The Tyranny of Hit Points

I've always considered that D&D style Hit Points to be one of the most of the depressing things in the RPG world.

Gygax himself was open about why they were there. He stated that they served the purpose of making the game predictable such that the players would know if they could win, and slowed things down so that if they weren't- they could retreat. In one article from the old days of the Dragon (I believe it was), he even stated that Saving Throws were originally incorrectly done with their 'Save or Die' nature- that they should be altered to fixed damage amounts to uphold this single goal.

Hit Points serve this goal well, and that usage is why they are found in the most popular RPGs table top or computer. Because the lowest common element in players is that they like to win, and HP systems are easy to win in. Find the right pattern, use it, repeat and victory is yours with small margin of error.

And this in turn makes things easy for the GMs the world over. Adventures are easy to make and manage. MMORPGs easy to design and balance.

But they are so terrible for any other use. And perhaps worse is the hoops that people leap to to justify them in other terms.

To use one example, I'll often see people claim that they represent your classic lengthy sword fight (think of The Dread Pirate Roberts against Inigo Montoya). Well, yes- you have a long fight with a winner and a loser (any system could do that by starting the battle and going out to dinner before resolving it). But I didn't read or see them hacking chunks out of each other- which is what 'roll to hit, roll to damage' indicates. I saw them striking and parrying/dodging blows until someone was disarmed.

And what about those fights where someone dies before the first D&D round can even finish? These are even more common in the source material, and not just for minion level foes which didn't even exist in D&D until recently.

"But", claim the HP people, "D&D includes that- it's just all abstract."

Sure, if one is good with an abstraction system that does Y and then afterwards claims that it did X. Do people get on an America Airlines Flight to go to New York and call it acceptable when they end up in LA? Order a steak and then are good when given a hamburger for their $25?

One possible suggestion is to just rename Hit Points and call them what they are- either Fatigue or perhap Battle Advantage. Stop rolling to damage, and instead roll to Press the attack. Add an 'actual damage' table to anyone taken below 1 HP to represent the final outcome of the battle. Then at least things are clear, and the only remaining objection is that so much of the source material (i.e. any quick kill) either can't be done or must overturn the core combat system (such as extreme critical hit systems).

Such a mess.

There are other options, and I've used them for decades. Age of Heroes uses a strike/defense system combined with a damage system that typically will drop a foe in a single blow. One's ability to hit and defend (and length of combat) is thus very dependent upon the relative skill of the combatants.

And what is interesting about this is that over the decades nearly any player I've encountered likes that better than D&D style Hit Points. New Players, old players, D&D haters and D&D (originally) fans. The couple of exceptions almost prove the rule.

Most recently we did two tests with different players comparing Star Wars SAGA with a Star Wars modified version of Age of Heroes. One group was basically new to rpgs and tested blind, the other was my own experienced gaming group.

No one in either group liked the SAGA approach (done first in the blind test, second in the experienced group). Or rather, the blind novice group liked it until they tried the other option. After that they completely rejected the SAGA approach as boring, in their view AoH seemed much more exciting and modelled the movies so much better.

But my experience seems to be the exception.

While other games have attempted a different approach, they either failed or at best are 'also rans'. Some (like HERO System) can be played in different manners, are instead typically used in the D&D style. Others use the D&D style, but attempt to hide it (Dark Heresy).

It may be due to D&D's ownership of the market. It may be due to players who want simple HP systems because the other options are too uncontrolled for them. Or it may be due to the system design failures of the early non-HP game systems (like Rune Quest) giving other non-HP designs a bad name. Or it may be that non-HP systems require too much of their GMs.

Whatever the cause...

...it's just depressing.

Swearing off 4th Edition

Life was busy this pass week and I've left the poor blog by itself. Sigh. However it's time to pick it backup. Hopefully weeks like that will be few.

It's Friday, and time for my look around the web for comments/rants. This time a "4E and I are Done! " post caught my eye at Dungeon Mastering 101. It's a short and simple statement by AnthonyRoberson that he quits due to the simple fact that a Adult Red dragon can't possibly waste a 3rd level character with a single attack of his breath weapon.

Yeah, I can agree with that.

Of course I also note that it's basically impossible to kill a 3rd level character the first stab of a dagger in any of the editions without recourse to special rules (backstab, helpless foe, etc). And I happen to know that people die from single stabs from small blades all the time.

But the nature of D&D hit points is that you're not hitting anything when you hit anyway. That Fighter didn't take 20 arrows to down him, it took 20 shots of which one finally solidly connected.

So D&D just ignores my problems with daggers. That's the nature of the game design. The interesting question is why does D&D's abstraction break at so many different points for different people. Why did it take a dragon for AnthonyRoberson to give up? Why not a Giant's club, a orge's, or even a common thug?

I guess people are driven by extremes. And I'll say this for 4E- it seems to be driven by extremes as well...