Phoenix Command
Encyclopedia
Phoenix Command was a role-playing game system
Role-playing game system
A role-playing game system is a set of game mechanics used in a role-playing game to determine the outcome of a character's in-game actions...

 published by Leading Edge Games, and copyrighted by Barry Nakazono and David McKenzie. Various versions of the system featured in the games Morning Star Missions, Living Steel
Living Steel
Living Steel was a high-tech role-playing game published by Leading Edge Games and based on their Phoenix Command game system. The rules were presented first as a box set in 1987 and then republished in a single hardbound book in 1988, but they are now long out of print and their publisher...

, and Aliens Adventure Game.

Phoenix Command had extremely detailed rules in an attempt to realistically simulate combat. The game utilized lookup table
Lookup table
In computer science, a lookup table is a data structure, usually an array or associative array, often used to replace a runtime computation with a simpler array indexing operation. The savings in terms of processing time can be significant, since retrieving a value from memory is often faster than...

s which resolve injuries to specific digits, organs, and bones, and simulates the physics of different attacks, such as bullets with different velocities. A simplified rules system was used for most of the movie tie-ins as well as Living Steel.

The manuals have a lot of quotes and extra information in the margins, many of which are darkly humorous. The original game contained a 56 page spiral bound rule book, 32 page modern military weapon data supplement, reference tables, blank character sheets and one ten sided die.

Additional supplements included the Hand to Hand Combat System (1988), World War 2 Weapon Data Supplement (1988), Wild West Weapon Data Supplement (1989), Civilian Weapon Data Supplement (1987), Living Steel Power Armour Sourcebook (1991), Advanced Damage Tables (1987) and High Tech Weapon Data Supplement (1987) amongst others.

Design philosophy

In the designers' own words, Phoenix Command is "...designed to be truly realistic; not complex, or deadly, but simply a representation of what really happens to people." The goal of realism made the rules very complex for a role playing game, to the point where Phoenix Command is regularly held up as an example of the extreme end of RPG complexity.
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