Colfer manic rambling about theoretical game mechanics (D&D Edition)

[Colfer]

The Idea----
tabletop/turnbased systems only. Instead of going unconscious/prone at 0 hp, allow players to remain conscious. Deathsaves now deal damage based on your constitution, less if your con is low, more if its high, this means that failing a death save will generally be devastating to all characters but not overly punishing to characters that only have 20 or less hitpoints.

When at a base level of constitution (I've never played DND before so lets assume this is 30 hp), you will lose/gain 5hp for failing/succeeding a death saving throw. Crits will double the damage/healing, you continue rolling death saving throws until you die or you go above 0hp. Taking damage will make you fail your next death saving throw, rather than failing one automatically like before.
"Why is the damage so low?" you might ask, well let me address that with this next section
Playing dead is now actually important, if you are above 0HP, it requires a successful deception check. If you are BELOW 0hp, it requires no check and succeeds automatically. While playing dead, creatures will consider you the same state as being dead and all the same rules that used to apply to it, such as deathsaves auto failing when taking damage and being crit if in melee range, creatures will not suspect you will get back up, but they may still finish you off regardless.
While playing dead, you CANNOT take any actions, all actions are done being convincingly unconscious, all you can do is get back up and keep fighting, if you do, enemies will keep attacking you even if you go down again until your completely dead, treated as getting up from prone. Enemies can potentially do this as well if the party didnt make sure that giant dragon is actually dead, or throwing out red herrings to make people roll perception checks to see if an enemy actually died or just took a dive during the fight

This makes death far more forgiving and encourages players to willingly give up in a fight rather than continue fighting until they are completely unconscious, because now continuing a fight means theres a high chance you'll straight up die, and allows people to spar more effectively, since 1 crit fail doesnt mean they are going to coinflip after getting stabbed by a great sword for 59 of 60 health, and then punched in the nose for one damage which was the real fatal blow. This also can make revives less common and more rare, and encourage players being taken by opponents and potentially given a second chance to fail before they die by escaping a camp or prison together, or be rescued by their teammates if they were left alone.

"Why did you make this"
I unno, food for thought, pick it up and modify it for your own game if you want.

"If you cant stabilize until reaching 0hp, how do spells like spare the dying or actions like stabilize work?"
Simple, they act as a critical success, or you can rule that they bring you back to 0hp, whichever you prefer. I prefer the former, as not everybody can survive being nearly bisected just because they got premium medical attention on scene

"Tl;dr"
If your health is 0 you can choose to play dead and you dont go unconscious, deathsaves hurt/heal you instead of kill you, enemies don't like when you get back up especially when magic healed

[Duthco]

From what it sounds like, it reminds me some of a Vitality-Wounds rule variant.

I know for sure D&D 3.5e had it, and so too did a d20-based Star Wars system I played for a short campaign. The little bit of digging I've done, seems to suggest Pathfinder has/had it as a rule variant as well.

 

If memory serves,

Here, Vitality is a PC's Hit Points, and then additionally you could sustain Wounds up to your Constitution score, and then after, you're downed and making death saves. 

They are functionally one pool of damage accrued, but the way it was explained to me, (a long time ago), Vitality was like your ability to parry and dodge attacks, that kind of thing, and then you take Wounds once that'd depleted, or an opponent crits on you. It made for some flashier fighting that still offered very real and present threats to PCs. 

Vitality refreshed the way HP normally would, and I think Wound points took longer to get back, at least the way we did it.

 

The ruleset described in the OP sounds like it would graft very well onto some form of a Vitality-Wounds health variant. For sure it's a neat take on a varied health mechanism.

Like say PC1 is downed, making death saves, and was already down all of his Vitality, he'd get some Vitality back from his successful death save, but still has those broken ribs and dislocated jaw, but maybe he can get out of the way of the baddie that hits like a Mack Truck in time to survive the encounter, or could play dead long enough for the baddie to move onto someone else. Like it gives downed PCs more options, which I think is generally a good thing. Neat idea!