What game is the best simulationist game?

[Jd Smith1]

Phoenix Command, at least as far as tactical combat with modern or semi-futuristic weapons go.

It also took three hours to go through 2-4 rounds of combat with a fair bit of arithmetic between rolls. Tedious isn't the word for it.

HERESEY!!!!

We used PC for years. With a couple house rules and some notes from the publishers, it worked fine.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Well, all I can say is that it was an interesting sojourn into a different system for an evening.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Well, all I can say is that it was an interesting sojourn into a different system for an evening.

I will concede that it was a developed taste.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, it doesn't help that when dealing with combat there isn't a really good set of models for most of it; you can say some things about general outcomes and what happens from gathered statistics, and at the other end you can look at coarse physical processes for part of it, but how to weigh them in is not really science (ballistics tells you a number of things, but is not really about how effective or likely to work a gun shot is).

 

[Argyle King]

One of the reasons I have enjoyed GURPS for the past 25 years is that its basic rules model reality pretty well. I like it that I can just ask new players what they want to do, and the system usually has a way of handling it without lots of hand waving. Despite its reputation for complexity (and math!), I’ve always found GURPS easier for new players than, for example, most iterations of D&D.

With all of that said, “realism” isn’t high on my priority list. I typically turn up the cinematic dials pretty far, as suits whatever genre we’re playing.

+1 to pretty much everything here.

Oddly, my abbreviations anecdotal experience has been that the game is easier to teach to people who are new to rpgs than it is to teach it to people mostly familiar with D&D.

I'll also agree with what others have said about verisimilitude.

There certainly are odd quirks about GURPS which don't model reality (such as burst fire increasing accuracy,) but the system does a good job of giving results which generally make sense given a situation.

 

[aramis erak]

GURPS. Ridiculously so.

GURPS... a serious contender. Except for the pacing of melee combat, unless using optional rules from one of the splats. And the loads of magic rules. It is the first to come to mind for me, tho'.
Alternately, either Phoenix Command or Tri-Tac's games. Both long out of print.
Pendragon, Hârnmaster and The Riddle of Steel honorable mentions.

 

[aramis erak]

Has anyone ever played Phoenix Command? We almost finished creating characters once, but I had the impression it was supposed to be.

Not as such, but I've run LEG's Rhand: Morningstar Missions RPG (a standalone, fully compatible Science Fantasy RPG - spiralbound on roughly 300 GSM card). I don't regret selling it on. It was taking about 5 minutes per attack to resolve a hit; a miss was over in 20 seconds. Lots of char gen math, more corebook tables than Rolemaster, more of them used per attack than rolemaster (Rolemaster peaks at 3 - the weapon table, then 0-2 critical tables),
Characters were nicely supplied with backgrounds, generally competent at something else besides shooting. Char Gen was medium - 30-40 minutes per character. Understanding the setting was reading the 10pp of player information, and another 10 of GM info. Most of the book was combat tables. My players at the time said, "I'd much rather play this in GURPS or Rolemaster."

I've also run LEG's ALIENS Adventure Game. It is Phoenix Command Light. And still medium-heavy, with smaller but no fewer tables to resolve, a simplified skill advancement system, and about half the math of Char Gen simplified out. I ran a mini-campaign... it was just as slow, just as cumbersome, but at least I could find the tables needed easier.

 

[aramis erak]

HERESEY!!!!

We used PC for years. With a couple house rules and some notes from the publishers, it worked fine.

your tolerance for math and tables in play is unusually high.

 

[aramis erak]

There certainly are odd quirks about GURPS which don't model reality (such as burst fire increasing accuracy,) but the system does a good job of giving results which generally make sense given a situation.

TRADOC noted in the 1980's that, while lower chance of hitting per round fired, 3 round burst did increase the number of hits on the enemy per engagement. There's some psychology that happens with autofire making soldiers more likely to engage.

 

[Argyle King]

TRADOC noted in the 1980's that, while lower chance of hitting per round fired, 3 round burst did increase the number of hits on the enemy per engagement. There's some psychology that happens with autofire making soldiers more likely to engage.

I'll check into that.

The training with which I'm most familiar tends to use burst fire to mimic the sounds of a crew serve weapon to help maneuver and/or break contact with a peel. (Though, that's possibly outdated at this point. I've been out for a while.)