How much equipment detail do YOU want in an RPG?

[slade the sniper]

This relates primarily to wargames and equipment in role playing games. Do you (as a player or a GM) prefer to have a lot of detail even if it is just flavor text, generalized descriptions or just the relevant mechanical modifiers?

Lots of detail to me is the amount given in Palladium RPG’s focused on mecha where it talks about ejection seats, loudspeakers, specific ECM systems and other bits and pieces like that.

Generalized descriptions is more the BattleTech route or most Sci-Fi games where it gives descriptions of things like plasma cannons, photon torpedoes or different types of shields. This also seems to the be general default for tactical wargames where the differences between SMGs and LMGs are relevant.

Relevant modifiers is something akin to Mutants and Masterminds or Champions where things have effects in game and those effects are all that matter, you can fluff them as desired.

This will be helpful to me to determine how much info audiences might expect/desire.

Thanks for your time and your answers.

-STS

[Ken]

I'm a relevant modifiers kind of player. If a character has a smartphone, or a fork, or a Justice League signal device, or any other equipment that the players understand that doesn't affect how characters can affect one another, then there's no reason to try to build it game mechanically.

[Davies]

... of course, then one of your PCs uses their smartphone to upload a virus to the very large but rather primitive computer that's running the AI of a planet's dictator.

[Ken]

... of course, then one of your PCs uses their smartphone to upload a virus to the very large but rather primitive computer that's running the AI of a planet's dictator.

1) I don't need the headache of trying to detail a computer virus in game mechanics
2) That's at least two different technology rolls the player will have to make
3) Will the operating system of the very large primitive computer even be compatible with the operating system of the phone? (Answer: logically, probably not; however, with a Hero Point and an Edit Scene, miraculously yes.)
4) Computer Virus protection is done programmatically, not mechanically. Since the AI is clearly more program then mechanical, it would still have massive virus protection. Probably resolved with Opposed check between the virus making PC's Technology and the AI's Technology.

So, plenty of chance for success or failure, fair amount of die rolling, plenty of drama, none of which requires a detailed write-up of a smart phone.

[Jack of Spades]

It depends on the kind of game I'm running. For a superhero game, minimal – unless it's a character's battlesuit or something, in which case, the more the better. But if it's a colonization survival game, then I want to know all I can, because the fact that the flashlight has a lanyard attached might become absolutely crucial when trying to improvise a tourniquet.

[MacynSnow]

I'm a "middle of the road" type-guy. Not a lot of details, but enough to give you a good PC picture.