From: Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.advocacy
Subject: Re: game vs reality simulation
Date: 5 Oct 92 05:32:56 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA writes:

> Yes, but gamers try and use game terms to describe things. This avoids
> abiguities and puts us all on the same wavelength. In GURPS, there is a
> target area called the torso (area 9-11). A part of this is the chest
> (9-10) and the rest is the abdomen (11). We're talking GURPS here, not
> anatomy. Try and speak our language, OK?

That makes sense for a GURPS group discussing that system.  In a discussion
involving gamers who use different systems, I think it would be best to use
standard "real world" language, such as anatomy, and the gamers can translate
that into their game system terms.

> Yes, but in RPGs, the PCs are supposed to be the rare and heroic members of
> society who *can* do such "impossible" things.

Whoa!  That may be true for your personal gaming style preference, but it is
not universally true for RPGs.

> Someone with modest willpower could f**k the "laws" of psychology
> at any time. PCs are such individuals. So they don't wilt under fire.

That too is determined by gaming style preferences.  In other games, players
who disregard what their characters _should_ be doing, according to what the
other gamers accept as reasonable behaviour, may not be appreciated.  We were
considering having one PC committed to a psychiatric exam, since his
behaviour could be described as "psychopathic".

> Most games allow a character to work around injury and keep going. Almost
> all players like this, and want their characters to ignore anything less
> than a killing or incapacitating shot. So maybe your group likes to play
> characters who go down when shot in the foot. Most folks do not. Playing a
> game where the slightest injury takes you out is not fun at all.

In the latter gaming environment, the PCs do not act the same way the PCs in
the former games do.  PCs in the latter style simply do not engage in as much
combat as the former; they know that they're likely to be rendered
incapacitated by one shot.  Not all games and gamers need constant heroic
combat to be fun.

There was someone just a while ago who complained that he switched from AD&D
to something more realistic (GURPS?), and found that it wasn't working.  I
expect that he was trying to play AD&D style in a system that didn't support
it.

> GURPS says that a gun is a gun, and skill is skill. .... GURPS tries to
> *rationalize*, not complicate, the true situation.

"Rationalize" is not the same as "simplify".  Saying that firing a snub-nosed
handgun while someone is firing at you is the same as firing a sniper rifle
from a prepared position is not rationalizing, it's simplifying to the point
of irrationality.  :)

Real life situations are complicated.  Some game systems follows that
complexity; others simplify the situations, yet maintain actions and effects
that are rational in real life; other systems simplify--or complicate--the
situations, but distort the effects so that characters act in manners that
would be stupid or insane in real life.  Which system you prefer is personal
preference.

> NO! GURPS has a philosophy: injury is injury. Combat, regardless of its
> form, consists of a few basic parts: placing the attack where it can
> injure, avoiding defensive or evasive actions on the part of the target,
> and resolving injury. Combat is combat. In GURPS, projectile and melee can
> and do mesh easily together. One does not need ridiculous "ranged combat
> phases" and "close combat phases" etc from older games.

Hmmm, sounds like GURPs fits into the last category of the systems I
mentioned above: it both oversimplifies the world it is supposed to
represent/simulate and allows/encourages character actions that would be
irrational in the real world..  :)

> This is a gaming board. Speak the language, or get out.

What language are your referring to, that represents the universal language
for this group?  There seem to be a multitude of "gaming languages" used
here. GURPS is _not_ universal.  The only language I think we could possibly
agree on is "real life", where a reader can pick up a dictionary or other
reference book and have a reasonable chance of agreeing on what "torso"
means.  Each of us can then translate that into GURPS terms, or Legacy terms,
or whatever.

I think the basis of this latest thread was Bryce's claim that aiming at the
head or "vitals" was "realistic".  It is not realistic.  It may be sensible
given the rules of GURPS, which represent a deviation from "real life", but
it would not be sensible in real life or in many other game systems.


BTW, my dictionary says "torso" means the body minus the head and appendages.
I'd refer to the chest area as "thorax".  What the GURPS manuals call it is
irrelevant in a multi-game system discussion.

--

Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca