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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9262331" data-attributes="member: 4937">My problem with realistic systems is not necessarily just that they can be slow to play, but that too often the random factor is greater than the skill factor.&nbsp; That is to say ultimately your choices don't matter so much as everything comes down to just who can get a critical hit or equivalent first, and then death spiral sets in (if one side wasn't one shotted).&nbsp; In GURPS for example, you can mitigate against luck but fundamentally it's all done to which side gets hit hard first.Realistic rule sets typically only produce highly tactical games for aggregates of a reasonably large number of participants - say platoons.&nbsp; This mitigates against the luck factor and effectively your units become your hit points.&nbsp; One soldier might get unlucky, but over the course of a sufficiently large battle the luck will (probably) balance out and thereby allow enough opportunity for skill to shine through.&nbsp; This is how games like ASL, Bloodbowl, or Necromunda work.&nbsp; But this isn't particularly well suited to tactical role-play because one of the innovations of an RPG was that you were running a single character per participant and not a small army.&nbsp; I've yet to encounter the system that was trying to be realistic about it that didn't end up making luck more important than tactics.&nbsp; That isn't to say that you can't do reasonable things like &quot;take cover&quot; or &quot;maneuver to flank&quot; in such systems, but that ultimately at best you are mitigating luck but will still get hosed by it eventually.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9262331, member: 4937"] My problem with realistic systems is not necessarily just that they can be slow to play, but that too often the random factor is greater than the skill factor. That is to say ultimately your choices don't matter so much as everything comes down to just who can get a critical hit or equivalent first, and then death spiral sets in (if one side wasn't one shotted). In GURPS for example, you can mitigate against luck but fundamentally it's all done to which side gets hit hard first. Realistic rule sets typically only produce highly tactical games for aggregates of a reasonably large number of participants - say platoons. This mitigates against the luck factor and effectively your units become your hit points. One soldier might get unlucky, but over the course of a sufficiently large battle the luck will (probably) balance out and thereby allow enough opportunity for skill to shine through. This is how games like ASL, Bloodbowl, or Necromunda work. But this isn't particularly well suited to tactical role-play because one of the innovations of an RPG was that you were running a single character per participant and not a small army. I've yet to encounter the system that was trying to be realistic about it that didn't end up making luck more important than tactics. That isn't to say that you can't do reasonable things like "take cover" or "maneuver to flank" in such systems, but that ultimately at best you are mitigating luck but will still get hosed by it eventually. [/QUOTE]

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