Re: DS3 points systems and features

The Silhouette system is pretty flexible. They do WW2 to Universal 
Century0083 (Gundams), in fact Gear Krieg is fourth on my list of 15mm 
projects. Within its boundaries (remmeber, the envelope always pushes 
back) it's pretty fast playing and very much of a "design for effect" 
game. This last does cause some realism glithces in that you can work 
with breakpoints and that it's a relative value system. But if a King 
Tiger has the best armor in the game and very few weapons can kill it, 
then it works well enough.

But units from another Silhouette system game can be mixed 
'realistically'  into Gear Krieg because they all share the same 
absolute scale. An exo from Lightning Strike (a very nice game system) 
is rated on the same scale that a Panzer Mk III is.

DSII is also a design for effect system, but it uses a relative scale. 
It works for WW2 for the same reasons that Gear Krieg works.But keep in 
mind that DS2 has a much smaller range of values than Silhouette does. 
DS2 can do WW2 or it can do grav tanks but it can't mix both. It works 
for almost any set of technological assumptions provided all sides share

those same assumptions.

What would be Really Neat in DS3 is a set of rules for designing a set 
of technological assumption for different genres. To let units from 
different genres mix you'd have to have to have an absolute scale. But 
that way lies Striker. [1]. Actually, DS2 reminds me a lot of Striker 
and especially the Command Decision games. It has a lot of flavor of 
Striker-with-simpler-mechanics. By the time Striker 2 came out, much of 
its target audience, sci-fi microarmor, was already a GZG customer.

And Striker was much more of a sim than a game. Rating all the Zhodani 
and Imperial units in the game for DS2 would take an afternoon, and play

much faster.Mind you, Striker 2 looks like everyone who played it was a 
 WW2 or Moderns player, because I can think of a LOT of interesting 
things to do with grav tanks that the rules don't even hint at [2].

[1] Or GURPS Vehicles, which is even worse since they have mixed genres 
as a primary design goal.

[2] For starters, orbital weapons fire is highly abstract. But Zhodani 
MBTs have lasers that can engage the smaller starships with direct
fire..

Alexander Williams wrote:

>On Fri, Apr 05, 2002 at 12:45:04PM -0800, John Atkinson wrote:
>
>>system) and Heavy Gear's system.  Which is designed
>>for anime-style silliness with walkers and which
>>doesn't react well to trying to simulate modern
>>military equipment either.  The main problem I have
>>
>
>[takes away John's crack-pipe]  You really ought to cut back on this
>stuff, it'll kill you.  And its a thermal tag for target shooting.
>
>Heavy Gear has, very likely, the most /coherent/ system for the scale
>of modern military equipment at its complexity level, even compared to
>custom-designed systems meant to cover the medium.  Put your hand over
>the Gear section for 5min, and notice that the rest /is/ a modern
>military equipment game.  Gears barely verge into that territory in a
>real sense.  The problem with HG is its complexity; it works much
>better as a squad-level game than something more, in my opinion,
>simply due to the highly detailed nature of the underlying
>representation.
>
>>comes with the exponential cost of "perks", where a
>>military vehicle with the features I expect in a tank
>>(you know, NBC system, etc) become astronomically
>>expensive.  In fact, the primary Southern MBT is not
>>NBC sealed and doesn't have a machine gun (although
>>there is a feature to mount one in a pintle mount). 
>>Still costs 1.5 mil, BTW.
>>
>
>Yes, John, we know you're the final arbitor of everything a design
>system should be.  Do sit down now.
>
>(You, of course, neglect to mention what it /is/ armed with, and why
>that its expected to be operating in the field with a /large/ number
>of cheap support infantry, thus somewhat reducing the need.)
>
>>Hrm. . . So what you're saying is that any pretence at
>>point balance is inherently flawed and depends on
>>scenario design and usage?
>>
>
>In truth?  Yes.  But damn if its not a handy guideline to go by until
>you get enough experience under your belt with a system to get to that
>level of understanding.