Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas
Similarly, many of the less historical ideas about TL seem to be "gamer memes" more than things which appear in published rules. You and your colleagues who write GURPS books about preindustrial technology seem to word things carefully and do the best you can with the system you have to work with ... its just that that system is not the best for describing the differences between societies or the way technology changes over time. It is much more of a system than most games provide, and that is something!
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If I had the ability to do a TL system de novo, I would have Paleolithic and Neolithic as two different TLs, and merge classical and medieval.
But in a great degree, the GURPS system is designed to emulate the progress of military endeavor. TL0 is tribal warbands; TL1 is chariots; TL2 is heavy infantry and elastic catapults; TL3 is heavy cavalry, counterweight artillery, and castles; TL4 is firearms, field artillery, and star forts. . . . All this is focused on what a battle is like, and also is mostly Eurocentric. And that's not an unreasonable choice in terms of the kinds of games players mostly want; it's just not primarily meant as a tool for simulation.