Ludo-Accurate Guns, Continued

The other side.

In reality, guns have a lot of different factors that change how they behave. I can name a dozen popular rifle calibers off the top of my head, and nearly that many pistol calibers. Each different caliber and make of gun (and often every different model) uses different magazines. I can go on about the differences between pump-action rifles and lever-action rifles. The use case for a revolver over a semi-automatic pistol, how a suppressor can change your guns performance beyond sound and more. And I probably will in later posts.

And it's this detail that people researching guns for their game get hung up on. the debate over revolvers and automatic pistols have been going on forever. As has the debate about the comparative effectiveness of various popular calibers and gun designs. In the real world someone looking to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a gun needs to be able to weigh what works better for them. The differences in magazine capacity, the size of the grip in their hand, the subtle differences in recoil impulse and which controls are on the gun in which areas.

But for most games none of that matters. The difference between 9mm Luger and .40 S&W is academic in a game sense. It isn't going to change a character's tactics, choices or how people react. In the real world, there is some barely quantifiable arguments in favor of both of them. When abstracted to a game, the differences of dice rolls are an order of magnitude larger then and advantage one may have over another. And in the majority of cases, it's just not fun. So why bog your game down with that nonsense? The player who says "and my character has a revolver on her bedside for protection" and the player who says "My character carries a stainless Smith and Wesson 642 4" revolver with Miculek trigger job, XS "Big Dot" sights and Buffalo Bore Magnum plus ammo" are saying the same thing. Roll the dice and play the game.

To that end, I recommend to any game designer and game runner that you think about any detailed rule, especially firearms. Really think hard about "Is this going to make the game more fun?". In some cases, Wikipunk being one of them, there might be value to a more detailed firearms customization system. but in most cases, the basics are more then enough to have the inevitable shootouts be fair enough. You can flavor text the guns any way you need. But the basic rules will keep your game easy to adjudicate and fast moving.

Ludo-Accurate Guns, the Basics

As a firearms enthusiast and a role-playing game fan, I have always tried to bring the two together in a reasonable way. Besides simple errors of fact, the main problem I see is one of getting too detailed in the differences of the forearms world.  Firearms publications and fans love to argue over tiny differences between calibers, guns and other weapon details. Game creators see this in their research and empathize it in all the wrong ways. I’m going to try and clear up the confusion for game designers, game runners and players. I’m also going to try and outline various detail levels for guns in case a designer or game runner wants it integrate more detail into their game without it being a mire of opinion and statistically insignificant differences. Today I’ll be posting the most basic generic information, what I consider the bare minimum of detail.

Firearms in general:

The first question you have to ask yourself is what other rules with these guns interface with. In most games a firearm will have three defining statistics to interface with the combat rules; range, damage, accuracy. Range is how far away can someone hit a target and still cause damage. Damage is how much hitting the target will break it. Accuracy is simply the chance to hit. Range and accuracy can be related, many systems have a “step” system that increases the difficulty to hit as range increases.

There are also other non-combat rules that may interact with guns. Intimidation or reputation may be changed by obviously armed characters. Characters may wish to conceal firearms to prevent their detection by other characters. Guns may cause characters to interact with the games legal system in a different way. Firearms and ammunition certainly encumber a character and they will definitely have some sort of economic value. These differences and their impact on your game will depend on your campaign and ruleset.

Damage and Range should be decided by the ammunition. A 9mm pistol round is going to do about as much damage from a pistol as an submachinegun as a rifle. From any of these platforms it’s external ballistics are going to be nearly the same. If you want to have a slight difference for pistol calibers from a long barrel or rifle calibers from a short barrel, that would be reasonable, but the difference should be a modifier on the firearm and it should be no less then a +/-1 to a maximum of adding or subtracting a die from the damage. Personally I would just make the change in Accuracy, which is already a feature of the gun, not the ammo.

Accuracy and Concealability are features of the gun, not the ammunition. Accuracy ties into range of course, but it should only make it easier (or harder) to hit at any particular range, not extend the range or range steps. Concealability will be a stat with lots of difference between guns. Guns with longer barrels shooting pistol ammo may get an accuracy bonus, guns shooting rifle rounds out of shorter barrels may have a damage penalty. You could also apply a damage bonus for pistol rounds out of a longer barrel and an accuracy penalty for rifle rounds from a shorter barrel.

Intimidation and reputation are a rules adjustment I leave entirely to your interpretation of the rules set and scenario you are playing. Legality and price are going to affect both guns and ammunition, as well as accessories. These two factors are going to be connected, as settings where guns are illegal or highly restricted will mean that prices will be higher and availability will be reduced. The availability of firearms will also inform your NPCs and their reactions.

Encumbrance may be the most straightforward part of rules regarding firearms. Larger guns will encumber like 2 handed swords or heavy axes and mauls, pistols will encumber like daggers or small clubs and submachineguns encumber like short swords. Ammunition magazines encumber like daggers for rifles or pocket knives for pistols.

The Basics:

At the most basic, modern ammunition and firearms break into 3 classes. Pistol, Rifle and Shotgun. These classes are divided primarily by the ammunition. Pistol ammunition is smaller, does less damage and has less range. Its advantage is that the guns are more concealable and less encumbering than rifles or shotguns. Rifle ammunition is larger, does more damage and has the longest range. The disadvantage is that guns that use it to it’s full potential are larger, less concealable, and encumber a character more. Shotgun ammunition is like a hybrid, it has range like a pistol, damage like a rifle and the guns are generally the same size as a rifle. Shotgun ammunition also has either the more realistic slightly increased hit probability or the more fantastic ability to hit adjacent targets. Either way there is more variety available in “special” types of ammunition for shotguns then any other type of weapon.

The three ammo types all can have firearms of any size designed around them. Larger firearms built around small (pistol) ammo will tend to be a little less encumbering and/or concealable  then they are when build around Rifle and Shotgun ammunition. Conversely, Pistols built around Rifle or Shotgun ammo will tend to be large and less concealable. Pistols generally have barrels of 6” or less (~150mm) submachineguns/carbines typically have barrels between 6 and 12” (~152-300mm) Rifles and shotguns generally have barrels between 12-24” long  (300mm-600mm). The overall lengths tend to be less than 8” for pistols, 8-24” for SMGs and carbines and 24-40” for rifles and shotguns. Guns tend to weigh 1-3 pounds for pistols, 4-6 lbs for SMGs and carbines and 6-12 for rifles and shotguns.

Modern Guns:

Modern firearms may be single shot, requiring a reload action after every shot; revolvers or fixed magazine guns, requiring a reload every 5 or 6 shots; or magazine fed, having a faster reload than either other type and holding between 5 and 30 shots. They may accept accessories such as flashlights, laser sights, scopes, bipods, suppressors (commonly called silencers),  grips or even grenade launchers. Earlier cartridge firing guns from the Civil War through the WWII eras may not have as many accessories available, but are generally the same guns with different ammo.
Some firearms may fire automatically as long as the trigger is held down. These are typically illegal or restricted to the police and military, and deserve a special rule regarding “Burst” or fully automatic fire. Generally a short burst on a target should double damage on a successful hit and a long burst shout triple it. Short bursts lose any accuracy bonuses supplied by the gun or accessories, long bursts should have a minor penalty to hit. Spraying fully automatic fire at multiple targets should have a single roll that the targets all try to oppose for purposes of dodging or armor, at a negative modifier similar to the long burst above. A hit from a spray is calculated normally, as if it was a single lucky shot.

Primitive Guns:

Black powder muzzleloaders come in three varieties. Single barrel, where the shooter has a single shot before reloading, multibarrel, where the character has 2-5 shots before reloading and revolving, where the character has 5-6 shots before reloading. Reloading a black powder shot takes 30 seconds to a minute with no other actions, including dodging or parrying possible.
Black powder rifles and shotguns have ranges similar to modern pistols, black powder pistols generally have half as much range. Black powder shotguns generally do as much damage as modern shotguns, but black powder rifles do as much damage as modern pistols and black powder pistols do half of that. Black powder guns tend to be on the longer side of the size ranges, and often right in the middle of the weight ranges.

Steampunk Preview

The intro to the SteamPUNK setting:

"Imagine the problems of the disruptive Industrial Age combined with the problems of the disruptive Information Age. Now couple that with exploration/expansion into the American West, South America, Africa, India and Asia. With a dash of poverty, anarchy and crime to taste. Too much steampunk is about being Lords and Ladies. The "punk" is in there for a reason, we're talking urchins, the underclass, the dispossessed and disenfranchised. My vision of the Steampunk setting is one of scoundrels and urchins fighting for their freedom and right to live against the robber barons and nascent corporations."

Like many of my efforts I need better naming. Something much less Generic. I'd really like to get the opinion of Dickens Fair-types who are not straight white guys because I think the best hope this setting has is in fun, ludo-accurate* portrayals of minorities and oppression. This is VERY tricky ground to cover, especially when it is recent (within living memory) and part of the current oppression today. But if X-men can do it with the civil rights and gay rights struggles, then maybe this game has a chance.

*Ludo-accurate: Close enough for games. That is, not so accurate it isn't fun anymore, not so inaccurate as to be parody or hurtful.

Further updates

Messed around with the system, trying to learn how this thing works. I don't like the way it obfuscates what the page title is going to be. I'm going to need a better tool set sooner then later it seems. Google Sites gives me more web page flexibility, but you'd have to be part of dragonbait1.net, which is like 5$/person/month. I'm looking into ways to subvert this.

I added some pages with notes on Wikipunk. I intend to get most of the first draft out to the pages soon. For those of you on the shares group, If you could make comments there it's be helpful. Questions on the game are always useful. I realized today that Wikipunk needs some archetypes and lots of vignettes describing the world and more flavor text in general.

I tried to post about the Steampunk concept and a game I had written for simplicity. I find that all of my writings are notes with big missing chunks unready for even this kind of publication. And that my "simple" game is 16 pages long in an XML format. Clearly I need to rethink "simple."

The biggest problem with the blog is it amplifies my one-way communication issue the Facebook groups have. I post, but there isn't much in the way of interactivity for readers.

First Post

There has to be a first post. This is it.

Our mission statement is to have a place for RPG information, gun stuff and other public discussion. there may be other topics covered, technical and possibly political. Obviously reblogging interesting things will happen too.

RGB