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Twan said:
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One more time : the D&Dian original definition of hit points was "capacity to survive" *including all non conventional ways to avoid being hit*. To resume the original hit points are an abstraction representing not only endurance but luck, skill and fate of the character. D&D was based on miniatures strategy game rules, unlike the following RPGs made once they were a specific genre. In a miniature game you would have paid hundreds of budget points for your heroe, so you prefer "the better he is the longer he will survive, but he won't be able to survive without limit if you use him too much" (to resume : he worth his budget) over "he may dodge or be one shoted, if you have luck he will survive for eternity, if you have not... ahah you lose" (to resume : he may worth 0 or ten times his cost). I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO.
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I already knew the history, and I accept that some players are OK with (or even prefer) massive-HP characters for various reasons. Personally, I find it an unsatisfactory and tired abstraction which is far overused in far too many computer games for my tastes. To me, it makes the tactics very artificial and annoying (i.e., I'm pretty invulnerable until I wear out, and then after getting steadily whittled down, I'm almost sure to die unless I withdraw and heal...). I think it's unfortunate how many games rely on high-HP-based damage systems, because I tend to find them really bland and uninteresting, because they tend to just be about wearing down enemies at constant and predictable rates, and don't model situations in a very accurate or interesting way. They tend to remove risk and unpredictability. And so, I tend to cherish the few games like Dominions that model combat results in more detailed and unpredictable ways, that are more like the actual situations they say they represent - more about risk and cause and effect, and less about "my hero can't die on turn one - that's not supposed to happen - he's a hero!" etc.