Trying to make consistent sense of what damage and healing represent

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lord

Skarg wrote:They all agreed that the RAW are an abstraction (most certainly not simulation) of reality. But they also all agreed that it was a vastly superior abstraction to the proposed treatment per "wound."

This is interesting. Can you say why they thought 'per fight' healing was better than 'per wound'?

[hcobb]

If you heal per combat then you need to track wounds taken in that combat anyway to not repeat the bug in the app of healing two hits after each non-damaging combat.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by Skarg

It also seems to me that it can "work" to house-rule either or both to suit players' tastes. Certainly it did "matter" to us even as inexperienced kids, and it "worked" for us to rule as we did.

Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean what I wrote to be argumentative that way. It looks like what I wrote must have sounded dismissive, and I apologise for that. Believe me that was not my intention.

If I can rephrase? What I hear from what you're saying is that at some point consistency concerns on this point cannot be ignored, and you will go for consistency regardless (or mostly) of the game effect.

By "won't work", I simply meant game conventions about damage mean there will be weird effects regardless of how you approach the healing rules. I get it, you have convinced me, much of that consistency relates to things outside the per-wound/per-combat distinction. Even so, the more important to my mind is that one's ruling about healing and Physicker produces game effects that you like.

ANd by "wont' matter", I only meant that if someone thinks that "hard mode" is more consistent, but leads to too much PC mortality, it makes more sense to me to go for the desired game effect and not worry too much about the consistency angle. Similarly, if one thought "per-wound" was a more consistent approach, but led to undesirable effects (eg physicker being too powerful a talent), then again it makes sense to me to let game effects override the consistency concern.

If you find that your approach yields both consistency and the effects you like, then perfect.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by RobW

Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean what I wrote to be argumentative that way. It looks like what I wrote must have sounded dismissive, and I apologise for that. Believe me that was not my intention.

If I can rephrase? What I hear from what you're saying is that at some point consistency concerns on this point cannot be ignored, and you will go for consistency regardless (or mostly) of the game effect.

By "won't work", I simply meant game conventions about damage mean there will be weird effects regardless of how you approach the healing rules. I get it, you have convinced me, much of that consistency relates to things outside the per-wound/per-combat distinction. Even so, the more important to my mind is that one's ruling about healing and Physicker produces game effects that you like.

ANd by "wont' matter", I only meant that if someone thinks that "hard mode" is more consistent, but leads to too much PC mortality, it makes more sense to me to go for the desired game effect and not worry too much about the consistency angle. Similarly, if one thought "per-wound" was a more consistent approach, but led to undesirable effects (eg physicker being too powerful a talent), then again it makes sense to me to let game effects override the consistency concern.

If you find that your approach yields both consistency and the effects you like, then perfect.

Pretty much, yes.

I think what stands out to me about these and other repeated discussions where experienced TFT players play in different ways, is that different players have different conceptions of what the mechanics represent, and notice, care and prefer different things about them. And it sounds like groups of players that play together for a while tend to share a perspective. People house-rule where they see a need, and don't where they don't, and some players and groups agree what needs house-ruling and how to do it, and others have different ideas.

But when we play and GM immersive RPGs a certain way for years, our perspectives get pretty developed and it can be challenging to step into another player's different perspective.

In my case, when the topic is something I'm convinced of a strong opinion about, I tend to keep trying to explain that perspective until it sounds like people get what I'm saying, especially if they seem to be responding to my posts by asserting things in ways that seem to not get what I've been trying to explain.

And yes, I was a realism/simulation/consistency-oriented player even when playing "war" on the playground in third grade, and while playing TFT in fifth grade, and the seeming illogic of healing "per fight" was something our group couldn't ignore even then. Since we pretty much always did healing "per wound" as a consequence, we developed our understandings of TFT injury around that, and we very much like the effect on gameplay. Though yes, I still tend to choose consistency and more realistic-seeming detailed rules unless they're unmanageable... but I can manage quite a bit.

As I mentioned before, if I felt that per-wound were causing too much healing, no that would not have me use "per fight" healing because it's a consistency problem for me. Instead I'd address the perceived problem (I mentioned reducing the amount of healing per wound and/or adding random factors that tend to reduce the amount of healing). Or if I were sensitive to the four three-point wounds vanishing case, I might also use something like JimmyPlenty's elegant suggestion above, where 2+ point wounds can't be healed to less than one point each.