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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9823443" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Probably because my formative years were with 1e and Gygax's Dragon soapbox, I've always seen HP in the way you describe, so for me it's not a problem to ignore them for story purposes. A player could die to some random mook or an accident if that's their preference; I wouldn't feel any need to justify it, and my group would be fine with it. For me, it's sort of a consent situation; the player wants that character dead, and it's their character. Of course, this is hypothetical; I've never actually had a player ask to have their character killed off like that. The closest is when a player refuses resurrection magic, or in one case declined healing magic while making death saves, preferring to let the dice decide.There are also some game situations where I just flat out overrule RAW for HP. For example, if a character proposes swimming across a short stretch of lava (this actually did happen) because they felt they had enough HP to make it, I was a flat "just be aware that you are choosing to kill your character. They cannot swim through lava unless they have some kind of protection." I also had a character ask me what would happen if their character stuck their head in a guillotine and just took it, and I told them their character would die because of decapitation; there would be no damage roll.</blockquote>