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Din Tempre
2008-06-26, 09:27 PM
Basically, I have one question: What system (not to be confused with setting, although some systems are generically tied to a setting) do you think is best for a realistic modern or near future game, particuarly for vehicle-vehicle, infantry-vehicle, and infantry-infantry combat (in that order of importance)? Please state why you think one system exceeds in this area and/or its competition doesn't.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice/etc.

Artanis
2008-06-26, 09:33 PM
Realistic? Um...every half-decent RPG realizes that a system isn't going to get particularly close to reality. You could try FATAL to see what happens when a game maker tries to get close to reality though.

Behold_the_Void
2008-06-26, 09:42 PM
Realistic? Um...every half-decent RPG realizes that a system isn't going to get particularly close to reality. You could try FATAL to see what happens when a game maker tries to get close to reality though.

Except FATAL's not... terribly realistic, judging from the review. It seems pretty poorly constructed. In many, many ways.

But yeah, I hear GURPs is good at more realistic games.

Din Tempre
2008-06-26, 09:43 PM
I guess it is a poorly worded question without knowing what I what I want it for. Basically, I want to set the PC's in either mobile armor, fighter planes, bombers, artillery, or mobile infantry division (their choice). Is there any system that makes these vehicles feel different out-of-the-box, less DM-fiat?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-26, 09:45 PM
I guess it is a poorly worded question without knowing what I what I want it for. Basically, I want to set the PC's in either mobile armor, fighter planes, bombers, artillery, or mobile infantry division (their choice). Is there any system that makes these vehicles feel different out-of-the-box, less DM-fiat?

Pick up an old version of Shadowrun (2e or 3e, I guess) and a bunch of Rigger books from that particular version. God, but Shadowrun tried hard to make everything realistic.

At the very least, Shadowrun has detailed vehicle modding rules and separate rules for vehicular combat. That should get you started.

Otherwise, Battletech had a pretty good mobile suit combat system, if I recall.

EDIT:
WARNING: trying to actually learn the Shadowrun Rigger rules will drive you mad. Heaven help you if you also try to learn the Decking rules too :smalleek:

Artanis
2008-06-26, 09:46 PM
Try Silhouette. It ain't exactly what I'd call "simple", but it doesn't skimp on vehicle combat and vehicle creation rules.



Edit: Silhouette is the "base" system that several others (most notably Heavy Gear) is based on.

Grommen
2008-06-26, 09:50 PM
Ok the problem with realistic games is this.

They are realistic.

20 years of RPG have tought me this.

Jumping off the roof of your house and landing hurts like hell in real life when you land wrong.

In D&D.... 1d6

In any case the only modern RPG I play is Shadowrun and under the 3rd edition rules you can literally total your ride hitting a person and he will most likely get a sprained ankle out of the ordeal. So that one is right out.

D20 modern might have decent rules.

Or GURPS, those buggers have rules for everything.

Dhavaer
2008-06-26, 09:57 PM
D20 modern might have decent rules.

Not for vehicle combat.

Din Tempre
2008-06-26, 10:01 PM
That might be a good idea, take a mek/vehicle sytem to a world without meks. If anyone's heard of Armageddon 2089, I really liked the concept, but it was completely mek-centered and poorly written (I wouldn't be able to teach myself).

Just thinking to myself- would adopting a TT game's combat system work, or would the balance conversion be messy?

Din Tempre
2008-06-26, 10:04 PM
So, so far...

Battletech - mobile suit system
GURPS - detailed overall, but vehicles?
Shadowrun Rigger - vehicle combat rules

more to come?

Artanis
2008-06-26, 10:05 PM
Depends on the system. Heavy Gear is explicitly designed as a system that can be played as a TT game, an RPG, or a combination of both. Other tabletop games, on the other hand, would be pretty much unusable without being overhauled into something that was mechanically unrecognizeable (such as Warhammer and WH40K).


Edit: And you seem to have missed my mention of Silhouette-based games, such as Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles.

Swordguy
2008-06-26, 10:11 PM
MechWarrior 3rd Edition RPG. Remove the BattleMechs (keep the battle armor), and use the point-based character creation system to remove the BattleTech-specific fluff. It'll do quite nicely. Taking a bullet to an arm will generally (about 90% of the time) mean you lose the use of that limb for a good long while.

Din Tempre
2008-06-26, 10:19 PM
A list of things I'd expect to be in the system...

Vehicle critical hits - HE hitting fuel tanks is not trivial
hit locations - mobility kills should be possible
atmospheric dogfighting - air brake FTW
hijacking - it happens (though maybe not like in XXX)

maybe what I'm looking for doesn't exist, or wouldn't be playable

(does anyone know how the GURPS handles classes of vehicles?)

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-26, 10:27 PM
A list of things I'd expect to be in the system...

Vehicle critical hits - HE hitting fuel tanks is not trivial
hit locations - mobility kills should be possible
atmospheric dogfighting - air brake FTW
hijacking - it happens (though maybe not like in XXX)

maybe what I'm looking for doesn't exist, or wouldn't be playable

(does anyone know how the GURPS handles classes of vehicles?)

Heavy Gear does have a wider variety of mobile armor, and a fairly granular hit system (IIRC). Shadowrun may have better dogfighting (everything has mobility values, sensor and heat values, plus tons of weaponry rules) but doesn't have much in the way of "called shots" (though you can use 'em - no tables though).

Shadowrun is definitely your best bet for hijacking. Heck, if there's a rigger involved, that seems to be all they do.

Albonor
2008-06-26, 10:28 PM
You could also try to modify the new World of Darkness core rules. It can be pretty intuitive and allows for targeted shots at critical weakness, etc.

I also played a Zombie RPG (that was the name) from a french publisher that was both funny and allowed a simple combat system as well as an alternative litteraly (well, after translation) named: "The ultra-realistic combat system that kills!"

Mech combat could be done under this since the proposed setting takes place in 2100 IIRC. AAAAAAAND: you had a McGiver skill!

Fhaolan
2008-06-26, 10:53 PM
To tell you the honest truth, I'm not sure you need an RPG for what you're attempting to pull off.

RPGs are good for the characters and the like, but when it actually comes to vehicular combat, you might be better off with switching to an actual wargame system. Something like Battlefield: Evolution, or something similar.

Unfortunately, I don't have any specific suggestions because I don't play near future wargames. Mainly because there aren't that many, and the groups I hang out with either want historical, or they go way off base with far future spaceship combats or fantasy armies.

Hawriel
2008-06-26, 11:00 PM
If you want mecha and armored suits I'd go with rifts. Not only do they have a crap load of books for there own rules but you can the ROBOTECH setting in rifts. There you go tranzforming Valkyries and Cyclone motercycle armor. They also have to different damage codes. standard damage, that is character level damage. And mega damage, thats for Tanks, hard core body armor, cyborgs and really big guns.

You might want to look at D6 Adventures. Its a modern cyberpunk/magic setting by West End Games. I dont have it but I do have their space books. Its pritty much star wars 2.5 of they didnt lose the star wars lisence.

Lord Tataraus
2008-06-26, 11:24 PM
Well, I've got to throw in my favorite "realistic-ish setting: Cyberpunk 2020 - it works best if you use the alternate combat rules from Listen Up! You Primitive Screwheads! and you need Maximum Metal, unfortunately, it covers only power armor and land/sea vehicles, but not really air vehicles that well (from what I remember, then again I never needed those rules so they might be in there.) The other problem is actually finding the books...

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-27, 02:00 AM
Cyberpunk 2020 with Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! for the man vs. man rules, and Maximum Metal for the vehicle vs. vehicle rules. (Includes AFVs, artillery, and powered armor.)

You end up with a lethal system where having the first shot is more important than having the biggest gun or heaviest armor (except with vehicles, naturally). Do not under any circumstances try just using the basic book's combat rules - under those combat rules, every character can, should, and will be invincible to anything up to 5.56 NATO rounds.

I think Firestorm: Shockwave adds some extra combat rules for vehicles. Firestorm: Stormfront has rules for on, in, and under the water.

TheOOB
2008-06-27, 02:16 AM
Aside from the "of darkness" part, new world of darkness handles on foot combat in a fairly realistic fashion, though it's quite abstract. A skilled person can dodge melee attacks fairly well, but without cover and/or armor ranged attacks will slaughter them, and attacks, especially firearms, are quite deadly, but rarely lethal in a single hit.

Baxbart
2008-06-27, 02:38 AM
Probably not the cheapest... and DEFINITELY not the easiest to learn.... but GURPS will get you there.

And if you thought GURPS alone was complicated, you should see the old GURPS Vehicles book for 3rd edition. I'm quick... and it still takes me 2-3 hours to make anything more complicated than a canoe. Its nice to be able to design absolutely anything you want, but sometimes its a very, very long-winded process.

I once had a character in a Sci-Fi GURPS game who designed and built her own ship, battlesuit, weapons and some other gadgets. Her 'character sheet' - and I use the term loosely - was about 35-40 pages long, without including any background...

JaxGaret
2008-06-27, 02:44 AM
Absolute realism? GURPS.

Fun and playable vehicle combat? Some mech-based system with mods.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-27, 03:03 AM
And if you thought GURPS alone was complicated, you should see the old GURPS Vehicles book for 3rd edition. I'm quick... and it still takes me 2-3 hours to make anything more complicated than a canoe. Its nice to be able to design absolutely anything you want, but sometimes its a very, very long-winded process.

And actually, Vehicles wasn't even complicated enough to model differences between models of cars.

3E definitely got way, way, way too complicated when you included vehicles. I never even managed to comprehend the rules for actually using the vehicles in GURPS Vehicles.

Baxbart
2008-06-27, 03:34 AM
I wouldn't recommend it. It got a bit... unnecessarily complicated at times.

In all honesty, I'd prefer to go with something like Shadowrun. Its system is relatively detailed... though I'm not sure whether it would quite qualify as 'realistic'.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-27, 04:21 AM
In all honesty, I'd prefer to go with something like Shadowrun. Its system is relatively detailed... though I'm not sure whether it would quite qualify as 'realistic'.

Come on man, Shadowrun has rules for adjusting the choke on your shotgun and requires you to manually work in tracer rounds if you're doing autofire.

How can you not call that realistic :smallbiggrin:

Sure, you could mount Autocannons on your Blitzen 2050 motorcycle, and conceivably slave them to a remote VCR so that your drone rigger could have a swarm of fast autocannons zipping around Seattle. But it was all by RAW so how could that be bad? :smalltongue:

Yep. Shadowrun: when the going gets tough, the tough blow sh*t up :smallwink:

Capt'n Ironbrow
2008-07-09, 07:46 AM
what about Warhammer 40k roleplay (I think it's available nowadays)
I guess WH40kRP has the opportunities of play you seek...

elliott20
2008-07-09, 09:58 AM
You could also try a watered down version of Burning Empires. It has a pretty extensive model for combat. In fact, the way combat works in that game, nothing is ever certain.

Shhalahr Windrider
2008-07-09, 10:41 AM
Yeah, GURPS is probably good for realism. I haven't played any vehicle combat with it myself, but looking at the rules, my primary beef would probably be the added time of looking up relative speed penalties/bonuses and hit locations.

Of course, GURPS is highly modular—that's what keeps it Generic and Universal—so you can probably manage something without either of those, if you had to. But it sounds like you want them.

As far as specific vehicle models, I'd argue that you're going for way too much detail if you wanted to specify every single model of vehicle. That is, for most people, that's just more detail than necessary. GURPS Basic Set has a fair number of categories in the Basic Set, like Roadster, Sedan, Jeep, Pickup Truck, etc. that should serve most people well. If you need the extra detail brought on by particular models, you can easily modify one of those. GURPS High-Tech does list specific vehicle models, but the only civilian automobiles are all under "1930s Sedan".

Anyway, it should get you what you want:
Critical Hits: Everything can crit, though not particularly often (roughly 2% frequency), since the rolls follow a bell curve. Precise effects of Crits beyond extra damage often depend on GM interpretation, too, since it would take another couple books to cover every possible situation.
Hit Locations: For both creatures and vehicles. Doesn't have the precision to target a fuel tank on most vehicles—which is really cinematic rather than realistic anyway. Automobiles are broken up into body, windows, and wheels, for instance. A location can be random or specifically targeted.
Atmospheric Dogfighting:[/b] Okay, I'm not really familiar with all those rules, but there doesn't seem to be as much detail regarding flight-specific rules as there are with general vehicle rules. Not sure if there's a supplement with more flight-specific rules or if I'm just not looking in the right places. For the most part, though, I think there's enough to make this doable.
Hijacking: Not sure how a rule system would necessarily prevent or encourage that. Yeah, you can always say, "Take this vehicle where I want, or I kll you!"

Playability of all this varies with which rules you use, of course. Most of the rules are explicitly optional and only there to provide differing levels of detail. Once again, this is to keep everything Generic and Universal.

Hm. Oh, and I suppose I should mention I'm looking at 4th edition. :smalltongue:

Mr Pants
2008-07-09, 01:59 PM
Unhallowed Metropolis has a realistic wound system. High "level" characters are still mildly realistic. There is no real level system. Aside from the animates, thropes and vampires its pretty realistic.

darkzucchini
2008-07-09, 02:18 PM
Might want to check out the Alternity system. I know it has rules for vehicular combat, making your own vehicles, and a character of any level is going to be pretty messed up if they get in a high speed car crash. The rules aren't too bad to learn either (though rather counter-intuitive, low d20 rolls are better).

Shhalahr Windrider
2008-07-10, 11:23 AM
Might want to check out the Alternity system. I know it has rules for vehicular combat, making your own vehicles, and a character of any level is going to be pretty messed up if they get in a high speed car crash.
Primary downside: It's an out of print system.

I'd still like to try playing it, though.


The rules aren't too bad to learn either (though rather counter-intuitive, low d20 rolls are better).
Only counterintuitive if you've only played systems that are always roll high.

In GURPS, you want to roll low. In AD&D (note the A) you want to roll low on ability and skill checks (and high on saves and attack rolls). It's actually pretty intuitive for any system where you want a high score, and that score is the number you roll against. If a 15 is better than a 10, and you have a better chance of rolling under a 15 than you do a 10, then obviously rolling low would be the goal. And that's how all those systems work in terms of success rolls.

Greg
2008-07-10, 05:01 PM
what about Warhammer 40k roleplay (I think it's available nowadays)
I guess WH40kRP has the opportunities of play you seek...
Inquisitor?

InaVegt
2008-07-10, 05:19 PM
GURPS has a detailed system for vehicle combat (including aerial)

This system includes hit locations, with realistic details for the effects. (Such as crashing with a destroyed wing, destroying a weapon turret's offensive powers)

It also includes rules for maintaining in control of the vehicle (Making low altitude aerial combat quite dangerous)

Hatu
2008-07-10, 05:42 PM
So, so far...

Battletech - mobile suit system
GURPS - detailed overall, but vehicles?
Shadowrun Rigger - vehicle combat rules

more to come?

I would not recommend Battletech if you're looking for vehicle based mayhem on a primarily character scale. I'm a great fan of BT and it's a fairly grounded take on mecha as war machines, but it is on a much larger than human scale. BattleMechs really cannot interact with humans on an individual basis, and even Clan Elementals (Powered Battlearmor on genetically engineered super soldiers) are no match for a real 'Mech. Also, despite several efforts, the Mechwarrior RPGs have all been (IMHO) dismal failures.

That said, my friend has had some success homebrewing GURPS into a Mechwarrior substitute, using Battletech rules only for 'Mech combat. You could try something similar if you really want that Giant Stompy Robots peanut butter in your personal RPG chocolate.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what a good system would be. GURPS is a pretty good choice for modern (or futuristic) 'realistic' personal level RPGs. But I've never really tried using it with a vehicle focus. Similarly, I've never played Shadowrun at all.

-H