An interesting essay on hit points

[hogarth]

That's the whole stupidity the essay : it's not even wrong. It doesn't define "HP" although it doesn't use the word in its usual sense; hence, it says everything and nothing, since everything can be considered as "HP".

Last time I played poker, I lost all my hit points. I mean, money.

[deaddmwalking]

That's the whole stupidity the essay : it's not even wrong. It doesn't define "HP" although it doesn't use the word in its usual sense; hence, it says everything and nothing, since everything can be considered as "HP".

Last time I played poker, I lost all my hit points. I mean, money.

That is a case where gaining more of the thing you lose to play is absolutely the incentive to keep playing (ie, it is the primary reward). So, closer to what he was talking about for sure than collecting hearts in Castlevania.

[DrPraetor]

The opening schpeal of an RPG should include both a description of how the game abstractifies the success of actions (generally, roll dice to stab a guy), vs how the game abstractifies the success of endeavors (generally, reduce a guy's hit points to 0 in order to take him out.)

That's important and I'm reminding myself to bug Frank to update his next After Sundown intro accordingly: even that intro (one of the best, imo, and not just because I helped write the objectives it was originally supposed to fulfill) just sorta hope you'll figure that part out.

Being explicit about it opens the play space, I think, so that you can see how rules look for things other than trying to murder people.

So there's a really useful three paragraph start-of-the-RPG essay on hit points but this sure as fuck isn't it.

[hogarth]

Last time I played poker, I lost all my hit points. I mean, money.

That is a case where gaining more of the thing you lose to play is absolutely the incentive to keep playing (ie, it is the primary reward). So, closer to what he was talking about for sure than collecting hearts in Castlevania.

Indeed, which is why his claim that pinball machines invented hit points is yet another "not even wrong" statement.

[infected slut princess]

you also search garbage cans for needles to inject yourself with

I am familiar with this lifestyle.