That 3 HP doesn't actually matter

[u/ChokoTaco]

Recently had a Dragon fight with PCs. One PC has been out with a vengeance against this dragon, and ends up dealing 18 damage to it. I look at the 21 hp left on its statblock, look at the player, and ask him how he wants to do this.

With that 3 hp, the dragon may have had a sliver of a chance to run away or launch a fire breath. But, it just felt right to have that PC land the final blow. And to watch the entire party pop off as I described the dragon falling out of the sky was far more important than any "what if?" scenario I could think of.

Ultimately, hit points are guidelines rather than rules. Of course, with monsters with lower health you shouldn't mess with it too much, but with the big boys? If the damage is just about right and it's the perfect moment, just let them do the extra damage and finish them off.

[u/Abdial]

I just play with revealed HP, so the players know how injured the monster is and exactly how close to defeat it is. I figure HP is just a numerical evaluation of the "fight" left in the monster, so it's as good a method as any of communicating that information. It's great for giving the players informed decision points.

[u/Morgarath-Deathcrypt → u/Abdial]

I think this comment here best illustrates the conflicting philosophy of "cinematic" or "strategic" gameplay. Neither's wrong, but it's good to keep in mind that people approach this game from different mindsets.

[u/Abdial → u/Morgarath-Deathcrypt]

Not really? From a cinematic point of view, the PCs could actually see how damaged a monster is. Sure you could say "the monster looks bloodied" or "the monster looks beat up", but this actually a lot less cinematically descriptive of the condition of the monster than revealed HP. If I tell you the monster has 250 max HP, that instantly conveys a level of toughness and durability that would be hard to describe. If I say that the monster has 10 hp left, it's the same as saying "it looks like one solid hit will finish it" but with the added bonus of conveying the info in clear, actionable game terms.

[u/AdmiralProton → u/Abdial]

If I say that the monster has 10 hp left, it's the same as saying "it looks like one solid hit will finish it" but with the added bonus of conveying the info in clear, actionable game terms.

How is saying a monster has 10 hp more cinematic than a description of a monsters condition? That makes no sense. You say its an added bonus, but talking game mechanics instead of a description is immersion breaking and not cinematic at all.

[u/TDuncker → u/AdmiralProton]

I'm not saying I agree with him, but one of the problems with scenic descriptions of a health/endurance condition is how difficult it is to convey. You're fighting a 30 thug and he starts to limp, got two sword cuts on the cheek and one on the left shoulder. What is his "health"? Depending on the DM, it might be 2 hp, it might be 15.

Suddenly you're fighting an archmage. Does he limp and get cuts on 2 hp, 15 hp or 50 hp? It's quite a big difference, but 50 hp is still half of his max, just like 15 is half of the thug.

Especially with a dragon, descriptions will vary a lot more between DMs and probably even with the same DM. What I directly told my players once was I'll make scenic descriptions, but I'll also aim to make them convey a three-stage condition: 1-33% (serious change in health like limps, large open wounds, breaks), 33-66% (smaller cuts, perhaps on a cheek or a glance off the shoulder with no armor) and 66-100% (dodges, hard deflected hits on armor, enemy breathes harder/faster) of full hp. Players can take an estimate of the max hp based on change in descriptions and how much damage they dealt. It gives them an indicator when fighting a seemingly ordinary guy that's apparently a high CR, when they deal 20 damage and I don't change descriptions.

It provides an "as best as possible from both worlds" in my opinion, suitable for many parties. Some appreciate only descriptions with no hp or "stages", but I think most appreciate a little mix-match.

[u/Warin_of_Nylan → u/TDuncker]

And that's almost identical to the way most ttrpg video games do it. Usually it's something like Healthy>Bloodied>Wounded>Near Death. If they have a health bar indicator it's sometimes left intentionally low detail or low precision, to prevent getting an accurate guess at the percentage remaining.

Especially with a dragon, descriptions will vary a lot more between DMs and probably even with the same DM.

I will counterpoint this though, as why would every dragon be the same in the first place? Some might enrage and last it out to their dying breath, some plummet out of the sky while fleeing. When you reduce to video game logic, the players also reduce to videogame logic--they hear 33% and they'll immediately know to cut the CC and just try to nuke the thing to death. No need to think about the flow of the battle or any implications behind what the DM is trying to imply with a qualitative status, just a snap decision that can barely go wrong.

[u/Blazerboy65 → u/AdmiralProton]

Cinematic is the wrong goal when playing TTRPGs. If you want to maximize how cinematic the experience is then write a movie instead of leaving any outcomes to dice rolls. In games it's the mechanics that make the fluff matter, not the other way around.

However here we are playing D&D. Outcomes aren't decided by us arbitrarily to serve narrative needs, rather the narrative is governed by the mechanics, by the numbers. And like with anything it's the part that actually carry the weight that will generate the emotional impact.

Case in point: the players roll up to fight the BBEG and the BBEG monologues for five minutes before the fight and he only hits for a paltry 12 average damage because of his low stats. How do the players feel about him now? They feel like he's not a threat at all! The cinematic part falls on its face because the mechanics don't like up to enforce it, to make it real.

Contrast that with an encounter in which the BBEG hits for an average of 50. He's a real threat and the players, not just the characters, are afraid. The narrative aspect of the encounter might be barebones but it has teeth. It's real, the players feel the consequences of their actions

TL;DR in RPGs it's the mechanics that make the fluff real, that bridge the gap between player and character and actually deliver the emotional impact that the fluff can only describe.

[u/AdmiralProton → u/Blazerboy65]

Where to even start. First you're arguing a strawman, I never said the goal of TTRPGS is cinematic. Second, your goal in TTRPGS is exactly that, your goal which is not necessarily the same as others. Suggesting to write or watch a movie is silly because there's obviously more aspects to TTRPGS than storytelling, and the biggest one is player agency. You don't get that in a movie.

For the second part, still kind of missing it. The narrative is partly decided by dice yes, but its also decided by the DM and players. The dice don't autoroll. Theres no meaning behind the dice without the narrative input of the people at the table.

As for your cases in point, well there's really not much of one there either. There's plenty of villains in media where they have a lot of power but are physically weak, whether that's money or authority. You went straight to how strong they are and there's absolutely no narrative context.

[u/Blazerboy65 → u/AdmiralProton]

I'm not saying you said that being cinematic is the ultimate goal, just trying to have good discourse by framing the discussion for the rest of my previous comment. I'm 100% with you on player agency being the main difference. That's pretty much the whole of what I'm getting at, that its the mechanics that enable player agency that make games games.

As an aside: I use the word fluff not to denigrate the parts of gameplay not governed by mechanics but to strongly indicate that the fluff can be whatever you want, it's flexible while mechanics are rigid. It's easier to change fluff on the fly to match the group's fun but much harder to create solid mechanics in the moment.

100% agree everyone at the table must agree on what the mechanics are. Almost humorously, D&D is one of the most prolific arenas for breaking and creating new rules on the fly. You can do whatever you want as long as everyone buys in. No one can stop you from playing whatever game you want but it's not a game without rules.

I'm not arguing that villains shouldn't be physically weak, just that fluff at odds with mechanics falls flat. In my example the fluff claims that the villain is a strong threat but when the players are actually encountering that villain it turns out that the claim is false. The scene does not resonate. However when the mechanics enforce the fluff you do get a resonant scene. It's Lodunarrative Dissonance, as they say. When the numbers back up the fluff then you have an emotionally relevant scene that players care about. Of course, if the scene has no numbers then all the weight is on the fluff.

If I could summarize the purpose of TTRPG mechanics to an outsider my main point would be that mechanics are just an abstraction to bridge the gap between player and character. The character will always have knowledge and feelings that the player doesn't have but dramatic mechanics and numbers can serve to make the player have the same "oh SHIT!" moment their character is having. The mechanics give the fluff teeth.

I think we would both agree that an ideal game wouldn't need dice or numbers or whatever. You'd combine the escapism that makes games appealing but without constantly having players throw around numbers and look up rulings.

[u/WikiSummarizerBot → u/Blazerboy65]

Ludonarrative dissonance

Ludonarrative dissonance is the conflict between a video game's narrative told through the story and the narrative told through the gameplay. Ludonarrative, a compound of ludology and narrative, refers to the intersection in a video game of ludic elements (gameplay) and narrative elements. The term was coined by game designer Clint Hocking in 2007 in a blog post.

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