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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7596684" data-attributes="member: 82106">Then your use of the word 'realism' seems to have no purpose. Of course you are trying to MORE CLOSELY 'mirror' or 'emulate' reality. So there is no 'false dichotomy' or whatever you are trying to say. Nobody ever claimed, in fact I have stated it directly in either the post you quote or one written in the same hour, that a 'scale' is the only logical possibility. The problem is trying to actually put specific things on that scale. What I am trying to convey with my example is not something about the scale, except that any sort of simplistic attempt to model anything is so far down on any reasonable scale as to be indistinguishable from zero.I have to question most such gains. As I've said in my last few posts, I think 'authenticity', which is a more subjective kind of goal and isn't IMHO the same as realism is more interesting and useful.I don't agree. I think it is quite likely LESS realistic than no system at all!My point is more that the existing default AD&amp;D system for weapon wear/tear/breakage may well be the most realistic, that is it never happens at all. I'm sure it isn't the most authentic in some sense, and in theory it probably IS possible to get more realistic as well, but then you're into high order math, and big data, to achieve anything meaningful at all there. Mostly you won't even ever know. You can slap some ad-hoc system in place, but since you are pretty unlikely to survey a large number of actual sword fights to see what happens to real weapons under realistic conditions, whatever you implement is pure speculation.As a fundamentally scientifically-minded person I pretty much dismiss the validity of sheer speculation almost out of hand.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7596684, member: 82106"] Then your use of the word 'realism' seems to have no purpose. Of course you are trying to MORE CLOSELY 'mirror' or 'emulate' reality. So there is no 'false dichotomy' or whatever you are trying to say. Nobody ever claimed, in fact I have stated it directly in either the post you quote or one written in the same hour, that a 'scale' is the only logical possibility. The problem is trying to actually put specific things on that scale. What I am trying to convey with my example is not something about the scale, except that any sort of simplistic attempt to model anything is so far down on any reasonable scale as to be indistinguishable from zero. I have to question most such gains. As I've said in my last few posts, I think 'authenticity', which is a more subjective kind of goal and isn't IMHO the same as realism is more interesting and useful. I don't agree. I think it is quite likely LESS realistic than no system at all! My point is more that the existing default AD&D system for weapon wear/tear/breakage may well be the most realistic, that is it never happens at all. I'm sure it isn't the most authentic in some sense, and in theory it probably IS possible to get more realistic as well, but then you're into high order math, and big data, to achieve anything meaningful at all there. Mostly you won't even ever know. You can slap some ad-hoc system in place, but since you are pretty unlikely to survey a large number of actual sword fights to see what happens to real weapons under realistic conditions, whatever you implement is pure speculation. As a fundamentally scientifically-minded person I pretty much dismiss the validity of sheer speculation almost out of hand. [/QUOTE]

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