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Pretty much what the thread title says.

Phoenix Command?


heh.

I always found the firefights in D6 Star Wars worked pretty well with the multiple actions.

really depends on what you want.  How much detail do you prefer?  One of the problems with ttrpgs is that to capture the ballistics accurately, you get too many factors that slows the game down a ton.  So I guess my question to you, is what level of detail do you prefer?

Yeah what Sac said. It depends on what you consider best, if you mean realism Phoenix Command takes that cake, if you want playable realism CP2020 isn't too bad, GURPs kinda falls between the two, and I'd probably avoid anything from WW completely.

Cyberpunk (1E/2015 or whatever) its Friday Night Firefight was very very good.

My favorite's GURPS.  CP2020 was always fun, too.

I always liked 2nd ed Twilight 2000 with its recoil rules and buckets of d6s for full auto fire. Rolling 15d6 with each '6' a hit (remove dice at longer ranges) really feels like 'spray & pray' :)

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724040really depends on what you want.  How much detail do you prefer?  One of the problems with ttrpgs is that to capture the ballistics accurately, you get too many factors that slows the game down a ton.  So I guess my question to you, is what level of detail do you prefer?

How about: Abstract enough to move quickly at the table for the benefit of newbies while just barely realistic enough that most reasonable gun-people and action movie aficionados won't feel uncomfortable hand waving it.

EDIT NOTE: Actually, I sort of want to see the differing opinions on gun combat here play out to their fullest, so I don't want anyone to feel like they can't argue in favor of their favorite complex system if they truly feel that it does gun combat best.

I've seen a very wide range of abstractions provide exciting and real-feeling combat scenes, all differently and all with a different "tone" in the results. I'm not sure this is answerable as-is.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724059I've seen a very wide range of abstractions provide exciting and real-feeling combat scenes, all differently and all with a different "tone" in the results. I'm not sure this is answerable as-is.

Well, OK, as a frame of reference consider this old thread on WotC's boards about d20 Modern: http://community.wizards.com/forum/non-dd-tsr-and-wotc-rpg-discussion/threads/2234471 (the gun stuff starts a little later in the thread but then takes over the conversation)

Long story short, d20 modern gun combat is riddled with apparently unanticipated problems that make it both unrealistic and broken. This has made me curious about what it takes to simulate/approximate gun combat in a tabletop rpgs appropriately.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;724058How about: Abstract enough to move quickly at the table for the benefit of newbies while just barely realistic enough that most reasonable gun-people and action movie aficionados won't feel uncomfortable hand waving it.

For me, from what I have seen, I liked Classic Traveller the best, it is rather elegant in being quick and deadly, though for some people I know it falls too close to being too abstract and too deadly. But basically it is a (2d6) to hit with mods, then straight weapon damage. It is also adapted into a board game with Snapshot, which is not so bad. Neither satisfy the crunch fiends though.

What I like about CP2020 is the way it recognises and incorporates the fact that even minor non fatal wounds can send people into shock.

Traveller is one of my favourites because of the First Blood rule -- damage comes off your physics stats one die at a time, but the first time you're hit it all comes off one stat. This is lethal and subsumes reduced effectiveness in damage in one simple, elegant fashion. Unfortunately it involves a lot of tables, and I think dropping some of the detail would make it more fun for more people, but hell tables are fun too.

Hârnmaster works great too, just have firearms to puncture or (maybe oddly) blunt damage.

Thinking about all the games that in my experience do this well, the success or failure really lies in the way injury is handled and not in the way firearms are specifically modelled (d20 Modern suffers because of hit points, mostly, and not the way firearms are handled -- all injury feels false). I've seen superb models that bored me to tears in play (Aftermath, anyone?) but then being "in the machine" working the levers of the simulation's detail can also be a lot of fun.

Well, there's Phoenix Command of course, but there's also R Talsorian's Edge of the Sword.

Personally Mercenaries Spies and Private Eyes is the best.  It's hard to hit, but most of the time a single shot will put a guy down, on the other hand, even with things like 12d6 damage verses 3d6 Con will on rare occasion allow the target to survive.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;724058How about: Abstract enough to move quickly at the table for the benefit of newbies while just barely realistic enough that most reasonable gun-people and action movie aficionados won't feel uncomfortable hand waving it.

EDIT NOTE: Actually, I sort of want to see the differing opinions on gun combat here play out to their fullest, so I don't want anyone to feel like they can't argue in favor of their favorite complex system if they truly feel that it does gun combat best.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;724060Well, OK, as a frame of reference consider this old thread on WotC's boards about d20 Modern: http://community.wizards.com/forum/non-dd-tsr-and-wotc-rpg-discussion/threads/2234471 (the gun stuff starts a little later in the thread but then takes over the conversation)

Long story short, d20 modern gun combat is riddled with apparently unanticipated problems that make it both unrealistic and broken. This has made me curious about what it takes to simulate/approximate gun combat in a tabletop rpgs appropriately.

For the feel of pure action/adventure, I have to give kudos to d6 Star Wars. I do not know if the d6 RPG rules maintain that feel.

For playable realism, I have to say Traveller 4 (especially with firearms made with FF&S) and Mongoose Traveller with Cyberpunk 2013, Cyberpunk 2020, and Cybergeneration over the former.

Now, d20 Traveller has a system that is complex, but plays a lot better than it reads. If you like, PM me your email address and I will send you a copy of T20 Lite so you can judge for yourself.

I prefer simpler systems where there isnt alot of mechanics in the way.

Most bare bones basic was Gamma World where you point and zap.

Star Frontiers added for me about the right level of complexity with cover and range rules.

Boot Hill is on the to check out in depth list still.

I put a lot of effort into streamlining the Phoenix Command system down into something that I don't find too complex to keep moving around the table quickly, but still is over the top of CP2020 on realism, but it's the kind of system where it's realistic, a gunshot wound could easily put you at combat ineffective for a month or more, even without the insane lookup-tables that Phoenix Command needed and with a d20-based combat and skill system tacked over the top of it.

For something purely playable and still realistic, I'd go with Interlock (CP2020) at the top, and T20 just below that.  I don't have the direct experience with running T4 to make a recommendation, but I'd trust Jeff in his assessment of it.

EDIT:  David Johnson, I'm ashamed that you would even mention Edge of the Sword.  Terrible.  T E R R I B L E.  I got much better use out of More Guns! for 3G^3 than EOTS.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724075Unfortunately it involves a lot of tables, and I think dropping some of the detail would make it more fun for more people, but hell tables are fun too.

CT is two tables, armor and range matrix, but usually one has them memorized; but that might be a lot? Not that I think that the combat is totally realistic, but the abstraction is acceptable.

Part of the whole argument is somewhat skewed by people's perception of what is real, generally speaking, bullets "stab people to death". However, people often have other influences, such as Hollywood, which treat bullets unrealistically, like people flying backwards from being shot.

Quote from: dragoner;724061For me, from what I have seen, I liked Classic Traveller the best, it is rather elegant in being quick and deadly, though for some people I know it falls too close to being too abstract and too deadly. But basically it is a (2d6) to hit with mods, then straight weapon damage. It is also adapted into a board game with Snapshot, which is not so bad. Neither satisfy the crunch fiends though.

I will second the Classic Traveller opinion regarding best, with Savage Worlds as second, but Corps and EABA get good recommendations as well.  Gurps is very good as well, but it's a bit too complex with all the options on to make it a good simulation.

My issue is that a lot of systems seem to confuse detail, death spirals, or even lethality with realism.  I want a system that can handle the guy you empty your gun into who proceeds to knife you near to death, finally dying from the first bullet you put through his heart.  I also want it to handle the guy who dies after getting shot in the foot, having gone into shock at being injured.

I want tactical options that matter, suppressive fire that works; and a cop and robber shooting pistols at each other from ten feet away with no one getting hit.  I also want snipers able to hit targets over a mile away.  I also want results that match experiences I've had or seen while hunting.

And I want it to be simple and quick to play  :D

After all that I tend towards abstract over detailed because abstract can be interpreted to match the wildly varying results of gun combat.  Both CT and SW seem to fit all this the best.  Objectively I think SW might actually do it better (though quite cinematically), but CT manages to nonetheless feel like a better system.

Top Secret S.I had a decent system as well.

For gritty highly realistic gun combat, at least in be Wild West genre its hard to beat Aces and Eights.

CP2020 will always stand out, to me, as THE good firefight rpg. Cool, fun, extremely lethal and still very simple and smooth to play. It'd be a great system for more modern tech thrillers too I think, if extremely lethal w/o high-tech armor & cyber. Love that system.

GURPS would likely be in second place. Less lethal, but still dangerous, and the fun thing about firearms in GURPS is that while it doesn't take a lot of training to be kinda decent with them, it does take a lot of training to be all action hero/western hero with them.

Quote from: Brander;724123I want a system that can handle the guy you empty your gun into who proceeds to knife you near to death, finally dying from the first bullet you put through his heart.  I also want it to handle the guy who dies after getting shot in the foot, having gone into shock at being injured.

An ordinary old hit point system will do this. He hits 0HP, he drops, exactly why who cares, he's down. You don't to simulate the whole physiology, just the effects.

Of course if you want that, then you will also want that most shots miss. For example, looking at NYPD data, only about 15% of shots fired by police officers hit, this is despite the fact that 88% of incidents happened within 7 yards; only 38% hit within two yards, and this drops off rapidly with further distance.  [source (http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS.pdf)]. (Interestingly, the more police there, the more each officer fires, and the less often each hits). As far as I recall other studies, suspects tend to fire more rounds and achieve about half the hits.

So really you could just say your character is "trained" or "untrained", if they're trained roll 1d6, get 6 and they hit; if they're untrained roll 1d12 and if you get 12 they hit.

There are statistics involved showing how remarkably few people drop and are helpless the moment they're hit by a single round, but I think you get the point, which is:

Nobody wants to sit there waiting for their turn to miss. So you don't want to be rolling for each round, you need to abstract things somewhat, like D&D's one minute round covering a series of strikes, only one of which has a good chance of doing significant damage.

Or you could choose to roll for each round and have them hit more often, but they're you're simulating a movie or something, not reality.

And of course, if you have physical reality, why not legal and psychological? And then we get into self-defence shootings being looked into by homicide investigations, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and all that kind of thing.

Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

This really can't be stressed enough IMO.

What people actually want is versi-whatchacallit. Stuff being vaguely believable.

Just in case anyone's interested, RuneQuest 6 has a free expansion on firearms, from black powder to phasers ... I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but it seems like a solid set of rules. Handy for anyone using anything BRP derived (for example, you could take some ideas out of it for Call of Cthulhu if you find your investigators are the types to get into extended gun-battles ...). Also just worth a look as a medium crunch effort at modelling fire-fights, with an attempt at capturing something both playable and semi-realistic ....

http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/resources/RQ%20Firearms.pdf

Not a gun expert, but Cyberpunk 2020 was kinda fun/believable.

Quote from: artikid;724160Not a gun expert, but -

You don't have to be. Usually they miss, so what they do when they hit really is not as important as getting them to hit in the first place.

I'm a stone partisan of GURPS, and felt the way it handled guns in its 1st edition was OK, but from 3rd edition on I've felt it just damn cumbersome.  I was, recently, in a rather painful high-tech campaign where three of the characters were gunslingers, and sat through way too many debates on how things were working, crunching through firearms minutiae, and so on.  (Heck, I created a gun-aversive martial artist to avoid having to LEARN the damn 4th edition gun rules.)

I haven't seen too many other systems, but there must be a better way to build that mousetrap.

Stargrunt II.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

Kyle Aaron, official spokesperson for everybody.

Aftermath.


Just kidding!


Actually, I would suggest Hero for rules that can simulate guns with some semblance of reality.

Quote from: dragoner;724061For me, from what I have seen, I liked Classic Traveller the best, it is rather elegant in being quick and deadly, though for some people I know it falls too close to being too abstract and too deadly. But basically it is a (2d6) to hit with mods, then straight weapon damage. It is also adapted into a board game with Snapshot, which is not so bad. Neither satisfy the crunch fiends though.

The CT system is highly elegant - it manages to capture an enormous amount of complexity in a few pages of text and tables, as each shot is influenced not only by skill and ability, but also by the interplay of armour and range. The aim of the game here is to use the right tool for the right situation, as some combinations automatically hit and almost automatically incapacitate the target; for example, against an unskilled, unarmoured opponent in Short range, a Cutlass always hits (hits on 2+ on 2d6, and there aren't any auto-failures in CT) and does 2D damage, which, if this is the first hit on the target, likely to incapacitate the average target. However, if your target manages to get into Close range, you lose that advantage and only hit on 8+ (skills still apply). Similarly, a Shotgun at Short range against an unarmoured target always hits (2+ again), but in Close range, it rarely hits (11+), and at Long range you won't hit easily (9+).

The main weakness of that system is the lack of initiative (except for surprise, that is), which means that both sides could slaughter each other at once.

The trick in CT is to be prepared - wear armour, know how to parry (melee weapon skill serves as a constant negative modifier to attacks against you), bring the right tool for the right situation, and ambush your foes in such a way that you'll be at optimum range and have surprise. Then you'll slaughter him.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154An ordinary old hit point system will do this. He hits 0HP, he drops, exactly why who cares, he's down. You don't to simulate the whole physiology, just the effects.

While Classic Traveller is more or less a hit points system, in that there is a finite "points of damage" you can take, I'm not a huge fan of hit points because it's a resource that runs out as opposed to a chance each time of a hit "hurting" enough to matter (which was one reason why I noted that I thought Savage Worlds might have been objectively better).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154And of course, if you have physical reality, why not legal and psychological? And then we get into self-defence shootings being looked into by homicide investigations, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and all that kind of thing.

That depends on the game of course.  I've run and played games where the second firefight was with the authorities.   :-)

As for psychological trauma and PTSD, if it's a game of horror, they probably should be checking for sanity loss or making a fear check.  But if it's a more cinematic game, those kinds of things should probably be left up to the player, who might be willing to add or trade a disad (like trading off that enemy they just killed for something else if the group likes to keep point accounting tidy).

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

As The Ent said, we want "versi-whatchacallit".  

And as I noted, that's pretty much where I started and ended up with my Classic Traveller and Savage Worlds preferences.  Even though neither really models all I want, they each manage to do it well enough without getting bogged down too much.

I think the thing we miss in games is how it can be exciting/scary even if no one actually hits.  Like you say, and I was referencing with my cop and robber at ten feet comment, most shots do miss, even up close.  While it's extra book-keeping and perhaps not always worth it, I think CT's idea of only allowing so many full strength hits in melee could be extended somehow into firefights, to represent the fatigue and stress involved, and to give an incentive to not shooting it out for long periods of time until one side or the other is down.

QuoteThat depends on the game of course. I've run and played games where the second firefight was with the authorities. :-)

As for psychological trauma and PTSD, if it's a game of horror, they probably should be checking for sanity loss or making a fear check. But if it's a more cinematic game, those kinds of things should probably be left up to the player, who might be willing to add or trade a disad (like trading off that enemy they just killed for something else if the group likes to keep point accounting tidy).

Except that leaving out the psychological element is exactly what RPGs get most wrong about a firefight.

I cited Stargrunt II up there for a reason: no it's not actually an RPG, but it's the closest I've ever seen to how actual fire combat tactics work, because the engine is all about suppression and morale.

Getting in a gun fight is very rarely about shooting the other guy. It's about scaring the other guy into giving up. Actually hitting anyone is pretty much secondary in all but a few very specific scenarios usually left to guys who spend their whole lives training to kill. And even they'd rather not have to actually do so. GSG 9 are one of the best counter-terrorist organizations in the world, and they've only actually discharged weapons 5 times in 1,500 operations.

5 times.

The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't want to die, and most people who aren't at least a little bit cracked don't want to kill. Most soldiers in WWII never even fired their weapon, and not because they didn't see action. Even after months of training, when faced with the actual need to do so they still couldn't bring themselves to actually shoot at someone. A lot who did would just fire wild.

Most fire in combat is panic fire or suppression fire, firing in the direction of the enemy but probably only making it difficult or scary for them to move from their position in any direction except the hell away. People still get killed of course, it's still gun fire, but the point-and-click attitude of most RPGs bears more resemblance to first-person shooter games than the dynamics of most actual real-world combat.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

No, people want it.  They just don't want to put forth the effort in what's required to capture it.  And I don't blame them.  Not for a TTRPG

I'm not a ballistics expert by any means, but I do know quite a bit.  There's a lot that goes into what effect a bullet will actually have.

For example, a .22 and a .223 are miles apart, despite looking nearly identical in caliber from just that information.  Bullet shape, powder load, length of the barrel, bullet material composition, bullet weight, range, atmospheric conditions, density of target, material of target, etc all have MAJOR impacts to the result you're going to have.

But we've had this dicussion before, and I don't want to rehash it now.  Suffice to say, that while realism is nice, you'd need charts that would make Rolemaster look like child's play in order for it to work in an RPG.  And who wants to spend 5 minutes figuring out the effects of a single attack?

Come up with rough guidelines and move on.  I can't tell you how many times I've designed game mechanics to cover many of these factors, only to toss them out during playtests.

Quote from: J Arcane;724266Getting in a gun fight is very rarely about shooting the other guy. It's about scaring the other guy into giving up. Actually hitting anyone is pretty much secondary in all but a few very specific scenarios usually left to guys who spend their whole lives training to kill. And even they'd rather not have to actually do so. GSG 9 are one of the best counter-terrorist organizations in the world, and they've only actually discharged weapons 5 times in 1,500 operations.

5 times.

Been in many gunfights have you?  I have.  Well, not many.  And nothing super major I'm afraid.  But you're way off on this.  Everyone I personally know who's been in combat doesn't try to scare the other people.  They try to take out the threat as fast as possible.  That means destroying the threat.  You keep shooting until you aren't worried that they will shoot back.

QuoteThe simple fact of the matter is that most people don't want to die, and most people who aren't at least a little bit cracked don't want to kill. Most soldiers in WWII never even fired their weapon, and not because they didn't see action. Even after months of training, when faced with the actual need to do so they still couldn't bring themselves to actually shoot at someone. A lot who did would just fire wild.
.

Sorry, totally debunked (http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm).

Quote from: J Arcane;724266I cited Stargrunt II up there for a reason: no it's not actually an RPG, but it's the closest I've ever seen to how actual fire combat tactics work, because the engine is all about suppression and morale.

Stargrunt II is, no argument, one of the best squad level games out there.

Morale is something that has fallen out of favor in RPGs, especially as applied to the PCs.  Most of the time when I run games, the end result is a bunch of people surrendering (to the PCs).  Mostly I think it's because players (me included) want to play brave heroes, not real people.  I'll happily deviate from that for one-shots or for horror games, but in general, even I, who wants more verisimilitude, still want to play a brave hero.

Quote from: J Arcane;724266Getting in a gun fight is very rarely about shooting the other guy. It's about scaring the other guy into giving up. ...

I think in RPGs a potential problem is they typically have the PCs get in so many battles the game might end up an exercise in managing prisoners (or committing atrocities).  It's just easier if the antagonists fight to the death.

Quote from: J Arcane;724266The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't want to die, and most people who aren't at least a little bit cracked don't want to kill. Most soldiers in WWII never even fired their weapon, and not because they didn't see action. Even after months of training, when faced with the actual need to do so they still couldn't bring themselves to actually shoot at someone. A lot who did would just fire wild.

That data may have been fabricated and/or exaggerated dramatically.  
"Convincing evidence pointed to his having fabricated his World War II ratio-of-fire values, still so widely accepted at the time." (also from link below)

And even Marshall (the origin of that statistic) noted that the figure rose from his earlier notes:   "He concluded that much had changed since those earlier conflicts and that it was not unusual for close to 100 percent of American infantrymen to engage the adversary during firefights in Vietnam."
http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm

Quote from: J Arcane;724266... RPGs bears more resemblance to first-person shooter games than the dynamics of most actual real-world combat.

It's that pesky "versi-whatchacallit" (love that phrasing Ent).  Most RPGs in my experience are more about emulating action movies than historicals or dramas as such.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724274Been in many gunfights have you?  I have.  Well, not many.  And nothing super major I'm afraid.  But you're way off on this.  Everyone I personally know who's been in combat doesn't try to scare the other people.  They try to take out the threat as fast as possible.  That means destroying the threat.  You keep shooting until you aren't worried that they will shoot back.



Sorry, totally debunked (http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm).

Fair enough, dude, no need for the hostility. I have the know-how that I've been taught and some of it is even from other service personnel. I would never claim to real world experience, and I learned a while ago that I hope never to have it.

I actually didn't know that the WWII thing had been fully debunked. It seemed plausible given what I've read of grunt action elsewhere in time and place alike. My apologies for citing incorrect information.

On balance, I don't even think I'd probably disagree with you on much.

Quote from: J Arcane;724266Except that leaving out the psychological element is exactly what RPGs get most wrong about a firefight.

Except CT does have rules:

Quote from: LBB 1MORALE
A party of adventurers which sustains casualties in an encounter will ultimately
break or rout if it does not achieve victory.
At the point in time when 20% of a party is unconscious or killed, the party
must begin making morale throws. For an average party, 7+ is the throw to stand,
or not break and run. Valiant parties may have a higher throw. DMs are allowed: +1
if the party is a military unit; +1 if a leader (leader skill) is present; +1 if the leader
has any tactical skill; -2 if the leader is killed (for two rounds at least, and until a
new leader takes control); -2 if casualties (unconscious and dead) exceed 50%.

Quote from: dragoner;724287Except CT does have rules:

Morale rules are definitely an important start.

Suppression is next, but I think it's something most actual gamers would balk at putting up with in play.

Which goes back to the whole 'gamers don't actually want realism' thing.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

I think that this would be better stated as, "People want an acceptable  suspension of disbelief that does not seem implausible."

Quote from: J Arcane;724286Fair enough, dude, no need for the hostility. I have the know-how that I've been taught and some of it is even from other service personnel. I would never claim to real world experience, and I learned a while ago that I hope never to have it.

I actually didn't know that the WWII thing had been fully debunked. It seemed plausible given what I've read of grunt action elsewhere in time and place alike. My apologies for citing incorrect information.

On balance, I don't even think I'd probably disagree with you on much.

Sorry, that came off as more hostile than I intended.

And FWIW, I agree with you on supression rules.  I am in favor of them, but I suspect in TTRPGs, players want to be the couragous heroes, so things like the natural human reaction to get the fuck out of the way always fall second fiddle to "I want to still attack."

Players don't like things that mess up their ability to attack ;)

I don't know Phoenix Command, but my question is this: how does that hold up with the old WarpWorld system? As in, is it more byzantine?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724295Sorry, that came off as more hostile than I intended.

And FWIW, I agree with you on supression rules.  I am in favor of them, but I suspect in TTRPGs, players want to be the couragous heroes, so things like the natural human reaction to get the fuck out of the way always fall second fiddle to "I want to still attack."

Players don't like things that mess up their ability to attack ;)

Precisely.

At best, you can set up the way fire combat works in such a way that you just have to hope that the players are smart enough to keep their heads down when they need to. d20 Modern tried to do it this way, but failed because combat was so non-lethal. I have heard some good things about how the 40kRP system does things, because it's so lethal that players are more likely to stick to cover. In H&H, I just incentivised being in cover by making it work automatically sort of like overwatch did in the old Space Hulk game.

A morale-based system I think would butt heads with most players outside of maybe certain very specific historical settings and scenarios. We start getting into 'fear check' territory, and well, that is not a non-controversial method even in horror games.

Quote from: J Arcane;724290Morale rules are definitely an important start.

Suppression is next, but I think it's something most actual gamers would balk at putting up with in play.

Which goes back to the whole 'gamers don't actually want realism' thing.

There are simple panic fire in Book 4: Mercenary* and suppression rules in T5, which adapt easily to CT.

I don't know about "not wanting realism" more than just not being too slow or breaking the suspension of disbelief.

*

QuotePanic Fire: At medium range or less, players may voluntarily chose to use panic
fire, if firing small arms slug throwers. Panic fire uses all rounds in the weapon, and
hits are resolved as if the weapon were being fired at its highest setting (four round
bursts, etc). The player may take up to three normal fires (or less, depending on
how much ammunition is left in the weapon when panic fire is initiated), all of
which are made at a DM of -2. When firing rifles treat them as assault rifles on
automatic setting Players firing carbines treat them as submachine guns.

Hand Grenades are also a joy to behold, as well as support fire, ortillery (orbital artillery), with Forward Observer skill.

Marc Miller was awarded the Bronze Star in Vietnam, which he did draw experience from there in writing the rules.

Quote from: J Arcane;724290Suppression is next, but I think it's something most actual gamers would balk at putting up with in play.

Suppression can be very easy to set up depending on your game system. If you carry over penalties as far as the next round/action, it can be arranged like so:

• Staying under cover: -8 on enemy attacks
• Minor exposure (snapshot): -6 on enemy attacks
• Running between cover areas/suppressive fire: -5 to -1 on enemy attacks

I find a lot of games overthink things and create complex little minisystems for situations like suppressive fire, I drew up the above and realised I had suppressive fire covered. And I've never yet had a player complain as it makes perfect sense, the main effect has been to cause them to adjust their tactics accordingly. I guess it might be trickier in different game systems.

Almost everybody wants realism.

A surprising number of people dont realize that "realism" is not the same as "just like reality". Which is why we generally use terms like "verisimilitude" to make it easier on the people who refuse to pick up a dictionary.

And thats my snark quotient for the day filled I think.

Quote from: TristramEvans;724360Almost everybody wants realism.

A surprising number of people dont realize that "realism" is not the same as "just like reality". Which is why we generally use terms like "verisimilitude" to make it easier on the people who refuse to pick up a dictionary.

And thats my snark quotient for the day filled I think.

I still like "versi-whatchacallit" best.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724154Nobody wants realism. They think they do, but they don't. Keep it abstract and unrealistic.

Have to agree with this when it comes to firearms.  My players would be having fits if they were missing 2/3 of the time at almost point blank range. Conversely they'd hate the almost insta-kill of a prepared hunter or sniper waiting for them with a rifle - an almost inevitable situation if they throw their weight around and piss off the bad guys (or the law for that matter).

Frustrated one way and screwed another. Bring in reality with guns and it'll end with a party TPK or premature retirement.

They'd also be unhappy about the months or years long recovery from gunshot and shrapnel wounds, which recovery is often incomplete leaving function inhibited.

And PTSD, not always from what you've had done to you, but sometimes from what you've done, things which intellectually you knew to be the right thing to do, but which still felt wrong. Or maybe it was just the unpleasantness of it all.

And stuff inflicted on you by the situation or your superiors, for example during a firefight in a village you accidentally kill an unarmed civilian, then afterwards have to take some money to the person's family as a "condolence payment." You look around the room and into the eyes of the father and sister of a young man you killed. Let's roleplay that.

Wouldn't this be oodles of fun?

Next to that stuff, 9mm vs .45 and all that really are just trivial.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724417Wouldn't this be oodles of fun?

You do realise that one of the most popular RPGs in print or out, CoC, revolves around the gradual descent of the characters into underpants on head insanity, right?

Nooo, we all play D&D here, with our bulletproof HP and negative AC...

The CoC insanity spiral is a game mechanic designed to ensure players roleplay their characters as something other than staunchly indifferent to all dangers and horrors, and to balance the importance of the Mythos Knowledge skill.

It is not, believe it or not, an accurate representation of the mental illness sometimes suffered by people who've been through traumatic events.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724429It is not, believe it or not, an accurate representation of the mental illness sometimes suffered by people who've been through traumatic events.

So... sorta realistic then eh...

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724274Sorry, totally debunked (http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm).

Sorry, not debunked at all.  That article discussed whether Vietnam vets fired on the enemy, and proffered no proof at all debunking SLA Marshall's commentary about WWII soldiers.  (This leaving quite aside the vast, vast difference between comparing a war fought by squads and platoons in small unit actions with a war fought by divisions and army corps in large set-piece battles.)

I'm definitely no fan of Marshall's, who was a lot more interested in Being The Man With The Facts than integrity, but.

Gun combat can't be done best if hit-points exist.

Quote from: Ravenswing;724448Sorry, not debunked at all.  That article discussed whether Vietnam vets fired on the enemy, and proffered no proof at all debunking SLA Marshall's commentary about WWII soldiers.  (This leaving quite aside the vast, vast difference between comparing a war fought by squads and platoons in small unit actions with a war fought by divisions and army corps in large set-piece battles.)

I'm definitely no fan of Marshall's, who was a lot more interested in Being The Man With The Facts than integrity, but.

um, WWII wasn't like wwi with large set piece battles.  There was plenty of squad level combat.  Like, all the time.  Also, Marshall's claims have been proven to be impossible, unless there are a half dozen clones of him

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;724449Gun combat can't be done best if hit-points exist.

Time to check the temperature in Hell boys and girls, Shawn Driscoll just said something I agree with.

I liked the combat in Fasa's Behind Enemy Lines WWII game.  Also, while I can't say I liked them that much, the firearms rules in The Morrow Project were kind of impressive.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;724449Gun combat can't be done best if hit-points exist.

Wrong.

Even being shot point blank in the head is not a guarantee of death, or even unconsciousness. Bullets, arrows, slings, bolts, whatever. The Romans had special "tweezers" to remove sling stones from inside people. Think about that one for a moment.

Hit points perfectly abstract the weirdness of combat.

Hit points are fine so long as you also have some kind of possibility of instant serious or even fatal injury from a strike regardless of HP.

As for psychological factors, didn't Unknown Armies actually handle the whole 'killing people messes you up' thing going on?

Quote from: J Arcane;724462Hit points are fine so long as you also have some kind of possibility of instant serious or even fatal injury from a strike regardless of HP.

As for psychological factors, didn't Unknown Armies actually handle the whole 'killing people messes you up' thing going on?

HP though arent "meat" though. Well least in D&D they arent.

Other games have had rules for broken bones, trauma, etc on top of the rest.

As others in the thread have mentioned. It is a factor of how much bookeeping and combat slowdown you want to deal with. How much realism is too much realism.

Quote from: J ArcaneHit points are fine so long as you also have some kind of possibility of instant serious or even fatal injury from a strike regardless of HP.

Quite doable so long as HP are limited. But then you need some parry/dodge rules. D&D abstracts the parry/dodge into increased hit points, GURPS has the victim roll to parry/dodge. What would you base HP on? Well, 1d6 seems a bit rough, too easy to die. How about CON? Or STR? Okay, average of STR/CON. But what if the person's strong but small, or big but weak? Let's have a new stat, SIZe. And then why have levels, let's just have skills. And how about hit locations? And thus from D&D we get RuneQuest, a fine system with a different feel to D&D.

A few other systems save the victim rolling and have the parry/dodge be the difficulty for the attacker to hit. Some versions of D&D and many other systems have a critical hit rule.

And so on. Lots of ways to do it, just a question of style, really. I mean, hit points are abstract and feel it, but whenever you have lots of people making multiple dice rolls and chart lookups to resolve one sword swing or gunshot, that feels abstract, too.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;724454I liked the combat in Fasa's Behind Enemy Lines WWII game.  Also, while I can't say I liked them that much, the firearms rules in The Morrow Project were kind of impressive.

I have all the old editions of Morrow Project.  3rd revised had Chaosium rules tossed in as an after thought for skill checks.  And now 4th is out in hardcover.  I know it's gonna have great gun stats and bleeding out rules in it and all.  But I'll never play the game because I don't care for linear percentile rolls when skill checking.  Gun fire is already kludged before bullets ever leave the barrel.

As a sourcebook, Morrow Project is cool to have though for play in other systems.

Quote from: Omega;724458Wrong.

Even being shot point blank in the head is not a guarantee of death, or even unconsciousness. Bullets, arrows, slings, bolts, whatever. The Romans had special "tweezers" to remove sling stones from inside people. Think about that one for a moment.

Hit points perfectly abstract the weirdness of combat.

Not sure what surgery has to do with weak weapon damage.  More medics are needed on staff instead of body burners?

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;724515Not sure what surgery has to do with weak weapon damage.  More medics are needed on staff instead of body burners?

It means that slings will hurt you bad enough to need surgery to remove them from your ass. Some people seem to think that a sling shot is the same as getting pelted with a pebble.

Nevertheless, daggers do the same damage as slings in most versions of D&D, and will kill you just as dead when applied to the right place at the right time. Abstract HP and all that.

Yeah HP work perfectly well as long as they aren't married to levels.

Quote from: Pete Nash;724391My players would be having fits if they were missing 2/3 of the time at almost point blank range. Conversely they'd hate the almost insta-kill of a prepared hunter or sniper waiting for them with a rifle - an almost inevitable situation if they throw their weight around and piss off the bad guys (or the law for that matter).

I'd be fine with that sort of 'realism' in a game.
Hopefully it would lead to more interesting play than the endless cycle of 'we kick in the front door, guns blazing' with no chances of failure or consequences later on.
That's a big part of why I disliked Deadlands, at least as our GM ran it. It just ended up feeling like wish-fullfillment... kinda like Westworld.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;724417They'd also be unhappy about the months or years long recovery from gunshot and shrapnel wounds, which recovery is often incomplete leaving function inhibited.

Wouldn't it be similar with any serious wounds from swords, axes or arrows? Again, I'd be fine with that... let me play a backup PC for a while. Have the original PC show up as a grizzled veteran with some nasty scars and a limp.

QuoteAnd stuff inflicted on you by the situation or your superiors, for example during a firefight in a village you accidentally kill an unarmed civilian, then afterwards have to take some money to the person's family as a "condolence payment." You look around the room and into the eyes of the father and sister of a young man you killed. Let's roleplay that.

Wouldn't this be oodles of fun?

Depends on a person's idea of 'fun'. I've got that situation going on in our Earthdawn game, a number of innocents that I've caused the death of and recompense that needs to be made... most likely it will be the demise of my PC when I go tell the troll woman why her husband died in a fire.
I was really upset when that stuff happened, no rules were necessary. I like that the game can affect me that way. Not all the time, but once in a while.

Quote from: Simlasa;724556I'd be fine with that sort of 'realism' in a game.
Hopefully it would lead to more interesting play than the endless cycle of 'we kick in the front door, guns blazing' with no chances of failure or consequences later on.
That's a big part of why I disliked Deadlands, at least as our GM ran it. It just ended up feeling like wish-fullfillment... kinda like Westworld.

Yeah. trav you would be dead pretty much, real life room clearing, such as with grenades, work best.

Though with many games, there are annoying damage stats, such as why does a dagger, pike and pistol do different amounts of damage? They are all basically doing the same thing damage wise.

Quote from: dragoner;724559Though with many games, there are annoying damage stats, such as why does a dagger, pike and pistol do different amounts of damage? They are all basically doing the same thing damage wise.

I'll agree that all three poke roughly similar holes in people (assuming a stilletto-ish dagger and an awl pike).  The big difference in those three is more how they will deal with different kinds of armor than how much "body" they hurt.

That said, throw an axe, a mace, and a rifle into the mix, and things can quickly become quite different, though armor again matters at least as much, if not more.

Quote from: dragoner;724559Though with many games, there are annoying damage stats, such as why does a dagger, pike and pistol do different amounts of damage? They are all basically doing the same thing damage wise.

Surely they all deliver very different amounts of energy in different ways? I mean you can get stabbed with a knife dozens of times and survive, a pistol I'm not sure but I wouldn't make any bets past being shot a half dozen times, and I've no idea how many belts from a pike at the end of a 4 meter pole a person can take in one sitting, but I'd wager not many.

Not many at all.

Quote from: The Traveller;724576Surely they all deliver very different amounts of energy in different ways? I mean you can get stabbed with a knife dozens of times and survive, a pistol I'm not sure but I wouldn't make any bets past being shot a half dozen times, and I've no idea how many belts from a pike at the end of a 4 meter pole a person can take in one sitting, but I'd wager not many.

Not many at all.

I think that's part of the issue, but also at issue is the real world variance in effects. People have been shot dozens of times and gone on to kill their attackers. Others have died from a single strike from a pen-knife. Realism is just not all that fun -- too random.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724578I think that's part of the issue, but also at issue is the real world variance in effects. People have been shot dozens of times and gone on to kill their attackers. Others have died from a single strike from a pen-knife. Realism is just not all that fun -- too random.

If you take all incidents as being equal, sure. But someone who is highly trained with the knife, pike or gun has a much better chance of doing serious injury than someone flailing around, so it's not very realistic if you don't take all of the major factors into account.

I can definetely see a difference in base damage between a pen knife and a bowie knife, a derringer and a desert eagle, and an iron spike versus a halberd. I modify that base damage by the relative skill of the combatants however; where there is a higher skill disparity the chances of doing more damage are higher. Range and the type of bullet used are also factors for pistols.

It's nicely balanced and quite a lot of fun.

I highly recommend this (badly formatted) discussion of skill in combat: http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/knifelies.html

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724578Realism is just not all that fun -- too random.

Which again has me questioning why we choose to make combat into such focus of 'fun', when IRL it isn't any more fun than cancer or car accidents. Something to be avoided. A last resort.
I guess it's back to that wargames ancestry... where again, men die like flies... and not fun for the individual soldier.

Quote from: Brad J. Murray;724588I highly recommend this (badly formatted) discussion of skill in combat: http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/knifelies.html

I'm quite familiar with that work and have recommended people read it many times. Note however that it refers entirely to knives rather than anything else, and regardless of the claims made I'd much rather face off with a drunken bar room brawler than a Filipino escrimador. YMMV, skill and training are factors in my opinion.

Quote from: Simlasa;724590Which again has me questioning why we choose to make combat into such focus of 'fun', when IRL it isn't any more fun than cancer or car accidents.

Good question for another thread, especially when you consider how slow combat is compared to almost anything else you can do in tabletop yet it gets the commanding share of design space and discussion.

It's all basic physics, they all kill (damage) the exact same way, by hitting a vital organ. Handguns put about as much energy as getting hit with a baseball on someone. The difference in the various weapons are things such as reach (pike) or ease of use (gun, plus it has reach).

Informative link on wound factors: http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf

Quote from: Simlasa;724590Which again has me questioning why we choose to make combat into such focus of 'fun', when IRL it isn't any more fun than cancer or car accidents. Something to be avoided. A last resort.
I guess it's back to that wargames ancestry... where again, men die like flies... and not fun for the individual soldier.

Because combat that is larger than life, free of real world consequences and not terribly realistic is fun. Just like action movies are fun. In some games, like investigations or political campaigns, gritty and unfin combat can work well, but for others you want that action style combat.

Quote from: Brander;724561That said, throw an axe, a mace, and a rifle into the mix, and things can quickly become quite different, though armor again matters at least as much, if not more.

Yes, when you start going with more differentiated weapons, it does change; even then, however, I feel it would be good to have the baseline straight.

Quote from: dragoner;724594It's all basic physics, they all kill (damage) the exact same way, by hitting a vital organ. Handguns put about as much energy as getting hit with a baseball on someone. The difference in the various weapons are things such as reach (pike) or ease of use (gun, plus it has reach).

How effectively that damage is delivered was one of the other things I mentioned. Saying that a knife and a bullet deliver damage in the same way is way out there. Even that document you linked makes that clear. And that's without taking into consideration slashing damage from a knife, which again is very different to a bullet and will have different effects on various targets.

So much for basic physics.

The report says it is done in the same way.

Quote from: dragoner;724600The report says it is done in the same way.

Yes, this sounds very like a knife wound:

(1) Penetration. The tissue through which the projectile passes, and which it disrupts or destroys.
(2) Permanent Cavity. The volume of space once occupied by tissue that has been destroyed by the passage of the projectile. This is a function of penetration and the frontal area of the projectile. Quite simply, it is the hole left by the passage of the bullet.
(3) Temporary Cavity. The expansion of the permanent cavity by stretching due to the transfer of kinetic energy during the projectile’s passage.
(4) Fragmentation. Projectile pieces or secondary fragments of bone which are impelled outward from the permanent cavity and may sever muscle tissues, blood vessels, etc., apart from the permanent cavity. Fragmentation is not necessarily present in every projectile wound. It may, or may not, occur and can be considered a secondary effect.

In fact the words knife, knives, stab or stabbing aren't mentioned at all.

Quote from: The Traveller;724597And that's without taking into consideration slashing damage from a knife, which again is very different to a bullet and will have different effects on various targets.

So much for basic physics.

Got to agree -- a razor needs very little KE to injure or kill. KE is only part of a very complex model.

Back to the physics, I found this elsewhere:

"Your question made me curious so I ran the numbers through the physics kinetic energy (ke) formula: ke = 1/2mv^2 formula.

If the knife was thrust at 143 miles per hour, (which is the average speed of a boxer; equivalent to about 64 meters per second) and the knife weighed 0.09 kilograms (which is the mass of the Gerber Guardian Backup knife), the knife would have a kinetic energy of about 185 joules.

The 45 acp with a 200 grain bullet (or .013 kilograms) travels at 1080 feet per second (329 meters per second). This calculates to 702 joules of energy.

Knife = 185 joules
45 acp = 702 joules

The 45 acp is hitting with almost 4 times as much force; and that's if a pro boxer is thrusting the knife. "


I'm not claiming it's accurate, but it sounds about right.

Also, once you have a knife inside your opponent, you are not necessarily done applying KE.

Hydrostatic shock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock) needs to be considered as well when dealing with projectiles.

The energy difference is irrelevant due to conservation of momentum, muzzle velocity vs at range/attenuation, etc (not that I affirm those numbers to be correct, I don't care); the wound is the same.


Penetration is "stabbing".


Slashing with a dagger is unlikely to kill someone in battle.

Quote from: jeff37923;724609Hydrostatic shock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock) needs to be considered as well when dealing with projectiles.

The FBI report cites it as a myth.  /shrug

Quote from: The Traveller;724604Back to the physics, I found this elsewhere:

"Your question made me curious so I ran the numbers through the physics kinetic energy (ke) formula: ke = 1/2mv^2 formula.

If the knife was thrust at 143 miles per hour, (which is the average speed of a boxer; equivalent to about 64 meters per second) and the knife weighed 0.09 kilograms (which is the mass of the Gerber Guardian Backup knife), the knife would have a kinetic energy of about 185 joules.

The 45 acp with a 200 grain bullet (or .013 kilograms) travels at 1080 feet per second (329 meters per second). This calculates to 702 joules of energy.

Knife = 185 joules
45 acp = 702 joules

The 45 acp is hitting with almost 4 times as much force; and that's if a pro boxer is thrusting the knife. "


I'm not claiming it's accurate, but it sounds about right.

My only addition from a physics perspective is that the knife has the additional energy of moving the arm of the wielder, and that energy is part of what would be transferred.  Your math has the knife itself moving in a vacuum, which isn't the case for a melee attack.

Also, from a damage perspective, you can't just use the overall weight of the weapon/projectile, you have to take into account the surface area of the contact and the relative density/resistance of the object/person it's striking.

When you get into the damage as it relates to a person, it becomes more of a concern of WHERE you hit.  Anything with the capability to penetrate flesh to a depth of about 4 inches can kill you dead instantly, with no bone protection.  (this is just about any firearm from .22 FMJ up).  The advantage to larger, heavier rounds is carry distance and bone penetration, which makes it easier to hit those areas (in the sense that larger wound cavities mans you don't have to be as absolutely precise).

Quote from: dragoner;724611The FBI report cites it as a myth.  /shrug

It's been argued about a lot.  Essentially, there's a lot of post-GSW cellular disruption that could be attributed to it, but I don't think that it's a short term concern any more than the secondary wounding from twisting the knife in a stab wound is a concern.  There's just a level of detail you don't need to get into.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;724612My only addition from a physics perspective is that the knife has the additional energy of moving the arm of the wielder, and that energy is part of what would be transferred.

Also, from a damage perspective, you can't just use the overall weight of the weapon/projectile, you have to take into account the surface area of the contact and the relative density/resistance of the object/person it's striking.

When you get into the damage as it relates to a person, it becomes more of a concern of WHERE you hit.  Anything with the capability to penetrate flesh to a depth of about 4 inches can kill you dead instantly, with no bone protection.  (this is just about any firearm from .22 FMJ up).  The advantage to larger, heavier rounds is carry distance and bone penetration, which makes it easier to hit those areas (in the sense that larger wound cavities mans you don't have to be as absolutely precise).

Oh yeah I'm absolutely not saying those numbers aren't crude and incomplete, but on the balance I think there are plenty of grounds to have seperate damage stats for knives, pikes, and pistols.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;724613It's been argued about a lot.  Essentially, there's a lot of post-GSW cellular disruption that could be attributed to it, but I don't think that it's a short term concern any more than the secondary wounding from twisting the knife in a stab wound is a concern.  There's just a level of detail you don't need to get into.

Bringing up 'hydrostatic shock' is a surefire way to start a flamewar on basically any gun forum.

There's considerable debate on whether it even exists.

I've really enjoyed the gunplay in Deadlands so far for Savage Worlds. The fact that any shot with enough aces can kill you is also fairly realistic. 50 Fathoms had guns, but with poor reload time (shot and gunpowder so that it took 2 rounds to reload to fire again). Being able to soak damage rolls or bennie the vigor roll to see if you survive takes some of the lethalness out of the system for the good guys, but with some bad rerolls, it can be deadly. Wyn Copperstone died and became a Harrowed so far in
our Deadlands The Flood game (6 sessions in and he died in session 4 and came back from the dead)

We all remember in 50 Fathoms when So Cai (a red man ninja assassin) died. A musketeer wild card aimed a gun at the back of his head at near point blank range with a called shot and blew him away.

In Deadlands, the samurai only survived a close range double barrel shotgun attack because of his armor. Three wounds and barely survived the combat. Charging dudes with shotguns when you have a katana ain't the best plan. Especially with the damage shotguns can do at close range in Savage Worlds. (The shotgun starts at 3d6 then degrades to 2d6 at medium range and 1d6 at long range, simulating its devastating close range nature and poor medium and long range capabilities in SW).

All the various guns have their own little quirks to them, that keep them from being same-y like that. For example Double Tap with a Colt Peacemaker for +1 attack and damage but expending 2 rounds of ammo. Or the way the system handles automatic fire such as suppression and fully automatic fire or fanning the hammer on a revolver. Lots of gun options, but pretty simple once you learn the rules of the individual weapons that you have on you, since carry capacity is very limited in SW, you won't be carrying a ton of weapons.

I also like the simple TN 4 to hit/TN 8 to raise system. +/- modifiers of course.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;724613It's been argued about a lot.

I know, essentially though, I am going to stick with what the report says, esp as it agrees with the physics I learned ME degree. Too many of the arguments seem spurious, as well as I have been down the road of explaining scientific principles and have someone look at me as I am speaking Chinese; then I just say it is "magic voodoo". :banghead:

Quote from: The Traveller;724614Oh yeah I'm absolutely not saying those numbers aren't crude and incomplete, but on the balance I think there are plenty of grounds to have seperate damage stats for knives, pikes, and pistols.

Knives and pikes are arguable to me, they're functionally the same thing from a damage perspective (chunk of sharp/pointy metal inserted into the body by human mechanical motion), but the behavior of a bullet is different enough to matter.

Specifically, when I deal with any of the 3 in my phoenix: apocalypse game, they're all treated the same way on the damage chart (since they're all stabbing wounds) so they're rolled on the location chart, checked for penetration, and then assessed against the chart for the damage to the subject, which could range from a 5 point glance hit up through a 100,000 point injury to the heart to an auto-dead result.

Quote from: dragoner;724623I have been down the road of explaining scientific principles and have someone look at me as I am speaking Chinese; then I just say it is "magic voodoo". :banghead:

I've been down that same road. :)

Huge segments of the population are happy to view technology as a series of "black boxes" that take X and do Y to it and so produce Z as output without ever knowing the fundamentals of the "black box" and its operations.

Quote from: dragoner;724623I know, essentially though, I am going to stick with what the report says, esp as it agrees with the physics I learned ME degree.

Can you walk us through what the report has to say about knife wounds there.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;724631Knives and pikes are arguable to me, they're functionally the same thing from a damage perspective (chunk of sharp/pointy metal inserted into the body by human mechanical motion)

Eh I don't know. The pike is a much larger heavier weapon used with two hands, that extra mass has to count for something. Also it's natural to put the weight of the body into a pike strike, you pretty much have to in order to do anything with it, a knife not so much.

Quote from: jeff37923;724640I've been down that same road. :)

Huge segments of the population are happy to view technology as a series of "black boxes" that take X and do Y to it and so produce Z as output without ever knowing the fundamentals of the "black box" and its operations.

Totally. One of my friends coined a term perfectly from when there was a traffic jam we were in, a car stalled in front of us, and when we went to help the driver push it to the side of the road, she rolled down the window and said:

"It just stopped."

Quote from: The Traveller;724641Can you walk us through what the report has to say about knife wounds there.

Okay.

Quote from: The Traveller;724641Can you walk us through what the report has to say about knife wounds there.

Okay.

Stopping power, extent of physical tissue damage, and lethality, are very different things.

I can't really comment on stopping power with much authority, because all my experience with injury is with treating it, not dealing and thankfully not receiving it, and I have zero actual combat training. But I tend to think of stopping power as a property of concussive or concussive-penetrating trauma such as fisticuffs, bludgeons and firearms, and while kinetic energy is not the only factor, I surmise that it's definitely an important one.

Anatomic location of injury is a huge, huge factor. A high-energy GSW from an assault weapon (the heavily armed segment of the local crime scene seems to favor the 5.56mm AR-15, but of course, the bad old AK-47 doesn't trail far behind) can blast half a liver to smithereens before people realize they've been shot, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to imagine that they won't stop functioning until hypovolemic shock from massive blood loss sets in (anything from a few seconds to a few minutes).

The same weapon inflicting a GSW to a limb can shatter bone and even result in traumatic amputation (we often saw them coming in dangling on a little strip of skin and ligament), with less bleeding and less immediate risk of death, but a lot more pain and immediate functional and psychological impact.

On the other hand, slit a man's femoral artery and watch him bleed to death on a similar (or even faster) time scale, with minimal "quantitative" direct tissue damage. The same goes for a blunt or penetrating injury to the skull; the exact mass of tissue killed by the attack is irrelevant when a big enough hematoma will push your swollen brain against its respiratory centers in the medulla oblongata and kill you just as dead as tearing your heart out.

Of course, it'd be a bitch to model these things with any degree of practicality or sanity in a RPG. I'm super fine with hit points for entertainment purposes. :)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;724595Because combat that is larger than life, free of real world consequences and not terribly realistic is fun. Just like action movies are fun. In some games, like investigations or political campaigns, gritty and unfin combat can work well, but for others you want that action style combat.

At a certain point action movies become ridiculous... ersatz superhero movies like Crank. I guess that's why I like horror and investigative games so much.
Still, mountain climbing and deep sea diving can be complex and dangerous... but there's not much play acting centering on those and game rules often come down to a single roll... no obsessing over minutae of equipment.
Do any RPGs resolve entire combats in a single roll? 'You all die', or 'some of you die, some of them die, and the rest run away or go to hospital', or 'they all die'?

Quote from: slayride35;724620I've really enjoyed the gunplay in Deadlands so far for Savage Worlds. The fact that any shot with enough aces can kill you is also fairly realistic.

In our multi-year campaign of Deadlands only one PC ever died... and that was mine, solely because I refused to expend the chips to avoid the shot/resurrect him. Maybe our GM was pulling his punches, in fact that seems likely... he must have vastly over-inflated the number of chips we were getting. As it played nothing about that game seemed 'realistic'.

Quote from: dragoner;724623I know, essentially though, I am going to stick with what the report says, esp as it agrees with the physics I learned ME degree. Too many of the arguments seem spurious, as well as I have been down the road of explaining scientific principles and have someone look at me as I am speaking Chinese; then I just say it is "magic voodoo". :banghead:

Google will return some recent studies from gunned down pigs that shows organ and brain damage away from the wound.  The idea I think is to see if similar damage is done to soldiers severely wounded by gunfire who survived only due to medical intervention and have mental issues long after physical recovery.

It's not a "shoot you in the hand and your heart explodes" type of pressure though, although even wounds that are not life threatening can cause shock and unconsciousness.

Quote from: slayride35;724620For example Double Tap with a Colt Peacemaker for +1 attack and damage but expending 2 rounds of ammo.

Seems like the right thread for pedantry...

You can't double tap with a single-action revolver without fanning the hammer.

Quote from: Simlasa;724671At a certain point action movies become ridiculous... ersatz superhero movies like Crank. I guess that's why I like horror and investigative games so much.
Still, mountain climbing and deep sea diving can be complex and dangerous... but there's not much play acting centering on those and game rules often come down to a single roll... no obsessing over minutae of equipment.

This is why i said for investigative and political adventures, gritty realism works. But i wouldn't dismiss action, given how many people like it. Sure it may be unrealistic, and after a while seem silly, but i can honestly watch three action movies for every drama I view. I just find them more entertaining overall. With RPGs my interest ins split about fifty-fifty regarding action oriented games. Sometimes i want systems where you play james bond, sometimes i want systems where gun fights are substantially more dangerous and quick.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724675Google will return some recent studies from gunned down pigs that shows organ and brain damage away from the wound.

I've only shot pigs with a 30-30 or 30-06, which is outside the range of pistols; I've seen a pig shot in the head with a nine though and it only got mad. But the report does talk about various studies, and their flaws.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724675Google will return some recent studies from gunned down pigs that shows organ and brain damage away from the wound.  

Everything I've read suggest the brain/head is the one place hydrostatic shock MIGHT be relevant because of the skull acting as a solid closed container, but that appears to possibly be only relevant from rather high powered rifles.

That said, I grew up on a farm, killed (usually by a .22 to the head) and butchered animals (hogs and cattle) there, plus hunted (mostly shotgun slug and buckshot admittedly) and cleaned game.  I've NEVER seen an injury outside the wound channel.  Anecdote admittedly, but it's another reason why I tend to fall into the "hydrostatic shock is essentially irrelevant for wounding with small arms" category.

Quote from: dragoner;724681But the report does talk about various studies, and their flaws.

Neurological evidence that suggests otherwise is more recent.  Again, I'm not talking about lethal damage, just that the idea itself is probably correct, if exaggerated.

Quote from: Brander;724686I tend to fall into the "hydrostatic shock is essentially irrelevant for wounding with small arms" category.

Probably irrelevant to severe or lethal wounding, unconsciousness or shock though is another story.

I'm not saying an RPG should have some kind of "save or lose int" mechanic, but systems that make larger, faster rounds easier to inflict shock, stun or unconsciousness aren't fairy-science.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724689Neurological evidence that suggests otherwise is more recent.  Again, I'm not talking about lethal damage, just that the idea itself is probably correct, if exaggerated.

But it sounds like you are talking about rifle rounds, not pistols; what I am talking about are pistols, and that is what the study is about. Granted, heavier weapons will have more dire effects, to the point that the M2HB I manned on my turret was "illegal" to be considered an anti-personnel weapon due to it's extreme effect.

At this point I'm ready to summarily write off whatever a traveller fanboi has to say about technology, realism, physics or science.

Don't mean nothing.

Quote from: The Traveller;724692At this point I'm ready to summarily write off whatever a traveller fanboi has to say about technology, realism, physics or science.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: dragoner;724697Don't mean nothing.

But its good for a laugh.

Quote from: jeff37923;724700But its good for a laugh.

But he's crying. :rotfl:

Quote from: dragoner;724697Don't mean nothing.

/ shakes head, buries it in palms

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;724514As a sourcebook, Morrow Project is cool to have though for play in other systems.

Yeah, I agree.  MP was a cool setting, and had a lot of cool ideas and bits in it.  I remember having a lot of fun with a road atlas book, figuring out where nuclear strikes had come in (including the kind of warhead and everything), and then using that as the basis for my campaign map.

Are any of the braintrust familiar with the concept of a double negative by any chance.

Quote from: The Traveller;724707Are any of the braintrust familiar with the concept of a double negative by any chance.

Proof positive! (http://www.moviesounds.com/clue/true.wav)

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;724709Proof positive! (http://www.moviesounds.com/clue/true.wav)

That's right!

Quote from: The Traveller;724711That's right!

Oh, come on, you aren't stupid. You are just uneducated. :D

Quote from: jeff37923;724714Oh, come on, you aren't stupid. You are just uneducated. :D

I'll admit it was out of context given the discussion but you really have to bust out the crayons in some situations.

Quote from: The Traveller;724715I'll admit it was out of context given the discussion but you really have to bust out the crayons in some situations.

Stick with the Traveller fanbois, under their rough tutelage you'll be using mechanical pencils in no time! :D

Quote from: jeff37923;724716Stick with the Traveller fanbois, under their rough tutelage you'll be using mechanical pencils in no time! :D

Not if I want to communicate with traveller fanbois I won't. The universal translator turns into a speak-n-spell.

Quote from: dragoner;724691But it sounds like you are talking about rifle rounds, not pistols; what I am talking about are pistols, and that is what the study is about. Granted, heavier weapons will have more dire effects, to the point that the M2HB I manned on my turret was "illegal" to be considered an anti-personnel weapon due to it's extreme effect.

True, they are definitely talking not only about rifle rounds, but military class or big game hunting class rounds, not even close to 9x19mm or .45ACP.

Quote from: CRKrueger;724727True, they are definitely talking not only about rifle rounds, but military class or big game hunting class rounds, not even close to 9x19mm or .45ACP.

Then federal brought out Hydra-Shok bullets for pistols: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra-Shok just to muddy the waters in the debate.

Quote from: dragoner;724691But it sounds like you are talking about rifle rounds, not pistols; what I am talking about are pistols, and that is what the study is about. Granted, heavier weapons will have more dire effects, to the point that the M2HB I manned on my turret was "illegal" to be considered an anti-personnel weapon due to it's extreme effect.

You know that's actually not true, right?  You can gun folks down with .50 cal, 40mm, hell, you can use a Javelin on people, as long as you're in a war zone and feel that there's an eminent danger to US or civilian lives.

The daisycutter truck mounts from vietnam were legal, the soviet ZSU-23-4 having an anti-infantry depression was legal, even the German use of 37mm antiaircraft guns on infantry was legal.

The idea that you can completely quantify damage done by any weapon is non-sense. Yes technically a .45 has a greater damage capacity than a .22. But I've seen accounts of people struck by a single .22 kill them stone dead. Personally know people hit by 9mm, 7.62x39mm, and 7.92x57mm (in some cases shot multiple times) and survive. All damage, even in real life is fairly abstract. So if you think HP, wounds, or what have you work better. Use it. None of them are any more correct/better than the other.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;724764You know that's actually not true, right?  You can gun folks down with .50 cal ...

It what I was told by the instructors at Ft Knox, the M2HB was illegal for use against people, fine for use against equipment, and as a corollary, a canteen was equipment. They definitely could have been pulling my leg, I've never actually looked into it deeper. I don't think it was any worse than firing an HE round from the 105mm or 120mm guns at them.

Quote from: Ronin;724772The idea that you can completely quantify damage done by any weapon is non-sense. Yes technically a .45 has a greater damage capacity than a .22. But I've seen accounts of people struck by a single .22 kill them stone dead. Personally know people hit by 9mm, 7.62x39mm, and 7.92x57mm (in some cases shot multiple times) and survive. All damage, even in real life is fairly abstract. So if you think HP, wounds, or what have you work better. Use it. None of them are any more correct/better than the other.

That is the same impression I got while researching for a book and talking with my dad and another veteran.

Combat is absolutely random and unpredictable. Knives, guns, bombs, doesnt matter.

So I use HP in the AD&D manner. A bit of meat and alot of "other". Which means shooting at someone is going to whittle away at chunks of their "luck" and a bit of meat until they dont have any more left. A more experienced person is going to dance around and take more to finally drop.

All that said. I dont mind systems with one hit kill combat. But thered better be alot of mitigating factors to prevent the characters from dropping like flies. Unless its Paranoia...

Quote from: Omega;724777Combat is absolutely random and unpredictable. Knives, guns, bombs, doesnt matter.

So would you rather be stabbed or have a hand grenade polish your shoes.

Its possible to keep a good degree of randomness in combat while also lending weight where weight is due - more powerful weapons, better training etc. Discarding these factors entirely is just silly.

I would almost rather have the hand grenade give my shoes a shine because I'm afraid of very sharp knives, even kitchen cutlery. :D

Quote from: The Traveller;724781So would you rather be stabbed or have a hand grenade polish your shoes.

Its possible to keep a good degree of randomness in combat while also lending weight where weight is due - more powerful weapons, better training etc. Discarding these factors entirely is just silly.

No. Im saying that they all have a random factor. The grenade may bounce wrong, the knife may deflect off a rib, the target may jink left just a fraction faster. etc.

Better training means you are more likely to hit. But still the random factor is waiting to screw with even the best.

Quote from: Bill;724189Aftermath.


Just kidding!


Actually, I would suggest Hero for rules that can simulate guns with some semblance of reality.

Plus, with Hero you have rules to allow the mixing with virtually any other genre or setting.  You are not stuck with just a system that is good for gun combat.

Quote from: Hyper-Man;727359Plus, with Hero you have rules to allow the mixing with virtually any other genre or setting.  You are not stuck with just a system that is good for gun combat.

I am no gun expert, but Hero makes it easy to create guns of great variety.

AP, HE, Incendiary, or poison rounds? Scope? Rate of fire? Ammo supply? Range? Recoil? All of that is easy in Hero.

Quote from: Bill;727926I am no gun expert, but Hero makes it easy to create guns of great variety.

AP, HE, Incendiary, or poison rounds? Scope? Rate of fire? Ammo supply? Range? Recoil? All of that is easy in Hero.

I'm a gun nut of sorts, so having rules for that is important to me.  In my game, I did something very similar in that you simply choose an option for a series of table, and the final weapon is represented not only by whatever name you want to give it, but a military-esque designation.

For example, a RC-S2 is a rifle(R), cartridge (C), Semi-auto (S), medium caliber (2) weapon.  Each table (letter designation) assigns attributes such as range, base damage, etc.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;727928I'm a gun nut of sorts, so having rules for that is important to me.  In my game, I did something very similar in that you simply choose an option for a series of table, and the final weapon is represented not only by whatever name you want to give it, but a military-esque designation.

For example, a RC-S2 is a rifle(R), cartridge (C), Semi-auto (S), medium caliber (2) weapon.  Each table (letter designation) assigns attributes such as range, base damage, etc.

That sounds cool. You are probably a more organized person than I am, and that table does sound handy.

Quote from: Bill;728226That sounds cool. You are probably a more organized person than I am, and that table does sound handy.

turns out I actually had screen shots on my photobucket.  In addition to the below, I had a similar chart for ammunition types.  I fully admit that this is more detail and steps that many people would like.

(http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g141/rajzwaibel/weaponcreation.jpg)
(http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g141/rajzwaibel/weaponcreation2.jpg)

So if I wanted to replicate a modern M4, I could have something like:  RC-H2-R,CP,SO

Quote from: Sacrosanct;728239turns out I actually had screen shots on my photobucket.  In addition to the below, I had a similar chart for ammunition types.  I fully admit that this is more detail and steps that many people would like.


So if I wanted to replicate a modern M4, I could have something like:  RC-H2-R,CP,SO

Ah, RA-A4-A,B,LC,FG,SL

12.7mm Close Quarters Assault Weapon, Full Auto, x4 Core, 62.5/375/750/1250 $5250, 12 pounds.  A bit heavy to lug around, but Jesse Ventura would've made it happen.  And the bayonet adds to the fun.

"Best" system for gun combat is one where half the group aren't bored to tears while the other half get their gun on.

I like Unisystem and Hollowpoint.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;728431Ah, RA-A4-A,B,LC,FG,SL

12.7mm Close Quarters Assault Weapon, Full Auto, x4 Core, 62.5/375/750/1250 $5250, 12 pounds.  A bit heavy to lug around, but Jesse Ventura would've made it happen.  And the bayonet adds to the fun.

haha, didn't say it was perfect :)

And you wouldn't know this of course, but under the descriptions of each category, the difference between rifle and heavy is that rifles are clearly described as being a rifle, as opposed to something like an M60 platform or gattling gun.  So your weapon would be something like a full auto version of a .50 cal sniper rifle.  Also, if I had the ammo chart handy, you'd find out that you wouldn't be able to carry many AM rounds with you to make a full auto practicle because it would be too heavy ;)

Jesse Ventura's gun would be something like HC-A3-X (I think he used 7.62 rounds instead of anti-material with that).

I think that if "cool gun combat rules" were the only consideration, my favorite would be Aces & Eights.

RPGPundit

Quote from: J Arcane;724462Hit points are fine so long as you also have some kind of possibility of instant serious or even fatal injury from a strike regardless of HP.

Sorry to necro this thread, but I was having a conversation with a friend about D20 Modern's problems and I remembered this part of the conversation.

In D20 Modern, if memory serves, most of the guns had both a low chance of critical hits (natural 20) and a low damage multiplier even if you did hit (x2). People complained that guns were too weak and cost too many feats to use properly.

So I wondered, is improving gun combat in D20 Modern simply be a matter of increasing the critical threat range (19-20 or even 18-20 for some) AND the multiplier (x3 or x4)?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;724060Long story short, d20 modern gun combat is riddled with apparently unanticipated problems that make it both unrealistic and broken.

First, a quick blast from the past.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;724280

Quote from: Black Vulmea;724253Have you actually played d20 Modern, or are you just repeating shit you read on the intrewebs?

No, I have not played it and I'm just repeating what I've heard.

Perhaps the first thing you need to do is stop listening to fourteen year-olds and assuming they're experts. Play the game and develop your own fucking opinions.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;748094In D20 Modern, if memory serves, most of the guns had both a low chance of critical hits (natural 20) and a low damage multiplier even if you did hit (x2).

That completely overlooks the fact that the massive damage threshold is equal to your CON score. Pistols generally do 2d6 damage, so a single pistol shot isn't going to force a DC 15 Fort save too often, but most longarms do 2d8, 2d10, or 2d12, meaning that each time your character takes a hit from a rifle or a shotgun, you've got a good chance of forcing a save which, if failed, drops the character immediately to -1 hit points.

d20 Modern is quite good at what it does. If you actually try playing it, instead of quoting random gobshites on the intrewebs, you might discover that. Or you might decide you don't like it after all, in which case you'd at least be able to articulate why in your own words.

And by the way, since we're talking about d20 Modern.

Quote from: J Arcane;724290Morale rules are definitely an important start.

"Cool unde Fire" (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/fb/20030624a): 'In this case, we want a rule that determines whether a hero can stay cool under fire. Why? Well, the truth is that in a critical situation, people usually react without thinking. Those who have received specific training related to the situation often follow that training, acting more or less on automatic. Doing so provides a sort of mental refuge when events occur that are beyond the human capacity to comprehend. People without training generally freeze and do nothing. Sometimes, though, the roles reverse -- people with no training take charge, while people who know what to do cry, scream, tremble, and generally fail to act in a constructive manner. We can describe people capable of acting constructively in a crisis as "cool under fire."'

Quote from: smiorgan;728469"Best" system for gun combat is one where half the group aren't bored to tears while the other half get their gun on.

Fuck yes.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;748129That completely overlooks the fact that the massive damage threshold is equal to your CON score. Pistols generally do 2d6 damage, so a single pistol shot isn't going to force a DC 15 Fort save too often, but most longarms do 2d8, 2d10, or 2d12, meaning that each time your character takes a hit from a rifle or a shotgun, you've got a good chance of forcing a save which, if failed, drops the character immediately to -1 hit points.

Wow, this made me realize that in the many conversations I've had with people who were disatisfied with this aspect of D20 Modern, the massive damage rules were never mentioned. It must be a candidate for "frequently forgotten rules" lists.

I still wonder if it wouldn't have been easier and less subsystem-y to just use more devastating crit ranges...

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;748171I still wonder if it wouldn't have been easier and less subsystem-y to just use more devastating crit ranges...

Or just use GURPS

The worst thing about d20 Modern is the unarmed combat damage rules. This was fixed fairly well in Star Wars Saga Edition.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;748171Wow, this made me realize that in the many conversations I've had with people who were disatisfied with this aspect of D20 Modern, the massive damage rules were never mentioned.

I'd hoped that you'd stop parroting others' opinions after the last time this came up, but clearly that hasn't happened.

Of course, if we ever reach a point where gamers stop putting their abject ignorance about games on display, gaming forums are likely to become ghost towns.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;748129*snip cause its long and it's too early for me to do multiquotes*.

Since you called me by name, I figure I should respond.

1) I'm aware of the massive damage rule. I love the massive damage rule. In fact, I loved it so much that I stole it for Arcana Rising. It was one of the better ideas they had in the game. Real problem is though, is that weapon damages were too low to reliably hit that target: with two exceptions, they're all two dice, and effectively competing with anywhere from 3d6 to 4d6H to whatever point-build the group used to determine CON scores.

2) That's a fairly good house rule, but a bit overdesigned (but then what could I expect from WotC). It's at least addressing the issue, instead of the book's method of pretty much ignoring it completely.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;748240I'd hoped that you'd stop parroting others' opinions after the last time this came up, but clearly that hasn't happened.

Of course, if we ever reach a point where gamers stop putting their abject ignorance about games on display, gaming forums are likely to become ghost towns.

Well, life is short, and while personally testing every accepted notion is a good policy if you are a professional scientist, I feel it is a questionable use of limited hobby time in gaming. Yes, sometimes I am led astray by the opinions of others, but sometimes I am saved a lot of trouble.

For instance, people once told me 7th Sea sucked as a system, but I loved the setting enough to run it for 21 sessions. It sucked and was a painful experience overall, but we soldiered on because there were things about it we enjoyed and we hoped we would eventually figure out how to make it work for us. After the campaign collapsed, I invested a massive amount of time in modifying the system to make it my own, and it is what I am currently running (12th session). It still sucks, but in previously unrevealed ways. In this case I think I really should have taken the extensively documented opinions against the game seriously.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;724274Sorry, totally debunked (http://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm).

Thank you for that, very informative.

Quote from: jeff37923;724293I think that this would be better stated as, "People want an acceptable  suspension of disbelief that does not seem implausible."

...and is enjoyable to play.

(Noting that what is "enjoyable" varies from person to person.)

To bring this back to an earlier point in the discussion:

What would represent Suppressive Fire well?

• Fear Check?

• Cool Under Fire? (Or less over-developed version thereof?)

• Morale rules?

• Sufficiently lethal firearms rules? (This, despite the apparently whiffy nature of real-world pistol combats, as exemplified by the NYPD study linked earlier?)

Something else?

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;749106To bring this back to an earlier point in the discussion:

What would represent Suppressive Fire well?

• Fear Check?

• Cool Under Fire? (Or less over-developed version thereof?)

• Morale rules?

• Sufficiently lethal firearms rules? (This, despite the apparently whiffy nature of real-world pistol combats, as exemplified by the NYPD study linked earlier?)

Something else?

I think it kinda boils down to the group, really.

Are they smart enough to actually respond logically to the consequences presented by the system?

To risk an analogy, this subject kinda reminds me of my experiences playing the old Call of Duty II multiplayer at a local shop.

Up until this point in my life, most of the FPS I'd played was either the Quake-style variety, or single-player stuff, and the idea of a shooter that at least LOOKED like real life was still kinda new to me.

Naturally, my instinct when playing the game was often to treat it very much like I'd expect actual fire combat to go. I tried things like suppressing fire, tried to set up defensive positions for myself, etc. etc.

Thing was, most all of that just got me killed. Suppressing fire was a particularly good example: it works in real life because people are afraid of being shot. No one gives a shit about that in a video game, because they'll just respawn anyway, and while COD2 was pretty lethal by the standards of the day, a few stray rounds wasn't gonna do squat. Instead, it just wound up being a really quick way of giving away your position to the guy who knows how to get scope kills while jumping off a Soviet tower block.

Even in games like Rainbow Six I have played, they work great in co-op, but in MP they fall apart, because the expectations are all wrong.

RPGs DO have the advantage that there's a lot more investment though, so just making getting shot a good way to have to roll a new character can be a start.

If the players still don't give a shit though, maybe some fear checks or morale rules might indeed be necessary to get the same effect.

Quote from: Simlasa;724590Which again has me questioning why we choose to make combat into such focus of 'fun', when IRL it isn't any more fun than cancer or car accidents. Something to be avoided. A last resort.
I guess it's back to that wargames ancestry... where again, men die like flies... and not fun for the individual soldier.

Because combat *is* fun, to lots of people. It's the ultimate physical competition. If no one enjoyed combat, then we wouldn't have millions of people worldwide enjoying combat sports - fencing, MMA, Tae Kwon Do, SCA. And even the least violent sports are abstracted combat and hunting skills in one form or another. (Neolithic hunting used hurled stones to kill animals...)

What's not fun are the consequences of combat and the misery of military campaigning before and after combat. Neither of which an RPG player has to endure, and both of which get abstracted mechanically.

That is some cogent, well thought out shit. Thanks.

Quote from: J Arcane;749126I think it kinda boils down to the group, really.

Are they smart enough to actually respond logically to the consequences presented by the system?

To risk an analogy, this subject kinda reminds me of my experiences playing the old Call of Duty II multiplayer at a local shop.

Up until this point in my life, most of the FPS I'd played was either the Quake-style variety, or single-player stuff, and the idea of a shooter that at least LOOKED like real life was still kinda new to me.

Naturally, my instinct when playing the game was often to treat it very much like I'd expect actual fire combat to go. I tried things like suppressing fire, tried to set up defensive positions for myself, etc. etc.

Thing was, most all of that just got me killed. Suppressing fire was a particularly good example: it works in real life because people are afraid of being shot. No one gives a shit about that in a video game, because they'll just respawn anyway, and while COD2 was pretty lethal by the standards of the day, a few stray rounds wasn't gonna do squat. Instead, it just wound up being a really quick way of giving away your position to the guy who knows how to get scope kills while jumping off a Soviet tower block.

Even in games like Rainbow Six I have played, they work great in co-op, but in MP they fall apart, because the expectations are all wrong.

RPGs DO have the advantage that there's a lot more investment though, so just making getting shot a good way to have to roll a new character can be a start.

If the players still don't give a shit though, maybe some fear checks or morale rules might indeed be necessary to get the same effect.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;748292Well, life is short, and while personally testing every accepted notion is a good policy if you are a professional scientist, I feel it is a questionable use of limited hobby time in gaming. Yes, sometimes I am led astray by the opinions of others, but sometimes I am saved a lot of trouble.

Perhaps you could stop parroting others uncritically, maybe keep a bit of healthy skepticism, ask for other opinions?

Or you could keep filling your head with crap by accepting whatever you read as fact. Your call.

RQ6, no really (http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/resources/RQ%20Firearms.pdf)

Quote from: elfandghost;749248RQ6, no really (http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/resources/RQ%20Firearms.pdf)

Thanks for noticing.  I specifically designed the Firearms rules to incorporate psychology, difficulty of accurate aiming and potential lethality.

After we published them, one of my group ran a short post-apocalyptic campaign in which I had to suffer my own mechanics. From first hand experience, once bullets started to fly everyone became extraordinarily cautious and there was a lot of surrendering!

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;749106To bring this back to an earlier point in the discussion:

What would represent Suppressive Fire well?

• Fear Check?

• Cool Under Fire? (Or less over-developed version thereof?)

• Morale rules?

• Sufficiently lethal firearms rules? (This, despite the apparently whiffy nature of real-world pistol combats, as exemplified by the NYPD study linked earlier?)

Something else?

One approach I remember reading which I liked - think it was from either Unisystem or Savage Worlds - was that suppressive fire imposes a to-hit penalty on the people being suppressed (as they're less able to stand still and aim).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;749243Perhaps you could stop parroting others uncritically, maybe keep a bit of healthy skepticism, ask for other opinions?

Well yes, which is why I started and continue to read this thread.

RE: Suppression Fire
Here is how the HERO System handles it:

From Hero System 6th Edition Volume 2, page 89

QuoteSUPPRESSION FIRE
Characters may only use this Maneuver with attacks capable of Autofire. Basically, a character uses this Maneuver to “hose down” an area with bullets, energy bolts, or what have you so that anyone coming into that area is automatically attacked. Suppression Fire simulates the classic “Cover me!” situation in movies, where one character sprays a hail of bullets at the enemy to give another character a chance to move without being fired at.

USING SUPPRESSION FIRE
To use Suppression Fire, the character defines an Area that he’s firing through. Find his OCV to hit that Area, taking into account the normal modifiers for using Autofire over an Area (6E2 42). In addition, he suffers a -2 OCV penalty for performing Suppression Fire.

Suppression Fire takes a Half Phase and is an Attack Action. The character must fire into the defined Area the maximum number of shots he can fire with the Autofire power/weapon being used, unless the GM rules otherwise. The shots aren’t equally divided into the Area; they’re considered to be fired into the defined Area as a whole. Since Suppression Fire can last until the character’s next Phase, the character fires that many shots each Segment, not just in Segments when he has a Phase. He must use the same number of attacks in every Segment in which he uses Suppression Fire. He must expend END or Charges for each shot made. (If he’s using an attack that costs END instead of Charges, the character should declare how many “shots” he’s firing, with a minimum of one per 1m radius “zone” in the Area.)

Anyone (or anything) who enters the Area covered by Suppression Fire is automatically attacked once for each 1m radius “zone” he moves through. There’s no way to “sneak” through a zone, move through a Area on a Segment in which the attacker does not have a Phase, or run through any part of the Area without getting attacked. Several targets may take damage, even if they enter the area on different Segments. The attacker must roll to hit; he makes one Attack Roll per 1m radius zone the target moves through. The attacker’s OCV is determined by the number of zones being fired into, plus the -2 OCV Maneuver penalty. The target’s DCV is normal, and each target can only be hit once per zone per Segment.

The maximum number of hits a character can obtain with Suppression Fire in a Segment equals the number of shots fired in that Segment. Once he rolls that many successful Attack Rolls against targets moving through the affected Area, by definition he cannot hit any more targets. A character using Suppression Fire cannot decline to make an Attack Roll against a target in the area — in each Segment, he must make one roll per 1m radius zone that every target moves through until he’s used up all his hits for that Segment. However, if two targets enter the “Suppression Fire zone” at the same time, the character can choose which one to make his Attack Rolls against first. If any issues of timing arise, the GM determines which targets the character can (or must) attack first.

A character cannot “overlap” his Suppression Fire so he can attack a target more than once per zone. Autofire Skills have no effect on Suppression Fire.

Pinning Targets Down
To be hit by Suppression Fire, a target has to move into, out of, or through the “Suppression Fire zone,” or take some other Action that indicates movement (such as attacking the character who’s using Suppression Fire, or most other targets). If he doesn’t move in any way, the fire has him “pinned down” — which is often the point of the maneuver anyway. The GM determines what Actions, if any, a “pinned down” target can take without exposing himself to the Suppression Fire.

If a target is "immune/invulnerable" to whatever Autofire Advantaged attack that is being used for the Suppression Fire (bullets, lasers, etc..) then they can of course ignore it.

Quote from: J Arcane;749126Thing was, most all of that just got me killed. Suppressing fire was a particularly good example: it works in real life because people are afraid of being shot. No one gives a shit about that in a video game, because they'll just respawn anyway, and while COD2 was pretty lethal by the standards of the day, a few stray rounds wasn't gonna do squat.

That's part of what I enjoyed about America's Army when I played it. Players didn't respawn when they died, they were out for the round (though they could watch the cameras of their side's remaining players). Getting shot would start you bleeding and there wasn't a quick/easy way to get that health back. People surely still played in a more gung ho manner than they would with real bullets... but there was something more like actual suppression going on... staying out of fire lanes... because you wanted to stay in the game as long as possible.