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[wierd]

Hitpoints are an abstraction, much like stamina points, of mana points.  The issue I had was that you have acids that "just keep eating", doing the same damage each round as they did the first.  That's not how acids work-- also, the damage dealt does not take into consideration HOW that acid works, especially when computed against absurd materials, like say, wood. Acid damages wood, but not nearly to the same degree as it does transition metals, and some metals are so resistant to acid that it becomes laughable, even when putting piranha solution on it.

There's abstractions, and theres "bullshit abstractions", basically.  "Yeah, acid magically stops and vanishes after X rounds" is a bullshit abstraction.  "You can only take so many punches to the face before your face caves in dude" is not.

[Arx]

Look, it probably boils down to opinion but I don't see how "Yeah, acid magically stops and vanishes after X rounds" is any more ridiculous than "Yeah, you magically go to a binary 'dead' state after X punches".

But, opinion. I stand by what I said about simplifications, though. If the game's fun and doesn't take years to play, handwavium is tolerable in certain amounts.

[Tack]

"You can only take so many punches to the face before your face caves in dude" is not.

Disagree. Critical Existence Failure is a bullshit abstraction.

[Radio Controlled]

I find hitpoints a much more bullshit abstraction than the properties of the acid used. To use your example: after that first punch, you might get a blue eye, limiting your vision, affecting your combat capabilities. Far as I know, hitpoints don't model that.

Hitpoints break much more laws of reality than the way acid works.

[Tack]

Plus I mean the typical face is made of much sturdier stuff than the typical fist.

[i2amroy]

Plus I mean the typical face is made of much sturdier stuff than the typical fist.

Eh, your face is probably a pretty bad example of that, since it has tons of things (eyes, nose, ears) that are weaker than a fist is (though it also has tons of things that are sturdier).

The way I always have seen it is that if a calculation ends up taking more time than the joy the realism creates than it isn't worth it. As such I'm totally okay with BS abstractions in physical gaming the vast majority of the time, because it just isn't worth the time it would take to micromanage those rules. On the other hand if you were playing with computer aid then I could see changing a lot of them to be more realistic, since the computer could track and calculate all the little bits for you.

[Tack]

So what you're saying is we need to invent a tabletop handheld computer which assimilates data from our words as we say them and then spits out information relevant to what we're doing?

That wasn't sarcasm.
We must invent this.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, one of the things I learned (far too slowly) is that in a tabletop game, computers are not magical minutiae engines - they are magical complexity engines, and even that comes with a heap of caveats. You can program all the formulae you want, but if you want anything approaching quality realism that stands up to harsh scrutiny, just supplying the inputs to those is still going to be kind of a pain in the ass. Sure, you can program in all sorts of default constants or reasonable extrapolations from other data, but then you have to give the players ways to fiddle with them when their character is different, because if the rules aren't something a player can interact with what was the point of including them? You almost inevitably wind up with something that is a clusterfuck of an interface, or a clusterfuck to actually make do what you want.

But yeah, inventing that thing Tack described would both solve this and be something amazingly worthwhile. I heartily endorse this endeavor.

[kilakan]

I find hitpoints a much more bullshit abstraction than the properties of the acid used. To use your example: after that first punch, you might get a blue eye, limiting your vision, affecting your combat capabilities. Far as I know, hitpoints don't model that.

Hitpoints break much more laws of reality than the way acid works.

I always kinda like the way wh40k handled hitpoints where it's more of a measure of 'yea you are badly hurt in that area but nothing serious. ala bruising' then after the HP is gone you start taking critical hits like loosing eye's/fingers/breaking bones/ect.

[GiglameshDespair]

I find hitpoints a much more bullshit abstraction than the properties of the acid used. To use your example: after that first punch, you might get a blue eye, limiting your vision, affecting your combat capabilities. Far as I know, hitpoints don't model that.

Hitpoints break much more laws of reality than the way acid works.

I always kinda like the way wh40k handled hitpoints where it's more of a measure of 'yea you are badly hurt in that area but nothing serious. ala bruising' then after the HP is gone you start taking critical hits like loosing eye's/fingers/breaking bones/ect.

You can get bruised via bullets to your unarmoured head three times, but if you get shot in the carapace-armoured leg after that, it'll come off.

Realism.^TM

That said, trying to get too realistic is kinda pointless. I'd be impressed if a system simulated things to a dwarf fortress level... but I don't think I'd play it.

[Bauglir]

Yeah, my plan was to have damage done directly to ability scores. That is the kind of complexity that can be streamlined with computerized aid (updating all your modifiers accordingly, that is), and it offers exactly the information that can impact the story: "What has this injury done to my character's abilities?"

Then there were some mitigating schemes that allow heroes to temporarily ignore their wounds, and shit like that, in order to help keep the whole thing from turning into a "rich get richer" kind of thing where victory depends on first blood more than anything else.

[My Name is Immaterial]

That said, trying to get too realistic is kinda pointless. I'd be impressed if a system simulated things to a dwarf fortress level... but I don't think I'd play it.

Such a thing exists.

[SalmonGod]

A better damage system isn't difficult...

In my last game (5th edition D&D), we homebrewed a system where we had two HP pools. 

One for your shallow bruising type HP.  Most damage take from this pool first by default.  This pool healed quickly on its own (100% with a full day of rest), but couldn't be helped much by magical healing.

One for vital wounds, where you're really getting seriously hurt.  Take from this pool after the other one is gone, or on critical hits (which applied directly to this pool instead of doing extra damage)
On every hit to this pool, the DM would (usually unless game circumstances pre-determined something specific) roll to see which body part was effected and assign a disability associated with it. 
Each critical wound was recorded separately, and the disability would remain until it was healed.  Critical wounds would heal very slowly, and would usually require healing checks to heal correctly.  This is what magical healing (which was limited compared to vanilla) would be for, and would still require heal checks and most likely some time.

The first pool is supposed to represent your fatigue.  The idea being that a seasoned warrior learns through experience how to position and move themselves such that harm is minimized; rolling with punches and the like.  As you level, you get better at doing this, and combined with the general energy and hardiness represented by your constitution determines how long you can keep it up.  But once you're worn down to a certain point, you just don't have it in you anymore to protect yourself properly, and you start taking blows full force.  And critical hits just represent especially cruel blows that get past your defenses, regardless of how fresh you are.

Honestly nothing too original.  There are other systems that do stuff like this.  We just shoe-horned it into D&D with the specific flavor we were going for, and it worked out pretty well.  A bit more book-keeping, but nothing too cumbersome.  I was playing a Necromancer/Ranger with lots of healing skill, and designed a Mold Flesh (guess what that did) cantrip for myself, so I got to perform lots of dramatic surgeries and stuff.  Had to weather a couple interesting situations with one eye blinded and a shattered shoulder.  Good stuff.

The best thing about it, besides making HP feel like less of an absurd abstraction, was it changed the problem games like D&D tend to have with the healing role.  Where a healer character doesn't do much other than act as a backup group HP pool that everyone draws from during combat, and the role is not only boring to play but has a disproportionate effect on the pace and length of combat.

[Naryar]

Hitpoints work just fine in RPG's. I know I wouldn't simulate a DF-like damage system on my games, and hell I play/GM GURPS.

Of course it is noticeably better if you add an optional body locations wound system. So you can actually cripple legs, arms, lose eyes, hands, etc.

I still abstract it to "every wound is a torso wound unless NPC's/players/traps actually aim for other locations" for quickness of play. 

At least people aren't bags of HP's like in D&D.

[Sergarr]

Why even use hit points at this rate? Just convert all weapons into save-or-wound/die. After all, armour is abstracted in that way, so why not do the same with weapons?