Quote Originally Posted by Azuresun View Post
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.
Oh I wasn't saying that one should be added to D&D, or any game in particular. While I think the can work in heroic fantasy games their main advantage is providing an incentive to retest before dying.

To me, even in a heroic gateway, combat should be dangerous. It's something you do not because there's an orc in a 10ft by 10ft room. You initiate combat because you're hungry, the orc has pie, and not being hungry is more important to you then not dying (replace pie and hunger with any relevant MacGuffin and emotion). My favourite part of Unknown Armies is that it's combat chapter opens with six ways to avoid a fight because sometimes you don't want the shineys that badly.