Arms companies in gaming

[Umbran]

I usually include a talent (or whatever your system uses) for Favorites. A lot of firearm purchases are based upon user bias, not hard statistics. Ergonomics, and belief, real or not, in a given caliber heavily influence choices.

So this talent gives a small bonus to a PC using his preferred caliber, model, manufacturer, etc.

So, what keeps the player from choosing to put their talent in the whatever is obviously the min/maxed offering?

 

[overgeeked]

You get system bloat and gear porn when you have a heavier system that insists on making minute mechanical differences between hundreds of nearly identical items.

The companies can still exist as factions with all the same story potential without the gear porn bloat.

 

[MGibster]

Cyberpunk 2020 is the game I think of for this. In the 2020 rule book, the bloat wasn't so bad as there were usually 2-3 weapons per category. Like real life, there are factors to consider when choosing a weapon like price, reliability, number of shots, etc., etc. The Dai Lung Streetmaster pistol does more damage than the Federated Arms X-9 and it's $50 cheaper. But the Dai Lung is unreliable and the Federated Arms is reliable. Of course why not just buy the Militech Arms Avenger because it's very reliable and cost the same as the Dai Lung Streetmaster. Yeah, it gets weird.

In real life of course there's no obvious best. Someone might favor the Glock 17 while another person loves their Beretta M9. I know gun bunnies sometimes like to get into the minitua of muzzle speeds, stopping power, how many grains the bullet is, etc., etc., but sometimes it's really about how comfortable the firearm feels in your hand. I had a Taurus 9mm that wasn't particularly comfortable and I could barely hit anything I aimed at whereas my Colt .357 was comfortable and I feel like I can't miss with it. It's not easy to convey preferences into mechanical differences though.

For a game like Cyberpunk, I usually expect the PCs to be better equipped than your average ganger or security guard, so I'm perfectly fine with them selecting whatever the best gun in their category is. When designing NPC threats, I give them weapons that make sense. For gangers and low level security, the weapons are usually on the cheaper side. Gangers don't typically wear armor whereas security will often have light armor of some kind.

Cyberpunk Red categorized weapons by light, medium, and heavy for pistols, light/heavy for submachine guns, etc., etc. but they didn't bother having different models made by multiple companies. You could have a low quality rifle and just say it's a Dai Lung, but it isn't built into the system and I was surprised how much I missed it.

 

[aco175]

Small arms work fine for most people.

 

[Jd Smith1]

So, what keeps the player from choosing to put their talent in the whatever is obviously the min/maxed offering?

Don't offer min/maxed options. There's no perfect firearm. Some are better for CQB, some for medium range, some for long, some for precision. Everything is a trade-off.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

An Ares Predator is a lot cooler than just something called a Heavy Pistol.

Yes it does. On the other hand a new player automatically knows what "heavy pistol" means, while an "Ares Preditor" could be just about anything.

On possible compromise might list guns by generic type and then have a sidebar with manufactures and models.

Don't offer min/maxed options. There's no perfect firearm. Some are better for CQB, some for medium range, some for long, some for precision. Everything is a trade-off.

To have that level of granularity only works in super crunchy systems, which work for some people but aren't my cup of tea. In something like Savage Worlds, there's only so many knobs you can adjust.

 

[Jd Smith1]

To have that level of granularity only works in super crunchy systems, which work for some people but aren't my cup of tea. In something like Savage Worlds, there's only so many knobs you can adjust.

Doesn't have to be that crunchy. But yeah, SW is just not up to much in the way of personalization.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

In Xcrawl (back in the 3.x days at least), magic items were limited in that only X company made Fiery weapons, only Y company made Thundering weapons, etc. So trying to find certain items required winning dungeon crawls sponsored by X or Y company.

That's one concept I love from the world - dungeons are televised events, like WWE merged with dungeon crawling. Clearing a trapped and goblin'd room might be worth a year's supply of arrows, for example. People would wear armor with their sponsorships logo on the armor.

 

[sevenbastard]

Don't offer min/maxed options. There's no perfect firearm. Some are better for CQB, some for medium range, some for long, some for precision. Everything is a trade-off.

And good luck getting anyone to agree. Gun Nerds fight about quality of a specific model, type, ammo load, brand, etc.

 

[MGibster]

Don't offer min/maxed options. There's no perfect firearm. Some are better for CQB, some for medium range, some for long, some for precision. Everything is a trade-off.

In most games, I find players drifting towards the same weapons over and over because mechanically they're just the best option. If you're playing Cyberpunk 2020, there's not much reason to take a light or medium pistol because even the lightest of armor will render both next to useless. A heavy or very heavy pistol is just as concealable as a medium pistol (a light pistol is even more concealable) and the difference in price isn't a barrier for most PCs. i.e. Nobody is going to bulk at the 100 eddie difference between the Budget Arms Auto 3 (11mm) and the Dai Lung Streetmaster (9mm).