Lists, Lists and more Lists - Part 2

An equipment table with unique items highlighted

Following on from the previous post, I quite often skim equipment lists very quickly. The picture here shows why. It shows a table of firearms for Fading Suns (but this isn't about that game, this is just an exemplar I had to hand, plenty of others do this). Within the table, I have highlighted the items where the game mechanic related statistics vary. 

Across ninety-one data points (13x7) there are six numbers which are ever so slightly different. four of those relate ammo capacity and only one of those is a really significant change.

Yes, there are differences in the provenance (faction) of the weapons, and their names, and some slight variations in costs, but they really don't make much difference. There's a lot of effort here for very little benefit. I do wonder it it would have been better done with a base weapon and some tags for extra features that adjust cost, and some modifiers for price and quality based on faction.

I do know that there can be some pleasure in looking at weapons when the statistics make meaningful differences, but here they don't really. When they're all so close mechanically there's very little point in have a table to differentiate, especially if there's no flavour text that may call out the difference.

Then again, I'm not really a gun bunny any more, my days of getting excited over getting hold of a M41A Pulse Rifle in game have long gone. Except in the Alien RPG...

Hat tip to Dr Mitch for triggering these thoughts in his response to the original post on Facebook.

10 November 2024