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Author Topic: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs  (Read 16708 times)

Ghostmaker

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #75 on: May 20, 2021, 07:59:05 AM »
There's now come out an interview with Prinsloo, which is pretty interesting. It reinforces what I said, that skills (in this case, offensive driving), experience (not panicking, being used to the adrenaline surge) and equipment (his vehicle, and the attackers' scrambler obscuring comms) are more important than things like firearms calibre.

I also found interesting:

Quote
The driver of the car jumped out and ran, which is when I jumped out with my rifle. I made the decision that he wasn’t a shootable target in that public place. He ran across the street and got away, to my great frustration. [...]

The majority of the industry sends their guys into a war zone with the very bare minimum of training; all they want to do is tick boxes on a form. On top of that, they are getting investigated and sometimes fired after they use their weapons. So before they pull their gun for protection, they are wondering if they will lose their job. That kind of hesitation can be the difference between life or death.

Which is to say that for the professional, the decision whether to fire is even more important than how good a shot they are, or their kind of weapon, etc. And that, of course, is part of roleplaying.

Roleplaying games should offer choices, and occasionally the choices should be difficult ones with no "right" answer. For example on the weekend we played a session of Conflict and the party became aware of insurgents planning a truck bomb in the market the next day - but if they stopped it, they might reveal they'd broken the insurgents' code, which would make them change their system, and they'd miss insurgent comms later. Stop it and hurt your ability to stop things in future, or let it happen and dozens of people die? There's no wrong or right answer.
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Kyle Aaron

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #76 on: June 06, 2021, 06:07:26 AM »
"There is no incremental gain you get moving up to a higher calibre that is going to overshadow your ability to shoot a smaller calibre better."

« Last Edit: June 06, 2021, 06:09:02 AM by Kyle Aaron »
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oggsmash

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #77 on: June 06, 2021, 06:36:51 AM »
"There is no incremental gain you get moving up to a higher calibre that is going to overshadow your ability to shoot a smaller calibre better."



   This is true, but a real expert is as accurate with a .44 mag with hot loads in it as a target shooter is with wadcutter .38 or even lighter calibers.  I would say I have seen plenty of people shoot the wrong handgun early in trying to learn to shoot (My father is and has been a firearms instructor for 40 years, and is the fellow I speak of regarding accuracy; certainly not me, when I shoot his hot loaded .44 (rounds going around 1750 FPS...which is rocket level for a hand gun) I flinch like a battered dog) and it is often even a "lighter" caliber like a 9mm.  .22 seems to be a best start for adults learning to shoot handguns, those flinches start even with a 9mm.   

 

Kyle Aaron

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #78 on: October 21, 2021, 12:38:46 AM »
This video was interesting (age-restricted, shows some blood but no profanity etc). In this scenario, the police stop a guy, one cop gets out with his handgun and approaches the vehicle ready to shoot, the other apparently (he was off-camera) stayed by the vehicle with an AR-15. The suspect fired at the handgun officer, striking him in the arm, and the other officer fired his rifle and took the guy down. The shot officer had a tourniquet put on roughly and was choppered out and survived, the suspect died, though whether on-scene or late they don't say.

It's an interesting illustration of
  • why even if someone has their weapon out and aimed, we should still roll for initiative (with modifiers, obviously), and
  • how what would in fiction be depicted as a "minor" wound (shot in arm) can knock someone down, and untreated can be lethal
  • an unskilled person under pressure can hit a target at 20 feet (it's fair to assume the suspect wasn't Jack Reacher or something)
  • an unskilled person can do first aid on a severe wound which is good enough to keep them going until they reach hospital

There's a second encounter, too, and we should discuss that also. It's more complex to discuss, but we see,
  • cop runs in front of other cop who is firing
  • mag dumps into a fallen suspect, then drops a mag while reloading
  • target fixation & tunnel vision
  • bad guys give zero fucks about collateral damage
which is why I put in rules like "don't roll to hit for each round, roll for an effective hit" and "low rolls mean stoppage, which means changing mags" and "to know where everyone is, you have to stop and take an action to orient - otherwise you just see what's right in front of you."
« Last Edit: October 21, 2021, 12:50:58 AM by Kyle Aaron »
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Pat
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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #79 on: October 21, 2021, 12:59:34 AM »
It's a bit older, but anyone interested in realistic firearm battles should be familiar with the Miami gunfight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070626133520/http://www.thegunzone.com/11april86.html
« Last Edit: October 21, 2021, 01:01:10 AM by Pat »

Eric Diaz

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #80 on: October 21, 2021, 09:32:32 AM »
Not specifically about guns, but when asked about granularity I usually say the correct answer is "seven".

Five works too - say, a d4 to d12, and maybe critical hits form guns multiply the damage by three or more, assuming you have 10 to 15 HP. For example, you could die from a .22 but it is unlikely unless it is a good shot.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2015/12/granularity-ideal-level-of-detail.html
« Last Edit: October 21, 2021, 11:51:08 AM by Eric Diaz »
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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #81 on: October 21, 2021, 10:55:38 AM »
Not specifically about guns, but when asked about granularity I usually say the correct answer is "seven".

Five works too - say, a d4 to d12, and maybe critical hits form guns multiply the damage by three or more, assuming you have 10 to 15 HP. For example, you could die form a .22 but it is unlikely unless it is a good shot.

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2015/12/granularity-ideal-level-of-detail.html
I didn’t get it from that particular blog, but did reach pretty similar conclusions for my own system.

PC attributes range from -1 to 5 (a spread of 7). The range of conditional combat modifiers is effectively 5 (“disadvantage”+weakened effect, “disadvantage”, no modifiers, “advantage”, “advantage”+critical effect). Damage dice run d4 to d12 (5 steps). Monsters are built with one of 5 ratios for hit/damage relative to their level (very accurate, accurate, average, damaging, very damaging).

Overall, I think for variables (vs. constant modifiers) I think a range of 5 is probably best. I’ve read a lot of complaints about the relative lack of granularity in advantage/disadvantage where 1 advantage cancels all disadvantage and multiple advantages or disadvantages don’t matter… but in my play-testing add the two extra layers and making a sliding scale rather than one good completely countering all bad (and visa versa) did a lot to eliminate that feeling among those I tested it with.

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #82 on: October 21, 2021, 11:55:39 AM »
@Erik Diaz & Chris24601

Modifiers to hit : Untrained, Trained, Expert, range & RoF

Mofifiers to range: Calliber (not getting into 100's of guns/ammo) ex. Small, Medium, Large

Modifiers to Dmg: RoF, Calliber, Training & Range

Small guns are everything from .22 to .25, Medium .32 to .38s, Large .45 and up. Thinking of adding a "Magnum" type of gun, but it needs to be available to several callibers, so it would increase the price of the gun and ammo and the Dmg it does.

Might include "stingy" guns, this would be your derringer type guns with one or two shots before reloading.

Already did the research for the real range of all the firearms and bows, it's way larger than what you usually find on games that have modern firearms. What you usually find is ~1/10th of the real range and some times less than that (WTAFF!?).

The gun porn will maybe be an apendix.
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Chris24601

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #83 on: October 21, 2021, 12:14:55 PM »
@Erik Diaz & Chris24601

Modifiers to hit : Untrained, Trained, Expert, range & RoF

Mofifiers to range: Calliber (not getting into 100's of guns/ammo) ex. Small, Medium, Large

Modifiers to Dmg: RoF, Calliber, Training & Range

Small guns are everything from .22 to .25, Medium .32 to .38s, Large .45 and up. Thinking of adding a "Magnum" type of gun, but it needs to be available to several callibers, so it would increase the price of the gun and ammo and the Dmg it does.

Might include "stingy" guns, this would be your derringer type guns with one or two shots before reloading.

Already did the research for the real range of all the firearms and bows, it's way larger than what you usually find on games that have modern firearms. What you usually find is ~1/10th of the real range and some times less than that (WTAFF!?).

The gun porn will maybe be an apendix.
My only suggestion for calibers is to instead do "muzzle energy" since that way you can more easily distinguish between pistol and rifle calibers (a 5.57mm rifle round is of lower caliber than a 9mm pistol round, but is longer and carries more energy.

My suggestion would be very low (for things like thrown knives and the like), low (.22LR and the like), medium (9mm pistol and comparable), high (large pistols, small rifles) and very high (large rifles).

GeekyBugle

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #84 on: October 21, 2021, 12:59:39 PM »
@Erik Diaz & Chris24601

Modifiers to hit : Untrained, Trained, Expert, range & RoF

Mofifiers to range: Calliber (not getting into 100's of guns/ammo) ex. Small, Medium, Large

Modifiers to Dmg: RoF, Calliber, Training & Range

Small guns are everything from .22 to .25, Medium .32 to .38s, Large .45 and up. Thinking of adding a "Magnum" type of gun, but it needs to be available to several callibers, so it would increase the price of the gun and ammo and the Dmg it does.

Might include "stingy" guns, this would be your derringer type guns with one or two shots before reloading.

Already did the research for the real range of all the firearms and bows, it's way larger than what you usually find on games that have modern firearms. What you usually find is ~1/10th of the real range and some times less than that (WTAFF!?).

The gun porn will maybe be an apendix.
My only suggestion for calibers is to instead do "muzzle energy" since that way you can more easily distinguish between pistol and rifle calibers (a 5.57mm rifle round is of lower caliber than a 9mm pistol round, but is longer and carries more energy.

My suggestion would be very low (for things like thrown knives and the like), low (.22LR and the like), medium (9mm pistol and comparable), high (large pistols, small rifles) and very high (large rifles).

Oh, rifles are their own beast, as in they have their own range, Dmg and "calliber". Off course I'm doing the same (Small, Medium, Large) with the sniper added to increase range.

Same for Machineguns, etc.

Only stuff like flamethrowers, bazookas have only one "size".

Yeah, small calibers should do less damage, my thinking is that in a crit the damage increases by a factor of 2? And include the roll to see what you hit table.

Or maybe do it by how much did you overcome the target's AC? This is faster, so for every X ammount you overcome the AC the damage increases by factor Y.
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PsyXypher

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #85 on: October 23, 2021, 02:36:27 AM »
I like to mix action with a dash of realism. So what I did was that I gave a bunch of guns generic names but modeled them after real guns. I had some for Handguns, Rifles, Submachineguns and Shotguns, and gave them damage based off of their caliber. Shotguns were the odd ones out as they did very varying damage (2d20) and unlike most games, I didn't go for the "spread" mechanic.

I didn't go too far, though. I only added a few different calibers for say, Handguns. 9mm and 44. Which I called 11.5mm. Rifles got a few more.

I also added a lot of fantastical weapons. Lasers, Ionic weapons, Plasma Rifles, etc. Lasers are and have continued to be a bitch and a half because I wanted to do a thing where they ran off power cells that would be interchangeable with energy provided from other sources. This has, among other things, a weird side effect of making it so the "Magazine" for a Laser Pistol is much larger than that of a Rifle, since the Rifle uses more power. Turns out that trying to balance that is difficult, because it can bypass reloading and such. Makes it harder to make a "Kit" of equipment.

Don't even get me started on shared power pools or calculating things like taking power from municipal sources. I could probably bypass this with "It's an action game, you can loot ammo off the people you beat."
« Last Edit: October 23, 2021, 02:41:40 AM by PsyXypher »
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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #86 on: October 23, 2021, 10:10:30 AM »
Haven't read the thread yet wanted to give my thoughts before reading others. I love guns, I own two and have shot just about every common size of round out there for rifles and pistols. So generally when I think of firearms in games i think there should be a number of factors to consider for one so

Cartridge size or type should be the biggest deciding factor when it comes to damage and armor penetration of the weapon.

Weapon model should be the biggest determining factor for range, capacity and recoil.

Generally a heavier round should do more damage, for the sake of playability in most games I would probably go with a small, medium and large size damage category when designing weapons with the most common benchmarks for handguns being the .22 (if this is even worth statting out), 9mm, and .45. Rifles being .22, 5.56 and 7.62. There are plenty more between them but usually I found that the actual differences in performance are sort of minor.

Variations should include ball ammo (basic benchmark), Hollowpoint (high damage, low AP) and AP (low damage, high AP).

One thing that more games should touch on is rate of fire, recoil and weight. Contrary to popular belief, ammo is freakin heavy and reloading is an action at least. To draw another mag, drop your mag, replace it and slide the bolt forward. Ammo weight adds up quick so if you want some reason to go with a lighter round this is a good place to put it. Also smaller rounds = more magazine capacity usually. My 9mm holds 17+1, a .45 of the same size holds only 7+1 and has more recoil. Either can double tap just fine but you're going to get more consistent accuracy with a 9mm if you fire in quick succession. Games with firearms should allow for multiple shots, with recoil factoring in cumulatively. Smaller weapon frames = more recoil. a compact .45 is going to kick a hell of a lot harder than a full size.

Also if your game has any kind of wealth or requisition, then you can get more bang for your buck. Ammo isn't cheap, especially hollow points. Most civilian characters shouldn't be carrying more than one spare mag usually. It's not a law or anything but  if you need more than 2 mags you're in some deep shit. Military characters in full battle kit will be carrying realistically around 7 mags. And you have to make it last, but mil characters don't usually get a choice in what they get.

Side note on shotguns... they should get a bonus to hit, and have a longer range than a pistol but not a multi target and do a devastating amount of non armor piercing damage. Also they usually have more range than people give em credit for.

Weapon : Range : Recoil/RoF : Ammo Type : Capacity : Special

Example: Medium Pistol: Short Range : High Recoil/High Rate of Fire: 9mm Ammo: 17+1 round magazine
9mm Hollow Point (Medium Damage/No AP)

Concealability is another factor as well.
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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #87 on: October 23, 2021, 07:11:05 PM »
The BS with bullets, knives, swords or anything that causes BLEEDING in real-life is it doesn't translate well to TTRPGs. I suppose the key is keeping the PCs upright ... BUT ... I have to suspend my disbelief when a PC/NPC gets hit with an axe and takes X HP loss AND NO MORE LOSS FOR THE CONTINUED BLOOD LOSS because they continued to fight rather than bandage the wound.


D&D has always been, from the beginning, an arcade game. GURPS and Hero System addressed bleeding. Made it something to deal with. But, man --- to hear players whine about it. Most players just want to be comic book superheroes stomping through an adventure. This whole culture of gaming --- I mean it is what it is.

Let me run you through Phoenix Command or a gritty game of GURPS where, YEAH, your PC can bleed out and die from an injury. It forces a player to prioritize what's important. Attack? Okay but you lose another X HP. Stop and handle the wound? You're out of combat a round or two.

Bleeding wounds change the game. But, so many players look at that as "adversarial". Heaven forbid the game has a certain level of verisimilitude.

I get D&D damage is abstract. It's nonsense damage. Okay. No wounds, no bleeding. This is why D&D is a "Gateway Game" to more sophisticated systems like GURPS & HERO. D&D is playing with your Invisible Barbie.

Enjoy.
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PsyXypher

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #88 on: October 23, 2021, 11:25:35 PM »
The BS with bullets, knives, swords or anything that causes BLEEDING in real-life is it doesn't translate well to TTRPGs. I suppose the key is keeping the PCs upright ... BUT ... I have to suspend my disbelief when a PC/NPC gets hit with an axe and takes X HP loss AND NO MORE LOSS FOR THE CONTINUED BLOOD LOSS because they continued to fight rather than bandage the wound.


D&D has always been, from the beginning, an arcade game. GURPS and Hero System addressed bleeding. Made it something to deal with. But, man --- to hear players whine about it. Most players just want to be comic book superheroes stomping through an adventure. This whole culture of gaming --- I mean it is what it is.

Let me run you through Phoenix Command or a gritty game of GURPS where, YEAH, your PC can bleed out and die from an injury. It forces a player to prioritize what's important. Attack? Okay but you lose another X HP. Stop and handle the wound? You're out of combat a round or two.

Bleeding wounds change the game. But, so many players look at that as "adversarial". Heaven forbid the game has a certain level of verisimilitude.

I get D&D damage is abstract. It's nonsense damage. Okay. No wounds, no bleeding. This is why D&D is a "Gateway Game" to more sophisticated systems like GURPS & HERO. D&D is playing with your Invisible Barbie.

Enjoy.

I mean, if you're going with a hyper-realistic sort of game, then yes, D&D doesn't do that. But if you want a game that runs off rule of cool, D&D's Hit Points do that pretty well. Not everyone wants a game like Cyberpunk 2020 where the only thing between you and death is rolling lower on your initiative than your opponent. I personally like a good slugfest between characters.

I very much disagree that this breaks verisimilitude. Those wounds should have a chance to get infected too, but that's not really fun, is it? Not for most people. There's nothing wrong with wanting a sort of comic book superhero physics to the world. That's why some games have more realistic wounding systems than others.
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GeekyBugle

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Re: Lets talk guns and granularity in RPGs
« Reply #89 on: October 24, 2021, 02:06:01 AM »
The BS with bullets, knives, swords or anything that causes BLEEDING in real-life is it doesn't translate well to TTRPGs. I suppose the key is keeping the PCs upright ... BUT ... I have to suspend my disbelief when a PC/NPC gets hit with an axe and takes X HP loss AND NO MORE LOSS FOR THE CONTINUED BLOOD LOSS because they continued to fight rather than bandage the wound.


D&D has always been, from the beginning, an arcade game. GURPS and Hero System addressed bleeding. Made it something to deal with. But, man --- to hear players whine about it. Most players just want to be comic book superheroes stomping through an adventure. This whole culture of gaming --- I mean it is what it is.

Let me run you through Phoenix Command or a gritty game of GURPS where, YEAH, your PC can bleed out and die from an injury. It forces a player to prioritize what's important. Attack? Okay but you lose another X HP. Stop and handle the wound? You're out of combat a round or two.

Bleeding wounds change the game. But, so many players look at that as "adversarial". Heaven forbid the game has a certain level of verisimilitude.

I get D&D damage is abstract. It's nonsense damage. Okay. No wounds, no bleeding. This is why D&D is a "Gateway Game" to more sophisticated systems like GURPS & HERO. D&D is playing with your Invisible Barbie.

Enjoy.

Don't quote me on this cuz I could be remembering wrong, but there's one edition, I think, that does take bleeding into account. Now, I might be missremembering and confusing a clone with D&D.

I do agree that no, bleeding is BS tho. Not because of "realism" but because of verisimilitude. But it depends on the type of game. In a platemail is a thing kinda game, then you take 8 DMG and might not bleed because the armor stoped the Axe and it dealt only concusive damage.

It also depends on what type of game is in a different sense, are you aiming for "realism", cinematic, Pulpish, what?

That should dictate how "Realistic" stuff needs to be in the game.
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