Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
The obvious solution strikes me to increase the difference between "you're down" and "you're dead".
3rd Edition did this. There was clear distinction between lethal and non-lethal damage. Both could take you down, but only one could make you dead. Guess which.

But this probably didn't get GMs to use non-lethal damage for "mook" encounters and lethal for "boss" encounters. Mostly because no-one really told them, I'd reckon.

And that's the problem here. System is only half of a full game - you need the scenario, the adventure, to squeeze the rest out of it. And for all its tables and guidelines, I feel D&D has never done a very good job at telling exactly what rules to use for which style of game to the GM. Or maybe it's been too long since I read the books and have been talking to too many people who essentially ignore much of what the DMG says.