Making guns lethal.

[Reynard]

I am thinking of using d20 Modern/Future/Etc for a gritty post-apocalyptic game. I decided that I want bullets to be scarce and guns to be deadly, so I think I want to use WP/VP overall, but make it so that firearms always do Wound damage (and do max damage on a critical hit).

Tell me why this is a horrible idea.

Thanks.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One reason why it is a horrible idea:

PCs will die quickly; not least because d20 Modern/Future/Etc doesn't have any good ways for people to reliably take cover or avoid damage from guns. It is much easier to hit someone with gunfire in those games than it is in real life.


If I wanted guns to do gritty damage in a post-apoc game I think it might be better to do two things:

a) reduced MDT against guns (e.g. MDT = 10 rather than = Con)
b) optionally increase all gun damage by 1 die (e.g. 2d6 -> 3d6)

Cheers

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

I'm assuming that you're leaving the base damage for firearms unchanged?

If what you're after is to make guns the end-all/be-all in terms of making people dead, what you've outlined fits that bill to a T, and reflects a "grim'n'gritty" approach to guns.

The only glaring problem I see is that most players will hoard whatever bullets they can, and then unload on the big bad at the end of the adventure.

 

[Nadaka]

It is bad because it means you can't use those guns against your players. They will instantly die. Much more so than people in real life would (IRL, guns are not an insta-kill, something like 90+% of gunshot victims survive).

If you want guns to be very deadly. Use the W/VP system but increase the threat range of firearms to 19-20, 18-20 or at most 17-20. That increases thier chances of doing wounds while not invalidating the heroes "heroic reserves". IMO, thats about as lethal as you can get and still reasonably play.

Alternatively, just don't give your players any vitality and ignore crits. That should be as unplayably deadly a game as anyone could want.

 

[Roger]

I decided that I want bullets to be scarce and guns to be deadly.

This makes it pretty unlikely that anyone is going to have enough experience to qualify for the Personal Firearms Proficiency feat, let alone the more advanced firearms feats, which is going to make gun battles less deadly.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Reynard]

This makes it pretty unlikely that anyone is going to have enough experience to qualify for the Personal Firearms Proficiency feat, let alone the more advanced firearms feats, which is going to make gun battles less deadly.


Cheers,
Roger

Specifically, I am talking about a game that starts the day before the "bombs drop" (whatever that event may be) and going forward.

 

[3d6]

I am thinking of using d20 Modern/Future/Etc for a gritty post-apocalyptic game. I decided that I want bullets to be scarce and guns to be deadly, so I think I want to use WP/VP overall, but make it so that firearms always do Wound damage (and do max damage on a critical hit).

Tell me why this is a horrible idea.

Thanks.

Why not just drop the massive damage threshold? Dropping it to Constitution-10 or something will certainly make the game more lethal, and involves fewer house rules.

 

[SWBaxter]

I think your proposed rule will probably make guns deadly enough that nobody will risk a gunfight if they can possibly avoid it, which might make for a boring game. If you're going with VP/WP, you might consider having the damage to straight to wounds when the target is flatfooted, and otherwise just rely on MDT to make things deadly. That makes it so characters don't want to be ambushed, while still allowing them to engage in gunplay under the right circumstances.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The problem with guns being deadly is usually people get tied up in The Myth of the Gun.

Oi. I played a homebrew system that my brother-in-law spent years perfecting. (He and his buddy are big The Forge followers). Lovingly researched with data compiled from CIA and FBI databases on GSW, etc etc, with detailed bell curve plotting and direct mathematical links between published bullet velocities and ranges, etc etc.

Totally unplayable. You'd spend more than an hour making up a character and then the first trouble or combat get shot or stabbed, incapacitated, and die. That was it. I call it: "Bang, yer dead" Gaming.

If you're going to make it mathematically improbable that anybody will get in a gunfight and survive ... just say: "Bang, yer dead" and be done with it. Don't bother with dice or MDTs or WP or anything.

I've been a big detractor of Myth Of The Gun game styles since then.

Now, it's possible to make guns PSYCHOLOGICALLY scary, without making the game unplayable. You can, say, have people in a gunfight make saves vs. being Shaken if your players are the kind of people that refuse to be scary. You can make things SEEM deadly so they don't want to get into things ... crank down the MDT to 10, make the save 10+(1/2 damage) ... that's "gritty" but it lets the characters get hit and have to make a save, but spend APs on those saves so it eats up other resources.

Here's the thing ... if you're making detailed special rules on guns, that means guns are going to be in the game ... they'll be "rare", but not so rare you're not going to be including them at every opportunity ... possibly more than they would be, otherwise, because now there's a FOCUS on the rare guns. Like gasoline in Mad Max ... everybody wants the gas, so gas is the whole darn focus of the movie. Gas may be "rare" but we're focused on it now so it's the most common thing in the movie. We've got tankers full.

If you're making deadly-rare guns, they're going to show up, and if they show up, each PLAYER CHARACTER will be on the recieving end of the hurt more often than any single NPC. The NPCs will show up and leave, dead or alive or whatever, and maybe only have to encounter the guns once, while the PCs are going to be experiencing them every time they turn around, and LOOKING for them and looking for the bullets. So anything that affects NPCs affects PCs tenfold.

Good gaming, the players FEEL LIKE their characters are mortal and guns are scary and they need to take cover ... but they're really not that fragile ... or else you're running through sheets and nobody cares about their disposable one-shot-killed characters and ... oddly ... guns become LESS scary. They just lead to a disconnection between the player and his character. It's like playing Call Of Cthulhu, where, really, the whole darn POINT of the game is your character getting taken out of the game in some bizzare way and not the character itself.

--fje

 

[Reynard]

H.T. makes some good points. Let me back up and explain why it is that I want deadlier gun combat:

I would like to engender a certain playstyle in regards to firearms -- not necessarily "realistic", but "smart" and "scary". I want people to think twice about leaping into a gun battle. I want them to take cover. I want them to covet their bullets and only shoot when it is absolutely necessary or worth the cost.

I want to create a PA game where, at first, everything is messed up but not that bad. then resources start dwindling and society breaks down and getting food, water and bullets is as important as "adventuring".