[Mozenwrathe]

Have you all forgotten your history lessons?
(id est: did you stop watching television or reading books?)

If you did not, then why did the makers of roleplaying games? Simply put, the answer many have already stated: making the weapons more realistic would make them also more powerful to yourself (not a bad thing) and your foes (always a bad thing when they outnumber you twenty to three). The problem with giving all weapons "logical properties" such as stun, ability drain (for a well-placed bo staff to the groin), and vorpal is that the foes in AD&D (and most other roleplaying games) usually know how to use the weapons better than the PCs. Meaning quite simply making it "off the ground" would go from difficult to nearly impossibe without even trying.

On top of that, implimenting such "logical properties" inside of a gaming engine always brings up various issues, especially when the company wants to take an easier route out and duplicate said properties using effects (in this case, normally spells) which are already programmed in. Trying to put more realism into a game always has its down sides, and that would be a major one.

For example, let's say I have a character who is good with nunchaku. Such a weapon in a regular game just does blunt - or crushing - damage. Now, I technically should be able to do the following with just the one weapon:

- use it as a garotte in a stealth fashion (with the chain)
- use it as normal
- use it to parry various flying objects and smaller held weapons
- use it as a club by holding both ends together
- disarm my foes
- stun my foes with blows to chest or cranium
- cripple my foes with well placed joint attacks

If the gaming company had to sit down and do the physics and ratings for all those attacks (let alone do up the graphics for all that), they would never get around to doing up any other weapons. It would just take too much time. And that is just one chain weapon out of the infinite variations on chain weapons.

As for the saving properties themselves, if one is coding in such, most people will try to go for the "nearest and closest way out" when it comes to putting in such effects. For stun, it effects the mind so they put it down as a will save. Problem is, if it is a shot to the chest it SHOULD be a will save OR a fortitude save. So which one ought be used? It gets better when it comes to the average longsword: save vs crippling, save vs death, save vs wounding, morale saves (if you see someone get decapacitated in the middle of a fight), save vs maiming (which could easily then have a save vs death right after it), et cetera. All those saves technically could be in the same round if Person A slashes Person B across the face deeply. What would that do?

- potential blinding
- potential immediate death if cut is deep enough
- potential STUN (from shock factor)
- potential morale lowering (self and others)
- potential collapse from pain and anguish and shock
- potential severe loss of blood (got to love that Wounding property)
- potential loss of physical attributes due to all the above

So in short, the easy answer to why some save factors are as they are is due to the fact that suspension of disbelief is easier for game companies to deal with than realism. Why? There is less work involved if you forget the realism.