Modern Firearms in HQ

[Der_Renegat]

Im still working on how to use HQ for a cyberpunk setting and started with the obvious: combat and modern weapons, because most of the rest is pretty obvious.
Vehicular combat works just like every other contest and as long as you dont have to compare humans to big machines theres no need to worry about a scale.

I solved the detailing of modern weapons by handling every weapon as a keyword with several abilities.

Every firearm has one of four range abilities:

-very short
-short
-sight
-scope

Some of these weapon abilities dont have a rating they just tell you on what range these weapons work with no penalty. So sometimes these abilities work more like an advantage. Other abilities will have a set rating, depending on the model of the gun.
I guess most gun-abilities cant be improved by spending HP´s.

Here are the modern weapons - i have thougt about some cyberpunkweapons as well (gauss-needleguns, gyrocs and weak lasers):

PISTOL
calibre: small^1, medium^3, large^5
range: short

ASSAULTRIFLE
calibre: ^6-7
range: sight
automatic fire

RIFLE
calibre: small^4, medium^7, large^10
range: scope
very accurate
unwieldy

SHOTGUN
calibre: ^4-11
range: very short
expanding pellets

SUBMACHINEGUN
calibre: ^3
range: short
automatic fire:
-many bullets on short distance
-expanding bullets on long range

SNIPERRIFLE
calibre: ^11
range: scope
very accurate
unwieldy
tripod

MACHINEGUN 30mm
calibre: ^8
suppressive autofire
heavy

The automatic fire advantage gives you a rating of the fire rate/minute divided by ten or the size of the ammoclip, whatever is smaller, so most automatic firearms will have an autofire rating of 30=10M. This ability works like a follower, it adds AP to your gun-ability.

Dropping to zero AP can be narrated as running out of ammo.

A fumble can be narrated as a jam.

Shooting at point blank gives you a bonus of a mastery.
Shooting at longer range than your weapon has, divides your rarting by 2.


Armor works similar:

KEVLARVEST
-effective against wounds (^2-5= ability of 20-10M2) but less effective against crushing (depends on gamestyle)
-effective against small firearms
-less effective against rifles
-hot to wear

KEVLARVEST WITH EXTRAPLATING
-effective against wounds (^7-8= ability of 10M3-20M3) but less effective against crushing (depends on gamestyle)
-hot to wear and stiff

There is also cyberpunk armor like Mesh, Exoskeletons and Powerarmor.

Special equipment:

HANDGRENADE
-Concussion
blast^8
radius: 3m

-Fragmentation
shrapnell^11
radius: 6m

LASERPOINTER 10M
can be used to augment for quickness, targettinghelp in darkness or bad weather, moving targets, psychological (fear)


I had a few problems with all those special types of ammunition, like armorpiercing, explosive and even more exotic stuff like tungsten core, depleted uranium, etc.
I guess the best way is to make it simple and cinematic. So instead of giving armorpiercing bullets a rating, they just give you the advantage to penetrate normal bodyarmor - so no armor rolls are allowed.
Most firefights will be between humans or vehicle against vehicle.

I would really like to hear some comments, crticism or further ideas on my results.
all the best

Christian

[Donald]

I guess most gun-abilities cant be improved by spending HP´s.

I don't understand why not, by doing so you're implying that training and experience don't improve the user's ability.

Here are the modern weapons - i have thougt about some cyberpunkweapons as well (gauss-needleguns, gyrocs and weak lasers):

I'd simplify into four catagories - short range and long range for both automatic and accurate firearms but if your idea of the genre makes this detail important then go with it.

[soru]

In general, the way to add more detail to an area in HQ is not to add a bunch of rules or equipment lists, but to write up some thoughts on how various types of contest would work out. This includes descriptions of how you woulkd describe that type of contest, and typical situational modifiers.

Only two numbers are really needed, 'gun skill' (which may be called something else on a particular character sheet) and 'weapon rating' (17 for a Beretta, 3W2 for a M16,  10W6 for an MI Abrams main gun-equivalent ).

For example:

gun skill versus gun skill:  combatants take cover and pop up to take shots at each other, try to work around to the right angle to get a shot in, etc. Straightforward extended or simple contest. As in 95% of movies, noone actually gets shot until the contest is over.

gun skill versus dodge: gun user gets a +10 bonus, any result that would get the dodger better than a minor victory becomes a minor victory instead. Fully automatic weapons can use weapon rating instead of operator skill.

gun skill versus non-gun range weapon or magic: gun user gets a 1 mastery advantage. Guns are just faster, easier to aim, faster to fire again.

gun skill versus melee weapon: gun user gets a 2 mastery advantage at range. Don't bring a knife to a gun-fight. Once in melee range, handguns get -5, rifle equivalents -10, heavier weapons lose a mastery.

weapon rating versus tough or large or armoured: straightforward extended or (usually) simple contest. Military or police types in a cyberpunk universe will normally have enough armour to stop handguns at a minimum, meaning if you want to tangle with them you need bigger guns.

gun skill _or_ weapon rating versus immune to bullets: specialised defensive ability gets a mastery advantage.

gun skill versus personality trait or relationship: a mexican standoff, or the scene in many films where somone walks towards the gun-wielder while saying 'put the gun down' in just the right tone of voice. A  mastery disadvantage once bullets have started flying, but before then traits as diverse as 'intimidating', 'reckless' or 'cute' take no penalty.

In this take on the genre, guns dominate any contest they are in - as long as the gun user maintains control of the situation. In general, one-sided ownership of a gun is enough to trump most differences in character power. Once someone successfully narrates an action that negates that advantage, the situation usually flips, as a 2 mastery advantage becomes a -5 penalty.

soru

[Der_Renegat]

Der_Renegat wrote:
I guess most gun-abilities cant be improved by spending HP´s.


I don't understand why not, by doing so you're implying that training and experience don't improve the user's ability.

Thats a misunderstanding, im talking about the abilities the gun itself has, not the characters ability.
I dont think the accuracy ability of a rifle could be improved...but really im unsure...
So far my plan is to give each individual gun a fixed rating in its abilities, the numbers will vary with the model.
On the other hand you could argue, that the ability to make advantage of them is part of the characters abilities, that is, how efficiently he can use them. If you look at it that way you could improve all the abilities a gun gives to you.
So the question is, do want to handle a gun more like a follower that gives you abilities (and AP´s in the case of automatic fire) or more like a mechanism you have to master, so that you develop each ability to use a feature of the weapon individually?

all the best
Christian

[Der_Renegat]

Soru said:

In general, the way to add more detail to an area in HQ is not to add a bunch of rules or equipment lists, but to write up some thoughts on how various types of contest would work out. This includes descriptions of how you would describe that type of contest, and typical situational modifiers.

First of all, my post shows how i tried to integrate all these special effects those weapons have.
So the modern weapon list is not so much an equipment list to me, but more of a bestiary, with every gun being a "monster", that has various abilities (like autofire, accuracy etc.).

About your other point that adding a new genre needs descriptions and typical situational modifiers - i dont think so, i think thats part of the narrating and cant be to much predetermined.

I dont think you can really dodge bullets, but i do believe you could augment maybe some actions with your dodge.
I dont think bulletproof vests make you invulnerable.
Actually every bulletproofvest will save you from getting a bullet inside you, but the impact of the bullet will kick you out of contest though.
So i think armor in a modern set is more an ability that will help with your final action, to get you back into combat.
(Think of the scene from Lord Of The Rings where Frodo is hit by the trollcave and is alive because of his mithrilshirt)
all the best
Christian

[soru]

From the cyberpunk genere, there is robocop, who frequently deliberately walked into a hail of gunfire, ignoring it. Vampires and some demons from Buffy did that too (except for the one time Buffy pulled out a rocket launcher...).

That's because their armour rating was actually good enough to win rolls against the weapons the bad guys had, as opposed to the usual 'defeated less badly than otherwise'. That's active use of an ability, not an augment or 'edge' (I never use edges, I know they are still an optional rule in HQ but as far as I am concerned they are just a hangover from the confused HW rules, with no legitimate in-game purpose). 'final action' is certainly one way to use armour, especially concealed armour, but its far from the only way.

And if, in your opinion, you 'can't dodge bullets', then that's exactly the kind of implicit rule I'd like to know in advance before I got shot trying something 'out-of-genre'...

soru

[Peter Nordstrand]

Howdy,

So the modern weapon list is not so much an equipment list to me, but more of a bestiary, with every gun being a "monster", that has various abilities (like autofire, accuracy etc.).

Why not simply treat guns as Followers, then? No new rules required at all. :-)

Cheers,

/Peter N

[Der_Renegat]

Peter Nordstrand said:

Why not simply treat guns as Followers, then? No new rules required at all. :-)

Because i m unsure.
Guns as a follower
or
gun-keyword-abilities as any other skill.
Maybe both models have their strengths.

If you handle a weapon like a follower, you must assign reasonable ratings, thats extra work and may be hard to do. How high would be the accuracy rating for a typical rifle ?
Example: a character wants to shoot at an apple thats lying on somebodies head. He uses the rifles accuracy rating of 15M to augment his rifle-ability, while taking an unrelated action for aiming.

Or you argue that every rifle gives you the potential to make very precise shots, but being a sharpshooter comes from practice, not from the gun itself. So you put HP´s into a new skill of your riflekeyword, something like marksmanship or sharpshooter.
I guess its the same with every piece of tech/equipment.
A scanner may give you knowledge, but only if you know how to operate it, with the exception of smart technology. Technology that has some kind of artificial intelligence/computerchip in it.
all the best
Christian

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not going to push this hard, but I'm kinda with Soru. In fact, I'd be prone to go even farther. Are you sure you need any special rules at all to cover any of this? Personally, I can see doing the whole thing without any modifications at all to the normal rules in terms of firearms.

I don't see firearms as specifically important to the genre. That is, sure they'll be there, but the genre is more about cybernetic palm-gun  implants than it is to the guns themselves. As I've said, the only reason, IMO, to have any more rules about anything in play using the HQ system, is to create more focus on that element in play. I think that if anything, I'd have netrunning or somesuch handled specially, and cybernetics, perhaps, but that's as far as I'd go with special rules (and I probably wouldn't even go that far).

Now, if you want your version to deal with guns more specifically, then no problem. But it seems to me that you're modeling your game off of other Cyber RPGs, not the source material. Just my take.

Mike

[MikeSands]

Or you argue that every rifle gives you the potential to make very precise shots, but being a sharpshooter comes from practice, not from the gun itself. So you put HP´s into a new skill of your riflekeyword, something like marksmanship or sharpshooter.
I guess its the same with every piece of tech/equipment.
A scanner may give you knowledge, but only if you know how to operate it

But HQ already supports this, using augments. So if you pick up a sniper rifle with snipe 5W then you have the choice of using that to augment your sniper training rather than use it straight up.

I think that the HQ magic item model can be used for gadgets in sf - each gadget can have a set of different abilities that can augment or substitute for abilities.

[buserian]

Or you argue that every rifle gives you the potential to make very precise shots, but being a sharpshooter comes from practice, not from the gun itself. So you put HP´s into a new skill of your riflekeyword, something like marksmanship or sharpshooter.
I guess its the same with every piece of tech/equipment.
A scanner may give you knowledge, but only if you know how to operate it

But HQ already supports this, using augments. So if you pick up a sniper rifle with snipe 5W then you have the choice of using that to augment your sniper training rather than use it straight up.

I think that the HQ magic item model can be used for gadgets in sf - each gadget can have a set of different abilities that can augment or substitute for abilities.

Building on this further, if I have a skill of M-16 1A 2W and you have Glock 9 mm 2W, the ability names themselves tell us all we need to know about the special effects of the weapon -- an M-16 A1 has automatic fire, and so you might give the user a +10 when they are strafing an individual who is approaching you from across an empty street, whereas the automatic function is no strict advantage if we are 1' away from each other and I am pointing the gun at your head. But the Glock might get a slight bonus because it is lighter, and only takes 1 hand, so I can hold it against your head and hold your head in place with my other hand.

In other words, you might consider trying this FIRST just using ability names and ratings, and then see how much more you might need if that doesn't work. Making clever use of ability names and their special effects can probably solve most of your problems.

To take it a step further -- whether a gun should be a weapon (with a +3 bonus to your Rifle Shooting ability), an ability of its own, or a "monster" that the player has as a retainer or a sidekick, ought to be up to the player. The specific abilities and advantages he gets from each possible use are going to be different, and also imply a greater commitment on the part of the hero. That is, if I have a single Rifle Shooting ability and an assortment of rifles, this says something. If I have a separate ability rating for each type of rifle I have, that says a LOT. And if a particular rifle is actually a retainer or sidekick, that says a lot about the rifle and my commitment to it. In that case, the individual abilities indicate particular skills I have developed with that particular rifle. I'm going to have a relationship with the rifle, which means it is an heirloom of some kind that I will go out of my way to protect and get back. And which the narrator should go out of his way to protect, too.

It all depends on what effect you are trying to achieve. I think you're making it much more complicated than you need to.

buserian

[Donald]

Thats a misunderstanding, im talking about the abilities the gun itself has, not the characters ability.

Sorry, that's probably because I don't think of objects having abilities, there needs to be some sort of instinct or intelligence for an ability. I think of a gun (or a sword) as having features or attributes which give a bonus to the ability of the user.

I dont think the accuracy ability of a rifle could be improved...but really im unsure...

It could be reduced by poor maintenance which depends on the skill of the user, the difficulty of maintenance and the availability of spares. Certainly I'd be very reluctant to get involved in such complexities - it's just to simulationist for me.