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Even when you didn't literally have one hit point, you started with one hit die, which amounted to a saving throw against the first hit and certain death from the second.

I agree that most of the generic systems emphasize the system, and many of them, as an explicit move away from D&D, make combat grim and gritty, but a generic system doesn't have to be heavy, and it certainly doesn't have to be grim and gritty. I do think it has to remain vaguely tethered to...

Yes and no. If you have a working tricycle, and you've never seen a bicycle, you can greet the suggestion of a two-wheeled bike one of two ways: (1) It'll never work! One corner'll drag on the ground! (2) Hmm... I guess we'd have to put the two wheels in line and find some way to balance it...

If you're already playing D&D, and things naturally migrate toward trade ventures or courtly politics, it's only natural to keep playing them out in D&D -- at which point the game rules might not only fail to help you; they might get in your way.

Certainly you can't make this one change -- give everyone exactly one hit point -- without making other changes, because all kinds of things'll get knocked out of whack, but the point of the thought experiment is to see how things would change and how we might fix them. For instance, without...

I don't think that's especially true. Rather, I think that the earliest versions of the game specified less, and groups played with whatever rules and settings made sense to them. The more thorough the rules and settings become, the less flexible the game becomes as well. But -- and this is...

You'd also want to fold damage into to-hit, so, for instance, a 1d10-damage weapon would get +1 to its attack roll (the only roll needed for combat).

I think this is a great thought experiment, but I feel compelled to point out that realistic combat would not be nearly so grim. One good hit from a sword, spear, or arrow definitely can take someone out, even someone tough and competent, but it's not a sure thing, even if the target is weak...

There are sound business reasons for selling figures randomly, and the main reason is not to trick consumers into buying minis they don't want. Miniature figures have high up-front fixed costs -- you need to pay an artist to sculpt the original, and you need to pay to make a mold -- and low...

You simply must watch the knife nerds of Cold Steel demonstrate what their great sword can do.

You're right that realistic combat should treat daggers as deadly, but they're not as deadly as larger swords and spears. One dagger thrust can kill a man almost immediately, but it's unusual. One greatsword hit, on the other hand, is almost guaranteed to end the fight. In a game like D&D...

This precision-without-accuracy is what most people mean by realism, when, of course, it's just detail -- unrealistic detail. D&D is imprecise and inaccurate, so the only alternative, apparently, is hyper-precise and "thus" accurate. Exactly. If you pick up all the extra GURPS books for...

No one requested horrible or gritty, and I don't think they want deadly for the PCs, either, although they do want that for the orcs. Not all elements of realism hurt the game and make it less fun, and not all elements of unrealism help the game and make it more fun.

Obviously no one plays D&D to emulate their own lives as students and office drones, but a fantasy world of adventure isn't completely untethered from reality, either.

Not only will people give you different answers, but they don't actually know, before they see a new edition, what really matters to them -- and the people playing the current version aren't necessarily the only people who might play a new version. For instance, 3E was a pretty significant...

What D&D often lacks is a sense of combat as chicken, where reckless bravery is simultaneously stupid, because it could get you killed, and smart, because the other guy doesn't want to risk getting killed, so he'll run away, rather than fight someone who isn't scared of him.

I think you mean to ask, What game has the most detailed, concrete, simulationist combat?, because the actual war games used to analyze real-world conflicts are much less detailed than D&D.

I can't speak for Bluenose, but I'm certainly willing to say that flesh wounds shouldn't force penalties. Does that surprise you?

Well, it scales almost linearly: 1 hit point per level per day. So the small-hit die Wizard still heals relatively faster than the big hit-die Fighter, and low-Con characters heal relatively faster than high-Con characters. This implies that physical damage is roughly proportional to hit...

You keep telling people that you have already answered their questions, but they clearly don't see it that way. So, walk us through how hit points work. Our amazing swordsman -- with, say, 50 hit points -- cuts down numerous good-but-not-great swordsmen, taking "hits" and losing hit points...