M&M: Making Guns Interesting

[HeapThaumaturgist]

If I have one complaint about M&M, it's that guns become a little ... uninteresting.

One of the reasons I stuck with d20Modern for my pulp/supers game was the larger role weaponry would be playing in the game and the fact that M&M seemed to render all guns down to "+3L - +5L, Blast".

Nocturnals introduces the "Magazine X" flaw, which allows for most weapons to get a "free" Multifire/Autofire extra ... but I've been thinking. Are there any more interesting things we could do with weapons to maybe give them some more flavor? Something to differentiate between one and the next ... I've been making Nocturnals characters and it's all just putting different names on the same durn thing.

I've been thinking, trying to stat out a double-barrel sawed-off ... I've probably got this wrong, but I'm sitting at the library waiting for my wife and don't have my books:

Double-Barrel Sawed Off Shotgun

Weapon + 4
Extra: Other Barrel +2
Extra: Triggered
Flaw: Only When Triggered
Flaw: Magazine (2)
Stunt: Multifire

((So you can fire both barrels at once on one attack roll, forcing two damage saves, one lower ... or fire individually as per Multifire. But they're mutually exclusive? Something along the lines of a 6pp gun that does something a little different.))

Not sure. Don't think that works. But something like that ... some additional interest elelments, I mean.

--fje

 

[hobgoblin]

must gun stuff is just fx. all guns do are go bang and wound or kill. and in a game where the same can be done with a fireball or energybeam they become boring fast

 

[billd91]

I think Feng Shui has some interesting coverage of the phenomenon that, in RPGs, guns are fundamentally just devices to hurt people at range and can be handled with a set of simple statistics, yet gamers tend to be a little obsessive about differences between specific guns and want very specific rules about them. Sure this varies a bit from game to game, but with superhero games in particular, it seems that a lot of detailed differences between guns, especially those carried by mooks, are unnecessary.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, I don't need ALOT of difference. In many ways I LIKE the abstraction of the gun in these systems.

I'm just thinking about a few things for the sake of interest. Case in point ... Gunwitch, and one of the PCs I'm creating, both have "Gadgets" flawed out to "guns only". This would be interesting if there was some utility difference between a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun, a handgun, and a machine gun. If there's not, it'd be simpler to just give him "Blast" and remove device and call it a bazillion guns.

I don't need reality or anything like that, bleh ... just wondering if anybody had interesting concepts for changing up a gun with stunts and extras and such to make anything sorta interesting.

--fje

 

[takyris]

Weapon +5 -- hero's six-shooter
-PS: Snare +5
-PS: Disarm +5
-PS: Weapon +1, Stun +4
-Extra: Mind Control +5

-Extra: Heroic Blast
--Weapon +5
--Alternate Save(Fort)
--Telekinesis +5
--Flaw: Requires Hero Point
--Flaw: Full-Round Action

Snare: The hero can shoot nearby support beams, locks on truck trailers, or critical parts of water or grain silos, causing stuff to suddenly burst out and pile on top of his opponent, pinning the victim in place.

Disarm: The hero can opt to disarm his opponent with a heroic crack shot, as per the Slick power, forcing the opponent to make a Reflex save to avoid having his gun, knife, wand, or copy of the deed to the ranch blasted from his hand.

Stun: The hero can attempt to place a shot someplace painful, to put enough hurt on his enemy to cause him to become momentarily stunned with pain. While these shots are less dangerous, they are a good way to stop a fight before it starts -- a shot to the hand, or to the arm, just to let the bad guy know that a fight wouldn't go well.

Mind Control: By shooting nearby ground or walls, the hero can force a target to get back inside, dance in humiliation, or tell him what the combination to the safe is. (This is an extra, but is not meant to be used at the same time as an attack -- it's just different enough that I thought it merited an Extra, not a Power Stunt.)

Heroic Blast: By emptying six shots into an opponent in one rapid burst of heroic sharpshooting, the hero can put enough lead into the air to overcome almost any bad guy, even one who can ordinarily shrug off blows. The force of the shots is so intense that most villains are flung backwards, flying through the air to collapse flimsy tables, break through convenient windows, or pinwheel off the edge of high buildings as appropriate. The hero must spend an action point to activate this power (ideally by saying something grim but witty), and the power requires a full-round action to use. (I made it an Extra and not a power stunt because it had telekinesis in it -- I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate to Power Stunt it when it had a different type of power.)

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Tacky is da' bomb.
That's quite an interesting little power to create a hero around.

Hrm. Dirty Harry meets Saint of Killers.

--fje

 

[The Grackle]

Weapon +5 -- hero's six-shooter
-PS: Snare +5
-PS: Disarm +5
-PS: Weapon +1, Stun +4
-Extra: Mind Control +5

-Extra: Heroic Blast
--Weapon +5
--Alternate Save(Fort)
--Telekinesis +5
--Flaw: Requires Hero Point
--Flaw: Full-Round Action

I've been making a lot of weapon-using NPCs. For stuff like this I like to give the powers Flaw:Focus instead of Flaw: Device. Meaning that to use the power you must have the appropriate weapon, but the power isn't actually part of the gun. If somone else picked it up, it would just be a normal gun.

 

[takyris]

Grackle: That's exactly the way I have my PCs do it -- any whip the Whip-Master picks up is whipperific, but it's an ordinary whip in the hands of anyone else.

Heap: Glad I could help. It's very dependent on what kind of game you want. If you want a grim and gritty game, then these powers would be pretty silly, but in a game where other people get to fly or swing from the rafters, a gun that can always find something to shoot that will snare the bad guys is pretty reasonable.

I was actually trying to steal from "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.", the parts of that Sharon Stone western that weren't bad, and bits of "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", which I'm watching in 20-minute increments on Tivo this week.

 

[ledded]

Weapon +5 -- hero's six-shooter

Man, you rock at this. Very cool. Seeing some of the stuff you've came up with like this makes me want to try M&M

 

[takyris]

Well, thanks.

The only drawback to builds like these for PCs is that, as a GM, you then have to be prepared for the heroes to use the darn things. I was all proud when I helped each of my players build their PCs, and then I spent zero time building the bad guy (this was for a one-shot that we decided to do on the spot), just threw together an average tank and an average blaster, and watched as they were taken down in two rounds by some absurdist Snare/Stun/Mach-One Punch combination by the party.

"Uh, yes, good job. I guess that milk truck is flammable."