Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
On the other hand, there is nothing inherently wrong with a death spiral. Issues generally come from not giving a big enough buffer, and forcing characters suffering significant penalties to continue on. If you're damaged enough to be taking penalties you should probably be avoiding battle.
And that's great for grittier games than D&D. Hit points work perfectly for the heroic fantasy of D&D--they're very simple to keep track of, you have a rough idea of how long you can stay in the fight unless something unexpected happens, there's a lot of room to interpret what a hit actually means, and they give the thrill of being near defeat without also becoming worse at what you do, encouraging going on the attack to drop your opponent before they take you out.