Article Header Image Hit My Points Mike Mearls  T hrough the D&D
Next playtest, we've discovered that hit points are D&D's
mechanic for genre emulation. Genre emulation is the idea that
in a roleplaying game, some of the mechanics serve to create a
specific type of story.  For instance, the Ravenloft setting
focused on gothic horror. It introduced mechanics to D&D that
measured a character's fear and sanity. That sort of rule is
common in horror RPGs, making it a good fit for Ravenloft. On
the other hand, such rules wouldn't make sense in the heroic
world of the Forgotten Realms. In Ravenloft, a horrific vampire
is scary enough to break a high-level fighter's mind or cause
that character to run in terror. In the Realms, a high-level
fighter draws a sword and leaps to battle the monstrosity.  Hit
points are D&D's genre emulation mechanic because they tell us
that some characters, specifically higher level ones, can
survive attacks that would slay lesser mortals. Just as an
action hero can beat up a dozen mooks