I think one of the reasons that Eureka needs to have crunchy (but fast, I can’t stress enough these are over fast) combat rules is because it is such a grounded, “realistic” setting. All of the successes of the PCs are real and not just because they’re PCs or because the GM forced their success.
At the same time, since this is so unusual for TTRPG play, even in TTRPGs where the rules-as-written don’t support plot armor, it’s kind of hard to explain to people. It’s almost like gleeblor trying to talk about something amazing a PC pulled off because of their skills and cleverness and have people NOT roll their eyes and say “whatever, the GM just let it happen.”
When Yvette Preux, armed with two pistols, waited quietly behind the door at the top of he stairs for the eight armed gangsters to come up and then surprised them by shooting six shots through the door, sidestepped so they wouldn’t know where she was when they started shooting back blindly, then fired six more shots, ultimately killing or incapacitating all of them, every step of that was mediated by the rules, and every single one of those gangsters could’ve put her down in a single Action if she had let them. The GM is following the rules, which say what the NPCs can and can’t do just like the PCs. To me that’s what’s special about TTRPGs(if played by the rules) as opposed to freeform RP or writing a novel. A smart plan succeeds because it is actually a smart plan, not because it’s a dumb plan and the author just wants it to succeed. A good author can tell a story where a smart plan succeeds because it’s a smart plan, but a TTRPG goes step by step and has the math to prove it.
This post went way beyond the original point I was trying to make but whatever. Buy Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. It’s good.
