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Sometimes when PCs ride in to save the day, it's too late, or it's already been saved/didn't need saving. And while sometimes I want the PCs to have the opportunity, sometimes it's fun to see them figuring out what to do when they're not in time. PCs whose plans aren't working out as expected...

One reason why I as a GM might decide to roll the dice to see what happens in a conflict between two NPCs would be because I didn't have any particular preference for what should and am therefore amenable to either result turning up. I'd also suggest that it's a useful technique if you want to...

A wuxia style would have needed wuxia-style abilities. Having the power system and individual techniques doesn't carry any implication that the abilities that result from it would have wuxia aspects to them. It's not as if western martial techniques lack in terms of named abilities.

I think it would be truer to say that it strayed too far from the previous couple of editions - 2e AD&D and 3e D&D - for the tastes of most people who were still interested in D&D. I don't see much that's wuxia about 4e. Certainly if you're not going to follow the extremely abstract D&D...

I don't think either 3e or 4e is particularly good at the things you're saying they're good at. What is 3e trying to Sim, after all? And a game where there's so much argument about what hit points are which uses them so heavily in combat resolution seems to have some problem with process. And 4e...

Even on the Somme the French were using more sophisticated tactics and were successfully capturing positions with much lighter casualties than the English. Within a year, two at most, better offensive tactics than that had developed. While it was true that technology had changed enough for...

You must hate spell lists.

I actually wrote something like 80% of a system for handling conflicts of all sorts between groups using something close to the 4e system. Skill challenges were useful because they include failures and those failures would then apply as penalties to future actions until something was done to...

With an army of thousands, you can certainly afford to send out hundreds in scouting parties and pickets to seize terrain near to their line of march and/or their camps. And have a mounted force in the camp ready to move quickly towards a point where there's trouble. Rather than let the PCs...

Earth Impact Effects Calculator. That should handle planetary impacts from mass drivers. There's a lot of nuclear bomb effects calculators around.

I'd look at Davania, though that's not particularly developed in official material. There's some and there's more fan material at the Vaults and other places/mailing lists.

Yes. Of course on the gross scale that D&D (nearly all RPGs, I suppose) work at, there's not really any way to categorise all the different "conditions" that real combat includes. Nor, I would suggest, is there any particular need to include a massive amount, my preferred systems do not do so...

I assume you're familiar with the various manoeuvres described in medieval combat manuals. There's an extensive library of surviving material, and the one thing you can learn from it is that there's a variety of techniques which serve different purposes, some intended to momentarily stun an...

I make an attack roll and remove some hit points from a target I succeed at the roll with. Yes, that's really detailed. That's an assumption which can be tested by looking at what realistic results are and comparing them to the 3.x skill system results. Anyone else think the answer is likely...

Tianxia is the most recent I've seen. Exalted before that. It's certainly not common, although to be fair the number of RPGs which talk about relationships of any sort is not that high. I don't think it was ever made explicit, but Duke Norris of Traveller's Third Imperium canon is generally...

People who go to D&D thinking that it'll play anything like The Hobbit (and even more so LotR) are I suspect going to be very surprised at how very different it is. Possibly quite disappointed too. I'm not sure there's any type of fantasy novel which D&D does serve as a natural entry point for...

Pendragon is the oldest I'm aware of. You can roll against your passions (which include relationships) for a bonus (or penalty if you fail) on actions which serve to advance those passions.

It's not impossible to argue that D&D only attempts to "model" a small portion of it, though. I'd argue that's not the case, and that it's not trying to model anything, but an FRPG can be quite specific in what it tries to do as well as very broad. It's only hard to have verisimilitude and...

Unless there's some specific reason why they have to have "Official D&D Miniatures" written on them, there's hundreds of companies making minis now that fit that criteria equally well. And that does include people making some things which are so close to being D&D monsters (though of course the...

Some of that may not be an ideal fit for Pendragon, then, because PC knights are basically "named characters" in a medieval romance game and are quite notably better than ordinary footmen. They can be beaten, but it'll take a fairly large advantage in numbers to do it.That it's probably...