Games, development, history, etc.

[Bob the Insane]

Hit points are an abstraction, they allow a game to progress without getting bogged down in excessively complex rules. This was true of PnP and still remains true in computer games.

Now computers these days do give us the ablility to workout in real time the effects of a injury sustained by a projectile if it is so programmed. But would it be any fun?

In roleplaying there are two basic schools, simulationisim and dramatisation. A good game needs both but each side has had greater favor at different times. Games of a simulationist nature tend to be cruchy with lots of rules for everthing and lots of dice rolling and can be quite hazzardous to the in game characters. Dramatisation games tend to have fewer rules and let the flow of the story decide what should occur. Some of these games go as far as throwing out dice and almost all rules about what occurs in the game and leave rules about how to create the story.

Different people like differeing amounts of the two sides. Personally I am quite simulationist as I am a strong beleiver in cause and effect and need to see the logical results of actions to maintain my suspension of disbelief. Even when dealing with concepts like magic you can be simulationist by introducing a logical (if completely made up) structure for hwo magic works with rules and such.

Any how hitpoints (which do originate in the table top wargaming that predates traditional RPGs) in RPGs are a interaction of these two schools. On one hand you could be completely simulationist with a chance of dying of shock if you are shot in the foot (not much fun really if you are trying to tell a story) and completely drama based where you immune to being hurt unless the stroy requires it (blows away the challange for many people). There are games out there that hit these extremes (no hitpoints in the early Rainbow 6 games, just injury or death) but the really popular ones need to tell a coherent story or at least make room of holywood-esk heroics which require the dramatisation of the events.

As always you have what the public at large demands from it's entertainment media and what the niche groups demand and it is the same in movies and books as it is in games...