Firearm-rules in BRP

[Enpeze]

BTW, I was assuming that double damage on an impale was still the standard rule for CoC, so that, combined with the shot range modifier would make most pistols pretty dangerous at the 20 foot range that they are typically used at.

Yep. Guns are impaleweapons in CoC (20% special)

[Rurik]

I think there's certainly an argument that guns are going to look odd as long as you don't differentiate penetration and damage, that's not unique to them; there are distinct problems with other types of weapons in this area, too (as far as that goes the psychology of combat thing is more general; people behave erratically under fire, but I don't doubt the same thing is true when rude people are swinging battleaxes at your person).

While the psychology of combat applies to melee as well, in a medieval type game most combatants are conditioned for personal combat to the point it is a non factor (until the Fear Spell is cast, or some creature that inspires fear come along). Also, the best defense against the axe weilder in your face is fighting back, or at least defending yourself. Curling up into a little ball and wimpering like a baby is not likely to save you. When being shot at on the other hand, the fetal position is a much better defense, particularly with good cover. Shooting back while under fire just does intuitively seem the best way to save yourself when you have a perfectly good ditch. Modern soldiers, even with the best of training, panic under fire. That is why people trained in firearms that can hit a target every time at a range miss with most rounds in a real firefight, even at very close range.

The question becomes is it significant enough to model, and the answer to that is going to vary by each gaming group and game. I'd probably not use these rules for a pulp, Indiana Jones type game. But for say a game where the characters are say Delta Force or professional mercenaries against say third world military forces I'd say such rules would be very desireable.

[TRose]

Thing to remember if you start adding bullet types out there there a ton of different types out there. Starting with explosive bullets(The Soviet snipers used them as " markers" in their rifles during WWII) To my favorite Glaser rounds. Don't think I would want to do the work but would be glad to see some one else do it.

[Nightshade]

One thing that you have to watch when setting weapon damages is making them _too_ robust. Handguns kill people, and do so regularly, but people also eat four or five shots and keep coming; rifle rounds are more reliable, but people still survive being shot with rifles (and even .50 caliber machine guns). That's why I suspect keeping the damage somewhat modest and expecting impales to make up the difference is going to work better than getting too carried away with base damage.

Of course you also run into some problems where what works in a system using hit locations won't work in one that doesn't; in practice our black powder rules are much more deadly in RQ than they'd be in most versions of BRP.

[Trifletraxor]

Gotta get the wiki up and running so we can save some of these suggestions. Do anyone know how it's handled in the core book?

SGL.

[Rurik]

It sounds like Cthulhu Now is the most detailed set of rules that can be recreated using the BRP rules and options from what I've read so far.

Which is fine for many games, but lacking for a Special Forces/Mercenary type game or another one where gun combat is central.

[Atgxtg]

AP Rounds lose accuracy because they are teflon coated. The reason is that AP rounds are made out of harder metals (steel or alloys) than non AP rounds. When first being developed the hard rounds ruined a weapons rifling in short order. The teflon coating helps reduces friction and so the round does less damage to the barrel's rifling, but also does not 'take' to the rifling as well, and less rotational spin is created (which is the whole point of the rifling).

Good old soft lead takes to the rifling very well so actually shoot straighter (and also does verry little damage to the rifling because lead is so much softer than the barrel's steel).

Ah, intersting. Of coruse that does explain steel cored bullets and other forms of encasing a penetrator with a softer outer metal. The Russian 5.7mm pistol round does that.

It also explains why that doesn't happen with tank guns, too, as they fire fin stabilsehd rather than rifled rounds (rifling is a disadvantage at those velocities).

Positive I've never read Timelords. Sounds decent though.

I7m going to have to show you a copy some day. It is a little overcomplicated by today's standardards, but very detailed and does things very well. It has a lot of nice ideas, and is one of the few games where modern (even futuristic) weapons and primitive ones can coexist. Like is life, pretty much anything can kill you, just some things are better at it than others.

[Nightshade]

While the psychology of combat applies to melee as well, in a medieval type game most combatants are conditioned for personal combat to the point it is a non factor (until the Fear Spell is cast, or some

I think this makes big assumptions; many combatants may well have had little exposure to combat outside of some militia training before the events of a campaign. After that they get used to it of course, but that's just as true in the firearms case. Take a look at the occupation tables in RQ3 some time and ask yourself how many of those professions are _really_ "conditioned for personal combat". I suspect, especially at the Barbarian and Civilized levels, the answer would be "not many". The professional combatants and no others.

creature that inspires fear come along). Also, the best defense against the axe weilder in your face is fighting back, or at least defending yourself. Curling up into a little ball and wimpering like a baby is not likely to save you. When

Running like hell may well, however, when you see him charging you in the first place. The fact the survival techniques are different doesn't matter; the fact standing and fighting isn't usually the ideal for either is.

good ditch. Modern soldiers, even with the best of training, panic under fire. That is why people trained in firearms that can hit a target every time at a range miss with most rounds in a real firefight, even at very close range.

I'd be really interested to see if its actually worse than it was with weapons. With artillery I can believe it, but I'm honestly unconvinced an experienced soldier reacts any more badly to bullets winging past than an arrow storm or just the sight of a charging mass of enemy.

[Nightshade]

I7m going to have to show you a copy some day. It is a little overcomplicated by today's standardards, but very detailed and does things very well. It has a lot of nice ideas, and is one of the few games where modern (even futuristic) weapons and primitive ones can coexist. Like is life, pretty much anything can kill you, just some things are better at it than others.

Though parts of Greg's impairment rules seem a bit unrealistic in light of studies the FBI and military have done in recent years. It turns out that (at least in firearm combat, though I'm hard pressed to assume its much different in melee) that a lot of assumed impairment just flat out doesn't happen short-term. This is apparently because the adrenaline rush at the start of a combat does two things; it masks further damage, and it impairs you itself. This turned out to mean that even things you'd intuitively assume would cause impairment (hand wounds for example) usually didn't (there are obvious exceptions, such as severed tendons). The result was that there were only three likely results of fireams combat: the target shocked out (which could happen with surprisingly minor wounds in theoretically noncritical areas), he bled out (usually because of hitting an artery) or there wasn't much effect until the adrenaline faded and everything caught up.

This has implications for most death-spiral combat systems, but the information isn't very widely distributed and I've had trouble in the past finding it on the Net, so its hard to get people to believe it as its rather counter-intuitive.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah,

From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

[Nightshade]

Yeah,

From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Right.

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

None that I know of, really, but as I said, the information was commonly available (on the Web) for a relatively brief period after the studies were done, and as far as I know largely vanished off the radar after that. I suspect if you aren't in certain corners of the firearms effectiveness field, or in trauma medicine, its almost unknown. And as I said, its counterintuitive, and an awful lot of game rules are written by intuition rather than research anyway.

[Atgxtg]

It does match what I used to see in the tramua room as well as personal experience.

I used to get adrenaline shots at the ER, and would go into a state of hyperactivity, despite being sick, dead tired, and low on oxygen (asthma being one of the reasons for the adrenaline shot). When I was a child, there were times when I had to be physically retrained to keep my from running around, at least until I coughed up blood and got freaked out.

That old fight or flight reflex is scary.

[soltakss]

(Un)fortunately, I am not a gun nut and don't know the ins and outs of all the different types of gun and how they would affect targets.

The only thing I think of is a gut feeling of what would this gun do to a person and if it feels right.

I'd group similar guns together, so all .38s do the same damage, all .45s do the same damage etc. Different ammo types might do extra damage or might penetrate armour better, so a dum-dum might do an extra D6 or an armour-piercing bullet might have the APs of protecting armour.

But I wouldn't go much more complicated than that.

Also, I don't see how being shot is any different to being stabbed or being crushed in terms of subsequent damage, bleeding or shock. If someone pops a bullet into me or a crossbow bolt, the results would be quite similar. I know I wouldn't much care for either.

[soltakss]

One thing that you have to watch when setting weapon damages is making them _too_ robust. Handguns kill people, and do so regularly, but people also eat four or five shots and keep coming; rifle rounds are more reliable, but people still survive being shot with rifles (and even .50 caliber machine guns). That's why I suspect keeping the damage somewhat modest and expecting impales to make up the difference is going to work better than getting too carried away with base damage.

But, because BRP damage is random, this is taken care of.

Just because something does 3D6 damage does not mean it automatically kills someone. It can do 3 damage as easily as 18.

What happens on average is more important. Shoot 100 people in the chest with a .38 and see how many die immediately. Do the same again with a .22, a .45, a 12 bore(guage) and so on. It might be a bit messy but it would probably be worth it from a gaming-reasearch point of view.

[Atgxtg]

What happens on average is more important. Shoot 100 people in the chest with a .38 and see how many die immediately. Do the same again with a .22, a .45, a 12 bore(guage) and so on. It might be a bit messy but it would probably be worth it from a gaming-reasearch point of view.

Well, most people who try that either get stopped before they get a statistically significant sampling, or have government backing.

But, based on the stuff that we found out from wars and firefights, pretty much no one actually dies immediately. There are very few spots on the body that will kill you right away if destroyed. So instant kills are probably less than 5% with all of the above.

That said, the chances of someone dying with a few seconds, minutes, hours, or days without proper medical attention is pretty close to 100% for all of the above, too. And not being killed isn't the same as "up and fighting". Some who is down in 5 seconds and won't wake up for an hour is effectively out of the fight.

There are some differences between gunshot wounds and wounds from other weapons, but all in all the primitive weapons probably have worse complications than bullet wounds. Such weapon leave bigger, more jagged holes, and are not as clean so the wounds go septic more often (warriors are notorious for not sterilizing their greatswords between opponents).

[Sorloc]

Yeah,

From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

I watched this once, and experienced it once.

A few years ago, I was getting back from getting the mail when a woman ran up to me and forced her way into my apartment, begging me to lock the door. When I did, she started to wander around and I noticed blood dripping all over.

As I was calling 911, I found she had been shot three times, apparantly with a .38, once in the wrist, once in the side of her face (cheek and tongue were damaged), and once in the chest below her left breast.

She was up and active for a while, but as she calmed down, she kept starting to fall asleep. The 911 operator was encouraging me to keep her talking, so I tried.

A few months later, she came by to thank me for helping. That was very nice of her, and I was glad to see that she had recovered.

My personal experience was not with a bullet wound, but a fair gash on my head. A metal storage box had come loose off the top of my work van, and was hanging down over the windshield. As I was getting it down, it struck my head pretty hard. There was blood on my hand, but I knew that head wounds bleed like mad, even when they're not serious, so I wasn't too worried. I got the box down (which was full of about 350 lbs of metal pipe and stuff, which I never knew was in there), drove a few miles down the road, then drove back to wait for someone to come pick up the box, helped them load it on the flatbed, then drove to the doctor's, filled out about 20 pages of forms, took a drug test, got x-rays, got a b.p. reading of 145/126 (!), then finally saw the actual doctor and then they finally began treating the wound.

This is three and a half hours after the incident, and I began to get nauseous as they were cleaning the wound. They offered me some water, and I accepted. While they were getting it, I complained of greyed vision and dizziness. The next thing I knew, they were shaking me awake.

I had to rest a while, but was able to leave after about half an hour.

I didn't even need stitches, only had a minor concussion, and was perfectly fine until I knew it was all over and the adrenaline rush had worn off. My b.p. had dropped to 120/80, which is where it normally is.

How do you adjudicate the effects of adrenaline and shock in a game? I really don't know. It does affect different people differently...

[Rurik]

I think this makes big assumptions; many combatants may well have had little exposure to combat outside of some militia training before the events of a campaign. After that they get used to it of course, but that's just as true in the firearms case. Take a look at the occupation tables in RQ3 some time and ask yourself how many of those professions are _really_ "conditioned for personal combat". I suspect, especially at the Barbarian and Civilized levels, the answer would be "not many". The professional combatants and no others.

Running like hell may well, however, when you see him charging you in the first place. The fact the survival techniques are different doesn't matter; the fact standing and fighting isn't usually the ideal for either is.

I'd be really interested to see if its actually worse than it was with weapons. With artillery I can believe it, but I'm honestly unconvinced an experienced soldier reacts any more badly to bullets winging past than an arrow storm or just the sight of a charging mass of enemy.

All valid points, though I think we are talking about a slightly different things. What you are describing is pretty much like Morale to me. Morale is actually rarely modelled in RPG's (old D&D had it though). I'm talking about more of mental discipline under fire. The two are similar but different. I'm not talking about modelling fight or flight, but the ability to overcome fear and chaos in battle. Most soldiers can pop up from behind cover and fire at an enemy, but not everyone can pop up, take a careful bead on their target, and squeeze the trigger evenly while being shot at - that takes one hardened MF.

Actually, on that note, I forgot to add suppressive fire to aspects of modern combat that are not modelled in BRP. Suppressive fire is effective partly from this hard to overcome sense of self preservation.

Certainly any optional rules that model combat psychology could be used in medieval type games, though honestly I have never missed them in those type games, just as I don't miss better penetration modeling in fantasy games. Where I miss them is in modern, firearm intensive games. BRP as is is fine for CoC because the focus isn't on guns. But when I want Mossad* commando raids I do miss them.

*Did I say Mossad? My bad, I can't possibly prove that, as these people who infiltrated a Pakistani Military base and assassinated their top Nuclear Physicist couldn't possibly be traced to Israel, as they have no discernable background at all.

[SDLeary]

Not too shabby Rurik,

BTW, Sandy may have used Jane's to get the weapon damages, but for whatever reason, those numbers were thrown out when they revised the game. First edition CoC damages are different that what is is 5th, and seem to work better IMO.

He was using the Jane's as a reference when working specifically on Cthulhu Now. I'll have to go back and compare those tables to the current edition.

SDLeary

[Nightshade]

But, because BRP damage is random, this is taken care of.

Not really. There's random and there's random; multiple die rolls tend to pile up a lot; linear die rolls don't, and gun damage sometimes seems astonishingly linear.

Just because something does 3D6 damage does not mean it automatically kills someone. It can do 3 damage as easily as 18.

However, it will roll 10 more than either, and that's often more than enough to kill a BRP character under at least some versions of the rules. As such, 3D6 should only be used on weapons that are reliable, one shot killers, and that's rarer than you might think.

What happens on average is more important. Shoot 100 people in the chest with a .38 and see how many die immediately. Do the same again with a .22, a .45, a 12 bore(guage) and so on. It might be a bit messy but it would probably be worth it from a gaming-reasearch point of view.

Except very few shots actually _do_ kill someone immediately. That almost always requires a heart shot. The vast majority of lethal wounds do so over time, sometimes quite long times.

[Nightshade]

Well, most people who try that either get stopped before they get a statistically significant sampling, or have government backing.

But, based on the stuff that we found out from wars and firefights, pretty much no one actually dies immediately. There are very few spots on the body that will kill you right away if destroyed. So instant kills are probably less than 5% with all of the above.

That said, the chances of someone dying with a few seconds, minutes, hours, or days without proper medical attention is pretty close to 100% for all of the above, too. And not being killed isn't the same as "up and fighting". Some who is down in 5 seconds and won't wake up for an hour is effectively out of the fight.

There are some differences between gunshot wounds and wounds from other weapons, but all in all the primitive weapons probably have worse complications than bullet wounds. Such weapon leave bigger, more jagged holes, and are not as clean so the wounds go septic more often (warriors are notorious for not sterilizing their greatswords between opponents).

I pretty much agreed with everything you said here, but wanted to comment that a big part of the effectiveness of modern firearms, especially handguns, has little to do with one shot stopping or killing power; I honestly suspect on a shot-to-shot basis, few handguns are better than a routine melee weapon. Their big advantage is in some forms of penetration, and more importantly, rate of fire; its almost impossible to launch a serious of melee attacks at the rate even relatively slow firearms (such as a bolt action) can do, let alone faster guns. And that's always been modelled poorly in BRP games.

[Trifletraxor]

Their big advantage is in some forms of penetration, and more importantly, rate of fire; its almost impossible to launch a serious of melee attacks at the rate even relatively slow firearms (such as a bolt action) can do, let alone faster guns. And that's always been modelled poorly in BRP games.

This is true. In BRP you can fire arrows at the same rate as a 9mm, and that's not really realistic.

SGL.

[Sorloc]

For my Gunslingers game, I created the following house rules dealing with rate of fire for firearms. I was not thinking about modern firearms (perhaps I should have been), so there is no ruling on semiautomatic, automatic, or burst fire capable weapons.

For missile weapons:

You strike on your DEX Strike Rank Modifier if your weapon is ready.

example:

Flint is in an archery contest with some braves. If he wins, he gets to leave alive.

Flint has a shortbow (ROF:1/SR).

He has the bow in his hands, and one arrow nocked.

Flint's DEX SRM is 2.

Flint's first attack may occur in SR2.

Then Flint must reload (for a "1/SR" weapon, this takes 3 SR).

Then Flint may shoot again after his DEX SR (2)

So, Flint fires his first arrow on SR2, then again on SR7.

For guns, the time to 'ready another shot' is as follows:

Bolt-action: 3SR

Single-action, Lever-action: 2 SR

Double-action: 1SR; -10% to hit

Gatling: 0SR

example:

Chuck is emptying his SAR (Single Action Revolver) into a fleeing suspect.

Chuck's DEX SRM is 2.

Chuck's first attack may occur in SR2.

+ 'ready new shot' (2SR) + DEX SR (2SR)

Chuck's next attack may occur in SR6.

+ 'ready new shot' (2SR) + DEX SR (2SR)

Chuck's third attack may occur in SR10.

There will be a penalty for changing targets based on the type of weapon and the º of change involved (imagine a hex grid, so penalties will be based on 60º increments). Gatling Guns will take heavy penalties, then rifles (like -10% / 60º), then pistols (like -10% / 60º after first 60º). - w.i.p.

No one has brought up 'fanning' their pistol yet, I'm sure the negative to hit mod will keep most from trying it.

Looking at it, and considering semiauto and full auto, I might just adjudicate all full auto to be an area effect attack... semi auto and burst fire- obviously a semi auto pistol should tale 0 SR to ready a new shot, but if you try to use burst fire that fast... hm, but you wait your DEX SR to regain control, then fire again... 0 SR to ready will work fine, because you always have your DEX SR in between.

So,

Semiauto pistol: 0 SR

'3-round' burst: 0 SR

full auto: either area-effect for the round, or fires every SR at -20/SR cumulative.

[badcat]

There seems to be a fair amount of comments on what BRP can't do or doesn't model. Maybe all the versions together (as in the new book) might help change that very false impression. It's also worth mentioning that just because no one has tried to include every little picky rule for firearms in BRP someone can think of does not mean it can't be done with BRP.

[Nightshade]

One thing about firearms you need to watch out for, however, is that high rates of fire are often accompanied by, honestly, amazingly crappy accuracy in actual combat (which is why the mediocre rates of fire in even a strike rank using game aren't entirely painful); in particular, its been estimated by police that the average amount of hits even by trained police in firefights is about one in six; even in realtively good conditions and/or quite close quarters you often get an amazing number of rounds going everywhere but the target.

[Sorloc]

One thing about firearms you need to watch out for, however, is that high rates of fire are often accompanied by, honestly, amazingly crappy accuracy in actual combat (which is why the mediocre rates of fire in even a strike rank using game aren't entirely painful); in particular, its been estimated by police that the average amount of hits even by trained police in firefights is about one in six; even in realtively good conditions and/or quite close quarters you often get an amazing number of rounds going everywhere but the target.

Yeah, but how fun is that to play?

Not that I haven't narrated a few rounds of firefight in the past; the PCs run down the corridor while laser blasts splatter all around them; they dive around the corner, and two of them point their guns around the corner and unleash some suppression fire. I roll a few dice, and if someone is way out in the open and I roll really high for the opposing side, then I resolve an attack, like so: "One of the bad guys takes a hit and goes down," or "As you pause in the hallway to lay down some fire, you take one in the..." (roll, roll)

Running gun battles are more exciting when you don't roll every single bullet, you've got to do something to keep it moving, or the excitement goes away.

So I guess the answer to my question is, plenty fun, if handled properly.

Which leads into another topic - mass combat... :eek: