Just my tuppence.

When I want to play a highly-detailed wargame, I do. The most egregious sin on my part there was War in Europe, and nearly unplayable monstrosity that took for bloody ever to complete a single turn. Squad Leader and a lot of the Civil War era games were just about right for me.

When I’m playing a role-playing game, it’s usually more along the lines of a Space Opera where the story is the thing, not the nit-picky details that bog down the game. I’ve played games with pretty much every version of Traveller, but I always tend to drop things that just get in the way of gameplay. I’m not really interested in a hyper-realistic situation because most of my players are not astrophysicists, etc., and I’m long past the need to engage in or support that kind of time-wasting argument in my games.

However, others’ mileage may vary and that’s fine.


On Oct 12, 2020, at 12:24 PM, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:

I'm definitely with you on this.

The more complexity was increased in Trav, the less playable the game became, IMO.

 However, also IMO & from what I've gathered over the years, MM was an aficionado of the 'monster/complicated' wargame genre from way back. 
(back then, I was too but I began to change my mind when SPI came out with 'Campaign in North Africa' where, literally, you kept track of every little thing, making the game virtually unplayable!)
Just compare the complexity 'tween SPI's monster WWII East Front wargame from the '70's, & GDW's.
BTW, I've also read that the initial impetus to form GDW was to publish that 'monster' game.

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mOn Sunday, October 11, 2020, 11:44:30 PM MST, xxxxxx@gmail.com <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:


Oh, one more thing... when in doubt, ignore everything except the task system, including previously defined tasks. The task system is the key to the whole game; let it guide you. Use the rules when they DON'T get in the way.

---------------

Having read Q&As out of DGP stuff lately, from Fugate and Co, they talked about often in-house ignoring the rules details and going with what felt right at the time and kept the game moving along. I've used this technique before even in D&D and found it quite successful. The DM in D&D knows hit points, ACs, etc. but does he really need all that? He knows roughly how much damage the critter can take and how tough it should be to hit and the sort of damage it should dish out... everything else is chrome. Same goes in Traveller to a fair extent.

If you can make up reasonable sounding task statements (or rolls if you are OST folks - Old School Traveller) and keep the game and combats flowing without too much document diving, you'll have a much more dynamic feeling game. It will have a sense of momentum.

TomB


--
“The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.” ― Aristotle

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