I once tried an experiment that sort of split the differance. I had a sheet
to track each players HP, as well as letting the players track their own HP.
When they were damaged, I would tell them a portion of the damage they took,
noting the real damage on my sheet, unless they would have a reason to know
the real effect. For example:
Grohog the Barbarian is knee deep in giant rats, with 4 of the vicious
critters in a position to bite him. Rolling attacks, 3 of them hit, for 1d8
each. I drop a 4,5, and an 8. Using my system, any score that max'ed the
damage something could do became a vary apparent wound, but other damage was
often subjective.. so I report to the player than one rat has sunk its teeth
into an artery, and blood sprays everywhere (take 8 damage) while the other
two rats tear off some skin (take 3 and 4 points respectively) Now, if
Grohog wants to actually assess the damage, or if someone else were able to
view the damage and relay that info to him, he can learn that he actually
took 2 additional points. The players knew that they were not getting the
full info unless they took the time examine the wounds, or if the wound were
very obvious. This kept the edge of knowing you were getting close to going
down for the big count, but not knowing just how close.. Another example:
Grohog is traveling down a corridor and triggers a trap which sends two
poisoned bolts into his back for 1d6 +poison damage each. I drop a 1 and a
6. Grohog is told: You feel a small prick in your back, followed by an
intensely painful stabbing into your shoulder. Immediately the skin on your
back feels as if it is on fire. Your arm drops, useless, to your side and a
searing, burning feeling begins to eminate from the location of the first
strike as well.(Take 7 points total and make a save v. poison) In this case,
Grohog can't see his wounds at all to determine how serious they are, and
would need to disrobe partially to get a party member to evaluate them, but
since I rolled the max and min damage, I reported it all to him. He may
assume that one bolt did 4 and the other did 3, or any combo that equals 7.
Just my two cents.. doh, wait, that commercializes this damn post, um,
nevermind.
Rob
Coming soon 'The Pillory of Faust', an adventure for Faust: The
Commercializing ;)
>
> If we each own our own numeric data, we are telling a combined story.
> Ideally I should create a story for every numeric change to one of my
> monsters, and they should do the same for their own characters. Then
> the game story becomes alive with synergy.
>
> --
> // .--=,
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> :::::::://:::://://://:/:://::||_// / V K
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>
