d20 Weapons Locker vs. Ultramodern Firearms

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Hey Dana!

I have a question for you!

Starting a new campaign, setting it somewhere between 1870-1900 earth or pseudo-earth. I want stats for D20 Modern for North American and European guns, with perhaps a few weapons in common use in Asia minor.

Do you have the hookup? (ie, is that kind of stuff in one of your publications)

If not, is there a place where I can find some information on those types of weapons, and do the conversions to game stats myself?

Big Bang Vol. 4 was a themed issue based on an article published in 1889, entitled "Small Arms of the European Armies". Along with reprinting this public domain article and its artwork, it covers a rifles from the time period, mostly European and a few American models.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

JPL, Dana is a bit [understatement]'opinionated'[/understatement], particulary when it comes to the subject of guns, especially when it comes to guns and products he didn't write. Just ignore that part his posts, we all do, and you should be fine... ;-)

Actually, my post was nothing more than a summary of all the flaws discovered by forum members over on the wotc boards.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

I have neither looked at these books nor do i play any modern games *yet*

Between Weapon's locker, Ultra Modern Firearms and Big Bang (Dana's book), do any of them differentiate between:

1. rounds used?
2. recoil systems?
3. popularity ( when the firearm in question were popular, among which people/groups, for what purpose)

My primary beef with 3E and D20 in general is its lack of statistics for weapons. I miss weapon speeds. While I appreciate reach stats some weapons were simple easier to weild and recover with than others. I feel that such extra statisitics give each weapon its own niche without forcing players to use such statistics.

What stats do the above three books bring into play? Would someone be willing to give us a sample write up for the same weapon from each of the three books?

My favourite firearms source has always been Ken Hood's Grim-n-Gritty system because it does take different calibres and recoil effecting systems into account to model weapons. While it is undoubtedly imperfect I think any other syste mof detailing firearms for roleplaying use would be remiss to ignore such facts of life.

Also, is there a sourcebook that details only larger weapons such as flak guns, tank armament, and mortars?

WL and UMF use the same rules for everything, so there are no significant differences over the Core rules.

My series doesn't implicitly supply what you're after for the basic D20M version of the stats, however, folks who buy the book could easily extrapolate rounds used from the CyberThriller Stats (take the full auto rate of fire and double it, since Cyberthriller is on a 3 second combat round) and take the Minimum STR from Action (which also works on default with a 3d6 stat range), applying -1 to hit for every point of STR too low.

And I do go into detailed description of technical and historical aspects of the weapons. While I haven't detailed why certain guns are popular with certain groups, that's mainly because I haven't covered much in the way of firearms designed for civilian use thus far.

As for "big guns", I'll be getting to those eventually. As it is, my books are the only ones really covering support weapons so far.

 

[HarryFlashman]

I mean Rounds as in Caalibre, grains of powder etc., sorry for the confusion.

Would you grace us witha write up of a sample weapon that would be easily found in the other two books?

Woudl anyone else be willing to give us a sample write up for both Weapon Locker and Ultra-modern Firearms?

I can give a sample of Ken Hood's system.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Well, he's also been caught posting bad reviews of products that directly competing with his own, and claiming it's not a conflict of interest, so more than a grain of salt is needed when viewing his opinions of other RPG gun books.

There is only one review I have posted of a competing product, and that's on RPGnow, for Mercenary Armory - Sniper Weapons. And the review starts out by stating I produce a competing product.

There's only been one other review I've made that someone has had issue with, and I hate to say this, but a book full of feat-like advantages and disadvantages isn't exactly competition for a book about guns.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

I mean Rounds as in Caalibre, grains of powder etc., sorry for the confusion.

Would you grace us witha write up of a sample weapon that would be easily found in the other two books?

Woudl anyone else be willing to give us a sample write up for both Weapon Locker and Ultra-modern Firearms?

I can give a sample of Ken Hood's system.

I don't go quite that far, but I do provide an ever-expanding chart of common caliber loads, complete with bullet weight, muzzle velocity & energy, and penetration and disruption values when fired on ballistic gelatin.

There is a sampler booklet in the freebies section of my website, and for UMF/WL, you can download a sample from the Green Ronin website.

 

[Cergorach]

ALlright Dana, so what do you think of the Spycraft corebook and the Modern Arms Guide expansion in terms of guns?

What kind of information do you think is usefull for 99% of the people who'll play the game? Where do you differentiate between a real life gun encyclopedia and a RPG gun book?

Personally i want a RPG feel for the RPG gun book, this will mean drawn illustrations instead of photos (photos make it to real, drawings do not imho). Enough information to know what it does, what it's used for and maybe a little history. Maybe some roleplaying pros and cons (now that's a nice idea i'm going to use ;-)

 

[slingbld]

Um, Dana, I just tried to get your free sample of the Mostly Illustrated guide. The link goes to a Tripod: Sorry that file cannot be found page.
Could you double check your links?

Thanks!

Also: When is the print version of your guides comming out??

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Tripod?!!!

Geeze, I haven't had anything on tripod in ages... Guess I'll have to check my sig...

try http://www.bakabanashi.com/mallfront/listings.php?category=5&sub=1&npage=1&sellerid=1

However, the download tracker seems to be malfunctioning at the moment...

The print version will be out soon. It was supposed to be done last month, but I have been having a lot of trouble while converting from Word 2000 to Pagemaker 7.0. Damned Adobe Table 3.0 crashes when I hit the end key to go to the end of a line, and everything crashes when I try embeding a table in Pagemaker while the table is still open in Table 3.0...

As for Cergorach's question, I find spycraft and the weapons presented to be less accurate than the stuff in D20 Modern. And my series doesn't differentiate between gun encyclopedia and RPG book. Remember, the full title is "Big Bang: The Mostly Illustrated RPG Guide to Modern Weapons". While I have no intention of producing tables of stats for every game system, I do hope to eventually provide conversion rules for a lot of systems (or better yet, javascript convserion calculators), and I expect it to become a suitable and accepted reference for game developers.

 

[HarryFlashman]

Darn message boards shut down prior to me getting my post in. That is the second time in a week.

in any case

Do all Three books have a Mauser 98 in them? Karabiner or otherwise?

What the the stats in D20-ese for comparison?

Ken Hood's Mauser 98 goes something like this

200' range increment
2d8+4 for damage
+2 to hit
Standard Attacks only (since it is a bolt action weapon you can only get the number of attacks you normally get as a result of your BAB)
+8 penetration (ignores 8 points of Armor)

I will gladly give you the how's and why's of Ken Hood's system if you like.