I've found this every time a player or GM knew a lot about a game-relevant subject where the rules author clearly knew a lot less. The game in college where the players included four archers and three physicists (there was overlap, too) acquired an archery rule system that was bigger than the rest of the game :)
That's the trouble, when you know about something, and you care about it, and the rules force it to go Horribly Wrong and obviously unrealistic, you get problems. Suspension of disbelief goes out of the window.
Trying to think of a parallel where we *do* all (mostly) know about it...
Suppose you were in a game that involved a lot of car-chases. And the rules allowed for two types of car: "Big" and "small". Side-impact resulted in bounces but no damage or loss of control, and a favoured weapon was spikes shooting out of the side of the tyres - not the wheels, the tyres.
Of course, if no-one present knows anything about how things "really" work, then no problem. Everyone present has the same level of suspension of disbelief. But this is why I thinkg simulationist RPGs just don't work. Even if you manage to satisfy the person who knows the subject, you've just bored the person who knows nothing and cares nothing rigid. (I'm the sort who would prefer a system like that above for guns. There are two sorts: Big and Small. They go bang and kill people. End of knowledge and interest.)
> HQ, ... I ... think this would work to accommodate her for exactly those
> reasons (she'd be able to
> put in whatever narrative colour she wanted without horrible
> mechanical consequences.)
Yes. At least, it works for me. Me and my Humakti PC can abstract the rules down to "OK, CC plus standard augments less their multiple attacker modifier", and then (remembering I do PBeM not tabletop) I can spend an hour or so lovingly describing exactly how she takes those three spearmen apart, with a bit of help from Gray's Anatomy, and possibly taking a sword out to the garden and attacking some bean-poles to check that what I'm trying to do is accurate. And, of course, supplying the Narrator with alternative versions in case I fail to roll a 1. "Fumbles" can be a *lot* more fun than dropping your sword :)
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