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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9041571" data-attributes="member: 6779310">Realism is a subset of consistency.Accurately modelling a setting (especially one from other forms of media) is another subset of consistency.The two generally overlap. How much varies by the IP.I, and at least a dozen players I've run for over the years, find it annoying when a game has rules that are simultaneously detailed/complicated, unrealistic, and non-emulative of the setting where it breaks from realism.The very most realistic fiction has a gravitas from its realism. Some forms of realism include using real world locations and historical events, can bring a historical fiction that sense of gravitas.For you, maybe, but not for me. The level of detail does matter to me.Which is part of why I find Star Trek Adventures far less engaging than Prime Directive 1E...Hârnmaster is just about the upper end of my tolerance for process; GURPS is actually past it, but Rolemaster isn't... because Hârnmaster is good sim from my experience, and GURPS is bad as sim and as game. Rolemaster is a process as well, but it's sim aspects aren't why I like it.Rolemaster has a trope of "excessively gory combat".... and I find that fun at times.The level of detail in the rules is part of that for me... but it's not a linear function; it's a bell.Too detailed, such as Phoenix Command, is too hard to play.Too little detail, such as Risus, is of no use for me as game nor as sim, and it isn't even good for flow of narrative control...The rules need to be usable, not trigger "this is wrong for the setting", not trigger "this is neither correct for the setting nor realism," and be able to provide some benefit over simply telling stories.Where that last one falls is important.Settings affect my need for details, simulation accuracy of the mechanical elements, and tolerance for the mechanics if they support the setting.I've run campaigns where every encounter was random in origin, and where I'm just drawing extrapolations from random elements, turning them into some form of sense, and running the characters/monsters/situations introduced from tables/cards based upon random inputs. I've done this with 3 editions of Traveller, 3 editions of Twilight 2000, and have done it with certain sections of published D&D adventures... including season 1-3 of DDAL where there's stretches of random-encounter hex-crawl. Season 1 (Hoard of the Dragon Queen) has 2 stretches of linear crawl, but that's just a really narrow map hex-crawl.It's actually a common enough mode for many 80's adventure modules... including a few favorites: D&D X1, [classic] Traveller's Mission on Mithril, Nomads of the World Ocean, and Across the Bright Face. At least one Star Frontiers adventure. And my favorite TFT solo module, Master of the Amulets; it can also be run as a GM-less group or GM'd adventure...QFT...but the emergent story is about the characters discovering the module's story. And the players discovering both stories via play.Which is why most simulationists use rules to assist in rational decisions.And, after seriously studying 3 martial arts (2 of which are armed european forms), plus competitive shooting, some games moved to "bugging me because the combat flow is neither fun, in the realm of things I'd consider plausible, nor setting appropriate." That line varies by experience...</blockquote>

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