4E's hit point philosophy

[hal]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

My understand is that HP represent the damage necessary to break/kill/shatter/disable a creature/object/device, not to vaporise it. At that is best represented by the cube root function, as used by gurps.

Your example in the OP is specifically something that gurps HP isn't intended to model.

I suspect that there need to be a couple of additional "creature/object composition" types to account for this. Perhaps "homogeneous" could be renamed to "animated", and be a square root function, and a new homogeneous trait (for when it truly is a bulk object with no breakable parts) work on a linear function.

The thing is, GURPS sets about modeling certain behaviors, of which "absolute limit" of functionality (aka automatic kill/destruction), which - while not 100% accurate, is along the lines of actual physics knowledge. How much damage can an inanimate object absorb until it is no longer deemed to be there - even as a pile of debris?

In the end? It appears that vehicles in general, relative to the scaling of damage - is flawed in the sense that vehicles have too little hit points for realism.

Having said that? What precisely are "Hit points"? It is an abstraction to a degree (heck, a MAJOR degree) that states in effect "This much damage is required to make the body non-functional, this much damage is required to render the body unlivable, and this much damage is required to render the body into itty bitty parts that are disconnected from each other." That we utilize dice in the process is to give a relatively random element to the process because we can't account for everything that IS possible to happen in real life. Place a .44 cal. gun 2 inches from the heart and pull the trigger, one would expect that all of the energy available within the cartridge will dump into the heart - not some random 2d6+1 (or what ever is determined to be the range of damage for a .44 cal. slug) die roll.

If someone really wanted to have fun? They could start an investigation on just how many bullets are lodged within a body after being fired from a gun. For GURPS, if any given bullet does damage in excess of a body's HP level (or for limbs, the max damage that can be inflicted upon a limb) the bullet blows through. Yet...

It seems to me that various accounts have bullets lodged within the body (Often times in bone or adjacent to bone) indicating that the bullet did not have sufficient energy to exit the body. Taking damage to the rib bone first, and then having the bullet go through the body means what in GURPS terms? These things are "hyper-realistic" demands for a hard core simulationist, that may NOT be desirable by the main body of players (Phoenix Command anyone?!!!). But at least it is an abstraction that people are willing to accept in their suspension of disbelief.

Therein lies a problem I believe.

When you have a level of abstraction, and people can agree that it is in the right ball-park as far as "realism" is concerned, whether it is SUPER simulationist to the point of requiring extra time to play out the game, or whether it is marginally simulationist and plays fast is relatively immaterial. The purpose of rules is to facilitate a game - correct? The purpose of rules in a role playing game is to facilitate a story and to some degree, permit people to avoid worrying about whether or not what they're portraying is realistic or not (suspension of disbelief). Case in point? My 18 year old daughter was in LOVE with the original FAST AND FURIOUS movie franchise. We had the pleasure of watching FAST AND FURIOUS 6 (SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't seen it)


Spoiler space...










Spoiler space....







Spoiler space end...

Where the hero leaps out of a vehicle moving at high speed, collides in mid-air with the love object (A delectably lovely love interest I might add!) then slams into the windshield of a moving vehicle with his back while she's atop his chest, cushioning her landing like an overgrown teddybear cushion. Meanwhile, we have another woman who is moving a similar speeds, falling from a car to the ground from a similar height, who is mourned for being lost in the heat of battle. Lack of consistency was an issue in this movie. What was even worse? There were a lot of things that were "over the top" to which my daughter muttered "Bull<censored>" over and over (fortunately, we were at a showing where we were the only customers at the tail end of the movie run). In the end? The same thing holds true with any rules system. Some people might find the fast and playable reason for play, worth the while. Some like the cinematic style of play (Heck, how many people remember the JAMES BOND role playing game?) to where the cinematic approach is the primary reason for its popularity. Then, there are some who like uber-realistic rules. That is why we have a diverse market of role playing systems instead of one rules set to rule them all.

In the end? I don't mind abstractions. I don't even really mind rules systems that have a little more meat to them. It may very well be, that the reason for this is that I grew to love wargames first, then role playing games and think nothing of spending a day recreating the Battle of Gettysburg via TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD by SPI instead of playing the one page BATTLE OF THE BULGE games ;)

What I do mind however, is when a rules set allows for unrealistic results while attempting to simulate realistic parameters in game - be it vehicular simulations set in the age of Heroes (biremes and pentakonters) or chariots or castles or wooden ships and iron men, or even space patrol characters in space ships. If one has a belief that the game system models reality reasonably well for the known things, then such confidence can extend to totally imaginary things (like spaceships!).