Looking back at the posts around Legbreaker's linked post, it seems that the realism v established system argument has been simmering for more than a year. I missed out on all this during the school year.
Law and others raise a very good point: Twilight: 2000 is so Army-centric that the sister services are practically an afterthought, with the exception of the Marines in general and the RDF Sourcebook in particular. I don't know whether the designers are all Army vets with Vietnam service as was supposed last Fall, but that seems a reasonable hypothesis. Being a Army-centric kind of guy even in 1985 when I discovered Twilight: 2000 (I was 15), I never gave the Army orientation of Twilight: 2000 more than a passing thought. Sure, I sometimes wondered what had become of the USAF and the USN; but I quickly turned my attention back to matters closer to my heart. My service years did surprisingly little to change my basic prejudice.
Equally, Twilight: 2000 is a game, after all. Realism is an important component, but playability is a factor that can't be ignored. Howling Wilderness was brought out specifically to provide players with the kind of ongoing chaos that some players and GMs prefer.
Okay, my better half can't seem to get through the evening without my undivided attention, so I will cut my observations short.
Webstral
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