In the absence of NPC HPs, every HP expended has some beneficial effect: either increasing an ability, or bumping a roll. A PC HP bump countered by an NPC bump, however, has no benefit at all.
But, I hear you say, the PC has succeeded in whittling away the NPC's stock of HPs. The problem here is the asymmetry: the PC's stock of HPs have been earned through play, whereas the NPC's HPs have been arbitrarily assigned by the Narrator. The Narrator is, in effect, just knocking off HPs from the character sheet of the PC.
At (almost) any point where the NPC faces defeat, the NPC could spend a HP to survive. NPC HPs just act as 'ablative armour' that the players have to remove before they can really defeat the NPC. The players will want to defeat the NPC, however, so giving an NPC HPs has no real effect on the story (the PCs will eventually defeat the NPC, whether the NPC has HPs or not). Why bother, then?
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> This is mainly what the heroes have HP
> for- giving deus ex machina bumps to heroes, to get
> them out of tight spot removes the players feeling
> that their characters are authoring their own story,
I disagree that HPs represent deus ex machina. They can do, if people so wish, just as they can represent 'luck' or 'fate', but they need not. The rules effect is merely a change in outcome result, which could be Narrated in any number of ways.
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> >Forcing a PC to spend their HPs to produce a Narrator
> effect (as it were) seems unfair.
>
> Fair/unfair suggests you perceive HW as a game that
> can be won or lost,
Yes, it can, in some sense, but not in the usual 'gameist' way. I can 'win' by producing (together) a story that I like, or 'lose' by producing a story I don't like. I have only two classes of action that influence the outcome of the story: what my PC chooses to do, and HP bumps.
HP bumps are the only game mechanical control a player has over the course of the story. As it is, the players have very little control over the story, compared to the Narrator. Almost every HW episode I have played in has had a linear structure. Players don't have many HPs to spend on bumps (yes, Karlina has 16 HP, but she rarely spends more that 2 in a contest; I try to keep that stock constant), so I think diminishing their impact (by having NPC HP bumps) is a bad thing.
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> Not familiar with it, but is Miyamoto fighting a long
> running, much-hated villain, in a series climax. If
> not then it is not an example of the effect I am
> trying to achieve. I must have missed the sentence
> where I said 'All climaxes must be see saw battles'.
> Guess I'll have to go back and edit that out.
It was implied.
The players decide they don't want a see-saw battle. Will you let them have what they want? How will you know they don't want one? It seems that the ONLY use fo HP bumps is to prevent see-sawing: either removing a down-swing, by bumping a defeat, or by finishing of the NPC quickly, by bumping a success. I suggest that any player bumping with a HP is telling the Narrator that they don't want a see-saw battle.
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> A villain possession of hero points represents their
> importance to the story.
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The Narrator decided how many HPs to give an NPC. But the Narrator also has numerous OTHER ways for representing the importance of the NPC to the story. I suggest that NPC HPs are a poor way of doing so.
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