How to slay the 1 HP dragon
Nobody hunts fire-breathing legends for the thrill of reducing numbers.
Read enough about tabletop RPGs online and you will eventually run into A 16 HP Dragon. Not a literal stat-blocked monster, but the forum conversation-turned-prominent blog between Scum and Villainy creator Stras Acimovic and Sage LaTorra. The Dungeon World co-creator had been struck by Acimovic’s description of how a Powered by the Apocalypse design ethos transformed iconic dragon fights from accounting problems into gripping cinematic scenes.
Or, put succinctly: “You don’t need 2,500 hp to make a fight scary or hard.”
Acimovic’s treatise has developed a reputation since the halcyon days of 2012 (I miss you, forum supremacy) and tends to reappear amidst the blog posts of designers attempting to kill the bugbear that is boring tabletop combat. I most recently saw it cited within Clayton Notestine’s very good newsletter, Explorers Design, where the author chews on his own possible solution in the cleverly titled The 1 HP Dragon. You can read the details if you want a breakdown of fiction as puzzle armor, but it’s immaterial to this blog. I’m much more interested in why, year after year and game after game, we keep tilting at this particular windmill—and why nobody can slay the dragon.
