One of the big criticisms of Old School Style games, is the tendency for them to become a matter of resource management. Hit Points being a prime example. A party enters a Dungeon, gets into fights, carefully keeps a track of lost hit points managing the rate they are lost and regained (through healing spells/potions) and then returns to the surface when the Hit Point loss/refresh rate is working against them.

I’m especially conscious of this when I’m playing OpenQuest which has two sets of beans to count: Hit Points and Magic Points (especially if the party are exclusively using Battle Magic).   I’ve worried in the past that this goes against OQ’s story telling leanings, and occasionally come up with Magic Pointless spell casting rules (all of which have been unsatisfactory). But you know what, I’ve kinda come to love them and being strict about how quickly Beans can regenerate, as opposed to hand waving their recovery, can drive the story in interesting directions too.

….yes I’ve been working on OpenQuest 2 Battle Magic (40 + new spells) this lunch, can’t you tell 😉