2016/11/16

How many "Capacity-for-living" points does your character have?


[...] the question is - am i right?

(That's what the author is asking at the end of this brief but interesting article). What do you think?
I'd like to hear your opinions on the matter.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could call it a "lifepoint" (LP) instead. Considering that pen-and-paper RPGs have to be managed in a reasonable amount of time, a complex equation would probably not be a good fit for managing this aspect of the game (considering that combat is regarded as one of the major portions of the game).

I vaguely remember one session where the GM altered the rules so that when your hit points went down to zero (or below, depending upon the damage), you didn't die but was merely knocked unconscious. You had a God watching over you and, depending upon how faithful you were to your God, the God would prevent your opponents from ravaging you too badly while unconscious (and, no, the Gods would never allow anything sexual to happen to you while unconscious, regardless of how good or bad you were).

Again, from very vague memory, I remember that this alteration was because of the whole "parents freaking out over D&D" and the not dying part was to soothe them into thinking that it wasn't a bad game. I never played with him while he was a GM mainly because he really began to deviate from standard D&D rules. I remember that he was going to make his own RPG but never knew more than that. Like so many people, he eventually drifted away as most people did and never heard of him again. Would be interesting to know his full altered system because, apparently, he and a bunch of other D&D players really took it upon themselves to alter D&D pretty significantly.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Philosophical slumber said...

I'll add a comment i received on G+:

"My standard for D&D is that you may spend hit points equal to the damage caused by the attack in order to dodge/parry it. Essentially it becomes the old C&S Fatigue Points.

Which, since I also use armour absorption, also has the possibility of not using hit points and trying to rely on the armour to take the blow. Although since Injury acts a negative modifier to every die roll, this can be risky if things go wrong. So most people dodge until they grow too tired/slow to do so and the blow eventually gets through. Then they either retreat, surrender, or lie bleeding on the ground (if when they get zero hp when they reroll their hit points [considering the Injury penalty applies to each hit die.]

And yes, hit points can be regained quite quickly by resting. Injury heals very slowly.

Seems to work, and the emphasis that you spend hp to dodge the blow makes it very clear what hit points are".

Alea iactanda est said...

Life Points seems to be a pretty common way of translating the concept, at least in French (Points de Vie, PV or PdV) and German (Lebesnpunkte, LP). I've also seen Trefferpunkte (hit points) in German.

Lev said...

It's right, it's always been right. It's just the scale that's wrong.

Rolemaster I think differentiated the "physical structure" of a person quite well from their ability to receive extraordinary amounts of "knocks and bruises". The principle was pretty much was this articles was saying.

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