Help Me Find Gary Gygax Explanation of Hit Points

[Davaris]

A while back I found a quote of Gary's where he described combat in LA as being abstract, in that losing hit points does not necessarily mean that blood is drawn. The explanation he gave was pretty awesome in that he described the way heroes and bad guys fight in movies, where bullets can graze and the act of dodging a bullet or a sword strike can use up hit points. So to get to the point of my post, I was wondering if anyone here has seen that quote and knows where it can be found, can you please post a link to it or point me in the right direction?

I thought I saw this in an LA related post, but some LA gamers have told me this isn't possible. So if anyone has seen it else where please let me know. Perhaps it was to do with the Castles and Crusades game?

[gideon_thorne]

It was more likely to do with the AD&D game. So your best bet is the DMG.
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[AGNKim]

I have always played like that, so I must have read that somewhere.

To me, if a 12th level fighter takes 7 HP of damage from a lonsword (from his total of 100), he has no sign of an injury whatsoever. He has just lost a tad bit of fatigue. Seven HP of damage to 1st level fighter with 9 HP is damn near dead. HP are representative of skill as much as life...
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[Tadhg]

Davaris wrote:
A while back I found a quote of Gary's where he described combat in LA as being abstract, in that losing hit points does not necessarily mean that blood is drawn. The explanation he gave was pretty awesome in that he described the way heroes and bad guys fight in movies, where bullets can graze and the act of dodging a bullet or a sword strike can use up hit points. So to get to the point of my post, I was wondering if anyone here has seen that quote and knows where it can be found, can you please post a link to it or point me in the right direction?

I thought I saw this in an LA related post, but some LA gamers have told me this isn't possible. So if anyone has seen it else where please let me know. Perhaps it was to do with the Castles and Crusades game?

Heh, well . . Davis does use the word "abstraction" when discussing HPs in the PH and further elaborates on how HPs/damage work in C&C on page 120.

But, I do seem to recall something Gary wrote about this ~ mebbe in a post, Dragon article or one of the rulebooks. I don't remember anything in LA, though. Not to say that he didn't write something, but I don't remember it.

Have to have a look tomorrow in the LR4APs.

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[Davaris]

Thanks Rhuvein.
It was a great post. I thought I found it here earlier last year, or perhaps I saw it in one of his books I'm not sure.

I also remember him talking about it as if it was a conclusion he had come to after many years of playing. He also talked about combat calculations not needing to to be overly complex, because no matter how complex you make them, it is not possible to account for all variables -- like accidentally slipping on a pebble or something like that.

Anyway I hope someone has seen it and knows where to find it, because it is well worth keeping.

[seskis281]

Hee hee - yesterday one of my players, playing a druid Elf, whacked a skeleton with a quarter-staff. 1 HP damage was rolled. I yelled "you swing viciously and... catch his hand and snap several of the bony fingers off."

Kim's description is most apt... it's all in the common sense approach to describing the outcomes of the combat rolls. HP is merely a quantitative reflection of this because you need such in a game system. IRL there are people who have survived multiple gunshot wounds or a direct hit with lightening and others who die from a rusty nail in the foot.

I have to say, I've played in a game where the GM simply said "The Ogre rolls... he hits... you take 6 HPs of damage. Next." Certainly it makes for speedy battle encounters, but it looses some of the "flavor" of mixing in what's happening with the characters. This is one of the reasons I like C&C - the Siege mechanic allows the characters to try any number of different moves or combinations (my Knight, seeing the skeletons, decided to not use his longsword, instead taking his big metal shielf and charging, using his shield, body and force of movement to try and smash a whole through them). I love descriptions - from our Monk's hits to just what a critical miss looks like.

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[Taranthyll]

Davaris wrote:
So if anyone has seen it else where please let me know.

I don't know if this is specifically the quote you are looking for, but:

"Hit points are a combination of actual physical constitution, skill at the avoidance of taking real physical damage, luck and/or magical or divine factors. Ten points of damage dealt to a rhino indicates a considerable wound, while the same damage sustained by the 8th-level fighter indicates a near-miss, a slight wound, and a bit of luck used up, a bit of fatigue piling up against his or her skill at avoiding the fatal cut or thrust. So even when a hit is scored in melee combat, it is more often than not a grazing blow, a mere light wound which would have been fatal (or nearly so) to a lesser mortal. If sufficient numbers of such wounds accrue to the character, however, stamina, skill, and luck will eventually run out, and an attack will strike home..."

From Gary Gyax's article Much about melee published in Dragon #24 (April, 1979).

I'm sure he published many similar explanations of hit points in D&D, but this article is an exhaustive account of the philosophy and rationale of combat in the D&D/AD&D systems, and thus sticks out in my mind as the definitive explanation of what hit points are.

Hope this helps!

[Dristram]

Taranthyll wrote:
From Gary Gyax's article Much about melee published in Dragon #24 (April, 1979).

That's very similar to how he described it in the AD&D PHB and DMG. If you have those books, just look up Hit Points in them. If not, I could dig the books out and type up what's in there for ya.

[Matthew]

You might find this thread useful: Conceptualising Hit Points. I do not think there is any input from Gygax on the subject of hit points or abstraction to be found in these forums (the search engine revealed nothing).
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