Vocenoctum said:
People come in all the time and say such. Or "I want a clip for my 9"
"Which 9mm?"
"huh?"
Heh heh. From my perspective on swords, though, it's more like this:
70 out of 100 folks who come in say they want a clip, but couldnt point one out behind the counter and you suspect they aren't really sure what they are used for, though they will have plenty of goofed-up book and movie references to them. When you try to show them the magazines, they say no thanks, I dont feel like reading right now.
10 more folks will come in and show you this nice shiny paper-mache and tinfoil handgun they have, and swear it's just as good as an original. They cry when you crush it in your fist on accident when you are handling it, at their insistence, to test it's 'balance'.
10 more guys have seen one, maybe handled one or a copy of one once, and claim to be trained. They can very excitedly imitate some moves with one John Woo style, but so badly that you would be very afraid for yourself and others if they actually held one, so you tell them you only sell beanie babies and direct them to the door.
9 more guys come in and have some terminology down, a few references, and are convinced they are an expert. They handle one when you show it to them fairly well, and just when you are about to hope against hope that you've found someone who knows what he's saying, he tries to jam the *magazine* into the end of the barrel, and when it doesnt fit he tells you it's defective. You are almost glad he did it because he's pointing the firearm with said barrel at himself and using the hammer as a sight across the room and his thumb to pull the trigger, and telling you how it has such a good 'feel' or 'balance'. Storms out in a huff when you try to gently correct him.
Then the last guy, number 100, comes in. He immediately picks out the correct magazine for his Sig Sauer with all of the nice mods, and quietly but expertly handles the weapon without a lot of bru-ha-ha. He pays, thanks you for your business, and you feel like a tear is about to roll down your cheek as you watch him leave.
Ok, maybe a bit exaggerated, but you get my point.
And the really sad part is that I dont consider myself to be that learned or experienced on swords; there are plenty of guys over on
www.swordforum.com and a very few other respectable places that are.
Vocenoctum said:
Though, actually, it's more common to get "I had this gun in this video game, can I get one?"
ROFL... people who do that need to be hit with a clue-by-four. With a rusty nail in it.
Vocenoctum said:
My main problem with the d20 gun stuff is the bias. I mean, a Glock doesn't cost that much, and certainly isn't more of a masterwork than a Colt... Okay, quality you can argue, but price is stable.
CoCd20 showed a glaring lack of understanding of gun laws in general, and I wouldn't doubt if much of the info was drawn from an anti-gun website or other source of similar bent.
Basically, for D20 Modern I prefer example guns, and if the players want more historical detail, they can get it elsewhere.
(for example, my last D20 Mod guy was a computer technician. He had a nice high polish 38 super colt with pearl grips, simply because he'd have picked it from the "looks neat" section of the catalog. Stats were identical to a Glock, i.e. MW Gun, but 10+1 rounds.)
Yeah, I get the same feeling sometimes. I'm not sure it's always author bias, but bias based on popular culture. Everybody thinks Glocks are the coolest because in the 90' all the stories about them being able to fire effectively after freezing them, burying them in mud, dropping them into the ocean, taping them to the outside of a space shuttle on re-entry, etc went around. For some reason people assume they are the only handguns that can operate under less than perfect conditions because their marketing got more press. I'm sure they are fine handguns, but are they *that* much more fine than all the others? I'm not sure personally, but that's what I have all my gun bunny compadres on the boards for
Kinda like truck-cutting katanas.
While being a proponent of technology, and working in a technology field, I believe that authors of any kind of work for public consumption should be forced to do without the internet for research until they have done at least <x> amount of actual library research, interviews, and actual field experience with what they are writing about. It's just too easy to jump out there and grab the first few things without really getting in depth enough to gain a decent understanding. Not that the internet is all bad; there are a lot of good sites out there for various topics, but for every one good one there are 10 bad ones and 20 more decent ones that are misleading or misconstrued.
Once you do some real research, you can then use the internet in order to get info while being able to sort the grain from the chaff.
