Game mechanics which attribute to govern firearms

[ZeOtter]

I am new to these forums, and I hope I am posting this in the right place.  

Now that, that is out of the way...  I have been kicking around ideas in my head for designing and I have an idea for a game mechanic I want to get some opinions on.  

With regards to modern firearms, what are your opinions on using a perception attribute over a agility attribute for governing firing a weapon.  My thought is that unless you are taking the time to aim the gun it is governed by perception.  You don't see where the gun is pointing when you draw it you instinctively know where it is and your full conscious concentration is on the target when you pull the trigger.  Agility in my opinion is more for governing balance and other full body activities such as gymnastics, not firing a weapon.  I thinking that perception would be added to your firearms skill unless you are aiming, it which case I think that agility would be more appropriate.

I would like to hear people thoughts on this, and if you could steer my to research this topic I would be appreciative.

[Paganini]

It's a good idea as far as it goes. Back in the day, when I was searching for the One True RPG (as I think perhaps you are) I used a similar breakdown, having fired weapons depend on mental stats.

Just a word of warning, though. You have entered the Forge. Prepare to have your assumptions questioned. That's all I'm gonna say . . . :)

[quozl]

I agree.  Agility has almost nothing to do with how well you can shoot.  Perception (especially depth perception) seems to be the best natural ability for it although training and experience would be much more important, I think.

P.S.  I see you're in Yucaipa.  I went to YHS in 87-88.  Could you be anyone I know?

[Andrew Martin]

I could easily see an agility attribute being used for shooting, particularly when shooting from the hit or not bothering to aim. That's because the shooter is working from muscle memory and aligning the weapon with the pointed finger -- what my finger points out, I can shoot.

Another option is strength. Without strength to hold a heavy firearm, the weapon is going to miss, because the barrel is sagging down.

Another option is intelligence. After all, if the target is hidden or camouflaged, only intelligence is going to let you realise that the target can be shot at a vulnerable point.

Similarly for willpower. Only by having the will to hold the weapon steady on the target, realising that you're killing someone, and accepting that fact, could one possibly shoot someone in cold blood.

And so too for appearance. :) Only with the distraction of an attractive face, can one sneakily get a gun out in time to defeat an attacker.

:)

[ZeOtter]

Wow, everyone is helpful already, I like it...  To answer quozl, no you don't know me I am afraid.  I just move to Yucaipa in July, I graduate from Laguna Beach High School in 1987 so we were kind of close.

Based I what I have heard already I am really leaning towards a perception based roll for snap shoot firearms, the idea being that your hand, eye coordination (which I think comes from perception) is more important.

Now if you were aiming I am leaning towards agility, my dad was a world champion target shooter in the 50's and aiming is a lot more about body control than anything else.

If any has anymore I thoughts I would love to hear them.  I am glad to see the warm welcome to the forums, I have few more questions I won't to pose to the group in the next few days.

[Mark Johnson]

ZeOtter,

Attributes which could be absolutely essential in this situation:

agility
manual dexterity
luck
control
reflexes
will power
hand-eye coordination
intelligence
perception
any specific sense
intuition
training
knowledge[/list:u]
Even if you accounted for all factors, you would still need to weight for how important they might be in the particular situation... if you want to tie a skill to attributes.  

Is your journey really necessary?

What do you gain by linking skills and attributes in the first place?

[Ben Morgan]

I'm going to throw a wrench in the works and mention something no one else has yet.

In Nomine (by Steve Jackson Games) included Precsion in their set of attributes, to cover exactly this sort of thing.

The ability, for example, to whip around 80 degrees or so to your right upon seeing something out of the corner of your eye, and not end up overcompensating and shooting past your target.

Or the ability to keep your sights on a moving target.

Or the ability to put a slug from a high-powered rifle through your enemy sniper's scope and into their eye.

Just a thought.

-- Ben

[Edit: In retrospect, Mark Johnson touched on this with a couple of items on his list, notably hand-eye coord.]

[M. J. Young]

ZeOtter--It's probably not what you call your attribute, but how you define it.

Multiverser uses a ranged strike value for ranged attacks; it's derived from two basic attributes, hand/eye and intuition. Intuition would cover a lot of what you mean by perception, I think (noticing things out of the corner of your eye, processing inconsistencies in the environment to tell you when you should react). Hand/eye also covers some of what you want, as it's the ability to make your actions line up well with your perceptions (that is, although we call it hand/eye, it would include the ability to kick an object in the dark based on listening to the sound it makes).

Yet as someone has already hinted (and I'm surprised you haven't been barraged on this point already), why are you using an attribute for gunfire anyway?

It's being asked because there's a hint in your posts that you're planning on using an attribute+skill system. If you've got a good solid reason why you have to do it that way, more power to you (and don't misunderstand me--Multiverser uses an attribute+skill system, and has good solid reasons for doing so). But if you're just doing it because that's how these things are done, you may very well be making the mistake everyone else makes.

So to step back,

[*]Are you using some variation of an attribute+skill system?[*]Do skill numbers serve any other function, mechanically, in the game?[*]Is there a reason why you're doing it this way beyond that that's the way it's done in other games?[/list:u]
--M. J. Young

[ZeOtter]

You guys caught me, my system is in the very first stages of development and what I am doing is trying to get a feel for what other people think.  I am starting with a attribute + skill system because that is what I know.  

When I started out with this game I wasn't sure how I was going to handle mechanics I just thought I had a really good story to tell.  As I started jotting down ideas the system just started to immerge and I really didn't start thinking about till I found your wonderful little site here.

You all have sent me in some new directions I want to play around with, but I always take a day or two before I write anything down to let it perkelate in my head.  Please keep the ideas coming I really do appreciate the constructive criticism.

[szilard]

If firearm use is something really central to your game, you might want to include a statistic that more closely aligns with the skill. Something like precision (as noted above) or hand-eye coordination.

If you are creating the game, you aren't stuck with a predetermined set of attributes. You don't have to choose between Perception and Agility. You don't even need to have stats called Perception and Agility.

Stuart

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, Stuart, if the game centers around Firearms use, he may want to go further and have a Firearms stat. Which would be a representation of how well all the sorts of things in Mark's post come together in this character.

All stats are made of components, and you can endlessly subdivide. Thus Strength can be Upper Body Strength, and Lower Body Strength. Still both are important to doing a dead lift of a great weight.

The question designers need to ask is at what level of breakdown the delineations are interesting.

And ask another question. Is there any use for perception outside of firearms? Is it really something that you want central to what's being explored. Because you can't include everything. I can give you a list of stats sixty or seventy long easy that still woudn't be exhaustive. At some point you have to decide on what area of game play a stat is going to cover, and define it broadly enough to do that.

Now are there more intuitive concepts to describe these areas than others? Probably. Thing is, without knowing what the area is, it's hard to suggest a suitable term.

How important is shooting in this game of yours? Important enought that you need to differentiate between say handguns and longarms? Or is it just a part of the character's overall combat effectiveness.

So, we need more info to help, really. Until then these posts are all going to be guesses and generic examples of how other games handle it.

In the end the stat wil be defined by what the rules say it can be used for in the game, not by the terms used.

Mike

[Mark Johnson]

Both a surgeon and a marksman may be masters of precision.  Still, I don't want to depend on the surgeon to shoot the pursuing enemies or for the marksman to remove my gall bladder.

[ZeOtter]

The reason I started this topic is my work centers around the modern world, and in every modern RPG I have played firearms played a big part.  What I want to refined in my game starts with how firearms are handled.  

Please realized that all the ideas I have here are in the germination stage and will change over time.  I am now moving away from a attribute + skill system.  and have it just an attribute system with skills used to modify rolls.  So to fire a weapon you would roll your precision attribute and it would be modified by a skill score.  

I was also thinking maybe at character creation players could buy bonus dice to use in the rolls, to give it a more heroic feel.  You could by so many points in certain dice, like 2 points for a four sided, three points for a six sided, etc...  You can add these dice to rolls whenever you like but the pool replenishes slowly so characters have to think about what they spend them on.

I used the precision + firearms idea to see first what this forum is like, and next to start my research on the system I want to create.  I have a lot of wild ideas in my head but they take time to developed and I work best getting feedback as soon as the ideas become concrete enough to write down.  

Please keep the critiques coming  =)

[dalek_of_god]

I don't want to sound like I'm knocking your ideas, because they sound like a good start too me, but I think you're missing the point of some of the attribute + skill naysayers. At least some of them mean get rid of one or the other completely. So if the game was about, say, "Motorcycles, Motels, Musclecars and Massive Handguns" then when you look down at your character sheet you'd see a list like:

Vette: Driving big ole cars!
Hawg: You better know what this refers to!
Con: Gettin' away without payin' yer tab!
Gun: Lead makes things dead!
Run: Move boy, MOVE![/list:u]
No perception or agility to speak of, just the stuff that actually matters to the game at hand. Of course that doesn't work for everyone. I'm partial to attribute+skill myself, but it does simplify game design when you get rid of extraneous detail.

Now I have the urge to go watch a 70's style road movie. Huh. Well, if it wasn't for the Forge I wouldn't have considered THAT as a roleplaying concept!

Dwayne

[Mike Holmes]

The reason I started this topic is my work centers around the modern world, and in every modern RPG I have played firearms played a big part.  What I want to refined in my game starts with how firearms are handled.

Dalek is right. Just because a game is in the "modern world" doesn't mean that it has to have special rules about firearms. What is your game about, specifically. That will tell us more about where the stats ought to be.

See octaNe for a game where guns come up all the time, but there's no particular rules for using them.

Mark,

Both theives a warriors need to be dexterous, but I wouldn't trust the first to win a fight, or the second to be able to steal anything. Yet most game systems will tell us that there is a correllation. What you're arguing against is stat/skill systems in general, or the extent to which one relies on the other. Or am I missing your point?

Mike