There's a tree with animated limbs standing next to another tree with animated limbs. Each of them is holding an ax & each wants to fell the other. Who will win?

By accident of history, this is the thrilling metaphor at the core of our hobby.

There is, in my skull, a category of game that recognizes this and abandons it for a different metaphor. I find this games particularly compelling.

Within this category, there's a subset of games that not only use a different metaphor, but tackle the same sort of fiction.

Like, if the game isn't about violence, then it makes sense to abandon the metaphor.

But what if the game was about violence? What if the game didn't see violence as one pile of numbers trying to reduce another pile of numbers before it gets reduced?

Those games are even more compelling to me.

So this is entirely a matter of taste that I can barely describe, let alone explain or justify, but within this subset of games that center violence through a metaphor other than our two trees, the closer a game otherwise flies by that core metaphor, the more intrigued I am?

Arboreal Death Match is an easy game to write.

Sturdy & stout of trunk? Roll 5d6 for your hit points. You're hit on a roll of 5 or less on 1d6.
Bend & shift in the wind? Roll 3d6 for your hit points. You're hit on a roll of 3 or less on 1d6.

And your mind is probably already filling out the rest with how much damage an ax does. Maybe another layer of distinction where some trees hit harder while others hit more often. This is busy work for well-practiced muscles.

Now let's keep the trees, the axes, and the desire to fell the other; but let's consider that no living thing desires the ax. That the rational tree knows even a single wound leaves room for infection, disease, and rot. And beyond that, it means pain.

The trees, still rooted, still holding axes, still attempting to fell one another, also have a great & instinctive need not to be hit.

How does this change our metaphor & the mechanics we use to realize it?

How does that change the fiction that follows from these mechanics?

The games that I've seen tackle this live rent-free in my brain, as they say.