Traveller comparisons to self and Alternity and other sci-fi

> Alan Heah wrote:
>> From reading this thread so far, these questions come to mind:
>>
>> What constitutes a more _realistic_ game system?
>
> Depends on what one means by _realistic_. I'll assume you mean a game such
> that characters can do what real people can do to within a small margin,
> and note that such games don't exist.

Some try better than others. Obviously, including magic into a game system doesn't make it "realistic"... nor does "under a thousand year" star-travel. But some of what I admire most is the ability to _think_ of how things work. Will a lightning bolt dispel an invisibility spell? Good odds it will, if you're taking a scientific perspective. I think I enjoy systems where people work science into the magic system -- where things are thought out (including such questions of whether magic is free or is something that will disappear/overflow reality).

And all games will be influenced by what the developers think real people can do -- or be trained to do. There's a whole category in Rolemaster about adrenal skills -- they're extremely hard to train, but can be done in the real world.

>> - Genericity and points, rather than specificity, classes and levels?
>
> Open point systems always struggle with characters being much better off
> using unforseen synergistic set of abilities, where class/level systems
> struggle allowing characters outside one of the pre-packaged sets to exist
> at all. Either way, the character building system needs to let you play
> the characters you want to play without inordinate penalty.

Except if they aren't appropriate to the world. The best use of classes is where they actually form the reality that someone lives by. If you spend from age 3-18 learning magic, you'll rely on that more.

However, there are places where this really breaks down -- generally where magic is easy to learn (*cough* WoT universe). There, a class system doesn't make nearly as much sense as giving people the ability to learn skills regardless.

But the true limiter on skills, as i see it, should always be roleplay. You shouldn't be able to create a dynamite rogue (daggers everywhere and an excellent theif) without being able to train (which eats time and sets a debt that you might have to pay back).

> Games with neither, that let characters be arbitrarily powerful and give
> them equal screen time regardless are the most realistic, as you get a
> strong natural variation in the team without players missing out on the
> fun. Few such systems are designed around realistic characters.

In my experience, standard D&D classes are hard as hell to give "equal screen time" to, in a realistic area. Thieves tend to have a totally different agenda then the rest of the party, and healers just arent' always as useful (I like rolemaster's idea of paladins as healing machines... it gives you someone who can work in a fight, and be at least a partial healer).

> As long as the mini's and maps aren't stopping people doing realistic
> things it shouldn't matter. Exact measurement tends to fail on the realism
> stage, as real things are tricky to measure in typical roleplaying scenes,
> but the systems that ignore measuring things can be much worse.

I like using grids mostly to talk about distance, and less to talk about exactly where someone is -- it helps to add perspective on how long it will take to get somewhere.

lena
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