2013 vs 2000 2.2 and house rule questions
 

Ok guys so earlier I spoke to some issues I had with the 2.2 rules. Essentially I was looking for equal realism (or close to it) with a more stream line process. Many people pointed me at 2013 (3.0). I found it for a good deal and after digging into it I have to say that the Reflex System seem stupidly complex. Not that its a difficult concept or that in the end the math is hard, but there are many nuances to the way modifiers are added or subtracted, MoF/MoS, proficiency at a skill, then simply adding up all the possible modifiers for any task that is being attempted. After reading the first Rule chapter I nearly had a heart attack at the though of dealing with a firefight that dealt with any number of combatants, in a poor weather and visibility condition and at varying ranges with varying skills and equipment. I mean the number of modifiers that need to be looked at alone is a bog for time and draws from game play (from what I can see).

So what I'd like to know is what if any work arounds and or house rules has anyone come up with. A few thoughts I had was simply moving to a percentile system and using MoF/MoS, or moving to the 2.2 skill resolution and doing the same deal with MoF/MoS.

Thoughts?

I guess it really depends on what you think is broken, though you do mention some of the things above. For me 3.0 would work for a computer game but was an overkill for rules. I like 2.2. I use a couple of house rules, but not many. A few tweaks to autofire, vehicle damage (expanded a bit from 3.0), wear on weapons (basically like vehicle wear and mostly to prevent PCs picking up enemy weapons and to get around the barter value of these), a few little weapon stat changes, but otherwise nothing major.

I like the 2.2 rules because it's d20. I own dozens of d20s and it makes combat very fast and fun if say someone fires 4 bullets, roll 4d20, and you quickly see what hits and roll for hit location straight away. It is so very streamlined relative to d100 that I would never go back to this (e.g. v1). Unlike 3.0 there is also no high or low keep to slow things down. I also like that there is really very little modifiers to the game - and if you look carefully - essential it's difficulty mod based on situation and +- bonuses due to equipment, and all fractions rounded down (except one in character gen). - so it's very easy to remember.

That said I wish there was 4 things I could include:
1) to hit change based on both weapon range and range of engagement, like in 3.0, but I haven't worked out an easy way to implement this and maybe it doesn't really add anything. It would make scope implementation a bit more fulfilling though.

2) more degrees of success, MoF/MoS. Perhaps you could change the MoS to be in line with the difficulty steps = within 1/2 of target number = good success, within 1/4 outstanding, something like that rather than pass by 10 = outstanding. It would take a bit more thinking but at least in combat you would have most of the calcs already done on your character sheet skill for the difficulty steps.

3) better melee combat, but it's good enough given the frequency.

4) slightly improved initiative. I've tweaked this slightly also but I don't want anything that slows combat down.

Happy to hear your thoughts.

For me personally I like to have a realistic rules set to go along with T2K's realistic setting. I feel that "rools lite" systems that sacrifice realism (and complexity) in the name of streamlining play work best for game genres with a more "cinematic" or "fantastic" feel. Generally speaking, the people in my regular playing group feel the same way.

I feel that the way the 2013 rules can be scaled up or down in complexity covers many bases. I'd be surprised if anyone felt that the Stage 1 2013 combat rules were too complex and stifled smooth game play because of it. The Stage 1 2013 rules are pretty bloody straight forward.

Ever since I played Runequest during the 1980s I've had a preference for d100 based systems. D20, D10 and D6 systems always seem so dumbed-down to me. If I wanted to streamline things to that extent I'd probably go for one of the Palladium games. The Recon rules would work passably well for a T2K campaign. Still a bit rules lite for my tastes though.

I'm with Targan on the complexity of Phase I -rules as well as the want for realism. Being a micromanager-RPGer, I have the tendency of being absolutely anal about things like gear and such - it has to be portrayed accurately. I also want accuracy both in how things are done and what they result - I used to play in a campaign "Charlie Don't Surf" in the Finnish RopeCon for years, where the combat was modelled with Phoenix Command (the DM had a software programmed that was used instead of all the tables in the books) and you could really talk about accuracy, since a hit to the abdomen gave you a pretty good image what happened: "So, a hit to the abdomen - penetrates through the muscles, spleen, pancreas, bowel, glances off the vertebrae, scratches the left kidney and exits through the back".

Reflex System is a decently realistic system that really makes one shot, one kill possible. It streamlines some things like the non-essential skills that would not probably get used too much in a broken world, but they can be protrayed through the stats and degrees, so it's not such a big deal.

I can only tip my hat at Tegyrius and the others, who were behind the damage/ballistics system in the game and hope, some day the formulas for weapon designing for the game would come in to public use. Until that, I'll have to create my own versions of weapons I want by comparing their stats to such weapons that have rules provided.

Yes, the history part leaves some people rather cold towards the game, but from what I understood, the history was left a bit vague because it allows the players (and especially gamemasters/narrators/mission directors/what'ca-call-'ems) more opportunities for coming up with new potential campaigns.