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Why wouldn't you just start the game with the PCs at the entrance to the catacombs?

Yes, Gygax is very clear about this in his DMG. In D&D, organ-puncturing or bone-shattering blows seem to generally (not universally) excluded by the fact that recovery is so easy.

I'd be way off the hit point bus at this point. But if I'm on that bus, then I'm following Gygax's advice on how to narrate hp loss.

But why would anyone narrate that hit as a narrow miss?

I think the idea of magically talking to a door with a face - most often I think this would be on a handle/knocker? - is kinda cool. Roughly carving a face into a door so that it can talk, on the other hand, seems less cool. And either way, I don't think Speak with Dead is the right spell...

This does give rise to the question, why does the game have those rules at all?

You could adopt the approach taken in Gygax's DMG, of narrating differently for high hp PCs (and NPCs) compared to most monsters.

This isn't how I've read @zarionofarabel's posts. After all, those posts have referenced (among other RPGs) Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel, neither of which is well-known for pawn stance play! To me, it seems that the objection is to extended, tactical combat resolution where (i) all that the...

I don't know which people you are saying do this. It's not something that I've experienced. I posted links to examples upthread - not from D&D play, but from Torchbearer 2e - that provide examples:

I don't follow why risk has to equate to risk of death. What about other sorts of risk that inhere in physical altercation - eg being injured, or blinded, or maimed, or . . .? As my posts have indicated, I also think that there can be tension-generating risks that are not inherent but rather...

But we're not talking about what is an end for, or what is valuable to, a sapient being. We're talking about what makes for satisfying or engaging game play, as per this post upthread: Setting aside the question of one poster's personal taste, there is still a "structural" or design issue...

To me, this still seems to involve a bit of a non-sequitur - because a physical altercation can involve meaningful stakes other than fatality. I haven't done a lot of superhero RPGing, but in the first session of Marvel Heroic RP that I GMed, there was a pretty interesting fight between War...

This is an empirical conjecture. My experience doesn't bear it out. Yes, agreed.

Yes - Thor modified MouseGuard to play a bit more like classic D&D.

Defeat in combat doesn't have to mean death. I know that in D&D that's the default; but it's possible to narrate being dropped to zero hp in other terms. In 4e D&D, this is a possibility regardless of attack mode - instead the target is knocked unconscious. The one time I "TPKed" the PCs when...

The example I gave wasn't fudging dice: rather, making choices like "If the PC has AC 20, then give the NPC a +15 attack bonus" or "If the PC has 100 hp, then give the NPC 6d12 damage dice" or "If the PC has +15 Stealth, then give the NPC Passive Perception of 30". Stuff like that, where the...

Whether or not it is cheating would depend on the agreed rules. But the GM making the risks, the stakes, and the consequences be whatever they want, so that the players can't in any reliable way try and impact and control what is happening in the fiction, is (in my view) railroading.

I recently read something online that said that a D&D GM is not really bound by any rules: for instance, they're not bound in any meaningful way by AC rules, or hp rules, because they can specify whatever numbers they like as the attack bonus and damage dice of NPCs/creatures who attack the PCs...

At my GM school, every GM has to sit and watch at least two screenings of Warhol's Sleep, so they can really get the hang of verisimilitudinous narration.

The AD&D PHB says this (p 30): First, second, third, and even fourth level spells are granted to the cleric through meditation and devout prayer. This spell giving is accomplished by the lesser servants of the cleric's deity. Fifth, sixth, and seventh level spells can be given to the cleric...