Le non-sens que l'on apelle HP

Everybody who plays roleplaying games for "immersion" should already have the understanding that HPs are not a numerical slider tracking you from 100% unwounded to 0% unwounded, i.e., dead. Wounds don't work that way. You can go from totally healed to totally dead in a single wound, in real life, even with a weapon that does 1d4 damage in D&D terms.

But of course, D&D combat is a representation of people/creatures who are exceptional combatants trying very hard not to get killed, so you can't simply say "I stab him in the heart and he is dead." Outside of combat, if you've got an enemy tied up to a chair, it doesn't take a hit roll and a damage roll to kill someone with your 1d4 knife. In combat? It does.*

If you've got an immersive DM (or you're an immersive player, or a combination of the two), you understand that you're not stabbing the evil knight in the heart six times and then the seventh one kills him.... you hit him six times, wounding him and slowing him so that on the seventh hit you can get a good one in and stab his heart, or disembowel him, or take his head off. The actual difference in his bodily integrity between hits 0 and 1 and 6 and 7 are not necessarily that high.


Think about the difference between a seasoned fighter and a monster tribe member who was just pressed into combat: the impressee is likely to have a pretty fair idea that it's bad to be where the sharp parts of a sword are and will have one or two ideas for avoiding that, but if you get your sword past its weapon/shield, it's not going to know what to do. The seasoned fighter will be wrenching your weapon with his or hers to turn a solid hit into a graze, turning his or her body, etc.


The system can't provide immersion in and of itself. There are games out there that have more complex systems of wounding and damage and healing that are more "realistic", but I can't say I've ever had a particularly immersive experience with them. Every time I have to turn my attention away from the unfolding story of the battle to look up some table, it pulls me out a little bit more.

The HP mechanic requires a "fluff cover" to begin with, one that's rarely consistently applied in even the "high roleplaying" groups I've observed... they treat it as 0-100% woundedness, as a life force meter, even though that makes no sense.

They just don't dwell on it and thus it doesn't ruin their roleplaying experience. It's an acceptable break from reality to them.