full/semi- auto weapons

[Turin]

Caz Wrote:

The more skill someone has, the more likely they are to achieve a more accurate and therefore more lethal hit.
And with firearms, just as with a rapier, accuracy is of the utmost importance to achieve the maximum results. Just as with hand weapons, the firearms DR should be balanced to factor in successes

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I must disagree with this.  You accuracy would reflect generaly "where" you hit, and impact damage in that fashion.  I.E. because you are more accurate, you will hit the head, not the foot.

But it will not impact the bullet's exact path- A more skilled shooter will not hit someone's aorta more often than a less skilled shooter (and I'm not talking about precision shooting accuracy, but the shooting that would occur during a game, combat shooting).  The bullet will often ricochet after hitting something like a bone, and where it hits after riccheting has a lot to do with the lethality of the wound.  Bank shots can be aimed in pool, but not in combat!

Nor will more sucesses make your bullet hit "harder"

There's a certain degree of randomness with weaponfire that can only be simulated with just that - randomness.  Yes, there is randomness or your D10 rolls, but by tieing damage to the shooters MP is making it not random, but favoring those with a high MP.

I could see the more sucesses you have allowing you to hit the particular part of the target you are aiming for - something where 1 sucess allows you to only strike the target, but the location random, and the more sucesses you have the more accurately you can place your round.  Don't have an idea for the exact mechanics, but it would not be that difficult.

On the other hand, if you want small arms combat to be represented in almost an entirely cinematic fashion - use the rules as is.

As for the toughness idea - I think using toughness over/under 4 to be a modifier to shock/pain/bloodloss would be more accurate for firearms than the toughness as is.  Otherwise, a toughness 8 character would not be hurt much by most small arms fire - and a .50 calibre machinegun round would do to the toughness 8 type what 9mm fire does to normal people.

It does not matter a whole lot how big/tough you are when hit by a bullet.  A .30-06 round can penetrate anyone skull.

[Kaelin]

I'm actually on Turin with this one.  Now I admit, I have no military training and only VERY little skill with firearms (I shot a .22 a few times when I was 12 in boy-scouts), but from what I've studied on the subject, and just using some creative thinking, I think a part of how "margin of success" translates into hand-to-hand in TROS has in part of how you hold your weapon.  The first success over you're oponent's defense indicates that you hit, your strength combined with the weapon damage mod indicates how HARD you hit, and the extra successes indicate things like the angle your blade connects with your oponent (whether its a draw-slash, a tip-cut, a right-angle blow that delivers a lot of force but doesn't "cut" much) or at the right angle to optimize force AND slicing ability - also, edge alignment would be a part of the margin of success, because if that is off, then it will impede your cut with a blade.  With a firearm, the bullet pretty much does all the work.

[Kaelin]

Sorry, forgot the rest of what I had in mind with the previous post.  I think that the extra margin of successes should be used with firearms to help determine exact location - kind of a modification on the "Accuracy" gift.  Like, for every two extra successes beyond the first needed to hit the target will allow you to modify the d6 location hit by one in either direction.  For example, 1-2 successes, a normal hit, determine damage and roll for location normally, 3-4 success allows you to modify the d6 location roll by one, 5-6 successes allows you to modify it by two, and so on.  This could help represent a single sniper's shot made with a full dice pool being placed perfectly on the targeted area as opposed to rapid-fire shooting where the dice-pool is split up and you may only get 1-2 success.

[Turin]

Thats my thought as well, Kaelin, although you have put it into something that would probably work in game terms.  I do hink a little randomness for damage would be needed as well, changing the bullets damage from -2 to +2 of base.

I also see a high MP as someone cool enough under fire to accurately place 2-3 rounds, when the low MP type would be lucky to hit with 1 round accurately.

For autofire or shotguns, I see the sucesses as dtermining how many rounds were actually on target (or ow much shot on target for shotguns.

There was a skirmish game that dealt with fire arm fire real well.  Forgot the name, but it took hip shooting, aimed fire, aiming for more than 1 round, recoil, and of course target size, movment, etc into effect in both speed of fire and accuracy.

It allowed pistols one slight advantage I think they have in the real world:

Rifles/Carbines, etc were more accurate at range, better for aimed fire, carried a bit more punch, usually carried more rounds.

Bu the pistols were better to use for hip fire, for quick responses to a target you are/were not aiming at or had little time to aim.  Not a very good trade off, but at least they were good at something!

[Salamander]

Thats my thought as well, Kaelin, although you have put it into something that would probably work in game terms.  I do hink a little randomness for damage would be needed as well, changing the bullets damage from -2 to +2 of base.

I also see a high MP as someone cool enough under fire to accurately place 2-3 rounds, when the low MP type would be lucky to hit with 1 round accurately.

For autofire or shotguns, I see the sucesses as dtermining how many rounds were actually on target (or ow much shot on target for shotguns.

There was a skirmish game that dealt with fire arm fire real well.  Forgot the name, but it took hip shooting, aimed fire, aiming for more than 1 round, recoil, and of course target size, movment, etc into effect in both speed of fire and accuracy.

It allowed pistols one slight advantage I think they have in the real world:

Rifles/Carbines, etc were more accurate at range, better for aimed fire, carried a bit more punch, usually carried more rounds.

Bu the pistols were better to use for hip fire, for quick responses to a target you are/were not aiming at or had little time to aim.  Not a very good trade off, but at least they were good at something!

That game would be Millennium's End. The game even uses overlays dependant upon your range to target. If you want to hit a specific location you have to make your roll by a certain margin. Fail to make that margin and the round may not hit the targeted area, or even the intended target at all! It makes those hostage scenarios that much more scary for the PCs. And yes, pistols have a distinct advantage in CQB with their ability to be brought into action faster than a submachine gun or a rifle. The individual recoil stats is a newer addition.

The fan site is here http://www.millenniumsend.net

Sadly, the game is out of print, but there are a few books out there on e-Bay.

[Turin]

Looked at the site, game looks pretty cool.

That was not the game I was referring to however.  I think it was called "Skirmish", and was a bit more simplistic though both have similar ideas/mechanics.  Skirmish was designed for small unit actions, ancient times to present.

[Dr_Pete]

Ho there,
I've been puzzling over the firearms question myself (without personal firearms expertise) and here are a few thoughts I've come up with.  Naturally, these are ideas for mechanics, not any kind of gospel :^)

First:  Obviously, unlike missile fire weapons, you don't automatically take yourself out of firing position with each shot.  In other words, it's not so sensible that your MP should drop to zero each time you pull the trigger.  Maybe firearms should have a number associated with them, something like a "recoil" value.  In other words, shots after the first could have activation costs in some sense.

Second:  A burst might be handled as (say) three shots using a common pool, where the first shot uses all of the dice, the second uses dice-recoil and the third uses dice-2xrecoil.  Assuming a recoil of 2, you would roll 2 dice, another 2 dice, and the remainder.  Successes in the first set apply only to the first shot, those in the second set apply to the first and second shot, and those in the remainder apply to all three shots.

Third:  Hit locations should be randomly distributed, with the option of spending a success die to select "center mass" or upper legs or two dice to select head, arms, shoulders or lower legs as target zones.  This has to be called before the rolls, of course.  If you spent two this way and got one success, it's a miss.  These might need some adjusting-- two dice for the thighs, three dice for the extremities, maybe.

Fourth:  One success in the margin indicates a graze, doing DAM/2, otherwise treat it normally.

Fifth: Cover should have two armor values, one which measures its toughness (as regular armor) and one which its obscuring power (which comes straight off the success margin).  A bulletproof glass wall might have AV 10, OV 0, while hiding behind an overturned table might have AV 3, OV 3).  OV would depend on size and opacity.  Double the OV if you're completely hidden from view, and naturally, these apply only to body parts hidden behind cover.

Sixth: You need rules for peeking out from cover.  Maybe initiative die rolls could cover this for snap shots (red die, you peek out, spend one exchange building up pool, one exchange shooting, and one exchange exposed w/ reflex roll at at... 9 to avoid the exposure?)

Seventh: Cyberpunk had a "Cool" attribute, which might be equivalent to WP.  Getting shot at is unnerving, so one possibility is to make missed shots give "shock" of some amount, like 8-WP, or if it seems reasonable, have a WP/"cool" skill roll factor into it somewhere.

That's the basic framework I'm thinking about for guns.   It's a bunch of additional rules, which may or may not all work together, but generally fits the overall RoS framework.

Dr Pete

[Turin]

Dr_Pete wrote:

Seventh: Cyberpunk had a "Cool" attribute, which might be equivalent to WP. Getting shot at is unnerving, so one possibility is to make missed shots give "shock" of some amount, like 8-WP, or if it seems reasonable, have a WP/"cool" skill roll factor into it somewhere

My idea of the "cool" attribute is MP.  This is a result of experience and SA's, and your "cooler" types are generaly more experienced.  Although there are some newbies who are cool under fire, and some experienced types are no cooler under fire - they can sometimes get worse.

Although the idea of being shot at and how it affects your ability to return fire is often overlooked in RPGs.  The purpose of supression fire is not as much to wound/kill as it is to keep their heads down.  To represent this in a RPG is a very good but often overlooked idea.

Fourth: One success in the margin indicates a graze, doing DAM/2, otherwise treat it normally.

I still think there is the need for further randomization for damage, not tied to the sucess level.  If you follow the sucess = damage idea, then a better marksman (higher MP) would have a better chance at penetrating your armour plated glass listed below, which is illogical.

For autofire weapons though, I still think the best idea is to somehow tie the amount of rounds that hit to the sucesses obtained.  Maybe also modify this by the ROF of the weapon.  Obviously, cap the sucesses at the rounds fired in a burst, even if more sucesses are obtained.

This way better weapon skill allows someone shooting on round to hit where they are aiming better, or to get off more rounds than someone with less skill.  With autofire, it makes the chance to hit greater and allows more rounds on target.

I do have some experience using various military weapons, including M16, .45 pistol, 7.62mm LMG.  Not enough experience to be an expert on the matter, but some experience.  And form what I have seen, when using something like the M16 in short bursts, it does not make you as accurate as firing 3 seperate rounds via semi-auto action, or even less so than 3 bolt action rounds.  You are on target or off, and the extra rounds you fire may help a bit to hit, but not that much.  You will get multiple hits frequently a closer ranges, though.  Autofire is not wise to do at a range of over 100m with an M16 as you are less accurate than when firing a single round, though at 50m and under the multiple hits are frequent and would be devastating.  with an actual LMG capable of more sustained autofire, you can "steer" your rounds to the target, seeing where misses go.  Tracer rounds are a big help to this.

[Dr_Pete]

My idea of the "cool" attribute is MP.  This is a result of experience and SA's, and your "cooler" types are generaly more experienced.  Although there are some newbies who are cool under fire, and some experienced types are no cooler under fire - they can sometimes get worse.

Fair enough, though I guess I would think of MP as ability at a gun range or as a sniper, without the friction of a combat environment.  Here's another idea on how to represent this "friction"-- the MP refreshes by some number of dice per round (or exchange, if I've read the discussion here correctly).  Perhaps instead of adding a straight number, that's the number of dice applied to a "cool" skill roll.  MP improves by the number of successes each exchange.  A possible adjustment to this would be adjusting the increment to include WP in the refresh rate in some way-- (reflex+WP)/2 or something, maybe?
Alternatively, it could be something like a terrain roll-- you aren't concentrating solely on shooting, some of it's going to keeping ahold of yourself.

Although the idea of being shot at and how it affects your ability to return fire is often overlooked in RPGs.  The purpose of supression fire is not as much to wound/kill as it is to keep their heads down.  To represent this in a RPG is a very good but often overlooked idea.

Given that we're talking about situations taking only seconds, it would also be cool to add in perception rolls to figure out where the bullets are coming from, and so on.

I still think there is the need for further randomization for damage, not tied to the sucess level.  If you follow the sucess = damage idea, then a better marksman (higher MP) would have a better chance at penetrating your armour plated glass listed below, which is illogical.

Agreed.  I still like the graze idea, but how's this for an alternative...?  A gun ST/AV vs TO/ST contested challenge (exactly what would go in here is naturally up for debate-- maybe AV*2 for "ballistic" armor?  Subtract Toughness off the bat or from margin of success or not at all?).  A strength 6 gun against an unarmored person with TO 6 would then typically give a severity 3 wound (6-3).  Against a person with AV 6, it would typically give no wound (3-3) with some chance of blowthrough.  It's a pretty different kind of mechanic from regular combat, but still follows the general RoS line without having to give all guns super-high values of STR.

For autofire weapons though, I still think the best idea is to somehow tie the amount of rounds that hit to the sucesses obtained.  Maybe also modify this by the ROF of the weapon.  Obviously, cap the sucesses at the rounds fired in a burst, even if more sucesses are obtained.

This is also less cumbersome than the method I was thinking of, though one hit/success does make this hella-deadly.

with an actual LMG capable of more sustained autofire, you can "steer" your rounds to the target, seeing where misses go.  Tracer rounds are a big help to this.

This naturally could be simulated with letting the MP continue to build up from exchange to exchange while you are firing (though this would represent nearly automatic destruction of the target you "walked" the fire over to).

Thinking about trying to make this topic "realistic" keeps bringing me back to the famous disclaimer in CoC... guns are deadly, and if a character gets in a gunfight, he'll probably die.

Dr Pete

[Turin]

Turin Wrote:

For autofire weapons though, I still think the best idea is to somehow tie the amount of rounds that hit to the sucesses obtained. Maybe also modify this by the ROF of the weapon. Obviously, cap the sucesses at the rounds fired in a burst, even if more sucesses are obtained.

Dr_Pete Replied:

This is also less cumbersome than the method I was thinking of, though one hit/success does make this hella-deadly.

The sucesses = rounds is just a mechanic, not necassarily the exact rules.  More most hand held autofire weapons, I would think 1 round per 2 sucesses may be the most accurate to represent your standard 3-5 round burst.  For other issues (thinking of some of the super smg's out there with incredible ROF) one round per sucess would be better, but you of course would expend more rounds (10 for this type, 5 for a "normal" burst?).  

I would also give a hand held autofire weapon 1/2 of the range factors of the same type weapon used full auto to represent the inaccuracy of autofire, which is definitely not the way to hit something at good range.

Your mechanics for damage sound interesting, providing a variable.  I'm not entirely familar with the whole mechanic, so I am not sure how cumbersome it would be.  Also, an AV of 6 (plate) should definitely not be proof against damage.

Another Idea to factor toughness/Armour into the equation would be to
give the bullets a target number based on the toughness/armour value, and different rounds have a different amount of dice they roll.

For example, a .45 pistol round may do 5 die of damage.  It's TN on an average (toughness 3) type might  be 5, and it would do 3.0 wound levels on average, 5.0 max. (this might be a bit too weak).  THough I think toughness should only increase the TN by 1 per two points of toughness, i.e 3-4 TN = 5, 5-6 TN = 6, etc. so an 8 toughness would have a TN of 7  which would = 2.0 IL on average.  

Just a thought, maybe too complicated as well.