Recently another blogger put forth the claim that monsters with only one hit die should generally be assigned 7 or 8 hit points, as opposed to the standard range of 1-8 generated by rolling for them. (Obviously we're assuming the eight-sided die standard of Greyhawk and AD&D as opposed to the six-sided standard of Monsters & Treasure, but the same sort of considerations would be applicable in the latter case.) Essentially the argument is an evolutionary one-that for any community of one-hit die creatures where its members lead dangerous and violent lives, creatures with fewer than 7-8 hit points would inexorably be weeded out by a sort of social-darwinian process. I'm calling it "social-darwinian" as opposed to "darwinian" partly to stress that the argument has nothing to do with reproductive chances (though I suppose one could add that consideration to it if one chose) but rather simply looks at what would happen to the same group of, say, Orcs over a period of time in which they fought a set of battles containing multiple attack rounds. Probability analysis shows that after a relatively small number of combat rounds, the overwhelming majority of surviving Orcs would be those that started out with 7 or 8 hit points. So the typical Orc from a tribe that did a lot of fighting would presumably be one of those Orcs. The Orcs with fewer hit points would have already fallen off the treadmill, so to speak, in this tough and unforgiving world.
If you're like me, you probably find the conclusion annoying, though it may not be clear precisely what if anything is wrong with the actual argument. Various commentators on that blog and elsewhere proposed various "solutions"-maybe low hit point Orcs are actually high hit point Orcs that are just having a bad day, perhaps the low hit point Orcs have just come from another fight, etc. J.D. Jarvis at Aeons & Augauries has a series of three quite useful posts ending here where he considers the issue from a number of angles.
In my view, the original argument is perhaps valid. But it is certainly unsound. This is because one of the premises is false. Which premise is that?
I'll say in a moment. But to first digress slightly: When various theories of evolution were proposed by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and others in the late 19th century, some felt that while evolution in some form was probably true, it was imprudent to, so to speak, make too big a deal of it, especially to the scientifically untrained "masses". Darwinian evolution had the potential (so went the argument) to shatter people's most cherished beliefs.
So to get back to that false premise. I'm going to say something that arguably may shatter one of the most cherished beliefs of many OD&D players (I'm sort of kidding, of course). Or at least it may appear to attack a key metaphysical pillar of the game. Just to be careful, I'm going to whisper it. Here goes:
Hit points don't exist.
"What was that? What? I didn't quite catch that. Could you really have said what I think you said?" Okay, I'm going to whisper it again:
Hit points don't exist.
Now, it's important to understand that I'm not making the claim that because we are talking about a fantasy game, nothing in the game really exists. No. That would be an extremely trivial and thus silly claim. Within the context of the fantasy world referenced by the game (which is what we're of course referring to when debating theories of Orcian evolution) all sorts of things exist. For example, Orcs exist. Orc lungs and muscles exist. Orc brains (such as they are) exist. In Orcs and most other humanoid creatures, fast-twitch muscle fibers (for better sprinting and other short energy bursts) exist, as do slow-twitch muscle fibers (for better endurance). And if the deep anatomy and biology of our fantasy world is remotely similar to ours, then even Orc genes exist.
But hit points do not exist. The point is not that that they do not exist because they are abstractions (although they certainly are abstractions) but that they are abstractions whose only purpose is to help resolve combats and similar dangerous situations that involve players. They have no meaning and indeed no reality beyond that. "Offstage", hit points have no reality. None.
So, while you are and your group are exploring that dungeon, it's true that there are all sorts of violent episodes raging in that same fantasy world-from minor one-on-one muggings to vast battles involving multiple armies. And, yes, creatures are dying and being killed (and surviving and killing), probably in very large quantities. But in any particular case, that creature going to its creaturely reward is doing so not because "its hit points have been reduced to zero", but because it had its head cut off or was stabbed in the heart, or (to use a different level of analysis) it didn't have enough fast-twitch muscles or the right selection of useful Orc genes, or whatever.
So, I have no problem going along with some theory of Orcian evolution that posits the weeding out of wimpy Orcs (though that would seem to be sort of self-evident, and why anyone would want to spend more than a few seconds pondering such a theory is beyond me). No doubt evolution in the somewhat more civilized human communities of our fantasy world would have a tendency to weed out people that aren't attractive to the opposite sex, or aren't very good at sucking up to the Man, or whatever. But if there is any evolution going on, it has nothing to do with hit points.
Moving outside and above the fantasy world to the level of game playing, the standard implication of OD&D that when fighting one-hit die creatures there will be an average spread of hit points from 1-8 is perfectly reasonable given the assumptions of the combat resolution mechanism, in the same way that "hits" doing an average spread of 1-6 points of damage is perfectly reasonable. The combination is just a way of creating a satisfying and interesting set of possibilities influenced by multiple levels of randomness, not an attempt to construct a realistic combat system based on identifying hit points as some essential physical or metaphysical feature of Orcs, humanoids, monsters or anything else.
That really would be silly.
In my view, the original argument is perhaps valid. But it is certainly unsound. This is because one of the premises is false. Which premise is that?
I'll say in a moment. But to first digress slightly: When various theories of evolution were proposed by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and others in the late 19th century, some felt that while evolution in some form was probably true, it was imprudent to, so to speak, make too big a deal of it, especially to the scientifically untrained "masses". Darwinian evolution had the potential (so went the argument) to shatter people's most cherished beliefs.
So to get back to that false premise. I'm going to say something that arguably may shatter one of the most cherished beliefs of many OD&D players (I'm sort of kidding, of course). Or at least it may appear to attack a key metaphysical pillar of the game. Just to be careful, I'm going to whisper it. Here goes:
Hit points don't exist.
"What was that? What? I didn't quite catch that. Could you really have said what I think you said?" Okay, I'm going to whisper it again:
Hit points don't exist.
Now, it's important to understand that I'm not making the claim that because we are talking about a fantasy game, nothing in the game really exists. No. That would be an extremely trivial and thus silly claim. Within the context of the fantasy world referenced by the game (which is what we're of course referring to when debating theories of Orcian evolution) all sorts of things exist. For example, Orcs exist. Orc lungs and muscles exist. Orc brains (such as they are) exist. In Orcs and most other humanoid creatures, fast-twitch muscle fibers (for better sprinting and other short energy bursts) exist, as do slow-twitch muscle fibers (for better endurance). And if the deep anatomy and biology of our fantasy world is remotely similar to ours, then even Orc genes exist.
But hit points do not exist. The point is not that that they do not exist because they are abstractions (although they certainly are abstractions) but that they are abstractions whose only purpose is to help resolve combats and similar dangerous situations that involve players. They have no meaning and indeed no reality beyond that. "Offstage", hit points have no reality. None.
So, while you are and your group are exploring that dungeon, it's true that there are all sorts of violent episodes raging in that same fantasy world-from minor one-on-one muggings to vast battles involving multiple armies. And, yes, creatures are dying and being killed (and surviving and killing), probably in very large quantities. But in any particular case, that creature going to its creaturely reward is doing so not because "its hit points have been reduced to zero", but because it had its head cut off or was stabbed in the heart, or (to use a different level of analysis) it didn't have enough fast-twitch muscles or the right selection of useful Orc genes, or whatever.
So, I have no problem going along with some theory of Orcian evolution that posits the weeding out of wimpy Orcs (though that would seem to be sort of self-evident, and why anyone would want to spend more than a few seconds pondering such a theory is beyond me). No doubt evolution in the somewhat more civilized human communities of our fantasy world would have a tendency to weed out people that aren't attractive to the opposite sex, or aren't very good at sucking up to the Man, or whatever. But if there is any evolution going on, it has nothing to do with hit points.
Moving outside and above the fantasy world to the level of game playing, the standard implication of OD&D that when fighting one-hit die creatures there will be an average spread of hit points from 1-8 is perfectly reasonable given the assumptions of the combat resolution mechanism, in the same way that "hits" doing an average spread of 1-6 points of damage is perfectly reasonable. The combination is just a way of creating a satisfying and interesting set of possibilities influenced by multiple levels of randomness, not an attempt to construct a realistic combat system based on identifying hit points as some essential physical or metaphysical feature of Orcs, humanoids, monsters or anything else.
That really would be silly.
