Role-playing games come in many sizes and shapes. Some players like the over the top, player as world beating hero (or super hero), some prefer their character to be a minor player in their world, overcoming more realistic foes and hurdles. Either way, the processes can be similar. Create character, confront obstacle, overcome obstacle (or less often not), regather, repeat.
I come from the old school, non D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Stormbringer, Warhammer 1e heritage of RPG’s. These all share similar player expectations.
They do not guarantee character survival, indeed Traveller did not guarantee character generation survival!
They eschew levels and class abstractness in favour of realistic character advancement and free form skills.
They never make anyone or anything “safe” from anything else. The lowly character could best a Dragon, however unlikely, the same hero could be undone by a lowly Goblin scout. Reality people, it’s a bitch…with a sword.
Combat is usually inevitable in RPG games. It is part of the process of “adventure” and one of the things that creates risk and promotes problem solving. How that risk manifests on the game table is a crucial mechanical factor and often determines the feel of a game.
One of the main differences mechanically between more abstract style RPG’s and simulation-ist games is how character “damage” or physical harm is handled and as an extension of that, how subsequent healing is managed.
In D&D, “hit points” are used as a very abstract measure of physical damage, character toughness and pain management, sometimes even including the benefits of luck and experience and all other forms of general damage mitigation (except those that are accounted for by the other abstraction, Armour Class). AC is a bigger stretch in a way, allowing for the reduced likelihood of a hit getting through, but not reducing its effect in any way, when the more likely scenario is damage being as likely (maybe even more so due to character encumbrance), but reduced in effect. Try putting up with a hundred hammer blows while wearing a suit of armour. You will feel the effect of every one and make a nice static target at the same time. This is basically the opposite of how D&D handles this. This very struggle has been at the core of most edition changes, but remains mostly unchanged, with the exception of 5e’s bounded accuracy, partially limiting the range of results from weakest to strongest.
It usually does not matter how many times a character in a D&D style game is hit, they recover in the short term, heal fully in the medium term and get back to life basically unscathed. This helps with the “legendary” feel of adventuring and really fits higher octane versions of the game like 13th Age. This allows characters to push and push, always able to come back (even from dead) and empowers risk taking. It also allows the designers some license when it comes to what “damage” actually is.
13A for example can even simulate abstracted damage/stress/collateral effect inflicted on a technical miss. It holds, that in some forms of story telling, even a lost limb would be largely ignored in a gaming sense, only used as a story hook.
Missing a limb he may be, but in a game sense it matters not!
It also however reduces player fear and can allow a “kill it now, take your short term licks and think later” mentality. All combat is a risk, but in D&D it tends to be fairly “soft” risk, with few unlikely surprises. Combat becomes math, with the odds very much in the players hands.
A characters “legend” comes from their overall achievements over a lifetime of adventuring expressed in experience levels gained and gear acquired. Sometimes it can even become a bit of a race.
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In a d100 style game (an example of the polar opposite philosophy), hits are often expressed as purely physical damage. In some games it is still generalised into a hit point like grouping, but often with a separate, but intrinsic critical hit mechanic. In others, it is allocated to specific body locations including the possibility of lopping off or permanently maiming said body part, with the expected consequences.
In a game like Warhammer, Mythras or Legend, a character can quickly end up arm-less, lame, missing the odd finger, an eye or other handy appendage (this often helps you find a fitting nickname), so fighting is often seen as a risk not worth taking. The chance of disaster is ever present and the odds have shifted to the house.
In Traveller, especially the original versions, characteristics are directly reduced by damage. This brilliant idea highlights the non-abstract effect of combat wounds these game champion.
In a D&D hack I tried once, we reduced actual stats on crits. Not popular with die hard D&D gamers, this elegantly added in some combat realities. I think we used it in an E6 Pathfinder game (characters limited to 6th level, based on a theory the Gandalf was only 6th level), but really, we should have just switched systems.
Black and white line drawings and often black and white results. Fail a muster roll, survival roll or enlistment roll and your character is suddenly not what you anticipated. Such is life.
Risk your health or even life for a small reward? Unlikely. Role playing is empowered, because just killing stuff is a pretty short term game plan. Pushing hard for the greater reward, taking what comes as the payoff? More likely. This can make the story telling deeper and increase player pay-in, with climactic fights after unsuccessful gentler interactions have stalled. It gives the player a real feeling of achievement, because they are genuinely afraid for their character.
I first noticed the extra player pay-in when I played Call of Cthulhu (probably 2e?). The monsters in that game are always more than you can handle and madness is often just around the corner. It is no exaggeration to say your first encounter could have a lasting effect on your character. How many D&D players can say that? Decision making actually means something when character death or madness is likely, not just a consequence of bad luck and often reversible.
It can also deflate a player when that all too likely character ending happens, specially if all precautions were taken and just plain bad luck intervenes, so balance is key. Players should never get the feeling of imperviousness to any threats, but they also need the sheer elation of overcoming or surviving something that should have beaten them. When anything can end you, all victories are richer.
The character “legend” now comes from surviving a few close calls as information is gathered, then fighting when the time is right, slaying or outsmarting a particularly big and powerful enemy and gaining possession of a powerful item.
This difference is often why d100 and 2d6 games are considered “gritty” and lethal, while d20 games are seen as “softer” and more forgiving. Their mechanics, in effect define the feel of the game, its mood and expectations.
So, where do you sit with this?
As stated, with the exception of the d20 Paragon 13th Age, I tend towards the harder, more realistic games, like d100 or 2d6 games like Traveller. I find that they make play more immersive, because of the same realities we all face. D&D is far too escapist for me.
13A is an exception. With that game, the expectation of legendary character development is the norm, not the exception, even more so than 5e. Crunchy combat mechanics and long term wounds get in the way of that style of play, but with 13A, I can deal..occasionally….in small doses….on a Thursday.
The other exception and a favourite, is Adventures in Middle Earth. This uses 5e as its core*, but removes player controlled magic, insta-healing, short term levelling (it promotes “adventuring seasons” with levels aligned to these), and a darker, more realistic feel, which all help prove that it is not the actual mechanics of D&D that are where its distinct flavour comes from, but the more specific rules and parameters.
Something worthy of mention is the general lack of shock, fear and trauma in games. This is something i will be looking at later.
*You only need the “playing the game” chapter of the free intro rules with the AIME core books.