As a DM, I have long ago (About 4 years now) stopped assigning fixed hitpoint numbers to monsters, as I find them to be counterproductive. Instead, I have a general concept of "how tough" a monster is and how long a fight should last, and then use the damage rolls my players make as a general metric for "how hard" the monster is being hit. This is entirely informal and fungible. If the players are shoveling out enormous amounts of damage obviously they'll be one hit killing the mook enemies in an encounter, but for anything above that level I just have a general track of how much damage its taken and when it'll be bloodied or severely wounded. Does anyone else use a system like this? I haven't had any real issues with it in my campaigns.
>>92627423>Does anyone else use a system like this?I'm not really a fan of narrative systems, but if it works for you and your group, there's literally nothing wrong with it.Continue having fun; that's what this hobby is about.
>>92627423If you enjoy it and your players do too then go wild. For me it takes some of the fun out of running a game. Reacting to what players do and unexpected events is part of the fun for me
I find it useful to count up damage done rather than counting down HP. Slightly easier to do in your head and allows fudging the HP if you really need to make adjustments on-the-fly.
So instead of playing a game with rules you just have some sort of performance of playing a game?
I think the issue is that there are too many Hitpoints within the system to the point where it's bloated.That being said, I see nothing wrong with this kind of fudging or calling if it would yield a better experience for the whole group. Wars of attrition and slap-fights going on over several rounds aren't the most engaging.
This is what happens when you play a retarded system with bad rules, so you have to trow them out of the window for things to work
>>92628764Will you ever stop being a little bitch?I bet that if you didn't post anonymously (because you're a coward and know the next part is true), you'd be banned from this board within a week.
>>92627423>counterproductiveThe only thing I don't like about your post is that you didn't justify your use of this term. "Counterproductive"? How so?
>>92627423I don't like Schroedingers Hitpoints. As a player I want the reassurance that what I do or roll is the truth of the world, so it needs to have some sort of "concrete" backing for me. GM interpretation/judgement is expected in alot of places, but for something as integral to the combat system as HP it's really not to my taste and kinda takes the weight of my actions away from me.>>92628175Basically this. I want to play a game with rules and truths, not interpretive dice rolling.
>>92627423Ironsworn, this game has a track of challenges that is proportional on how important to your story they should be>Inb4 why are you mentioning this game anon?To inform you about a game built to work with your specific premises. Yes other games exist beyond d&d and there are games that work specifically for your intended purposes, not against. Stop pretending to play d&d when you obviously don't want to.
>>92627423For non-named characters (fodder, nooks, etc) Fantasy Craft has enemy NPCs roll to not die after being hit, with the DC increasing as an NPC has taken more hits (as well as by player/weapon abilities). The game also uses a split vitality/wounds pool system for PCs and named NPCs.
>>92627423I was DMed like this.I pretended I was deucting hit points from mosnters behind the screen, but the truth I didn't have Stats for anything. I'd just roll random dice and decide when hit and misses ocurred, when I thought it was a cool moment for the monster to die, and when I thought would be itersting to have a character to be close to death, or even dead from an attack.My players never figured it out and we always had a lot of fun.Saved me a lot of time to make up cool stories, instead of nerding out like a retard producing tons of monsters stats for a 15 min combat.
>>92627423>>92629634I played/run games for 25 years at this point and let me tell you something, i've seen this attitude been played out multiple times and reaching the very same conclusion: you'll lose players. People are not as gullible as you think, they will eventually catch wind of your misuse of obfuscation and will find your games less snd less enjoyable. If you're lucky you'll get called out (i've seen this once) but more likely your players will migrate to other GMs if the occasion will arise.D&D is not story driven but story emergent, having that happen because of its moving parts, not despite. If you're going to toss away this foundational truth then you don't want to run D&D (or anyother game that works the same) to begin with, just be honest with yourself and move on to other great narrativist games out there, you're still in time.
>>92629763I've been DMing like this since 2001.The group is having a ton of fun, and it's impossible for anyone to notice it since I always have a ton of books and tables and notations behind the screen, and I'm a diagnosed psychopath, so manipulating people is my favorite hobby.I'm just the smartest DM alive, deal with it.
>>92629797Nah people have noticed, they just don't mention it. Ask them.
>>92627423Yeah, but I've streamlined things even further by doing away with the rules and players altogether and just imagining to myself how I win at everything.
>>92629835Already did, I literaly pretended I was apologizing for being a fake DM that cooked the stats, but with just enough "hidden" sarcasm in my words for the smartest players to notice it. People love feeling like they are so smart, so they just started laughing assumed I was fucking with them, "haha you almost got us Jason, but you're not that good of a liar".The most real illusion is the one people create for themselves.
>>92629879Wait, so are you just pathologically incapable of being honest with your players then?
I do it somewhat similar. I don't completely come up with hp on the spot, usually I have some baseline and then modify it or other factors like armor and so on depending on how the fight is going. With that I'm able to pull a lot of punches while keeping the fights threatening enough.My players still like to complain how much I apparently like to see them killed but, so I feel I'm doing it mostly right.
>>92629964and ruin the everybody's fun? Nah.
>>92629879>>92630008Those were the midwits who commented out loud. The smarter players just pretend they didn't figure it out, to not ruin everyone's fun. Weird double bluff situation.
>>92627423Yeah I do this all the time depending on the system, context, enemy and player intentions all the time. I use enemy HP as a baseline but I'll often change it depending on what's going on. The players successfully ambush an enemy group while they sleep? First round will be instant kills regardless of printed enemy HP or player damage. I also have a floating value at which intelligent enemies will attempt to flee usually at around half max HP. Players know I do this but no one disagrees since I always try and do it when it makes sense.
>>92630092>Coup de grace>Sentient beings reacting realistically to harmThis is not what op is referring to, you're still using the hp and rules just setting situational appropriate thresholds, op just bullshits what feels good based on reasons completely disjointed from in-world meanings and statblocks.
>>92627423Back when I ran D&D/Pathfinder I would do this occasionally, mostly for big boss battles. Generally it was a little less abstract than what you're describing, I'd assign a minimum damage threshold and once that was passed I'd basically "eyeball" how the fight was going and adjust from there.Are you familiar with the director from Left 4 Dead? It's role was to improve the "flow" of the game by lowering or ramping up the difficulty in accordance with how well the players were doing with the goal being to always make it appropriately challenging. I was going for a similar idea.
> throws player agency out of the window> relies on players not trying to figure over the course of 20+ years a HP pool or AC of a single enemy and succeeds> "I am a diagnosed psychopath and the smartest person in the room"Anon you can believe in your stories however much you want, but don't try to get others to buy this crap as well.For others: I got two bits for you.Throwing player agency out of the window takes away a lot of what most players care about - that's the 1st.Rules are your shield when you are a DM/GM - if something ugly happens, you always have the justification that it was as the authors have designed - that's the 2nd. It's not a perfect justification, but everyone has implicitly accepted to follow the rules when they have joined the table.
I just ask my players "How do you want to do this?" at the start of combat and proceed from there.
>>92627423But it is like just scaled up hit points with an extra layer of improv instead of calculation. Besides, it makes maneuvers such as aiming meaningless due to inconsistency.
>bragging about pretending to play a gameEmbarrassing.
>>92629634>make up cool storiesYou're just playing house, you girly bitch
>>92628796>”THIS IS MY SAFESPACE REEEEEEEEE”As if your first post wasn’t enough to clue people in on your profound retardation
>>92627423I find that kind of unfair to the players really. Though, yes, for them it would change nothing because they dont know, what really is the point of rolls or stats If you are going to arbitrarely decide it all?You are really just deciding to waste their time because you judge it appropriate.If It Works for you and your players enjoy It, good, keep up, dont let me change your mind, but It doesnt sit well with me.
>>92630179>I am a diagnosed psychopath and the smartest person in the roomwell Im not diagnosed but yes>Throwing player agency out of the windowplayers never had agency in my world, I am literally God and its an illusion of agency from the start
>>92627423I just stopped playing games I find boring.
>>926311745/10. You managed to bait some of the anons in this thread.
>>92630179Check out this houlier-than-thou retard seething.Imagine this sweaty slug giving a little speech about tabletop ethics.Look at him and laugh.HAHAHAH
