making firearms more deadly (deadlier?)

[ragboy]

(a) who can shoot first and (b) who can not get shot.

But that sort of game invalidates all sorts of otherwise interesting character concepts, because it's just no fun to (a) not shoot first and (b) get shot and killed.

And with that level of realism, the PC's will have to take effective countermeasures for getting shot or not getting the first shot off:

1) Talk your way out of more confrontations
2) Burn the requisite feats to draw faster and shoot more accurately
3) Travel tactically, moving half the party while the other half provides overwatch
4) Look at every encounter tactically, knowing where cover, concealment and the best firing positions are...
...various other things that will slow down the action of the game, while adding scads of realism.

One thing that I've seen happen when scads of realism are added to any game, though, is that the roleplaying doesn't reflect the changes. When both sides of a conflict know that someone among them is going to die when triggers get pulled, you have a lot less heroism, even if the engagement goes hot. Add to that laws of the land, where killers could be caught, tried and probably killed, unless the incident was clearly self-defense, then you have many many reasons not to pull triggers.

Depends on what you and your players want to do with the game, though...

As far as the history of gonnes... it's what Wulf said: Guns got to the point where they had the cheapest ROI. Anyone could pick up a gun and be relatively accurate after a few hours of training. Not so with longbows, swords, and crossbows. This fact changed the entire philosphy of war in Japan, of all places, when the gun was introduced there.

And, if you add realistic benefits, then you also have to add realistic drawbacks: wet/bad powder, poor weapon design (or just bad luck in some cases) that blows up in your face, the massive cloud of smoke (Obscuring Mist?) that can be used to either side's advantage, long reload times, the fact that anyone near and in front of the firer is going to be deaf when the gun goes off (and possibly disabled and have powder burns -- thus no more firing into melee)... etc.

In a D&D scaled engagement, I've always assumed that everyone gets one shot, then it's back to swords, knives, spears and riflebutts. Last of the Mohicans had some great illustrations of this kind of small scale fighting...

 

[ragboy]

In assault cases of gunshot wounds the following hit locations were given:

Head / Neck - 14%
Arm / Hand - 13%
Leg / Foot - 33%
Upper Trunk - 21%
Lower Trunk - 16%
Not Specified - 3%

This is great data, but you may want to check what 'assault cases' this covers. If it includes suicides and gang killings, the data may be weighted toward the head.

 

[Blastin]

I used to be one of the people that thought that someone getting shot 3+ times and living to adventure again was unrealistic. Then I started working in the medical department of a state prison. I have seen many inmates that are doing fine after multiple gun shot wounds. A few I think of in particular are one guy who was shot by a "coworker" who placed a 9mm pistol with ripper rounds against his chest and pulled the trigger 3 times. The guys has some nice scars but is fine. Then there is another guy who was shot TEN TIMES ,in the same exchange, with automatic weapons fire (some type of submachine gun) and is fine other than some aches in legs with damp weather.
After seeing these guys I no longer have that big a problem with game style gun damage
Blastin

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

This is great data, but you may want to check what 'assault cases' this covers. If it includes suicides and gang killings, the data may be weighted toward the head.

Very, very, true-- especially with regards to suicides. The CDC's gun data bears a close look at the internals.

Good catch.

 

[Khayman]

Exactly what additional effect should you want firearms to inflict on targeted victims? A psychological trauma effect? If that is the case, Holistic Design d20: Afghanistan have rules on shock, which work on gunfire and artillery fire (hence the term "shell-shocked").

We've been using those rules for a while now. Effective at making players think twice without being insanely deadly.

 

[Captain Tagon]

I used to be one of the people that thought that someone getting shot 3+ times and living to adventure again was unrealistic. Then I started working in the medical department of a state prison. I have seen many inmates that are doing fine after multiple gun shot wounds. A few I think of in particular are one guy who was shot by a "coworker" who placed a 9mm pistol with ripper rounds against his chest and pulled the trigger 3 times. The guys has some nice scars but is fine. Then there is another guy who was shot TEN TIMES ,in the same exchange, with automatic weapons fire (some type of submachine gun) and is fine other than some aches in legs with damp weather.
After seeing these guys I no longer have that big a problem with game style gun damage
Blastin

Yeah, it's all about shot placement and what kind of drugs the guy is on and/or what his mental state at the time is. Hence the common self-defense mantra of "shoot until the threat goes away". That isn't shoot to kill, but shoot the guy enough that he's on the ground and you can get away. Even several rounds from a high powered hand gun can have barely any effect on someone, especially if their adrenaline is high or they are doped up, while a single lucky shot from a .22 can kill someone. Guns are funny like that.

 

[ragboy]

I used to be one of the people that thought that someone getting shot 3+ times and living to adventure again was unrealistic. Then I started working in the medical department of a state prison. I have seen many inmates that are doing fine after multiple gun shot wounds. A few I think of in particular are one guy who was shot by a "coworker" who placed a 9mm pistol with ripper rounds against his chest and pulled the trigger 3 times. The guys has some nice scars but is fine. Then there is another guy who was shot TEN TIMES ,in the same exchange, with automatic weapons fire (some type of submachine gun) and is fine other than some aches in legs with damp weather.
After seeing these guys I no longer have that big a problem with game style gun damage
Blastin

This is more prevalent with modern medicine, as illustrated by the number of multiple amputees coming out of the current Iraqi conflict. The stuff I've read claims that 15 years ago they couldn't have saved half as many lives as they can now on the battlefield and in field hospitals.

Not sure if that will be any consolation to the PC's, however: "You survived, but your Dexterity is now 3."

 

[mmadsen]

I used to be one of the people that thought that someone getting shot 3+ times and living to adventure again was unrealistic.

What's unrealistic is not that someone might survive multiple gunshot wounds; it's that they know they cannot be killed (or even really hurt) by less than a dozen gunshots wounds.

How the damage system is implemented changes this dramatically -- even without changing the overall lethality. For instance, in a straight hit-point system with no complications (no crits, MDT, etc.), a .45 does 2d6 damage, averaging 7 points per hit. A guy with 70 hit points then expects to take 10 such hits before going down, and he knows he cannot be disabled by fewer than five hits.

Now imagine another system, based on some kind of Damage Save, whether similar to Blue Rose or to Modern's Massive Damage Save, where that same guy has a 1-in-10 chance of being disabled by a .45 bullet. Again, he expects to take 10 such hits before going down, but he might be disabled by the very first one. Or he might take 20 shots before going down.

 

[ragboy]

Now imagine another system, based on some kind of Damage Save, whether similar to Blue Rose or to Modern's Massive Damage Save, where that same guy has a 1-in-10 chance of being disabled by a .45 bullet. Again, he expects to take 10 such hits before going down, but he might be disabled by the very first one. Or he might take 20 shots before going down.

Has anyone toyed with ballistic weapons doing the listed lethal damage and some factor of the listed lethal damage as additional non-lethal damage?

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The problems with situations like this is: where does it go? Where does it end?

When do we get sucked into the Myth of the Gun?

Most of all ... when does it cease being fun?

If we have to roll a dozen different tables to find out where that thug's lucky bullet strike actually hit and whose spleen it blasted, are we having fun?

And if somebody's PC has a 1-in-10 chance of dying every time combat starts, is anybody really going to have fun playing a game with that kind of attrition.

I believe its' good fun to make sure the players have an intense feeling of PC mortality ... but I try to stop at situations where every time the fur hits the fan they'll be ready to roll up new PCs.

I think 10 + Con Mod. as a MDT would be more than sufficient to scare the pants off people.

There's always the "Cool" factor from Godlike. Any time the PCs want to dive headfirst into an insanely harrowing situation, force them to make a Will save. Stand up against a flamethrower? Cool save. Charge a machine gun nest? Cool save.

--fje