Vunerable 1st level characters

I'm not expert on "old school" or OSR and I've never played this way (I'm just to young to remember good old days) but many people described this style of gaming, among others, by having very vunerable low level characters. Begining adventurers must make choices. Are we fighting or running away? Is this fight worth the treassure? And I must say it very interesting concept. "Old school" world is somehow gritty.

And I know that DW is like pulp fantastic adventure, what is great, but what if somebody want to try someting more like LotFP, wierd gritty, scary fantasy?

On top of my head what I would do is to give less HP for starting characters. Lets say -8 to what they would normally had. Than give them +2 every level up to level 5 when they end up having as much HP as every other DW character. Off course if they decide ro upgrade CON at level 3 they would get another +2 on top of that.

What do you think? Does it even have sense or it's plain brutal and stupid and not fun at all? Are there any other ideas how to play DW with LotFP wierd fantasy philosophy?

I'm a big fan of the dangerous weird fantasy style.

I think it's simpler to use custom monsters (nothing canon like Orcs or Kobolds) and give them higher damage. Less fiddling with the characters that way.

Also, if the PCs have standard (Beta 2) HP, you can freely ding them with 1d6 damage for all kinds of things (falling down darkened stairs, smashed by crumbling masonry, etc.) without instantly killing them. Getting all smashed up by the 'regular' aspects of adventuring also gives a more gritty vibe.

Using standard DW rules, and a pretty nasty dungeon, we had a 2/3 TPK in the first session and we're headed for 3/3 TPK in part two. The players haven't shifted gears from "heroic fantasy" to "gritty dungeon crawl" yet and the learning curve is killing them. :)

Thanks for advices. They're very usefull. Specially one about leaving HP as it is and making monsters more deadly instead. Saves lot of effort and we still play RAW.