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Both to satiate my interest, and as fuel to feed the creative minds of those who are inclined to fiddle with rules (myself included), if 40K was to take a trend towards a more realistic ruleset or a more abstract, which would you prefer?

To specify:

Realistic: Rules to represent the varied situations that might occur on a battlefield and the minor changes and differences.

Abstract: Fewer rules, focussing more on overall effect, less direct rules-to-fluff correlation. More 'rule of cool.'

Or some mixture of the two?

A mix of both. I don't want 40k games to get any bigger in scale (aka, 15% drop in points per model, with a 15% price increase per model, and 2000 points still a standard game)

While some of the abstraction is nice, other parts are a bit annoying. While the rules can always be streamlined a bit more for realism, I think we are currently in a place where the Codexi need more balancing than the main rulebook.

Realism at it's finest: GURPS. The problem, is that a five-on-five gunfight, may take the better part of thirty minutes to figure out!
It has it's place, but not in 40k as it exists.

Erring on the side of realism. I would prefer it to be as realistic as possible. Your T2 Grots should not have a 1/6 chance of surviving a freaking S10 Demolisher Cannon round ¬¬

I'd prefer to have a good flow of the game (a good game is better than a realistic game), with less rule of cool (it's too subjective) and high fluff abstraction (if one side is meant to be the best at X, then no other side should be better). I don't believe this is on the scale -.-;;
The game is more important than the fluff; the fluff is more important than the rule of cool.

I'd prefer erring on the side of abstraction. Just because, when you try to do more realism, things take too long...and you need to either:

a) have players who are willing to sit down and discuss things to make sure their decision makes sense.
b) a very VERY thick rulebook with rules that cover lots of scenarios, along with option a for the situations that it doesn't cover.

A more abstract rule set is easier to play with in my opinion, and makes things a whole lot easier.

Like Che-Vito and Valkyrie--I'd prefer some more realism.

I can understand the need for abstract, but I would like some 'real' styled combat.

Am I the only one aused that this poll has a very nice Gaussian distribution?

Now that you mention it I see it.

I think a good mixture of both would work best. There are a few rules that could be redone to achieve this. If the entire system became "realistic" it would take days to play.

@Che-Vito: I hear what you're saying about GURPS. It's, for my money, the best simulationist RP system out there.

It's interesting to see that there's a fairly even split on either side at this stage, but that most want the central balance. Or, that it has a very nice Gaussian distribution, as ChrisWWII said.

Here's a thought. What elements of the game do you find too abstracted? What do you find too realistic?

For me it's less an issue of too abstracted or realistic, but rather an issue of whether or not it's a GOOD abstraction.

I mean BFG is a perfect example of good abstraction, combined with enough realism to make things believable.

Am I the only one aused that this poll has a very nice Gaussian distribution?

Is that something to do with Necrons?

I'd like see more realism! Real grenades would be nice. Elite units should be able to split fire. There needs to be a way that the enemy doesn't have 100% intelligence of your army, down to which guy has what weapon in which APC. Save modifiers instead of cover saves.

I'm from back in the RT days, I don't think we need that again, I mean I loved it, but games did take many many hours to play. I think you can take that as a base and streamline it though.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Am I the only one aused that this poll has a very nice Gaussian distribution?

Is that something to do with Necrons?

Nope, it's a statistics thing. Basically it's a bell curve.



Like here.


And yeah, the problem with enhanced realism is that it mucks the game down. I'd rather have a more abstract game with things flowing faster so we could get things done faster than a hyper realistic game where I have to spend half an hour per unit.

If you want hyper realism play a game like Necromunda where the smaller scale allows you to be more realistic. 40k I'd like to see stay more abstract just so things flow better and easier.

Abstract enough to make it playble in an evening.
Real enough to make it enjoyable but not tedious or gritty to play.

It's a game set in the 41st millennium, with daemons, super robots, FTL travel and numerous exaggerated stereotypes. It is already as abstract as it can get, just keep it fun and believable. As such I mostly like where it is now.

A tad more realism to make the fantasy more epic and gritty would be nice.

Just so you can actually here the crunch of bones and armour when a building collapses on a unit of space marines...

is that too far?

Lord Rogukiel wrote:A tad more realism to make the fantasy more epic and gritty would be nice.

Just so you can actually here the crunch of bones and armour when a building collapses on a unit of space marines...

is that too far?

Everyone likes the snap, crackle, and pop...of a MEQ.

Its a bit skewed left (more realism).

But I honestly think a nice balance is best. There is no reason for 40k to be 100% abstract (which I think no TT game can be 100% abstract) or 100% realistic (due to the amount of time to play the game). A nice balance somewhere in between is what is needed, but be it skewed towards realism, abstract, or 50/50, I could not tell ya.

Honestly, I think they almost have the rules about right in terms of compromised abstraction and realism. Just need to fix the ambiguous or just flat out contridictory rules within both the UR and the Codices.

Wow, this is an old thread. Still, this is an interesting topic. If this violates some kind of odd "necromancy" rule (I think that's what it called where you dig up an old thread), my apologies in advance. Seems smarter than starting a new thread on the same, exact topic.

Anyhow, I'd tend toward more realism. One thing that absolutely leaps out at me is the completely unrealistic nature of the ranges of the weapons themselves.

If W40K figures are 28mm, that means a 4 ft. x 8 ft. game board represents about 160m x 80m.

Now, a bolter is described as .75 cal, which comes out to about 20mm.

A 20mm round is the caliber of round fired by the M61 Vulcan rotary cannon. The effective range of a 20mm round is several thousand meters. Even if you were to extrapolate a little and make the round less powerful to fit into a pistol or submachinegun sized weapon, I think it is safe to say that the effective range of a bolter should be the entire length and width of a normal gaming table.

In the game, as the rules are written, a bolter has a range of 24 inches, which comes out to about 40 meters.

Heavy bolters are about 25mm, or about the same caliber of round fired by the M242 Bushmaster autocannon on an LAV -25.

In the game, it has a range of 26 inches or about 60 meters.

Now, I get the fact that this is fantasy/science fiction set about 38 thousand years in the future (give or take), and that the galaxy is populated with aliens that have psychic abilities. So, there's a certain element of suspension of disbelief.

But 40 meters for a 20mm weapon?

Just thinking aloud. Cheers!

40K is so far from realism that I have no idea where to even begin placing the goalposts. Where's the artillery? Why are all of the people and vehicles so blasted tall? What's up with these giant robots? In real life they'd all be wiped off the face of the planet immediately upon deployment. The idea that some suit of future metal can protect you from an artillery shell is ludicrous. Best case scenario you'd be cooked alive inside your armor as your bones jellified from the shockwave.

EDIT: Crap, this IS an old thread. Never mind.

Killsmith wrote:
Where's the artillery?

The game models artillery in the Whirlwind vehicle (for example) and in a lot of the IG vehicles. There are probably many other examples.

The problem with artillery isnt that it isnt modelled: the problem is that, at this scale, the effective casualty radius (ECR) for the size of artillery rounds that would be fired would cover the entire playing surface.

Also, any artillery support you would call for would likely be "off the board". Artillery fires from tens of miles or kilometers away, unless it is firing in a direct fire mode.

Killsmith wrote:
Why are all of the people and vehicles so blasted tall? What's up with these giant robots? In real life they'd all be wiped off the face of the planet immediately upon deployment. The idea that some suit of future metal can protect you from an artillery shell is ludicrous.

I dont know about the other stuff, but light armor on a vehicle will protect you from artillery shrapnel (though not from a direct hit). So, models in Power Armor or Terminator Armor could feasibly be protected against anything but a direct hit from an artillery round.

Killsmith wrote:
EDIT: Crap, this IS an old thread. Never mind.

Yeah, I know. But the question of realism is fascinating and makes for interesting speculation, in my opinion.

Personally I do feel that we need to ere on the side of realism. For a start lets get rid of the HP system and replace it with proper damage tables where only penetrating hits can kill a vehicle. This would make weapons such as lascannons and vanquishers - IE the high strength good AP dedicated anti tank weapons - useful again and remove this mid strength high rof spam AT meta.

I picked erring abstract. Just don't think high levels of realism make for the best game. Scale is talked about earlier and to have movement, shooting, and model size all on a realistic scale would request a massive board or tiny models neither of which I like.

Hit, wound, save is out of order but works better rolling in order. Ok I have 86 close combat attacks with my orks let me count or those dice. Roll. Ok that 54 hits. Count out your dice and roll armor saves. Oh though luck. 34 failed armor saves. Ok. Let me count it my dice and roll to wound... Same player rolling dice twice in a row then the other rolling just works better.

Vehicles turning should cost movement. Abstraction streamlines that. If I want a stand of trees that blocks line of sight I have to use a terrain feature or put them then together so closely the models can't practically fit and risk damage. Abstraction fixes that. Yes there is no invisible wall that stops a bullet at 24", but working out changes in accuracy and penetrating power across the range from leaving the gun to real max range could be horrifically complex in games with as many models and units as 40k typically involves.

 Wolfpack Six wrote:
Wow, this is an old thread. Still, this is an interesting topic. If this violates some kind of odd "necromancy" rule (I think that's what it called where you dig up an old thread), my apologies in advance. Seems smarter than starting a new thread on the same, exact topic.

It does, in fact, violate a very clear rule about posting in old threads. Please don't revive threads that are more than 30 days dormant. Threads this old, many of the original participants may have moved on, and even those that remain are going to be confused to see this suddenly active again in their subscription list.