Well, so we can probably do a whole hour of laughy laughs on the … wait, Vietnam War? Is that right? Okay then. Recon is from 1982, and it is about playing soldiers murdering each other in a jungle. Have fun with it!
System Mastery
Jef and Jon review roleplaying games, Star Wars novels and anything else that crosses their paths.
System Mastery 
The bear thing is not so much an OSR issue, as a GNS divide. Simulationists very much want the game rules to model causal processes, so any action (picking a lock) that assumes an outside factor in its resolution (a bear being nearby) is uncomfortable.
You can see the semi-historical roots of the conflict when you read the Fate section of Synnibarr 2E. The player has the right to challenge Fate if they think they’re just making stuff up, and if Fate can’t prove that the bear was in their notes all along, then the entire adventure is rendered invalid. I guess Raven McCracken really hated it when DMs did that sort of thing.
I’m not sure if Jeff and John read these comments or not but this podcast is timely since I recently dusted off my Revised Recon books and want to run a mission.
I get the issues with racism and some of the mechanics but I’m wondering if is there a game with modern weapons with a similar mechanic that is playable? D20 Modern has ‘hit points’ based on level but that isn’t realistic to me.
My thoughts to correct some of the skills and hit point issues in this game are to roll 1d100 for each stat and give the player 50 points to distribute how they wish between the three to simulate training and being better than the average soldier. HP to be 1.5x STR instead of 1 x STR to make the players more survivable. I’ve modded the skills as well to have fewer limitations on what skills are restricted.
Anyway, back to the original question, is there a game with a quasi-realistic modern weapon mechanic to use in a military setting? I don’t want to get overly bogged down with too much realism (ala Phoenix Command) as I want it to be playable.
Thanks!
I am from the far future. Have you tried Twilight 2000 for a more modern setting?
PATROL is a better version of Recon.
PATROL is actually a more psychological version of Recon that has fixed a lot of the issues and lacks racism, period.
It has a lot of great material on the war and what was going on, and you can basically play as anyone remotely involved.
Just in case anyone wanted to play Recon but better.