Re: RE: Re : New Life for Millennium's End

["Robert J. Hansen" <rjhansen@xxxxxxxx>]

> Gurps, or whatever.  The allure (to me, at least) is the realism afforded
by
> the system.  To try and get rid of the templates and the damage table
would
> be to make it into another generic game that would get lost among the
> offerings already out there.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for simplification, either.
I've long thought there are simply too many body areas.  Torso and head
shots need all those areas, but limb shots can be generalized a fair bit
without losing too much in the way of playability.

> The other trend about this discussion that seems incongruous to me is that
> everyone wants to make the game simpler but everyone wants to add five or
> ten new rules to cover pedantic little details that would rarely come up
in
> play.  IMHO our energies could be more productively utilized in trying to
> "tweak" what is already out there.  Thoughts?  Flames?

Again, agreed.  That's why my rant about how it's too easy to hit your
target; sure, you can bring things back down to a properly realistic level
if you add tons of negative modifiers, but at some point you wind up bogging
down the game for five or ten minutes just to figure out the modifiers for
"running, through a darkened alley, out of breath, target has just appeared
in line of sight, unfamiliar weapon... that's a -40, please", and then the
player gets in a snit about how the weapon isn't unfamiliar, etc.  Better to
just have a few very generic modifiers, like "Environmental factors: -5
to -50", and give some guidance to the GM about all the things which can
affect shot accuracy.

If this were a perfect world and we had perfect games, there would be no
rule that would require more than fifteen seconds' interruption of play to
apply.  With the aid of laptops and software, you can almost hit that point
with the current ME system.