Let's face it, if there is no healing potion, healer, elixir or booster shot your character would die quickly. If these things weren't part of a game would you be able to play and enjoy the game the same or will everyone simply be short lived making the game the short as well. What do you think about it?
I don't think it would be very enjoyable. It takes time to make a character with a background etc. It would be frustrating to play them for a short time before they died. This would kill a game. No one would want to play it. Who wants to roll a new character every time you play? It becomes pointless. There would be no attachment to the characters and none to the game.
If no healing pots exist there's usually some other recovery mechanic. For instance, the players in the 5E game I run have no access to healing spells and haven't used the one healing potion they bought a while back. No deaths yet, but there have been a few close calls. They're just careful enough to get by with resting often. But in the interest of the spirit of the query…
Games that are designed to be a very difficult challenge in which characters die often and early have their place, but it is generally in cases where one can let the character go easily. With most TTRPGs, if you do character creation right in my opinion, you're pouring your heart and soul into this person, not to mention the simple time investment as Kyr brings up. To see all that go up in flames in less time than it took to set the field? Disheartening to say the least.
Edited: daishain on 9th Dec, 2016 - 4:41am
When there is no instant way to heal your character you play more carefully, decisively making sure you are as descriptive as possible to not create instances for your Dungeon Master to invent a reason for your character to be hurt. Not being able to heal will mean longer days of rest and less days adventuring. Neither are good so healing of some sort must take place or a way for character to not get hurt.
The solutions for me come down to allowing characters to operate multiple characters, not so many monsters or ways to die and give them better hit dice to start out with if you do not plan to have much healing take place.
I think referring to a D & D type game that having very limited or no healing won't work. If the Dungeon Master cuts back on the enemies or encounters a lot of players will grow bored. There won't be a big challenge to them. I feel for D & D to function as it is designed you need healing. Otherwise you are better off just playing a less combat based game. Most people that play D & D type games expect a lot of combat. In the event you find a rare group that is into the social aspect of the game more than the combat aspect it could work. Upping the hit die the characters have could keep them alive but you are just working around the problem. Why play it without healing? You are working against the basic design of the game. I'm curious.
Edited: Kyrroeth on 16th Dec, 2016 - 3:38pm
Games would be short… really short if there was no way to heal. The only way to counter this would be to have multiple characters as already suggested or large groups to share the damage around with a lot more resting in between battles.