I hate combat

[redlemonginger]

Fair enough, perhaps you could list them. I've played many a game, and none really did it for me completely so made my own...and my own never did for me completely until about 6 years ago. As to "tough" choices in combat it can be more in tactical and how much you want to help keep someone else alive at risk to your self...and in my own there are a few tactical maneuvers that give you extra dice (I use counts success mechanics) but with limitations or costs so that is the tough choice. The speed and unknown in these combats provides drama and excitement as the enemy also uses tactics and getting surrounded or cut off can mean death. But granted combat is, it's means and ends, is not everyones cup of tea. As a GM I can revel in the players use of tactics, that surprise me and help them overcome odds that appear daunting.

I too find NPC interactions to be some of the most fulfilling part and good ones intellectually stimulating, I also love a good haggle. Yes as GM this is the best as get to bring forth and use all that "narrative sandbox" pre work. Alas as a GM I never feel I have any tough choices.

I personally am not a fan of investigation or mystery games, not that I dislike the genre just it takes a very, very good writer for me to enjoy a mystery (so guess I don't love he genre) ...hard for me to not find it contrived and hard for me to buy the logic of the writer which is often not much more than assumptions based on stereotypes. Given that I don't really try my hand at these and any hidden clues (which I use a lot) are just icing on the cake for diligent PCs or those who built characters with info gathering in mind...which I make players well aware of the value of such skills in my games....and to many players shock it is actually true (I get that so many D&D games have been in said it was so but it never was), hence why I often allow a little bit of after the fact character re-design for new players.

Fate Core, DND 3.5, Dnd 5E, Dungeon World, Fate Accerated, Savage Worlds, Barbarians of Lemuria, Everywhen, End of the World, Genesys, BRP, Symbaroum, New World of Darkness, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Dread, Dark Heresy, Stars Without Number, Pathfinder 2e, Pathfinder, and some more that I can't think of without looking at my bookshelf.

I made a video a while back on my favourites:

Barbarians of lemuria is my top game at the moment. I definitely prefer the light side of medium crunch.

I'm the same way. I still haven't found "my game" yet. I might make it eventually, but so far I've had no success.

 

[CRKrueger]

All RPGs are abstract; some just try to hide it more. Tactics work and are enjoyable because they function within and are consistent with the abstract system of the game, not because they accurately simulate something from outside the game. They’re flavored to reference things outside the game, but outside of games there’s no such thing as a hit point or a defense value or a dexterity score. Or a turn. These are all abstractions, as are dice rolls and bonuses and penalties.

I’m not saying these things aren’t flavored like stuff from the real world, but that’s also true of chess, whose wargame veneer is really thin and whose rules are very abstract, but whose tactics are deep and engaging because the system is internally consistent, not because it accurately simulates warfare (or how when a pike formation reaches the enemy base, you marry them and make them your queen).

Many modern games are different in that they involve the mechanics more in the fiction layer, creating space for more relevant player choices that feel less abstract as a result, but what’s going on under the hood is essentially the same: an abstract system that’s internally consistent to a degree that allows for player choice to matter, and which feels narratively satisfying because it lives up to player expectations of how things should feel in practice, regardless of whether that’s how something would actually happen in the infinitely more complex and chaotic world we inhabit.

None of this has anything to do with mook rules. If a system has them, then any use of them is consistent with said system; they are part of the standard rules and power scaling therein. One is free to prefer games without significant differences in scale, just like one is free to prefer games without magic or wizards, but it’s not a failure of the system or the characters when a game has these features; it’s using a tool in the toolbox to accomplish a valid design goal. Having all humanoid characters be roughly equal in capability is also a valid design goal, but it’s not the only one.

Saying a victory against mooks is unimpressive is no different from saying that a victory is unimpressive because the character cast a spell instead of beating their enemies with a rusty ladle. Or because the player character had a higher strength score or better armor. Those are all just game elements, and all of them are equally unreal. Sure, I’m impressed when a character beats the odds, but sometimes the odds being stacked against the character to that extent isn’t what you’re going for. And if playing a superhero who can take on a hundred foes is my jam, then ain’t nothing wrong with a system providing the toast.

You do realize this is all just your subjective opinion, shaped by your preferences, your preferred playstyle and the way you view RPGs, right?

 

[robertsconley]

All RPGs are abstract; some just try to hide it more. Tactics work and are enjoyable because they function within and are consistent with the abstract system of the game, not because they accurately simulate something from outside the game. They’re flavored to reference things outside the game, but outside of games there’s no such thing as a hit point or a defense value or a dexterity score. Or a turn. These are all abstractions, as are dice rolls and bonuses and penalties.

Or as an alternative you can use the considered judgment and knowledge of a human referee. And the tactics work and enjoyable consistent with how the setting works. The military does this all the time as one of the ways to train their officers for combat. The real world reference that war colleges are not there for flavor but the rather the point of the exercise.

The role of the rules is to help with this process. To work as a aide, a terse communication of how the setting works, and as a tool. Not the point of why the campaign is played.

Either way and others work.

 

[robertsconley]

I would suspect there are a number teachers of military strategy who do believe that the abstract nature of wargames are of very limited use to the complexities of real warfare, particularly modern warfare.

As a general comment on this. For a long time I couldn't figure out the value of a space simulation that didn't use software. Some of them just had note cards. Then I participated in one of the more fancier one and I figured why even the notecard worked. The problem isn't the tech, it is the coordination between crew and mission control, and within the crew and mission control. Something that even notecards are adequate as far a simulation goes. The use of software and nice equipment helps with the immersion. Makes it more enjoyable but it in addition to the core problem of why they work.

The same with military wargames used by war college. The problem they are addressing are often not the nuts and bolts of actually overcoming the enemy. But rather it about what you have to do to even get to the point of trying. Not just learning how to draft an order or knowing the duties of a unit staff, but rather experiencing how to do these things under time pressure and the dearth of information.

The same thing can be seen with tabletop roleplaying. It exploded in popularity because the addition of the human referee allowed a campaign or situation to be conducted with time pressure and with a information poor environment. Making dealing with not only just a challenge but something that fundamentally different than what one can get by playing chess or Panzerblitz. And often more effective at conveying the feel of a specific setting then just playing a game about that setting.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think there's some confusion going on between abstraction, representation, and realism.

Hit Points are an abstraction. They don't directly represent a single thing (at least as they were originally intended), rather it's gauge of how long someone can last in a combat before being "taken out" (whether that means a mortal wound, exhaustion, or falling unconscious).

Attributes (such as Dexterity) are, on the other hand, representational. They are an evaluation of a real-life quality. We may not have, as a society, developed a specific system of measurement for coordination, but the concept that some people are more (or less) agile than others, to a matter of degrees, does exist IRL. This is not an abstraction, it's a quantification of an actual quality that exists.

Chess, on the other hand, is neither an abstraction nor a representation - it's purely a game with no relationship to real life to any degree. You can learn skills from chess that are applicable to real life situations, but that's not the same thing.

 

[EOTB]

I love combat in AD&D. I don't say RPGs because I have no idea whether or not that aspect of AD&D translates to other RPGs. But one of the reasons why I play AD&D is because it's close enough to the primordial soup to still essentially be a "war game ++". Combat is a bad idea in nearly all circumstances, except the ones where it is the best idea. And then it's cutthroat, where not being good at it has consequences. (Which is why there needs to be games where combat isn't emphasized, for people who don't enjoy combat because their talents don't align with combat tactics and strategy.)

 

[Matthias]

I think there's some confusion going on between abstraction, representation, and realism.

Hit Points are an abstraction. They don't directly represent a single thing (at least as they were originally intended), rather it's gauge of how long someone can last in a combat before being "taken out" (whether that means a mortal wound, exhaustion, or falling unconscious).

Attributes (such as Dexterity) are, on the other hand, representational. They are an evaluation of a real-life quality. We may not have, as a society, developed a specific system of measurement for coordination, but the concept that some people are more (or less) agile than others, to a matter of degrees, does exist IRL. This is not an abstraction, it's a quantification of an actual quality that exists.

Chess, on the other hand, is neither an abstraction nor a representation - it's purely a game with no relationship to real life to any degree. You can learn skills from chess that are applicable to real life situations, but that's not the same thing.

I'm not sure I get the distinction between abstraction and representation here - both hp and dexterity seem to take a set of diegetic facts (how wounded you are, how winded; manual dexterity, ability to dance) and compress them into a convenient number. Something like Fate Points seem to me to be genuinely non-representational, in that they don't correspond to any diegetic fact. But it might be that the reason I'm confused is that you think of hp as non-diegetic in this way!

I guess if I were to try to classify the rough kind of space you're getting at, it would be to separate out diegetic/non-diegetic (whether it corresponds to something in the fiction, or not) as well as formal/informal (whether questions are being resolved according to a set of explicit public procedures or GM intuition). So e.g. if my PC wants to climb a wall, this could be resolved as so:

	formal	informal
diegetic	GM: "It's a stonework wall, so it's a (flips pages) DC 15 climb check."	GM: (thinking that this is an ordinary wall of the type the thief climbs all the time) "yeah you can climb the wall"
non-diegetic	Player: "I spend a hero point to be able to climb the wall."	GM: (realizing that if they go over the wall they'll skip the scene with the guards, which would make a good beat) "no, too slippery"

 

[TristramEvans]

I'm not sure I get the distinction between abstraction and representation here - both hp and dexterity seem to take a set of diegetic facts (how wounded you are, how winded; manual dexterity, ability to dance) and compress them into a convenient number.

The difference is Hit Points represent multiple concepts, all abstracted into a single number (or points pool, as the case may be) - stamina, scratching & bruising (light wounds), reflexive defenses, etc. There's no 1:1 correlation to any specific quality, it's a measure of an overall abstract concept.

An attribute, such as Strength, is a 1:1 measure of one specific quality.

Something like Fate Points seem to me to be genuinely non-representational, in that they don't correspond to any diegetic fact.

It would really depend on the game we are talking about. If you mean Fate Points from the Fate RPG, yes, I agree, they are not representative of anything that "exists" in the gameworld, hence they are a type of "metacurrency".

But it might be that the reason I'm confused is that you think of hp as non-diegetic in this way!

No, I think HP is an abstraction, but not a metacurrency.

 

[CRKrueger]

I'm not sure I get the distinction between abstraction and representation here - both hp and dexterity seem to take a set of diegetic facts (how wounded you are, how winded; manual dexterity, ability to dance) and compress them into a convenient number. Something like Fate Points seem to me to be genuinely non-representational, in that they don't correspond to any diegetic fact. But it might be that the reason I'm confused is that you think of hp as non-diegetic in this way!

I guess if I were to try to classify the rough kind of space you're getting at, it would be to separate out diegetic/non-diegetic (whether it corresponds to something in the fiction, or not) as well as formal/informal (whether questions are being resolved according to a set of explicit public procedures or GM intuition). So e.g. if my PC wants to climb a wall, this could be resolved as so:

	formal	informal
diegetic	GM: "It's a stonework wall, so it's a (flips pages) DC 15 climb check."	GM: (thinking that this is an ordinary wall of the type the thief climbs all the time) "yeah you can climb the wall"
non-diegetic	Player: "I spend a hero point to be able to climb the wall."	GM: (realizing that if they go over the wall they'll skip the scene with the guards, which would make a good beat) "no, too slippery"

Arnold Schwarzenegger compared to Tom Arnold. The Austrian Arnold is stronger. That’s representational. It correlates directly. Strength stat measures...strength.

Hit Points don’t measure anything directly. Having higher hit points means you can last longer in combat before being defeated. Is that due to having more and tougher meat to chop through, or due to skill allowing you to parry/dodge/deflect damage or due to having more stamina, so you can fight longer before tiring to the point that a mortal blow is struck? Yes, it’s a blended mish-mash of all of those. That’s abstracted.

 

[Matthias]

Strength in most (all?) games doesn't distinguish between leg strength and upper body strength, or grip strength, or whatever, even though those are also multiple traits!

The in-universe facts about Schwarzenegger also would imply that he'd have a higher hp than Arnold, if hp is understood to supervene on in-universe facts.

 

[Fenris-77]

The in-universe facts about Schwarzenegger also would imply that he'd have a higher hp than Arnold, if hp is understood to supervene on in-universe facts.

Why would that be? HP aren't connected directly to strength at all, and index far more to experience than to general size. Also, re we talking about a high level Tom? One who's been in the shit and come back battered? Like post Roseanne? You need to get granular with your examples here.

 

[CRKrueger]

Strength in most (all?) games doesn't distinguish between leg strength and upper body strength, or grip strength, or whatever, even though those are also multiple traits!

The in-universe facts about Schwarzenegger also would imply that he'd have a higher hp than Arnold, if hp is understood to supervene on in-universe facts.

Please, we don’t need the ratio of our Anterior to Lateral to Posterior Deltoids either, and the fact that a strong person has a high strength score isn’t the same “flavouring” as chess.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Not because it corrupts the youth: I love violence in media! Not because my character might die: death is fun!

I hate combat because it's church: an hour of boredom endured each week for social reasons. If it's D&D 5e or easier, we're playing snakes and ladders for an hour, which I'm willing to do. If it's something less forgiving, then I'm filing taxes for an hour, which I'm not.

Some games let you get to the fun part (death! violence! blood!) without the snakes or ladders or taxes. I've even made up my own quick combat systems, because of the nerd "doing work to avoid work" thing. But that's not something popular enough to play IRL.

Not badwrongfun if you enjoy all of that! (Some people really enjoy church, too, and more power to them.) I'm clearly in the minority. Just wanted to get it off my chest.

I think rules light (at least on combat), systems with higher success rates of attack, more lethality might be the way to go here. I came to really hate combat in something like 3rd edition D&D by the end of it (and never made the transition to 4E or 5E). Mostly I've found I enjoy other games or earlier version of D&D where lengthy combats didn't seem to be as much a part of it. I think if you like the tactical angle of that kind of combat it can be fun. Generally I get bored quickly waiting for people to go and would rather have something that moves at a fast clip

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Please, we don’t need the ratio of our Anterior to Lateral to Posterior Deltoids either, and the fact that a strong person has a high strength score isn’t the same “flavouring” as chess.

We need a calve muscle attribute!

 

[TristramEvans]

Strength in most (all?) games doesn't distinguish between leg strength and upper body strength, or grip strength, or whatever, even though those are also multiple traits!

"doesn't distinguish" isn't the same as "doesn't account for"

 

[CRKrueger]

We need a calve muscle attribute!

Achilles Tendon Tensile Strength, otherwise the mechanics have no relation to anything happening in the setting.

 

[robertsconley]

Hit Points don’t measure anything directly. Having higher hit points means you can last longer in combat before being defeated. Is that due to having more and tougher meat to chop through, or due to skill allowing you to parry/dodge/deflect damage or due to having more stamina, so you can fight longer before tiring to the point that a mortal blow is struck? Yes, it’s a blended mish-mash of all of those. That’s abstracted.

If you can answer why it takes four hits to kill a hero in Chainmail then you answered what Hit Points are.

From Chainmail 2nd edition

 

[Matthias]

"doesn't distinguish" isn't the same as "doesn't account for"

Yes! In the same way that hp-on-diegetic-interpretations accounts for how tired you are and how wounded you are.

This seems to be a debate over definitions, though, or maybe just a a disagreement over how to interpret hp, neither of which are very interesting, so I'll let it drop.

 

[Ravenswing]

Yeah, this is looking rather like arguing over how many hit points can dance on the head of a pin.

 

[Moonglum]

Yeah, this is looking rather like arguing over how many hit points can dance on the head of a pin.

Agreed. The actual experience of playing combat systems in roleplaying games is surprisingly similar in virtually all systems - they almost universally have something resembling to-hit and damage rolls and hit point mechanics that might differ in meaningless details (which dice you roll, etc.) but functionally operate in similar ways with overall similar odds and outcomes. The exceptions are odd-ball systems few people know about and fewer really play. For the most part, 'new' combat systems are restatements of the old ones you have known for decades, with slightly better or worse ways of articulating the rules.

The only distinction I can think of off-hand that makes a big difference in decision making and experience of game play is whether or not you are using a gridded playing surface or measuring rule with strict rules on movement, like a hex-and-chit war game, or not. And even that is a distinction with only a modest difference.

 

[AsenRG]

Agreed. The actual experience of playing combat systems in roleplaying games is surprisingly similar in virtually all systems - they almost universally have something resembling to-hit and damage rolls and hit point mechanics that might differ in meaningless details (which dice you roll, etc.) but functionally operate in similar ways with overall similar odds and outcomes.

You mean, like all the similarities between BRP and AD&D?

 

[Stevethulhu]

You mean, like all the similarities between BRP and AD&D?

On the surface, they seem very different. But the only real difference is BRP has a few more rolls along the way to reducing hit points.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

You guys should play Gary's Dangerous Journeys game. It has 18 attributes.

 

[AsenRG]

On the surface, they seem very different. But the only real difference is BRP has a few more rolls along the way to reducing hit points.

...I could hardly disagree more.

 

[robertsconley]

...I could hardly disagree more.

American Football, Rugby, and Soccer are similar games from a certain point of view. But given the nuances of the three I think most folks would agree that the similarities are not strong enough to base a thesis around. What makes each unique overshadows the fact all three are team sports involving the moving a ball back and forth on a field with end goals used for scoring.

 

[AsenRG]

American Football, Rugby, and Soccer are similar games from a certain point of view. But given the nuances of the three I think most folks would agree that the similarities are not strong enough to base a thesis around. What makes each unique overshadows the fact all three are team sports involving the moving a ball back and forth on a field with end goals used for scoring.

Yeah, exactly - though to me, Rugby and American Football are more similar than AD&D and BRP. IMO, Stevethulhu is trying to "base his thesis around the similarities".

 

[Moonglum]

You mean, like all the similarities between BRP and AD&D?

Yes. And i mean that, knowing full well how both games work. I'm happy to explain what i mean, but i'll bet you can work it out for yourself.

 

[Ravenswing]

Agreed. The actual experience of playing combat systems in roleplaying games is surprisingly similar in virtually all systems ...

Quite. It's why I roll my eyes any time I hear of this Great! New! Mechanic! Meh, whatever.

 

[Nick J]

On some level BRP's Hit Points are measuring "meat" whereas, D&D-esque games start off measuring just meat, and then become something else altogether once you've accumulated levels and additional Hit Points. So from a certain point of view (the starting gate) I'd say they aren't completely dissimilar, it's very soon after when they aren't all that similar at all.

 

[xanther]

... For the most part, 'new' combat systems are restatements of the old ones you have known for decades, with slightly better or worse ways of articulating the rules.

"For the most part" and "slightly better" are doing a lot of work for you there. The devil, play speed, and ease of verisimilitude are in the details. I take this more as a survey of play-style or lack of experience than actual fact.

I can say AD&D and 3.5e or 5e, etc. D&D feel in combat from each other, or from TFT or T&T or Trophy, etc. very different feels and can be as simple as the different between taking 15 minutes to run a combat between 12 beings versus 2 hours, or if all you can do is roll to hit, versus moving around and other tactics making a difference...you know verisimilitude...a reason we play. Granted all the d20 stuff and OSR stuff often plays the same...but I think that is the point.

It's not that they use HP, wound categories or die rolls, etc., i.e. common mechanical elements; to say all combat is the same because of that is a reduction to absurdity.

It is like saying driving a 1972 VW Bug is the same as driving a Ferrari or Kawasaki KLR or a '47 Harley or Kawasaki Ninja, I mean after all they are just restatements of the internal combustion engine, "slightly" better or worse. The same analogy could be made for board games all just dice and boards, or paintings, it is all just pigment on canvas, or food I'm sure that 7-11 hot dog is just as good as a meal at Per Se, etc..

It comes down to how you put these common components together, which you use, which discard or emphasis. Makes all the difference in the world. You know there is a name for this kind of thing, where there are many common elements constrained by some required functionality, it is called design. Design matters, design can mean the difference between elegance and trash. Design matters, feel in play matters, flavor matters it all = versimilitude...in fact I may dare say it may be all that matters in the end.

At some point "quantitative/slight" improvements become qualitative. Of course if a motor vehicle to you is just a means to get from A to B, or a board game just an excuse to drink and snack with friends, or art is just something to break up an expanse of wall, or food just something that keeps you alive, or combat in RPGs is just a distraction from getting to the next NPC, of course any improvement will be slight and meaningless to you.

Yet, many find the combat aspects of RPGs to be part of the verisimilitude for many/certain genres.

 

[robertsconley]

On some level BRP's Hit Points are measuring "meat" whereas, D&D-esque games start off measuring just meat, and then become something else altogether once you've accumulated levels and additional Hit Points. So from a certain point of view (the starting gate) I'd say they aren't completely dissimilar, it's very soon after when they aren't all that similar at all.

To the problem I have is that it 2021 and we are not ignorant of how D&D developed. Before we had to guess and speculate but now we know D&D hit points only ever represented combat endurance. Subsequent editions that tried to tie hit points to injury, luck, or whatever are all after the fact rationalization of something that was expanded from a hits to kill mechanic.

And later RPGs like Runequest, hit points were designed differently to represent something specific like "meat as Nick J puts it. Some cases like Fantasy AGE, the designer ports in D&D style hit points. They correctly reason it helps with having a more heroic style combat system partcularly if you inflate the total without increasing the damage dealt. D&D 5e does this differently by increasing the damage dealt by a lot. Couple with bounded accuracy it makes for a more grounded combat system with options but not as fantastical as 4e or even 3e was.

 

[ffilz]

On some level BRP's Hit Points are measuring "meat" whereas, D&D-esque games start off measuring just meat, and then become something else altogether once you've accumulated levels and additional Hit Points. So from a certain point of view (the starting gate) I'd say they aren't completely dissimilar, it's very soon after when they aren't all that similar at all.

I've always appreciated Cold Iron acknowledging that the hit points above CON (you start with CON and then if (CON bonus + 5) * Lvl is higher, use that instead - for anything reasonable as a PC it means CON hp for lvl 1 and lvl 2 and level based from level 3 on up) are "magic" with no funny attempt to justify it as dodging or avoiding damage or something. So even if you're tied down and the dragon breathes on you, there's no "well, how come he still gets all his 'dodge' HP when he can't dodge?." And if you run into something that is actually powerful enough to negate the magic that grants those extra HP, you lose them.

But these days I just don't worry about why you get the numbers you get in the game. I take those as a definition of how the setting works, though I will make reasonable exceptions. For example, if you have someone totally under control and you slit their throat, assuming you have a knife that CAN cut their throat, they're dead. But any sort of normal combat situation? The hit points work by the game rules. If the game rules have falling damage rules, we follow them even if it means someone can fall off a cliff and survive.

Now yes, every once in a while, I run into someplace where the rules clash with my vision of the setting and I'm unwilling to let the rules win. If that happens, I make a ruling based on logic, but I will also attempt to make a ruling that does the least offense to the rules.

 

[AsenRG]

Yes. And i mean that, knowing full well how both games work. I'm happy to explain what i mean, but i'll bet you can work it out for yourself.

Yeah, let's just say that I see a world of difference between meat points and D&D hitpoints, and leave it at that.

 

[Stevethulhu]

Yeah, let's just say that I see a world of difference between meat points and D&D hitpoints, and leave it at that.

I don't. They are all a game concept to determine how long it takes to render a combatant incapable of continuing. The difference is only window dressing when you get down to it.

 

[robertsconley]

I don't. They are all a game concept to determine how long it takes to render a combatant incapable of continuing.

Using meat points allows the system to generate intermediate results between 100% ready for combat and incapable of continuing combat.

D&D hit points originated from a mechanic that only handled either you were fighting or you were not.

For example GURPS. It general idea is not easily applicable to systems that uses high hit points totals like D&D and Fantasy AGE.

 

[Gabriel]

For example GURPS. It general idea is not easily applicable to systems that uses high hit points totals like D&D and Fantasy AGE.

View attachment 33180

No. You could translate that whole block straight to D&D and have it work (although you would probably need to tweak the death state negative HP one a bit). In fact, I've known people who pretty much did that. I'd be amazed if there wasn't a Dragon Magazine article or rule in the Combat & Tactics 2e book that did the same exact thing.

But then you bump into healing, and it's basically that D&D HP are just as consistent as Palladium MDC.

 

[robertsconley]

No. You could translate that whole block straight to D&D and have it work (although you would probably need to tweak the death state negative HP one a bit). In fact, I've known people who pretty much did that. I'd be amazed if there wasn't a Dragon Magazine article or rule in the Combat & Tactics 2e book that did the same exact thing.

But then you bump into healing, and it's basically that D&D HP are just as consistent as Palladium MDC.

I tried it as well. The results were unsatisfactory. It didn't work because across various editions D&D Hit Points quickly inflate compared to the damage dealt. And there are also other GIURPS damage rules that I didn't post that have similar issues. Namely the one ones that deal with happen as a result of the damage from a single hit.

In short doing the math and applying the rules works but produces nonsensical* results compared to GURPS once you get beyond 2nd or 3rd level. And starting with 3e edition it starts to get weird after 1st level.

*The whole reason people bother with injury to get something that either echoes what happens in life, or echoes what they read or saw. Both in life and fiction it is rare for a character to depicted as either ready to fight or completely unable to fight. Most of the character get injured, are not fighting as well, and that reflected in how the action goes.

Application of GURPS injury rules work from a technical standpoint, but the result in my experience feels neither like life or what I read or see. It winds up being it own thing with it own feel. Which may fun to play and use, but for me is not what I was going for when I decided to use GURPS. Or how I modded OD&D to produce my Majestic Fantasy rules.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

No. You could translate that whole block straight to D&D and have it work (although you would probably need to tweak the death state negative HP one a bit). In fact, I've known people who pretty much did that. I'd be amazed if there wasn't a Dragon Magazine article or rule in the Combat & Tactics 2e book that did the same exact thing.

But then you bump into healing, and it's basically that D&D HP are just as consistent as Palladium MDC.

Yeah it's not that hard to make something like this. My AD&D 2nd group had a death spiral in our game. We took the wound levels from Ars Magica as inspiration. Hurt was 80%, Light Wound 60%, Medium Wound 40% and Heavy Wound 20%. Each level above Hurt gave a -1 cumulative penalty. We also had death at 0 HP. We did give PCs their full Constitution and max Hit Die at first level though.

 

[xanther]

Using meat points allows the system to generate intermediate results between 100% ready for combat and incapable of continuing combat.

D&D hit points originated from a mechanic that only handled either you were fighting or you were not.

For example GURPS. It general idea is not easily applicable to systems that uses high hit points totals like D&D and Fantasy AGE.

View attachment 33180

Pretty sure have seen the when you have xx% of HP left you get negative effects all over the place.

No reason it shouldn't work with high HP as a game mechanic; just people will say I have 50 HP left but uninjured Dude has 5 HP, whah, whah not fair I get a negative effect. Others may complain "death spiral"...remember those Dragon opinion pieces?

I personally like that damage can decrease performance, just like to minimize the book keeping...so such ways as above (% of HP) not for me.

 

[Skarg]

Supposedly, D&D hit points abstractly represent things other than injuries. Things that are generally explicit in GURPS, such as whether you're hard-pressed or your shield is damaged or you're using various techniques to avoid getting hit.

If you want to keep piles of abstract hitpoints but also represent actual injury, I'd suggest using a well-designed system to do that, rather than mis-applying rules from GURPS that are designed for a different situation. Such as using Gaming Ballistic's Dragon Heresy RPG, which is well-designed by someone who understands both D&D and GURPS, and intended to make a version of D&D that is a step in that direction.