Zane

I don't feel attacked. In any case, as I stated in a reply a few minutes ago, how can I, considering the admittedly hostile manner in which I started this thread. While I'd feel a whole lot better about what I posted, I think the overall quality of discussion on the subject wouldn't be as good as it has been. Overall this has been a good discussion.

I personally tend to think Delta Green is the best, and it is in print, but oddly lacking the 410 shotgun rounds found in the Cthulhu Now. Neither are perfect, but quite usable. Thank you for bringing this up. I'd said a few minutes ago DG did this right, I forgot that Cthulhu Now also did this right. That is important as it is definitely something Jason could have used as a basis for the new book, while he might not have been able to use DG. The tables for different calibers in these two are what I'm basing my gun tables on. Zane

Sadly there was no polite way to phrase the questions my group put forth, and worse I agree with them. As such I can't very well be insulted by peoples reactions to them. I can't deny the list is rather rude, it was posted to show my players concerns. The Barrett Light .50 mirrors mine, as I specifically asked for the gun-fondlers[1] opinion on it. Unfortunately it is a weapon that he doesn't have personal experience with. Most here don't seem to have a problem with it being minimum STR 5, we're not convinced. Are we right in this case, I honestly don't know, and would really like to. Maybe this points to a need for more detail on exactly what the STR/DEX minimum's mean, and how to calculate them. I've previously said there needs to be details on how to calculate this. As a whole we don't have an "unusual level of interest in firearms and their accurate portrayal". We are interested in consistency within a given ruleset (apparently lacking in CoC 5.6), and in enough granularity to accurately differentiate between calibers (lacking in the new book). I don't think any of my group wants a hugely detailed section with pages of gun stats. Well the gun-fondler might. On the other hand, as a whole I suspect we would like a list that says this bullet does this much damage, and a list of some example weapons. For that you're talking at most 2-4 pages, and you could even limit it to the most popular rounds. As has been pointed out by plenty here, there are several good books with varying degree's of availability on the subject. Certain things are the responsibility of the GM or the creators of a given setting, I don't believe this is one of them. [1] My take on the term "Gun-Fondler", a term I was the first person in this thread to use, I would say that it is at least fairly derogatory. I also think some people are way to fixated on guns.

Actually most I know would probably be satisfied with the list in CoC, my current players are most definitely not satisfied with the table in "Basic Roleplaying". Neither am I, which is why immediately started improving upon i. It shouldn't be necessary to bring it up to the level of detail in CoC, but that is just what I'm trying to do. I'm not afraid to work on the setting I'm running to bring it up to our standard. As crazy as it might sound, the vague nature in the new book is what got us to looking at the CoC table, and our Gun-Fondler noticing all of the problems with that book. The problems in the CoC 5.6 rules aren't quantity (there are enough), it is quality. I really wish I had access right now to the CoC 6.0 book to check and see if a couple glaring errors have been corrected. I don't expect it to be the BRP Gun-fondler's bible, however, the weapons tables for historical weapons look pretty detailed from where I'm sitting at, and the futuristic weapons are far better than I had expected. Were the weapons tables in any way part of the standard playtest? I know I didn't see them. If I had, I would have raised my concerns at that time rather than waiting till I have the ARC in hand.

I think that in both "Delta Green" and "Edge of the Sword Volume 1 - Compendium of Modern Firearms" they do it right. They have a table showing the damage that a given type of ammunition does. That way you can take something like "The Armory, Vol. 1", or even the old James Bond Q Manual, and provide damage info for the guns listed in there. The SIZ/Enc rating is pretty abstract, and it isn't that difficult to come up with that. Range is tricky, that in part depends on the type of ammo, and also the gun itself. Could basic ranges be given on the ammo tables? HP for the weapon is another one of those hard to figure ones, and something I've personally never had a call for. SR is something else that is fairly easy to figure out simply based on the type gun. It is the STR/DEX requirements that are really hard to quantify, and I'm not convinced of the current accuracy. I absolutely love the idea of STR/DEX requirements, but I think the concept needs more work. I realize there are complaints about how lethal the current system is. I agree it tends to be a bit to lethal. I think the whole "Impaling" damage thing is a cool mechanic, though a little cumbersome. I'm not looking for something as Crunchy as GURPS, in fact I have yet to purchase 4th Ed., and don't believe I'll ever run a game. GURPS looks to be even crunchier than HERO, and that is more complicated than I want to run anymore. Personally the CoC 5.6 ruleset offers about the level of complexity I want, but there are some huge glaring holes in it, and "Basic Roleplaying" does a very nice job of patching those holes, in most cases. My concern is that most people I've ever known that play RPG's are quiet interested in the weapons their character carries. None of my current players will accept being told their character is carrying a Medium Revolver, and a Sporting Rifle. At a minimum they want to know what caliber it is. More realistically they want to know that it is a .38 S&W revolver, and a .22 bolt action rifle with a 8 round clip. What do I think the book should contain in the way of weapons tables for guns? I think there should be an amunition table as I described, and tables of example firearms, the list in CoC 5.6 is good enough for a list of example firearms. There should also be instructions on how to translate basic (real) gun stats in to BRP stats. So if I know it is a .38 caliber 6 shot revolver, I want to have a pretty good idea how that translates in game stats. Additionally weapons ranges are another area my players informed me the weapons tables make no sense.

Watching a Barrett Light .50 being fired, I am curious how a STR 5 character could handle the beating. BTW, it weighs in at 31 pounds, not including ammo. The Palladium book was actually the worst of the weapons books we had on hand yesterday. Which reminds me I still need to order my own copy of Kevin Dockery's "Edge of the Sword Volume 1 - Compendium of Modern Firearms". I'd asked the one player to bring his copy of this so I could check it out, and he brought the Palladium book as well. Most likely I'll order copies of both the Compendium and the Palladium book, as I did like some info in it. As for the Compendium it looks nicer than Kevin Dockery's older "The Armory, Volume 1", and has the advantage of including BRP stats. I also have the two BTRC Guns books.

The following is pretty harsh, and I feel like some background info on our group is needed. Our group has been playing CoC since early 2003, with some of us playing RPG's since the early 80's. All four of us have real experience with guns. The other guy in our group and I have both had weapons training in the military, and he's an active shooter. Both of us, and the two women in our group grew up around guns and shooting. Of the four of us, I probably have the least experience with multiple gun types. We were able to get together yesterday, and as I expected my players weren't happy with the firearms table in the new book. In fact their reactions were worse than I'd expected. Our resident "Gun Fondler" spent about 45 minutes picking apart not just the table in the new book, but also the Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green weapons tables (I had expected him to have studied both previously, especially since he has DG). The following questions were asked. 1. Has anyone involved with creating these weapons tables ever actually touched a gun? 2. Why isn't there a table showing what someone with a given strength can do. The best examples of this that I can think of are in the HERO system. 3. Who is moving the Sniper Rifle for someone that has a STR 5 minimum. 4. How did this get past the play testers, followed with a why on earth wasn't this run past them. The following points were raised: 1a. Such a vague weapons table is unacceptable 1b. If the book is printed with such basic weapons types, it's going to get negative reviews. 2. Look at Youtube videos of someone firing a Barrett Light .50 (Sniper Rifle). 3. In the CoC gun table there are several items that don't make sense, including different damages for what is basically the same weapon (granted this has nothing to do with the new book). I'm afraid I have to agree with pretty much everything they said, and must confess I got a chuckle out of the who is moving the sniper rifle question. Though if I read correctly a STR 5 person should be able with some effort to move it. The one player is supposed to be taking a good look at the spreadsheet I've been trying to do up to convert the 5.6 CoC Weapons Table to include the stats in the new BRP book. Realistically I don't expect most of this to be fixed this late in production, however, it would be nice if it could. In Jason's defense, it looks like he mostly just dumbed down the CoC gun tables, making them very generalized, and adding in the new stats.

Anime influence -- I think this really depends on the games you're playing. If you're playing Robotech, Dragonball Z, or some such game then of course their are influences. Personally I don't see them in the stuff I purchase, but then for the past several years my purchases have been largely limited to CoC or Pulp, with the d20 Modern and base D&D 3.5 books thrown in during an attempt to play D20. Scripted/Railroaded adventures -- Really can't comment on this, I don't run someone else's adventures, I run ones that I create myself, and I tend to allow very free-form play. This is an interesting question as I'm actually getting ready to give my players a poll which will help to decide what our next campaign looks like, and one of the questions is if they want it to be more linear. Refusal to let PC's die -- I played AD&D 1st Ed. in the early 90's, and I've played a little D20 D&D, in the AD&D I didn't really fear for my characters life, in the D20 game I did. I GM'd a game years ago, where the PC's were basically undefinable, and nothing I could throw at them challenged them. In the CoC campaign I'm currently running, I've had to pull punches on several occasions as killing the players would hurt the story I'm trying to craft, at the same time, there has been player death, and I will only pull the punches so much. I can see a couple changes, one is a maturing of the rules. Let's be serious, RPG's are still a fairly young hobby, they've only been around for a little over 30 years. On the downside, I think one of the curses of both D20 and the times we live in is an emphasis on glitz over substance. Does every RPG book need to be hardback, on glossy paper and full colour? Personally "Basic Roleplaying" seems like a breath of fresh air if they keep the layout so clean and simple. Another problem I see are that the days of being able to get into RPG's cheaply. The basic entrance fee tends to be $40-150, this no doubt hurts on getting some people interested in the hobby. When you look at games such as CoC, Traveller, or "Empire of the Petal Throne" one thing you'll notice is that 40 now seems to be "young". The general aging of the RPG population has definitely had an effect. Aging -- When I was 18 I thought nothing of getting together weekly and playing Champions. I'm now 40, have 3 kids, a job and other interests, all of which keep me quite busy. I still love to play RPG's, though now I typically only GM them. Our group has anywhere from 1 week to 1 year between sessions, as such the rules need to be simple enough that I can remember them without having to restudy, and having them bog down gameplay.

There seem to be enough people interested in this that it would make sense for you to pool your efforts and do a conversion.

I've thought more about the characters than Collinwood itself. Still having Collinwood itself in such a game could be interesting. Somehow the thought of a member of the Collin's family be a "Highlander" type immortal seems appropriate. Any ideas have always been quite vague, as I've never had a reason to flesh them out. I'm getting ready to offer up some ideas to my players for what to go with once we complete the campaign we've been working on. I just might have to add this to the list of ideas. Or better yet offer it up as a "present-day campaign with interesting twists".

Weapons Table again... Rifle, Bolt-Action SIZ/Enc 2.0 If I understand how this works, that makes it 2 foot long. That is a tad short, even for a 22. It probably should be 3.0, same as "Rifle, Sporting", or slightly longer.

Prior to receiving my Advance Readers Copy, I was of the opinion that there is no way I'd want to purchase a copy of the book as a PDF. Having seen the book, I am a lot more interested, as I'd like to be able to print out and bind just those pages that I care about. Since most of the time I won't need super-powers, or magic systems that would really cut down on the size of the book for me. Of course what would really be great is a way to print out a custom book with just the rules I need (especially if I could add my own material in), but I don't see how that would be practical. BTW, I'm old fashioned, I prefer no computers in use while gaming. I don't even have any kind of a GM screen, I just have a clip-board with my notes on it. Before and after the sessions I do use the computer a lot.

I have heard women complain about the portrayal of this in games such as Everquest.

I remember those, I believe they had a Marvel Comics series, and that there was even a X-Men/Micronauts Miniseries (which as I recall was the limit of my exposure to them). Along those lines, "Shogun Warriors" could be fun, though I doubt it would work well as a campaign (another toy line with a Marvel series). Zane

Dark Shadows and Highlander are two of the core sources for an idea I've had bouncing around since the early 90's. Of course I was originally thinking of using GURPS, though in the past few years that idea has switched over to using BRP.

Do the Minimum STR & DEX requirements signify anything specific, other than the minimum requirements? I'm asking as something like a MAC-11, especially if it is the .45 caliber instead of the 9mm model is going to be hard to control, not only do you need the STR to keep it under control, but I can see there being a DEX requirement needed to keep it under control. At the same time I can see the minimum DEX requirement signifying the dexterity needed just to operate it and fire a single shot. It rather looks like the standard DEX requirement to operate a gun is 5, that jumps to 6 for an Uzi, and 7 for a .44 magnum or .45 revolver/automatic. Oddly enough, according to the book a .357 Magnum would have a DEX requirement of 5, but wouldn't it have a kick more on par with a .45 caliber weapon?

Except they are a book seller, they offer books for sale that are only available from them, and they have one person who appears to be dedicated to this venture, and another who is apparently involved part time. Personally I suspect that part of the problem is the software they're using sucks and is buggy. I've ordered from them several times and it is only the two orders in December that I've had issues. Both problems appear to be software related. At the same time, getting a response out of them isn't easy, I was about ready to call them this last time when I finally received a reply. I'm really surprised they printed as many as they did. It is also possible that by printing that many they received a sizable discount from the printer. After all 420 is an odd number. Zane

Atgxtg just pointed out in a PM that CoC 5.6 lists the M82 as 2D10+4, which is the same as "Rifle, Sniper" in the new book. My mistake, I forgot they had that listed under Assault Rifles in CoC (though the range has increased). The 2D10+1D8+6 number is from the original printing of Delta Green, which in turn lists the info as being from V1.4 of the "Weapons Compendium" which was published by Pagan Publishing in 1995 (I wish I had a copy of that book). I really like the info in Delta Green as they give the damage info for most types of ammo. I'm also more inclined to trust them as a source on this rather than Chaosium's existing books. Additionally I asked one of the local gun nuts what caliber he would consider a "Sporting Rifle" to be and he said .30 caliber which is the 2D6 listed in the table. So while I'm still wondering if the STR requirement is correct, it looks like the damage numbers are correct.

I lucked out an got a bunch of these about 10 years ago at a sale (to add to the two Castle books I got when I was a kid). Never forget a picture is worth a thousand words!

You don' t have that far to catch up to some of us... Sounds like we're the same age. Our youngest was born just before I turned 40 (the oldest is 4). If you think your thought is sobering, consider this, how many kids you went through High School with are now Grandparents? And I'm not talking about the ones that got pregnant in High School! That's what was going through my head the whole time my wife was pregnant this time. Zane

I suspect this is placeholder text, at least I hope so, as I swear half the pictures in the book have the exact same caption.

Have you seen the following? The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800's The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the Wild West Everyday Life Among the American Indians I'm not sure how useful these particular books are, but the "Prohibition through WWII" volume is one of my reference books for my CoC campaign. I'd really like to get the whole series.

I'm currently working on updating the CoC 5.6 gun tables to include the information found in the weapons tables in the new book. Once I'm done with that, I'll most likely expand upon them to include even more weapons. Is there a formula for determining the STR/DEX requirements, or the SIZ/Enc and SR & RF? I still need to read up on Strike Ranks, as that portion looks like it might be fairly obvious. Zane

Odd, I was just about to ask where to submit these. From the weapons tables Shotgun, Sawn-Off Damage: 4D6/1D6/ (should read 4D6/1D6) Range: 10/20/ (should read 10/20 or to match CoC it should really be 5/10) Is the STR requirement for a Sniper Rifle really 5! That is lower than a sporting rifle. Additionally what round are you figuring will give it a 2D10+4, as that seems odd. It is to high for a 7.62mm (M21 or M24 at 2D6+4), and to low for a .50 caliber M82A1 at 2D10+1D8+6). What caliber is the sporting rifle considered to be? I would have expected .30-06 which is 2D6+4 rather than 2D6. I'm currently upgrading existing gun tables, starting with the CoC 5.6 book to include the material given in this book, so might have more errors. I also have a couple questions I'll put in a gun specific thread. Zane

If that, my two year old daughter was horrible about climbing when she was about 1 years old, she's thankfully mostly grown out of that. OTOH, I turned my back for a minute and she got in to the box I use for all my campaign materials last night (I had it out to check the players STR/DEX as I'm adding the minimum requirements for guns to our campaign). She's driving us crazy trying to keep her out of stuff. Her older brother that is nearly 5 has never been a problem with getting into things he shouldn't. Zane