RPG Design: Hit Points

This week, I wanted to touch on an issue that comes up in almost every RPG: a PC's health.

Hit Points are by far the most popular method of indicating PC health. Examples of RPGs with Hit Points include D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and most other RPGs.

By "Hit Points," I mean a numerical measure of the amount of damage a PC can sustain before death or incapacity.  

Hit Points have been in RPGs since the beginning of the hobby, being an innovation of Dave Arneson in his Blackmoor campaign.  Some people might argue that Hit Points started with Chainmail, but Chainmail's system of "Hits" was different and didn't really track to the man-to-man scale.

What Hit Points are supposed to represent is a topic of debate to the present.  Gary Gygax notes in AD&D's PHB:

"Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. Let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment.The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit paints are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces."

However, Gygax ignores an issue that he indirectly brings up, namely that that 10th level fighter with 85 hit points, will only recover, as per the DMG, 1 hp per day of rest (for the first week and then perhaps a bit more later), which doesn't make sense if "the majority of [the 85 hit points] are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces".

Nevertheless, for D&D's abstract combat system, Hit Points are a quick and intuitive way to tracking a PC's health.  In that kind of system, Hit Points also add tension and drama to combat, escalating with every hit.  At least up to a point, as a PC with too many Hit Points raise game balance issues.

For example, that 10th level fighter with 85 hit points is a literal tank who can singlehandedly wipe out a small army.

Hit Points don't work as well for less tactical games, such as New School RPGs with story game elements.  For example, Ten Candles has no Hit Points since a PC's health is determined narratively.  This is also why Dungeon World, a New School game that apes Old School conventions, severely reduces the chance that a PC fails a roll.

Hit Points also obviously don't work for non-combat games, such as Golden Sky Stories.

Culture: Ancient Olympic Games (776 BC)

When we think about the culture of Antiquity, there's one event that stands out so much that we brought it back in modern times, the Ancient Olympic Games:

Like they are today, the Ancient Olympic Games were the ultimate international athletic competition, as well as a religious celebration of and for the greek god Zeus.  For example, a grand sacrifice of 100 oxen was made to Zeus during the Games.

The first Olympics is traditionally dated to 776 BC and the games were thereafter held every four years.  This measure of time, an olympiad, which became the main unit of time in Greeks historical chronologies.  And, in fact, so important were the Olympics to the Greeks that an Olympic Truce was enacted so that athletes could travel from their cities to the games in safety!

Beginning with just the stade (στάδιον), a foot race, the Ancient Olympic Games became a series of athletic competitions among representatives of Greek city-states.  As noted above, prior to the start of the Olympics, priests of Zeus travelled the land to announce the Games and tell any warring factions to wrap things up.

As long as they met the entrance criteria, athletes from any Greek city-state and kingdom were allowed to participate, with some notable exceptions.  For example, in AD 67, the Roman emperor Nero participated in the Olympics. He bribed organizers to postpone the games for a year so he could participate, and artistic competitions were added to the athletic events.  Unsurprisingly, Nero won every contest in which he was a competitor.  After he died a year later, unsurprisingly, his name was removed from the list of winners.

The Ancient Olympic Games gradually increased to twenty-three contests, although no more than twenty featured at any one Olympiad.  Participation in most events was limited to male athletes except for women who were allowed to take part by entering horses in the equestrian events. 

Unlike today, in the ancient Olympic Games there were no gold, silver, or bronze medals and there was only one winner per event.  This winner was crowned with an olive wreath made of wild-olive leaves from a sacred tree near the temple of Zeus at Olympia. 

The victorious athletes were honoured, feted, and praised. Their deeds were heralded and chronicled so that future generations could appreciate their accomplishments.

Also unlike today, killing your opponent was not forbidden: a victory was only negated if the death was the consequence of breaking the rules (e.g., Kleomedes of Astypalia).

A victorious athlete brought great honour to his home city. The sixth-century BC Athenian statesman Solon promoted athletics by rewarding Athenian victors at the Games financially - an Olympic victor would receive 500 drachmae (for comparison, a sheep was worth one drachma).

As their importance increased, the Ancient Olympic Games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals.  In this, the modern Games have followed suit (e.g., the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the USSR boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics).

The Ancient Olympic Games continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Roman rule, until the emperor Theodosius I suppressed them in AD 393 as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the State religion of Rome... until the modern Olympic Games kicked off in AD 1896 in Athens, Greece!

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

RPG Game Play: Rules Lawyers

Last year, I discussed perhaps the important meta-rule in RPGs: Rule Zero.

This week, I wanted to talk about an issue that was driving factor in the creation of Rule Zero: Rules Lawyers.

"Rules Lawyer" is typically a pejorative term used to describe someone who attempts to use the letter of the rules of the game without reference to the spirit, usually in order to gain an advantage for themselves.  As this can be a literal form of "Gaming the system," with the attendant negative consequences, Rule Zero arose.  As I mentioned last year:

"For games where meta decision making is distributed along traditional lines, Rule Zero serves as a manual override to the rules set: in other words, it exists in case someone needs to override the rules when they result a nonsensical result.  Furthermore, it serves the underlying philosophy that the rules should take a back seat if they interfere with having fun."

As  "judge" and "referee," Rule Zero allows GMs to keep a game from slowing down too much or going off the rails for various reasons, Rules Lawyering included.

However, as you might expect, Rules Lawyering can be a problem for some New School games that reject traditional GM authority in favor of greater Player Narrative Fiat, such as GM-less games.

A softer and more proactive way to address Rules Lawyering is with the group's Social Contract.


In addition, in some cases Rules Lawyering and System Mastery (high knowledge of the rules) are just two sides of the same coin, even though the latter is generally viewed positively and encouraged.

Furthermore, a clever GM can sometimes recruit Rules Lawyers to assist in running games, such as serving as a rules reference, managing less focused or experienced players, etc.

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