[font=Trebuchet MS]Intro
Hello-hello. I'm Nick. I've been working on a system for several years now, mostly all on my own. My system, called the Options System for now, focuses on realism. I call it the "Options" system because once I have the variables and values all laid out for realistic terms, it should only take tweaking of said variables to shift to a cinematic or anime feel or whatever.
    Realism is certainly hard to convert into dice and numbers, particularly if you want to keep a calculator out of the deal, so once I translate the reality part, I break it down into simpler concepts. I'm very persistent and refuse to stop analyzing a particular subject until I feel I have it represented correctly. As such, my paths may become very detailed and complex, and many people have told me I overanalyze things. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, but I appreciate it for the quality end-result, particularly when it's sufficiently simple.
    I'm also a computer programmer, about to finish my associate's and move to my bachelor's. I'll earn a bachelor's in both software engineering and game programming. I relate a lot of my system to object-oriented programming concepts, which I feel are a solid basis for a lot of thinking anyway.
    So! I've already developed much of the system, but I'm struggling, and I understand the value of other like minds, of support, of feedback. Also, writing everything out and presenting it for consideration helps me to think things through and critically, objectively analyze. The realm of my mind is not the clearest, no matter how well I feel I analyze things. You know how it is...things make a lot more sense once you get them out of your mouth or down on paper...or down on the keyboard, as I guess it stands. ;) So, yeah. Much of my writing is like thinking aloud.
    Anyway, to provide the whole of my system in this one post would be...crazy, at best. Does this site have any wikis welded to it for people to lay our their systems with, or are there some that people commonly use around here?

Wounding System
At the moment, I'm working on my wounding system. Because bodies have different depths to reach vital organs, I'm attempting to make a subsystem to represent it. After all, a 2" blade may puncture a thin-framed, slight-muscled person's organs, but it isn't likely to do so with a large-framed, heavily-muscled person. I want my system to be applicable to any sort of setting...it should work as well with humans as it does with rocs or giant ants or..whatever.
    I may not even use such a system, but until I flesh it all out, or at least begin to, I won't know what I think for sure.
    The premise of needing to understand the depth of wounds is that once an attack breaches any sort of defense, it's important to see if it's even possible to connect with bones, major arteries, vital organs and whatnot. A short sword may work wonders on a human, for instance, but it isn't likely to do much but rip up muscle in something of the more-ginormous variety.
    Anyway, I break my analysis down into different attack types: thrusting, slashing, and swinging.

Swinging
Swinging has a fundamental mechanism, I feel, but different weapons implement it in different ways. Bludgeoning weapons..bludgeon (synonyms, anyone, please?), and bladed weapons chop.

Bludgeoning
With bludgeoning weapons, it's more of a matter of compressing materials, transferring momentum and so on. Once the arc of the swing deviates enough from perpendicular, the compression is no longer reasonably-linear.
    Imagine taking a war hammer to the gut...there isn't much for bone in the abdomen, but if you squash the intestines enough, bad things will happen. Well, for the instant it hits perpendicular, the weapon compresses the organs against the spine (spine bending and body displacement aside). As the swing continues, the organs continue to compress...I feel that once this line of compression deviates more than 30°, the compression is no longer as effective; hence, the depth of the attack can only be to the point where the arc reaches 30° deviation from a perpendicular connection point with the target.
    Does 30° seem appropriate? Maybe a larger angle? Apart from smashing someone's guts in, would the concept apply equally well to taking a sledge to a slab of stone?

Chopping
On the other hand, bladed weapons, when swung with the purpose of chopping (as opposed to slashing), do plenty of damage regardless of the deviation of the original hit. The attack depth is again limited, however; in the best case, the furthest in a weapon can go is the length of its blade, unless the force of the crossguard or shaft or handle or whatever is enough to forcibly separate any material that stands in its way.
    Torque (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/torq2.html#tc) shows how drastically force suffers the closer to the axis of rotation the point in question draws, not to mention the relative lack of sharpness between an axe head and the shaft that supports it, amongst other examples. Perhaps there are some examples in which my approximation is wrong? Any ideas?

Do things seem reasonable so far? Any thoughts, critiques?[/font]

Well, what you've got there seems to be good, although the task of trying to come up with a realistic system that can be easily adjusted to a cinematic/anime feel as well as cope with fantasy creatures sounds hard, especially on things with different anatomy or in genres where knowing the exact depth of a sword swing doesn't matter. However, it is nice to know such things occasionally, and in the right setting such details can add a lot to the game. I hope your system succeeds, I think that there needs to be more good realistic systems aside from the ones that are just endless charts and lists.

Anyways, what you've got there seems to be fine (I'm not an expert on physics or anything like that, so I won't comment on the angle of entry stuff).

One thing I'm thinking though: hope does your system cope with the huge slow down normally associated with systems trying to be realistic? Obviously, I don't know anything about your system specifically, but I think that this is a very important issue, especially during combat when people aren't going to want to be slowed down a lot just figuring out where exactly a hit went (although quickness isn't the only issue of course, especially if fights are short).

Nick,
  I think on a physics-scale, most weapons are a wash as far as energy transfer goes, no? I mean smaller lighter weapons can reach much higher velocities and larger heavier weapons reach must lower velocities, but have more weight behind the swing. So that in general, the same person will deliver about the same energy with different weapons limited by the weight/speed of the weapon.
  And, in your angle of attack calculation, I think you are forgetting surface area... If I hit your abdomen with a large flat surfaced hammer head on, sure, I will have the energy transferred in a very linear fashion to the impact site. But, if I swing at an angle, I may have aslightly smaller energy transfer from a purely linear perspective, but the surface area that that energy is transferred across is also reduced providing for an equal (if not greater) foot pound per square inch of energy.
  And back to the angle of attack, if your angle of attack is upwards, then you are compressing the intestines into more vital organs on the way to the spine, potentially even life threatening organs like the liver, etc. And if its downward, you can catch the colon, bladder, etc. So, I am not sure if angle of attack would, in fact, reduce the damage produced, do you?

  I just don't know. You say you want to simplify these physics concepts, but I don't see how you can do it in a pen and paper game and still end up with a playable game. I have faith that you can do it, but I don't know what THAT game would look like or if I would want to play it. Good luck man!

I have a similar mind set to Nick, in terms of the realism I would like to see, and yet wanting it to still be playable. I've found that reading BTRC's Guns Guns Guns was helpful in understanding the physics of these things.

In the end you get things like GURPS having certain weapons do double damage after 1-2 points in a given location (same as BTRC's old Timelords/Spacetime/Warpworld model), or the Special Impale result in old Runequest. You want something to measure impact or generic damage done, and then a way to translate that into lethality and trauma depending on what delivered the damage, and where on a body.

The question is do you really want to end up with a game where a flight of arrows really can take out a chartacter because it got right through a crack in their armor (Good enough for Richard III) or fell due to shock from an otherwise non-life threatening injury? It's gritty, and if you want more cinematic then you have to find another place to put the currency the characters have to survive the travails of the dangerous world, other than hit points, or "no one gets an infection".

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whiteknife wrote:
...the task of trying to come up with a realistic system that can be easily adjusted to a cinematic/anime feel as well as cope with fantasy creatures sounds hard...

whiteknife wrote:
I hope your system succeeds, I think that there needs to be more good realistic systems aside from the ones that are just endless charts and lists.

whiteknife wrote:
One thing I'm thinking though: hope does your system cope with the huge slow down normally associated with systems trying to be realistic?

dindenver wrote:
...most weapons are a wash as far as energy transfer goes, no?

dindenver wrote:
I think you are forgetting surface area...

dindenver wrote:
...I am not sure if angle of attack would, in fact, reduce the damage produced, do you?

dindenver wrote:
I just don't know. You say you want to simplify these physics concepts, but I don't see how you can do it in a pen and paper game and still end up with a playable game.

dindenver wrote:
I have faith that you can do it, but I don't know what THAT game would look like or if I would want to play it. Good luck man!

chance.thirteen wrote:
I have a similar mind set to Nick, in terms of the realism I would like to see, and yet wanting it to still be playable. I've found that reading BTRC's Guns Guns Guns was helpful in understanding the physics of these things.

chance.thirteen wrote:
...do you really want to end up with a game where a flight of arrows really can take out a chartacter because it got right through a crack in their armor[?]

chance.thirteen wrote:
It's gritty, and if you want more cinematic then you have to find another place to put the currency the characters have to survive the travails of the dangerous world, other than hit points, or "no one gets an infection".