Some Final Thoughts On Fatigue In DnD

I'm sensing more than a little exasperation from certain quarters regarding my plea for fatigue to be a recognized component of DnD combat.

For those "in the know", it will be plain that I'm no game designer.  I don't have the critical mind for it.  Nor the patience for endless stress-testing, to ensure a game component or system is sound.

I leave it the rest of you in the OSR community (the ones who possess real creativity and intelligence) to come up with novel solutions.

As mentioned earlier, hit points were re-purposed by Gygax to encapsulate many disparate elements of combat effectiveness, not to simply represent the capacity to absorb wounds.  Luck, fate, skill, endurance, willpower, concentration, and stamina are just a few elements encapsulated by the hit point pool, in addition to physical damage.  Despite that, very few, if any DnD, players utilize the hit point pool to its full potential.

In traditional DnD combat, the only way that your hit point pool can be diminished is if you absorb an attack from an opponent.  But it is acknowledged that this pool represents skill, endurance, concentration and strength of will, in addition to fate, luck (the avoidance of otherwise damaging blows) and capacity to absorb damage. 

If the hit point point pool represents skill and endurance, why can a player not exhaust some of that hit point pool to inflict additional damage on an opponent?  Effectively, the player would be expending some of their skill, and/or accepting some combat fatigue, in exchange for inflicting additional damage.

This sort of approach would not require any additional book-keeping, other than the book-keeping that every player already accepts, ie. tracking their remaining hit points.  It would also not contribute to that nay-sayer phantom, called "the death spiral," since the expenditure of the hit points would not affect the character's combat effectiveness, merely reduce her endurance (hit point) pool.

I leave it to brighter minds than mine to come up with a way to implement this, although off the top of my head, here is one approach.

During every round of combat, each player can declare, after a successful roll to hit, whether they wish to expend points from their hit point pool (become fatigued) in order to inflict additional damage.  The amount the player can expend from the character's hit point pool, in any round, is tied to the character's level and class. 

For example, Magic-users can expend a maximum of 1d4 hit points, per level, from their hit point pool.  So a 5th level Magic-user could expend a maximum of 5d4 hit points from her hit point pool.  In exchange for the assumption of that fatigue, she can inflict double the number of dice of extra damage. 

So if a 5th level Magic-User accepted 5d4 of hit points of fatigue from her hit point pool, she would inflict 10d4 of additional damage on her opponent.

Similarly, Thieves would use a d6, Clerics, a d8, and Fighters a d10.  In every instance, whatever number of dice was chosen (to a maximum of that character's level) for the assumption of fatigue to their hit point pool, twice that could be inflicted on one's opponent.

It should be obvious the potential effects of such a rule.  First, character heroics: that a character can "go down fighting" by selecting an assumption of fatigue damage that would take them to 0 hit points or below.  For example, a 5th level fighter, with only 8 hit points remaining, might select 5d10 of additional fatigue, in order to do 10d10 damage to her opponent, knowing that, while she might take out the monster, she will likely die in the attempt.

Second, there is a possibility that the number of hit points lost to fatigue will be greater than the damage inflicted.  That's the risk the player takes, in choosing to make this fatiguing attack.

Third, in order to make this sort of rule palatable to the players, the recovery of hit points needs to be increased.  I like the idea mentioned elsewhere of 1 hit point per round or per hour, rather than day, with, say higher recovery rates for sleeping, eating and drinking strong drinks.

That is a amateur's stab at the idea of combat fatigue.  I'm sure others have better approaches to this problem.  The point is, there is a way to recognize and account for combat fatigue, without adding significant complexity to DnD battles.

Combat Fatigue and the Failure of Gygax

Travolta:  That's how Ali took the title from Foreman.  He beat him with a rope-a-dope.  Don't you remember?
Slater:  I don't remember what day of the week it is.
Travolta:  Everybody thought Ali's arms had run out.  That he's running on empty.  But he's just setting Foreman up.  He's letting Foreman burn himself out.  And then, in the eighth round, here comes Ali; and poor George has nothing left.

-- Broken Arrow, 1996

Dungeons and Dragons does a lousy job of emulating combat fatigue.  And i'm not just talking about fourth edition.  We're talking every single edition. 

It would be tempting to blame Dave Arneson for the failure of DnD to emulate the effects of combat fatigue.  After all, he is the author of the hit point concept.

Arneson's hit point concept eventually became DnD's aggregated measure of luck, skill, stamina, concentration, life-blood and endurance.  In fact, after all these years, it is still argued that only the last few character or monster hit points actually represent the life-blood of the combatant.  For the most part, inflicting hit point damage represents the whittling away of your opponent's stamina, the sapping of his will and skill, and the gradual theft of his luck.  In a word: fatigue.

But nowhere in DnD's combat system do the effects of fatigue reveal themselves.  A character's combat abilities do not wane as his hit points decrease.  A figher's speed and combat prowess are undiminished, despite having suffered a 50%, 75%, or even 90% hit point reduction.  And in a perverse twist, 4E actually provides combat bonuses when some players and monsters become "bloodied".  If you can imagine, as one becomes "bloodied" (fatigued), combat ability actually improves.

While it is true that Arneson first implemented the concept of hit points in his pre-DnD games, it took Gary Gygax to unthinkingly promulgate their hybrid use, as a combined luck, skill, stamina and endurance measure, when publishing the earliest versions of DnD.  And to this day, hit points in all versons of DnD, including 4E, continue to function just as they did in 1974, as a rather ghoulish goulash of combat capability measures.

Gygax should have known better.  As an avid reader of pulp fantasy literature, he had myriad sources available to confirm that pulp fantasy role-playing games absolutely require some sort of combat fatigue emulator. 

Even something as simple as the loss of a single hit point during each combat round due to exertion would have provided some reminder to the players that fatigue is a serious matter in battle.

My clucking and finger-wagging at Gygax applies equally to those DnD game designers who came after.

You need look no further to see that continued failure, than to study one of the so-called "marvellous innovations" of 4E, the AEDU system.  The 4E AEDU system gives each character at-will, encounter, daily, and utility powers, and is a rather uninspired effort at combat fatigue emulation. 

It posits that there are certain daily and encounter powers that are so exceptional, and fatiguing, that they can only be attempted once per day or encounter.  That AEDU system has been roundly and justifiably derided, as riven by disassociated mechanics.  Most importantly, it eliminates an important component of player choice, since it prevents players from re-attempting a daily power, accompanied by some equally significant sacrifice elsewhere.

There's really no justification for the absence of combat fatigue emulation as a feature of DnD combat.  That few, if any, have recognized and rued its absence is the real tragedy.

DnD End Game: Empire Building

One of the forgotten pleasures of Dungeons and Dragons is reaching name level and being permitted to establish your own stronghold. This early feature of DnD is obviously inspired by the wargaming traditions of the first roleplayers.

The problem is, there are woefully inadequate rules in Original DnD to govern stronghold and empire building, and stonghold-building precipitates player-versus-player conflict, particularly when the name-level players want to expand into the same territories. Not to mention that the level of abstraction necessary to handle a game of empire building is different from the level of abstraction necessary for a game of dungeon-delving resource and hit point management.

Though not perfect by any means, I get my fantasy empire building and PvP conflict fix from our occasional games of Settlers of Catan. Settlers is at just about the right level of abstraction to avoid getting bogged down in the minutae, and allows for a certain amount of PvP conflict without resulting in the total elimination of the other players.

Settlers would be a suitable base upon which to build a really interesting high-level fantasy empire building game. I've heard good things about Small World as well, but have yet to give it a try.

More Trouble With Hit Points

I've never been terribly satisfied with the concept of hit points. I know i'm not the only one in the old-school community, as others have blogged similar sentiments, along with their work-arounds.

One of my issues with hit points is this: which of the hit points represent the capacity to absorb wounds, and which of the hit points represent luck, fate, and good fortune? I ponder this issue, because the rules for the recovery of hit points vex me. While wounds should take time to heal, the same may not be true for luck and fate. Admittedly, hit points are an arbitrary and artificial representation of of how much risk you can endure and how battle-proficient you are. But if hit points, particularly at higher levels, are mostly luck and fate, why should it take several days, or weeks, to recover it? What purpose does the slow hit point recovery rule serve, other than to arbitrarily delay the adventure?

WOTC's 4E solution to the problem of hit point recovery is to implement their healing surges system. That allows players to recover hit points after (and sometimes during) combat, thus extending the game day, and shortening the periods between adventures. But WOTC's solution to the recovery of hit points is as arbitrary as their rules for meting out hit points in the first place.

Another of my issues with hit points is a selfish one. As a DM, I find it annoying to track hit points for multiple antagonists, particularly when those antagonists are mooks or rabble. For example, here is a wandering monster table from Module B1, In Search of the Unknown.

As you can see, the hit points for the eight Orcs range from a high of 6 to a low of 2. With the characters inflicting an average weapon damage of 4 on the Orcs, most of the Orcs will be killed with a single blow. But three will need at least two hits to dispatch. Tracking which Orc has how many hit points may not be terribly onerous when there are only 8. What if there are 28? Again, (and for "cinematic effect") WOTC has solved that problem by giving rabble one hit point. You hit the rabble, and it dies. Again, their solution works, but is completely arbitrary, since Troll rabble and Orc rabble both have one hit point.

My preferred solution to those problems: implement a system of wound and luck points, and rationalize and condense hit points to a level where a a hit point equals one successful hit.

With regards wounds and luck, each player would possess both wound points and luck points. When damage was inflicted, a player could chose to use their luck points to avoid the wounds, and the luck points would be refreshed, either after each battle, or after a good night's rest. Only the actual wounds inflicted would require healing.

As for rationalizing hit points, some number of hit points would be condensed into wound and luck points. For example, 3.5 hit points might equal one wound point. Weapons would do one wound, unless they were either exceptional or magical weapons.

The biggest problem I see with this solution: rpgers love rolling dice, and implementing such a system would eliminate the need to roll for damage. No more euphoria when a player rolls the maximum weapon damage, nor the groans of despair and recriminations when the player rolls a "1".

Such a change might be too much for players to bear.

Archetypes: Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Typologies

You can find game inspiration in many places. That's why it is often said that being "well-read" and having diverse interests is a boon to creativity.

One of those places to find inspiration is popular psychology. I must admit, I love hitting the bargain-basement bins at the bookstores, picking up pop psychology and "speculative non-fiction" books.

About a decade ago, I attended a party where about 30 of us took the Myers-Briggs test and shared the results. Having know most of those people previously, it was illuminating to discover new things about them, based on that personality test.

Years later, I took the Enneagram test. I prefer that typology to the one used in the Myers-Briggs System, as it seems more prescriptive that descriptive: the Enneagram promotes self-improvement, whereas the Myers-Briggs seems to merely pidgeonhole you.

Bringing this all back to D&D: there are many ways that players can classify their characters. The traditional approach is by character class, whether it be the Fighter, the Magic-User, or some other class. Another approach to character class could be based on Enneagram typologies. You could play the Thinker, the Loyalist, the Motivator, the Protector, and so on. Each in their own way, the classes, archetypes, typologies, or what have you, represent abstractions of reality, and different ways of seeing and interacting with the world. But just because I am a "reformer"in the enneagram typology does not mean I am the same as every other "reformer."

I don't know that I am promoting a switch to the Enneagram for D&D character creation. However, looking at role-playing from a pop psychology perspective would be interesting.

Versimilitude And Other Naughty Words

Versimilitude is a word that I find neither easy to spell, nor easy to say. Nor do I find it easy to read in other people's posts. So much so, I think it should be banned from the vocabulary of gamers everywhere.

Why? Because it has become misunderstood and fetishized among rank-and-file gamers to the point where it has lost its value in gamer discourse.

I say this because, while it is a perfectly useful term for game-designers to use and apply, its adoption and abuse by those people, like myself, who intend to play games, not design them, has reached noxious levels.

The standard definition of versimilitude is that which exhibits the appearance of truth or reality. Versimilitude, if properly understood, should be considered more the former (truth) than the latter (reality). That is, something can exhibit the appearance of truth, but may not reflect reality, and still have versimilitude.

The problem is that many gamers tend to focus on the "reality" portion of versimilitude, not understanding that games, by their very nature, are fractured images of reality. The point of games is to abstract reality. If I want to experience reality, I don't need a game for that, I simply walk out the front door. But games that are well constructed can both exhibit abstractness and versimilitude. A game does not have to mirror reality in order to exhibit versimilitude.

For example, Live Action Role Playing games ("LARPS") are among the most realistic role-playing games. What could be more realistic that actually "being" the character, rather than abstracting it to a set of attributes? I don't roll dice to see if I hit, I take a swing at you. I don't tell the DM what I say, I say it to the other LARPer.

That does not mean that a LARP has more versimilitude than, say, Tigris & Euphrates, which is a very abstract game.

A game can exhibit versimilitude, and be completely abstract. That abstract game can be said to have versimilitude if its game mechanics are internally coherent, and is tells "truth" about a particular facet of reality.

I also see versimilitude being fetishized by some gamers, using the term as a sort of "litmus test" for whether a game is worth playing. Risk is a game that, in my estimation, has a very low level of versimilitude. What truth is Risk trying to model? However, this would not prevent me from playing, and enjoying, that game.

Similarly, I see a few in the pro and anti 4e communities still arguing for and against 4e on the basis that it demonstrates, or fails to demonstrate, versimilitude. I'm not interested in injecting myself into that debate. Frankly, i'm not terribly interested if it does or doesn't. Role-playing games are very complicated models of reality, and I do not believe there will ever be an RPG rule-set that meets every gamers version of reality.

Are you enjoying the game you're playing? Then just play it. If there is a rule that fails to exhibit versimilitude, then change it. It's your table!

Verisimilitude Is Over-Rated

Why? I'll wade in on the subject later this evening.

Levels of Abstraction: The OD&D Endgame

The OD&D endgame has always been somewhat mystifying to me.

While other war, and boardgames, dealing with empire-building, had clear mechanics on how to establish and develop your territory, the OD&D guidelines are far murkier. This is complicated by the fact that various levels of abstraction coexist at this level of the game.

For example, when building your stronghold using the OD&D rules, there are certain configurations and related prices for each of the different components of your stronghold. The towers are a certain price, the gates are another, as are the sections of walls, different-sized buildings, and so on. I consider these OD&D stronghold construction guidelines to be at a intermediate level of abstraction: at a lower level of abstraction, you might define your building method, or the materials you used for the walls, from what quarry you obtained your stone, the way you laid the foundation, who you hired to oversee the construction, how many labourers worked (and were killed) during the construction, and so on.

And once you have constructed your castle, you apply an even higher level of abstraction to the operation of your territory. Now you include the area around your stronghold, using the Outdoor Survival maps, and each hex that you control provides you with a certain number of gold pieces, representing the taxes you collect from the towns and villages that surround your castle. Forget that the towns and villages may already have a ruler, or that the area you have built your stronghold in may be composed entirely of wilderness. Also, you don't track the activities of the tax collectors, or what products or activities your towns are engaged in producing.

All of this coexists with the lowest level of abstraction: your character, her equipment, personality, and the minutia of interactions between the characters themselves, not to mention any further adventuring or dungeon-delving.

Thus, at least three levels of abstraction co-exist in the OD&D endgame. Then we add a further consideration: the amount of space allocated to providing guidelines to the players and DMs on establishing and operating your stronghold may only amount to two or three pages between the three "little brown books" and the supplements.

While this allows a great deal of room for DM and player interplay and negotiation, it would have been nice to have had some economic, political and military guidelines as a basic underpinning.