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View Full Version : HP = how much the universe loves you



DementedFellow
2012-07-20, 11:43 PM
Someone help me out, I remember hearing about this concept in a book from WotC.

I'll try to paraphrase as best as I can. Gods are powerful because thousands pray to them and feed them with their belief. Belief is what shapes the pantheon and gives it form and function.

So let's say you and your buddies are level 1 adventurers and decide to clear out an old mine full of goblins. By the time your exploit is done, you have gained quite a bit of experience. What is experience? It is stories being told about you? "Hey did you hear about how that ragtag group of ruffians helped clear out that old mine? Our city can prosper again." As you continue through your adventuring career more stories are told of you and the power of storytelling starts weaving its way through the cosmos. You start being able to shake off blows that would have lain you low a few months ago. You are in essence transcending into godhood with each level.

What do you think of this philosophy in regards to gaming? Should it have a place at the gaming at all?

SowZ
2012-07-20, 11:49 PM
Sounds like transcdescent-belief-is-reality-force-of-will-is-a-magical-trump-card-mind-over-matter hippieness.

Lord Tyger
2012-07-20, 11:50 PM
It's certainly an interesting theory, but it raises some odd implications.

If you kill a monster in the woods, and no one's around to see it, does it give XP?

If the party bard writes a song recounting your exploits, does the party get more experience points? Does it change based on how the bard portrays each party member?

Do positive stories "The heroes came and saved us from the invading Goblins!" have the same effects as negative, "The Goblin Heroes burned down our village, poisoned our well, and kicked us each in the shins!"?

SowZ
2012-07-20, 11:54 PM
It's certainly an interesting theory, but it raises some odd implications.

If you kill a monster in the woods, and no one's around to see it, does it give XP?

If the party bard writes a song recounting your exploits, does the party get more experience points? Does it change based on how the bard portrays each party member?

Do positive stories "The heroes came and saved us from the invading Goblins!" have the same effects as negative, "The Goblin Heroes burned down our village, poisoned our well, and kicked us each in the shins!"?

Further, how does one represent actually improving in skill?

Doorhandle
2012-07-21, 12:21 AM
the stories get more and more outlandish as they travel and are bolstered by other tales where you do do incredible things like slay dragons. Also, the general perception would be that you would have to be GOOD at your chosen skills in order to do half of what your legends say.

So, by the time that story about "killing 7 flies with one belt-strike" becomes "killing 7 giants with one blow," you can actually achieve that feat (in theroy.)

J.Gellert
2012-07-21, 12:29 AM
And your hit points are inversely proportional to how magic you can do, meaning that if you routinely break the established laws of physics, then the universe loves you less!

This makes perfect sense :smallbiggrin:

HeadlessMermaid
2012-07-21, 04:52 AM
And your hit points are inversely proportional to how magic you can do, meaning that if you routinely break the established laws of physics, then the universe loves you less!

This makes perfect sense :smallbiggrin:
I believe the OP meant to say XP (because the example is about experience in general), not hit points.

Zale
2012-07-21, 05:03 AM
This would be interesting if you were going for things like the Fair Folk from Exalted. :smallsmile:

Morty
2012-07-21, 05:04 AM
I think a better way would be to play games where the health systems don't require absurd explanations in order to make a shred of sense.

Knaight
2012-07-21, 05:17 AM
This seems like it could be a fun concept as part of a setting, but there is no reason for it to be part of a "philosophy of gaming". There are too many cases where it just wouldn't work. I'd also note that it would work better expanded from just health, to whatever feats are likely to be mentioned in stories (shrugging off blows is one of them, yes, but various absurd feats of athleticism, or of cleverness, or of courage, etc. can also work).

Doorhandle
2012-07-21, 05:20 AM
I believe the OP meant to say XP (because the example is about experience in general), not hit points.

No, he was saying why magic-users get less H.P per level (or smaller Hit-die.)

Zale
2012-07-21, 05:22 AM
No, he was saying why magic-users get less H.P per level (or smaller Hit-die.)

So it's the universe's passive-aggressive way of getting back at mages?

I may use that someday.

Mastikator
2012-07-21, 05:55 AM
Don't call it experience if it's not experience. Call it reputation.

Eldan
2012-07-21, 11:57 AM
Well, it would fit well into Planescape.

That said: some adventures are much more public than others. Killing lonely creatures in the desert wouldn't add to your reputation.

Jay R
2012-07-21, 12:45 PM
SWhat do you think of this philosophy in regards to gaming? Should it have a place at the gaming at all?

You could certainly write a game based on this concept. You cannot, however, apply this concept to D&D without greatly changing the mechanics of the game.

1. In D&D, when they've slain enough goblins, the characters go up to 2nd level, even if nobody's heard about it yet.

2. In your system, a false story everyone believed ought to help you more than actual experience. (Suddenly, Bards are Tier One.)

3. The greatest thief in the world should never rise above first level in your system, because nobody ever finds out what he's done.

It's a cute idea, but it can't work under the rules as they are.

I had a similar idea many years ago. (Original D&D, circa 1977.) My assumption was the the D&D world I was running was identical to earth until 1054, when the light from the supernova in the Crab Nebula first reached earth. Along with the light came manna - raw, unprocessed magic. And the first major effect it had was to make people's beliefs start to come true.

But nobody believed that they were wizards. They did believe in the bogeymen and other horrors of the night, so these started appearing, slowly and in shadow at first, since they were not yet fully formed. Eventually, these coalesced into the kobolds, goblins, orcs, and other monsters as we know them, when they became fully solid, based on people's beliefs.

Europe, of course, quickly became disorganized, chaotic and unsafe. A few great heroes were able to hold some order around them by dint of their charisma and the faith of their subjects. Eventually, they sailed across the ocean to the New World to create a new life. (The Amerinds had a philosophy of living within nature, rather than changing it, so their environment was far less changed.)

These heroes were the first ones with class levels. Since their personalities were so forceful, the ability to grow in experience followed what they did, and became codified as the character levels in the books. All who follow are affected by the shape of magic dictated by the original heroes. The shape of magic has now been affected by a thousand years of people who believed in this system, so it's pretty well set in this form. Each character class is the result of many great heroes who followed that path, and slowly, unconsciously, shaped and solidified the archetypes of Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, Thief, etc.

Experience is in discrete levels because manna is quantum. There is no way to absorb enough of the, say, Fighter Archetype manna, to be halfway between first level and second level, just as there are only certain levels of energy an electron can have.

This model has some of the ideas you want, but isn't based on reputation, and so can work for anonymous heroes.

ScubaGoomba
2012-07-21, 04:10 PM
The greatest thief may not be known by name, but people know of him. When the world's most valuable jewel goes missing, people know that it was stolen and will start to connect it to other robberies.

The bard writing a song about the group wouldn't give more experience because that's assumed as part of the experience you earn. You maintain your other abilities because it's assumed you condition during downtime; of course a bard can be assumed to write about what the party is doing during downtime.

With regards to "what if you kill things in the forest and nobody's there to see it?" argument, maybe nobody knows that you killed things in the forest, but the things in the forest may be aware of you and start to give you repute (because, really, how many D&D forests are actually filled with only mindless creatures?) and the people on the outside start hearing rumors of a group of adventurers that wandered into the Forsaken Forest or what-have-you and are purging it of evil.

I also like that it works for HP because it could reflect the gods giving you favor. The arrow wound that should kill a man no longer does because some of the gods have developed a fondness for you and are affording you greater vitality than a normal mortal.

Slipperychicken
2012-07-21, 11:33 PM
That's quite silly.

1. What if your whole job is to wage an "invisible war", one which the public isn't supposed to know about?

2. What if you fake your death? Do you suddenly lose all that power?

3. What happens when you steal credit for someone else's work? Do you suddenly acquire their aptitude?

4. Politicians and celebrities should be the physically strongest/most-resilient people in the world, since they have the most numerous and outlandish stories about them. For example, Michael Jackson would have been physically superior to the guys who killed Osama Bin Laden.

Math_Mage
2012-07-21, 11:47 PM
It's an interesting thought exercise, but when implemented it has too many of the aforementioned incongruities. Capital-E Experience is simply an abstraction of the relationship between experience and power. It has its own problems (for example, you do not automatically gain XP for practicing alone), but overall it's a much better way of understanding the number than as an abstraction of reputation or Plot Powers.

DementedFellow
2012-07-22, 08:26 AM
What if this was slightly shifted to how much you shape the world around you? In my example in the OP, I discussed how the villagers were happy they were rid of one pesky problem and that the mine would be usable again. These were two things that affected other people on a great scale in more ways than one.

Would this just throw a monkey wrench into things even more?

The Dark Fiddler
2012-07-22, 08:38 AM
1. What if your whole job is to wage an "invisible war", one which the public isn't supposed to know about?

Your enemies will still know about you, most likely.


2. What if you fake your death? Do you suddenly lose all that power?

Maybe. Or maybe you become a martyr, or become known as "The guy who was brave enough to face off against the dreaded dragon of Dredmor even though it cost him his life" (See: Beowulf). Even if it doesn't help your legend in some way, it's unlikely they'll just completely forget about you, unless you were pretty unremarkable to start, and suddenly disappearing may even make you more famous.


3. What happens when you steal credit for someone else's work? Do you suddenly acquire their aptitude?

I actually like this, it seems really interesting. I'd like to think that part of your experience is actual experience and part of it comes from your fame, if you use this system.


4. Politicians and celebrities should be the physically strongest/most-resilient people in the world, since they have the most numerous and outlandish stories about them. For example, Michael Jackson would have been physically superior to the guys who killed Osama Bin Laden.

I think the thing with this is that nobody believes politicians to be strong warriors or mighty wizards, so they wouldn't be, using this system. It's not just that being famous makes you amazingly strong and able, but that myths about you slowly influence reality; if the story goes that you're a legendary swordsman able to beat any number of assailants at once, then you'll slowly become a legendary swordsman able to beat any number of assailants at once.

Anyway, I like this system, for a certain type of game. There are some considerations to make (for example, the whole stealing credit = stealing XP thing), but they could be considered a feature, rather than a bug, if you'd like.

The Glyphstone
2012-07-22, 08:58 AM
On the other hand, that brings disturbing ideas about ways to literally 'assassinate someone's character'. Spread unpleasant/disturbing rumors about your enemy, and if it becomes widespread enough that people believe them, the rumors become true...

Waddacku
2012-07-22, 07:46 PM
A different interpretation that causes less problems of that nature is that the universe itself is the audience of your stories. The more entertainment you provide the universe with, the more it favors you, and the more powerful you get.

Obviously it has a weakness for flashy martial exploits such as those of the Warblade and Barbarian, and less for the more directly reality-manipulating Wizards.

MurphysLaw159
2012-07-22, 09:49 PM
Actualy, thinking back to Tome of Magic (specificaly, True Name magic) this might have some merit to it already. It was the concept that learning/pronouncing a persons true name was harder when they were higher in level. The reason given was that they were basicaly more important in the universe BECAUSE of their level so the universe would make it harder to effect them basicaly by being more demanding of the speaker of the true name when it came to pronouncing it. The universe wouldnt let little screw ups slide like it would if you were useing the rue name of, say, Joe the Commoner.

Its a profoundly interesting concept if you look at it as a give and take relationship. You the PC do something interesting, the universe shows you a little favor for being amusing (by giving you exp). It doesnt matter what the action is or why you did it so long as it is noteworthy to at least some extent. Do enough interesting things and the universe grants you the boon of a level. With that level comes the universe's favor which translates to living through things that would kill an average man (hp) pushing what is phisicaly possible (Atributes above 20 or so, saves that are rediculously high, etc) And if you are using the Cheat Button that is magic, then you can gain access to more magical based universe cheat codes.

And the universe obviously sees magic as cheating. Thats why casters get less phisical boons as well as have a habit of loosing favor (exp) when they bend the laws of th universe through magic item creation (making something able to do something it ISNT supposed to do) and from using some higher level spells (Wish anyone?). Sure the universe is the one allowing you to use those cheat codes, but thats only becuse you have shown that you will use them in interesting and entertaining ways (and so get exp from the events you use them for, so long at they are note worthy. If you use Wish to get a sandwich then you are not getting exp back from being interesting).

This also brings the relationship between Clerics and their gods to and interesting point. Firstly, the universe has shown that it's the person's belief in a thing that lets them cast devine spells (Idealist clerics). But those that are shown favor by a god/devil/demon/angel/whatever are only able to recieve from them an amount dictated by the universe (warlocks gain magic through a pact with an outsider or what have you, BUT just how much magic they get to use is STILL up to the universe).

It makes the answer Ao gave to the question posed to him a lot more interesting as well. When asked "Who do you serve?" by the mortal that did him a great service, he replied "Only one." (I think I'm remembering the details correct here, though its been a while so I could be off).

Madara
2012-07-22, 09:54 PM
So, by the time that story about "killing 7 flies with one belt-strike" becomes "killing 7 giants with one blow," you can actually achieve that feat (in theroy.)

I love that story, its one of my favorites. :smallcool:

Ninjadeadbeard
2012-07-22, 10:53 PM
I love that story, its one of my favorites. :smallcool:

Mickey Mouse is awesome, right? :smallamused:

As to the HP/XP stuff: Consider Reputation. Consider that it is always preceding you. Ergo, Reputation is faster than you by an indeterminable amount. But since adventurers of some levels have access to teleport spells, and thus move instantaneously, Reputation must move faster than that!

Thus, when you kill a monster in the woods, you still get Xp for it, because someone will eventually hear about it. The story moves faster than time itself, so it could be considered to be moving so fast it moves backwards in time. People know about big setting secrets because they've always known the secret. They just didn't know that they knew it!

It all makes perfect sense forever. :smallcool:

DementedFellow
2012-07-22, 10:58 PM
*snip*
Thank you. You were able to put things into words that were escaping me.

MurphysLaw159
2012-07-22, 11:24 PM
Thank you. You were able to put things into words that were escaping me.

Happy to help.
Actually it makes a few more things make logistical sense as well, like how the hell Level Drain works. It could kill a commoner in one touch from a wright but an epic level character could get through a whole round of Patty cake. Why? Well, instead of it effecting something abstrack like the soul, its actually going for a quantifiable source of energy, the amount of favor you have recieved from the universe. They are litterally sucking sustinace from the universe and you are the colorful twisty straw they are using to get at it.

This is actually inspiring me greatly for a campain...

Jay R
2012-07-23, 06:31 AM
We seem to be confusing two ideas.

1. What you do affects the universe, and thus, the universe begins to affect you - basically a macroscopic Heisenberg principle.

2. What you do affects your reputation, which affects how the world views you, which affects you.

I think we've been having an argument between those in favor of idea 1 and those opposed to idea 2, and we're not really in that much disagreement.

The way to distinguish them is this: which affects you more (gives you more experience): the adventure that you did incredible things and overcame horrific challenges, for which somebody else took the credit, or the adventure in which you did almost nothing, but you got all the credit?

Earthwalker
2012-07-23, 07:29 AM
Oddly the game Earthdawn in all its editions does this.
Names are important and with your name you gain Legend poins. These work as XP the greater your Legend the greater your power.

People can change or modify their name and weave threads into the pattern of their name or the name of there group. Spending Legend points for magical effects.

It is even possible for the troubador of the group to make a good story of ththe groups adventures and increase thier Legend point award.

Madara
2012-07-23, 02:39 PM
Mickey Mouse is awesome, right? :smallamused:


Actually, I meant the Brave Little Tailor :smallredface:

Ninjadeadbeard
2012-07-23, 03:14 PM
Actually, I meant the Brave Little Tailor :smallredface:

So did I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_Little_Tailor). :smallbiggrin:

Jay R
2012-07-24, 10:06 AM
Mickey Mouse is awesome, right? :smallamused:Actually, I meant the Brave Little Tailor :smallredface:

You both did. Mickey Mouse did a cartoon version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP69o2IZzho) of The Brave Little Tailor in 1938.

For that reason, lots of people don't know that the fairy tale pre-dates Mickey, and is from Grimm's Fairy Tales.