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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8969528" data-attributes="member: 82106">First hand reports of yours truly from early D&amp;D, Traveler, Boot Hill, Metamorphosis Alpha, and other '1st gen' RPGs is that their combat mechanics were mostly FAIRLY abstract. Yes, in some games less so than others. D&amp;D was pretty abstract, as was MA (and GW) since they all use the same basic rules, give or take. TSR D&amp;D never did really evolve from that. You could narrate things to a degree, but you had to make up a lot of it from whole cloth. Boot Hill is a real exception, its combat is detailed, tactical, takes place on a grid (the town map) 99% of the time, etc. However it also generally consists of &quot;I roll a 50, I fire first, bang bang bang you're dead!&quot; Traveler has range bands and I'd say its combat rules get a bit more detailed than D&amp;D, as PCs can attack, dodge, parry, etc. and there are 3 types of damage, sort of. Other later games are a very mixed bag, though few of them get more detailed than Traveler. (RQ and RM spring to mind), though RQ is not a LOT more detailed than Traveler. In fact the main problem when people attempted to do this is, the mechanics were too unrealistic to support such a use case! I remember that RQ had the problem that melee-focused characters frequently were killed by their own fumbles, as statistically this would happen sooner-or-later. Claw Law/Arms Law kind of avoided those simple foibles, but it, and a couple other systems like Aftermath, were just too cumbersome for most people.Honestly, WotC D&amp;D barely improved on this situation. I'd be hard pressed to name a system that has really measurably done so. AD&amp;D 1e combat is still (aside from its horribly unclear/obtuse rules) fairly state-of-the-art, actually.Well, games like TSR's FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes game simply made the linkage less explicit. The same could be said for Top Secret. One very early example is Tunnels &amp; Trolls, who's combat system is ENTIRELY abstract. These are not LESS abstract, in my opinion! Quite the opposite.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8969528, member: 82106"] First hand reports of yours truly from early D&D, Traveler, Boot Hill, Metamorphosis Alpha, and other '1st gen' RPGs is that their combat mechanics were mostly FAIRLY abstract. Yes, in some games less so than others. D&D was pretty abstract, as was MA (and GW) since they all use the same basic rules, give or take. TSR D&D never did really evolve from that. You could narrate things to a degree, but you had to make up a lot of it from whole cloth. Boot Hill is a real exception, its combat is detailed, tactical, takes place on a grid (the town map) 99% of the time, etc. However it also generally consists of "I roll a 50, I fire first, bang bang bang you're dead!" Traveler has range bands and I'd say its combat rules get a bit more detailed than D&D, as PCs can attack, dodge, parry, etc. and there are 3 types of damage, sort of. Other later games are a very mixed bag, though few of them get more detailed than Traveler. (RQ and RM spring to mind), though RQ is not a LOT more detailed than Traveler. In fact the main problem when people attempted to do this is, the mechanics were too unrealistic to support such a use case! I remember that RQ had the problem that melee-focused characters frequently were killed by their own fumbles, as statistically this would happen sooner-or-later. Claw Law/Arms Law kind of avoided those simple foibles, but it, and a couple other systems like Aftermath, were just too cumbersome for most people. Honestly, WotC D&D barely improved on this situation. I'd be hard pressed to name a system that has really measurably done so. AD&D 1e combat is still (aside from its horribly unclear/obtuse rules) fairly state-of-the-art, actually. Well, games like TSR's FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes game simply made the linkage less explicit. The same could be said for Top Secret. One very early example is Tunnels & Trolls, who's combat system is ENTIRELY abstract. These are not LESS abstract, in my opinion! Quite the opposite. [/QUOTE]

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