some positive attributes. Same way with the short and long rests, which whatever else they are, are an excellent means for providing modular boundaries for options without undue complexity.
4. At some point, they hit upon the idea of the exhaustion mechanic as a way to manage things that had a longer-term effect, and operated somewhat independently of hit points.  This is also modular, and goes part of the way towards solving the so called "Save or Die" problem, without automatically making the threats toothless.
5. To support "bounded accuracy", hit points and damage amounts scale faster.  This means that new side effects would be introduced by trying to have negative hit points.

With all of that together, there just doesn't need to be negative hit points.  Everything that negative hit points tried to do before, is now done by one or more of the above elements, and often with more clarity and simpler handling time.  

However, the real clincher is when you start thinking about changing it to fit your game.  If I want to run a BECMI style game, for example, I don't need to consider how to tweak negative hit point amounts to make it work.  I just throw the exhaustion rules out, either toss death saves or reduce them to one save (to throw a bone to what used to be the minor negative hit point amount).  Voila, I've got a more deadly version that plays a lot like the earlier game.  Or if the reason I'm running 5E instead of BECMI is that I want different healing rules, I can also tweak to suit.  (This is, in fact, part of what I meant when I said elsewhere that while I was running a style of game somewhere about halfway between BECMI and 5E, I found it easier to get there by modifying the latter, then running it with the sensibility of the former, rather than the other way around.)

Plus, I would not discount the emotional impact of the death save being a simple roll for a binary state.  It means that the game changes when zero is hit, even if the default options make that mostly shallow for anyone that has done the math.  For some players not much inclined to math, "Roll a death save" is scarier than "Mark down -12 hit points."   The change also has subtle effects on the relative severity of single nasty creatures versus hordes of smaller ones.  I think some of those effects are even intended.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1020127The original statement made by Gronan was "There is no such thing as "unsuitable death"" , with no qualifications. I was disputing that.

And I would have said the same as him:).
I don't see why we should add "in my opinion and tastes vary" to all posts expressing personal preferences. Any reasonable reader should assume that as the baseline, especially on this site. I mean, even if it's only you that disagrees, obviously opinions vary, even if the other poster thinks your opinion is wrong-headed.
Granted, there are some forums where adding a defensive clause about your personal opinion is almost required, but this one isn't one of them;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1020217And I would have said the same as him:).
I don't see why we should add "in my opinion and tastes vary" to all posts expressing personal preferences. Any reasonable reader should assume that as the baseline, especially on this site. I mean, even if it's only you that disagrees, obviously opinions vary, even if the other poster thinks your opinion is wrong-headed.
Granted, there are some forums where adding a defensive clause about your personal opinion is almost required, but this one isn't one of them;).

In this case it was a comment on a another poster's campaign, not on his own, so while he may have meant it to be an IMO comment, it's not clear.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1020262In this case it was a comment on a another poster's campaign, not on his own, so while he may have meant it to be an IMO comment, it's not clear.

No, it's absolute, total, objective, and verifiable truth.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1020266No, it's absolute, total, objective, and verifiable truth.

I think what Gronan's trying to say is there is no suitable or unsuitable Death, there's just Death and it comes for us all.  Sure maybe if you had a choice you might prefer the "Death of Leonidas" to the "Death of Richard the Lionheart" or the "Death of Henry V", but when you think about it, Leonidas had a great death, but arguably the others had greater lives, based on what we remember of them.

If you're authoring a story, then you get to be "Richard the Lionheart, and I'm going to have a great career and die a hero." Ok, wow, cool, now why are you playing a game for this again?  To pretend you're not authoring a story?  

If you're not authoring a story, then if you walked out into the street after buying your first sword, missed your Dex check and got run over by a runaway Gongfarmer's cart, then I guess you weren't John Hawkwood, destined to be one of the world's most famous mercenaries.

That's why the whole "RPGs create stories" thing is horseshit, it leads directly to the "and the PCs are literary protagonists with script immunity" syndrome which defeats the whole purpose of the RPG both the "roleplaying" and the "game" part.

Or, perhaps, Gronan was doing a piss-take.

Excellent points, though.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1020338Or, perhaps, Gronan was doing a piss-take.

Yeah I understand some of you older guys do that a lot.

Quote from: Bren;1020343Yeah I understand some of you older guys do that a lot.

Or else we have trouble doing it at all.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1020292I think what Gronan's trying to say is there is no suitable or unsuitable Death, there's just Death and it comes for us all.  Sure maybe if you had a choice you might prefer the "Death of Leonidas" to the "Death of Richard the Lionheart" or the "Death of Henry V", but when you think about it, Leonidas had a great death, but arguably the others had greater lives, based on what we remember of them.

If you're authoring a story, then you get to be "Richard the Lionheart, and I'm going to have a great career and die a hero." Ok, wow, cool, now why are you playing a game for this again?  To pretend you're not authoring a story?  

If you're not authoring a story, then if you walked out into the street after buying your first sword, missed your Dex check and got run over by a runaway Gongfarmer's cart, then I guess you weren't John Hawkwood, destined to be one of the world's most famous mercenaries.

That's why the whole "RPGs create stories" thing is horseshit, it leads directly to the "and the PCs are literary protagonists with script immunity" syndrome which defeats the whole purpose of the RPG both the "roleplaying" and the "game" part.

I agreed with this before but after talking to a lot of other players, I think the "writing a collaborate story together" angle isn't a bad way of playing.

It's just a different one. Some people appreciate the coherence and clarity of having a more "put together" kind of game, rather than the more typical D&D one which is a bunch of blind cats herding each other at random in a direction and hoping to get lucky.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1020454I agreed with this before but after talking to a lot of other players, I think the "writing a collaborate story together" angle isn't a bad way of playing.

It's just a different one. Some people appreciate the coherence and clarity of having a more "put together" kind of game, rather than the more typical D&D one which is a bunch of blind cats herding each other at random in a direction and hoping to get lucky.

Okay, but how do you lose?

Quote from: Baron Opal;1020460Okay, but how do you lose?

In those kinds of games, it is less about winning or losing and more about exploring the character's morals and personality.

Of course, if you want a game where it's more about playing out the process, ie., like a virtual real world rather than answering a question or exploring a personality facet then that kind of thing won't work.

Quote from: Baron Opal;1020460Okay, but how do you lose?

You get out voted?


Is the way in which some people play shared story telling really all that mystifying?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1020411Or else we have trouble doing it at all.

Getting old does kind of suck. Over the weekend my wife and I watched a fairly forgettable movie called Undercover Grandpa. It was mildly diverting but had a couple of funny moments. In the right mood, you might enjoy it. It's about a grandson, his grandpa, and a bunch of old geezers who were special forces types in the grandpa's unit who drag themselves out of retirement to help out the grandson. One of the old guys said something about how he has to get up 8 times a night to pee. "Six of them in the toilet." I had to pause the movie just so I could laugh for about 3 minutes straight.

I might give it a look.

Ever see "Secondhand Lions?"

QuoteSometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.

I don't think I saw the whole movie, but I liked that line a lot.