Two different questions mixed up here I think.

One one hand we have different levels of abstraction. These decide how many qualified information we get about for example this injury. Sometimes it is "6hp" out of 15, sometimes it is -4 to all actions, -3 on top for actions on this arm and 3 points of the first and 1 one if the second are due to pain, the other ist structural incapicitation. And there are the rules for healing including chances of infection and scarring.
Whatever the detail level of the game is, you now know how the game goes on and what you have to consider with your decissions for your character.  

On the other hand we have an undefined backloop into the resolution system. You are probably creating much more vivid pictures in the mind, but the effects on further actions are left undefined - and depending on personal experiences people can have very different pictues and following from there ideas how inconvening a slashed arm can be.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899169We know what having one's arm slashed means? Okay. How deep is the slash? How badly is it bleeding? There is a great deal I don't know without further question.

When a GM tells me I take 2 hp? I have no further need for clarification.

Ok. So now that you know it's 2hp, how deep is the slash, how bad is it bleeding? In what way does this 2hp wound affect the character and the story?

More so, how do you handle all other story elements that don't have a numerical representation?

Under the rules of D&D? As deep as anyone cares to say.

Let's say a fighter has 30 hp and gets hit by an as arrow for 6. One GM may say "the arrow plunges deeply into your shoulder" while another says "the arrow nicks your ear". Which one is wrong?

It isn't that the information is contained in the number of hp of damage suffered, it's that the answer doesn't matter under those particular rules of simulation, and can be narrated or imagined however anyone wishes without effecting the terms of the simulation.

As far as your last question? There's no one proper answer to it, and specific cases or examples would be good grist for the mill of this thread.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899223It isn't that the information is contained in the number of hp of damage suffered, it's that the answer doesn't matter under those particular rules of simulation, and can be narrated or imagined however anyone wishes without effecting the terms of the simulation.

What about other rules of simulation that don't require hit points for damage representation?

What about a game about farming? Would you need farming points? What about handling matters of law? Law points?

Is it possible to play and simulate something outside combat that isn't based on some point representation?

Even combat. Can I represent (simulate) combat without hit points?

Quote from: Saurondor;899149Never stopped being dishonest! But I prefer to enjoy substantiated dishonesty than unsubstantiated pompous honesty. At least my dishonesty is backed and though out. I try to be thoroughly dishonest. You can count on that if I bullshit you, it's going to be solid, well thought out bullshit, to the best of my bullshitting abilities. I even try my best to graph my bullshit so it's clear just how much bullshit it really is.

Well, no, you were being the pompous one which is why I called you out. There was absolutely nothing well thought out about your post.

Quote from: Saurondor;899227What about other rules of simulation that don't require hit points for damage representation?

What about a game about farming? Would you need farming points? What about handling matters of law? Law points?

Is it possible to play and simulate something outside combat that isn't based on some point representation?

Even combat. Can I represent (simulate) combat without hit points?

Of course all kinds of things can be simulated in all kinds of ways. Some systems of simulation seek to portay damage in a "realistic" manner where we know quite precisely what "damage" represents. However, there tends to be limits to damage modeling in tabletop games for any number of reasons.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899147"Words are just as precise as numbers," says the genius that demands an English lesson every time he wants to obfuscate. Priceless.

Um, no. The problem is with your intentions. Your intentions is not to understand or find truth. Your intentions are to pretend you're right and everything else is wrong. That's why you can't understand anything. Now just because you are a terrible communicator doesn't mean language is the problem, any more than someone who's terrible at math must mean there's something wrong with numbers. Again, if you were an honest person really looking at the facts, you would have seen that and never made this statement. I call you out because you constantly say stupid shit like this.

Quote"Because" means "as caused by". Crazy stuff, huh wordmaster?

Okay, Mr dishonest. But what does "as caused by" mean? Again. Take a step back and quit making it about you being right and everyone else being wrong and let's see things for one they are. Is it possible for things to have multiple causes? Is it possible for causes themselves to have causes--proximate causes vs ultimate causes? When you say "cause the GM said so" you are making a statement so broad as to be useless. The GM always says. We need to know why the GM says. That exactly was my response to you. Do you address it? No. Because all you care about is your stupid fragile ego. Now about how things actually work.

QuoteOh you pretend Maarzan was asking about walls, when he was asking, in the post you were responding to, about the labels for health levels, and how UNQUANTIFIED labels in general would be used to determine outcomes.

I do not "pretend" anything. You're the pretender, that's why I call you out. The example involving walls was an answer to Maarzan's question. And it's the same example I used again later. It's an example of how a numerical Health rating is defined in such a way that players are given great latitude in creating their character's description, but how that description in turn can have mechanical effects.

The numbers vs word battle is something only you two idiots care about. Apparently failing to realize numbers are also words.

Quote from: Lunamancer;899228Well, no, you were being the pompous one which is why I called you out. There was absolutely nothing well thought out about your post.

At least I'm not the unsubstantiated one!

Lunamancer, making marketing adds out of your posts isn't going to work. I have no doubt about your professional marketing skills, but posting clear cut messages against my posts isn't going to cut it unless there's a reason that backs your statement. Saying that there is "absolutely nothing well thought out about your post" is an empty statement. What? Why? What's missing? On the other hand you come around with arguments like the social security number sum which you didn't even take the time to see if it was valid for all valid social security numbers. You came with the airplane delay problem to point out the obvious, it isn't a bell curve. Well duh! Such problems are well studied and have their distribution curves well drawn out. You can rest assured the airlines know it. Then there're the misses that aren't misses, but are and aren't in the 60%, but somehow covered by something that consideres every single possibility. Oh, and the rolls which weren't, but in truth  turned out to be traditional, binary, linear hit rolls.

This is a forum about development, design and gameplay. Please try harder to substantiate your claims, not just come with clear cut and strong sounding phrases in the hopes we'll forget what you said previously or that the strength and clarity of the statement somehow exempts you from substantiating your claim.

Lunamancer, the real problem is that you are not as smart as you think you are. Flat out. And when you are shown to be wrong you can't see it and just get angry instead.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899232Of course all kinds of things can be simulated in all kinds of ways. Some systems of simulation seek to portay damage in a "realistic" manner where we know quite precisely what "damage" represents. However, there tends to be limits to damage modeling in tabletop games for any number of reasons.

Right, so I can just say the arm is cut and play that out, hindering actions, simulating the effects of bleeding and possibly infection. Just like I can fix (poorly, well, excellent) the combine and narrate the outcome of that without requiring "combine" or "mechanic" points to add or subtract to represent the state of the combine.

Quote from: Saurondor;899236Right, so I can just say the arm is cut and play that out, hindering actions, simulating the effects of bleeding and possibly infection. Just like I can fix (poorly, well, excellent) the combine and narrate the outcome of that without requiring "combine" or "mechanic" points to add or subtract to represent the state of the combine.

You can. You certainly don't have to. I don't see people roleplaying out the effects of injuries too often in D&D, and if the GM started imposing hindering effects for injuries arbitrarily, I doubt this would do much for his popularity as a GM. And sure, narrating outcomes is a thing in pretty much any tabletop RPG. We take the output of the rules of simulation and put this output in narrative terms (though some people prefer a purely mechanical expression).

Quote from: Manzanaro;899242You can. You certainly don't have to. I don't see people roleplaying out the effects of injuries too often in D&D, and if the GM started imposing hindering effects for injuries arbitrarily, I doubt this would do much for his popularity as a GM.

Well that's probably because D&D is so centered around combat, but if as you say we move away from combat and focus on other things then a cut arm that hinders movement and is painful for days or even weeks is not so much an issue. The injury is something the character carries around as other things not combat related take place. So if my character gets a cut in the arm and is unable to use a sword, big deal. I'll just pull out of combat and do any of the other things that can take place in an RPG.

Quote from: Saurondor;899234At least I'm not the unsubstantiated one!

Um, yes, you ARE!

QuoteLunamancer, making marketing adds out of your posts isn't going to work.

Want clear and present evidence that you are being an ass on every level, pompous, unsubstantiated, and dishonest? That statement for starters. Assumes facts not in evidence, spelling error indicative of you having not been in a rational thinking state, and on top of that, it's just plain false that I'm "making marketing ads" out of anything, which is just your way of being disrespectful and making personal attacks while trying to sneak it under the radar in keeping with your dishonest nature in this latter portion of the thread.

QuoteI have no doubt about your professional marketing skills, but posting clear cut messages against my posts isn't going to cut it unless there's a reason that backs your statement.

Here's a little marketing secret. A lot of people, likely most, are just plain a waste of your time. When Michael Jackson's Thriller became the #1 selling album of all time, and when the original Star Wars broke box office records, you can go back and run the numbers and find only about 10% of Americans bought the album or a movie ticket. It only takes 10% to smash records. Even 1% equates to wild success. The more time you waste with the 90% who are so unreasonable, cheap, or of low character, the less time you have to focus on what actually works.

You can look back on the thread you like. Everything I say is 100% backed by fact and reason up to the point where someone becomes disrespectful by disregarding what I actually said and substituting their own version of what I said just so they can knock it down. Because when a person enters that disrespectful state, they're so hell-bent on finding fault in what others are saying to avoid having to own up to their own mistakes that they are no longer focused on, and thus no longer capable of, comprehending what another is saying. I consider reasoning with someone in that state to be a waste of time. The only value such a person can provide me at that point is amusement, so I return in kind their own disrespect. Except I'm a lot more honest about it in being blunt rather than trying to sneak it under the radar.

Your statement here provides evidence that you are still in that disrespecting state, because instead of giving an honest appraisal of the 99% of the time I backed everything up with facts and reasoning, you focus on the 1% where I deviated--and instead of questioning if I had a reason for deviating from my norm in those 1% of times (like the one I just explained) you instead choose to dishonestly characterize it as representative.

As soon as you're ready to drop your dishonest and disrespectful stance, we can continue. But until that happens, I don't owe you a reason for anything. That doesn't mean I don't have one. That doesn't mean my comments are unsubstantiated. It just means you aren't worth sharing the substance with.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899235Lunamancer, the real problem is that you are not as smart as you think you are. Flat out. And when you are shown to be wrong you can't see it and just get angry instead.

You have yet to even comprehend the question. Let alone the answer. Let alone finding fault in that answer. You've never shown me to be wrong about anything here. You've only ever misrepresented my statements and slandered me on account of those misrepresentations. That makes it open season on you. It's not anger. It's just giving you all the respect that's due you.

Quote from: Manzanaro;899223Under the rules of D&D? As deep as anyone cares to say.

Let's say a fighter has 30 hp and gets hit by an as arrow for 6. One GM may say "the arrow plunges deeply into your shoulder" while another says "the arrow nicks your ear". Which one is wrong?

It isn't that the information is contained in the number of hp of damage suffered, it's that the answer doesn't matter under those particular rules of simulation, and can be narrated or imagined however anyone wishes without effecting the terms of the simulation.

As far as your last question? There's no one proper answer to it, and specific cases or examples would be good grist for the mill of this thread.

Well, when I play D&D, I play AD&D 1st Ed.

You're right, it doesn't spell out an answer. But in the context of the rest of the content and interpreting what the rest of the system means, there is an answer. I'd actually provided the answer to this on Usenet 20 years ago. If it's important, you can get a definitive answer by having the character save vs Poison/Death Magic. The logic behind the save vs poison when you are "hit" by a venomed weapon is because, the hit point system being what it is, we actually do need to know for certain whether the attack happened in any substantial way. Someone on Usenet actually tried to find fault in this, but in doing so instead wound up finding a confirming data point. The criticism was, "Well, what about insinuative poisons that still do damage on a successful save." In 1st Ed BtB, there is a table of all the types of poisons, and none of the insinuative ones do damage on a successful save. This seems to be by design.

Now it may turn out that by describing the arrow plunging into the shoulder that later the character is going to need to have repairs done on any clothing or armor that was punctured. It also means the blood is clear and present until cleaned. Whereas a nick in the ear draws only a dab of blood which may neither stain clothes nor leave traces on the ground. Those details may very end up mattering. And the shoulder wound isn't necessarily more negative than the ear nick. If the party is claiming they fought off some bandits on the highway and it's vital the NPC believes the story, the ear nick not leaving any lasting trace of injury might make the story less believable.

So, would I actually call for a Save vs Poison each and every time someone is "hit" for a small fraction of their hit points in damage just to make sure I'm narrating it properly? No. I only call for it if it matters in a way that is foreseeable. If I know it's going to matter, I think it's a bit of dirty pool just to make the answer be what I want to be. But if I can't foresee how it might matter, as I said, it could be good or bad either way, so I'm not stacking the odds one way or another. I can increase efficiency by eliminating a pointless die roll while just enjoying the creative space.