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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8678589" data-attributes="member: 4937">The tedium to me isn't even the really damning part, as even back then you could have automated the combat resolution with a simple computer app and people who still run PC in fact do this, letting you run combat quite quickly.No, to me the really damning part is two fold.&nbsp; First, it's not even particularly realistic.&nbsp; Like almost all such attempts at realism it involves the designer selecting a huge number of numbers to abstract the real physics and invariably these numbers are selected nearly arbitrarily, based on designer biases, and without real play testing or necessarily high understanding of the subject matter.&nbsp;&nbsp; The resulting model therefore only has a very superficial resemblance to realism in that most of the time it spits out an answer that like could be real, but where the odds may have nothing to do with the real odds and likelihoods.&nbsp; The more you get to know the system, the less realistic it seems and the less able to simulate real events the game seems to become.&nbsp; But even more than that, the level of realism it actually achieves is probably little different in practice than what could be achieved with 2-3 more abstract rolls and 1-2 tables, using a basic hitpoint system and very high potential damages for the firearms.&nbsp;&nbsp; All that extra process doesn't actually add very much to the game even in terms of realism, because for all that it may incorporate that a simpler system doesn't, it still adding at every step opportunities for the rules to not take into account what it is trying to model correctly.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8678589, member: 4937"] The tedium to me isn't even the really damning part, as even back then you could have automated the combat resolution with a simple computer app and people who still run PC in fact do this, letting you run combat quite quickly. No, to me the really damning part is two fold. First, it's not even particularly realistic. Like almost all such attempts at realism it involves the designer selecting a huge number of numbers to abstract the real physics and invariably these numbers are selected nearly arbitrarily, based on designer biases, and without real play testing or necessarily high understanding of the subject matter. The resulting model therefore only has a very superficial resemblance to realism in that most of the time it spits out an answer that like could be real, but where the odds may have nothing to do with the real odds and likelihoods. The more you get to know the system, the less realistic it seems and the less able to simulate real events the game seems to become. But even more than that, the level of realism it actually achieves is probably little different in practice than what could be achieved with 2-3 more abstract rolls and 1-2 tables, using a basic hitpoint system and very high potential damages for the firearms. All that extra process doesn't actually add very much to the game even in terms of realism, because for all that it may incorporate that a simpler system doesn't, it still adding at every step opportunities for the rules to not take into account what it is trying to model correctly. [/QUOTE]

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