What are the rules for?

[A_Carrington]

Yes. That's the default tact Savage Worlds takes.

But, note, that still does not make *all fighting options equally useful" there. It just means there's no extra overhead if you're forced to useful a less useful option.

The same principle applies to every conceivable attack method.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, none of these things are true a priori. Everything in a game is imaginary. If we decide that a wrestler with 10 ranks in Might is as effective as a swordfighter with 10 ranks in Strike, then he is.

There isn't any such thing as should. A game works however we would prefer it to.

I'd prefer it to work a little closer to reality than that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

"Games should have bespoke mechanical coverage for everything that can possibly come up" is, again, a very narrow and reductive take on what RPGs can be.

I don't recall ever saying there should be bespoke ones for everything. In fact I recall saying quite the opposite. But there's a difference between not having bespoke coverage and not having it at all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The same principle applies to every conceivable attack method.

At which point you don't really have separate attack methods; you have a singleton with a bunch of different coats of paint.

 

[soviet]

I don't recall ever saying there should be bespoke ones for everything. In fact I recall saying quite the opposite. But there's a difference between not having bespoke coverage and not having it at all.

You said that all games where the weight of a warhorse might come up, need to have bespoke lists of horse weights and a specific system of how to adjudicate them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is objectively correct that balancing player options is better than making some player options obviously bad. If an option is strictly worse than another, than you just wasted page space and ink by printing it.



The purpose is fun.

Balance is fun. Telling a player their concept is naughty word and shouldn't be played, after you printed in the book, implying that it it's a perfectly valid option, is not.

Failing to balance player options is deceiving your customers, straight up. It is fraud.

That is wholly untrue in my opinion. Some options are, by the logic of the setting and the reality it simulates, more or less effective than others. That is life, which games often try to simulate to one degree or another. To have options of realistically unequal quality be equal anyway is not fun for me.

 

[soviet]

At which point you don't really have separate attack methods; you have a singleton with a bunch of different coats of paint.

Great! Why is this not allowed?

 

[soviet]

That is wholly untrue in my opinion. Some options are, by the logic of the setting and the reality it simulates, more or less effective than others. That is life, which games often try to simulate to one degree or another. To have options of realistically unequal quality be equal anyway is not fun for me.

There are many many games where none of these things matter.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why did you put inferior weapons in the game?

Because they would logically exist, for a multitude of reasons.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why does that matter?

Because I prioritize setting logic over game balance and PC specialness.