Re: So why Millennium's End?

[CHam628781@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 31/03/02 18:26:25 GMT Standard Time, ben@millenniumsend.com writes:


> > I gave the whole HP thing a lot of thought a while ago and the conclusion I 
> > came to was simple - lost hit points in systems like D&D don't represent 
> > "hits" they're near misses that *would* if they had landed been extremely 
> > damaging and possibly fatal.
> > 
> > As characters go up in level and acquire more HP they are really accumulating 
> > a bit more luck and getting better at making the other guy miss those lethal 
> > blows. It doesn't take much of a change in narrative style to make this sort 
> > of thing work. You just go from "He hits you and you take six hits" to "If 
> > that had connected it would have hurt - it's cost you six hits."
> > 
> > Of course that doesn't make combat any quicker but it does make it more 
> > "realistic."
>
> That is all true, but in D&D if you have 100HP, there is no game play
> change from when you take 6 points, or when you take 20 points, and if you
> get all the way down to 1HP, you are still as able to run, fight and do
> anything else.  There is no incintive to be overly intelligent about how
> you approach a situation, no real fear of most battles.
> I just like the down and dirty, gritty feel of ME combat sometimes.  You
> can't just charge in, shrug off 4 9mm rounds, and then tumble into a crouch
> and shoot two of the bad guys in the head.
> That's why I like ME, as someone else said, it's more focused on
> roleplaying and planinng with amazing combat,
>
> Benjamin


Agreed, but it's a comparison of chalk and cheese. If I was developing a (don't laugh) D20 ME then it would necessarily have HP - I could go with wound points a la D20 "Star Wars". Of course they wouldn't go up with level so you'd always remain vulnerable to wounds. If your HP were 10 and a weapon did 3d6 damage then a hit has a very good chance of killing you.

The main difference of course is that D&D is about heroes in the Conan sense not heroes in the gritty realism sense. Cutting your way through hundreds of enemies is part of the D&D mythos, and you need high HP to do it. Horses for courses.

Course we could always see if Steve Jackson is interested in GURPS: ME ;)

Charles

Its amazing how most people can be vastly improved by sudden death