Gun Geeks: Best Pen-n-Paper RPG system for Gunfights?

[PaladinX13]

Been watching my brother play Neverwinter Nights and it's triggered some nostalgia about playing PnP RPGs back in college. Fantasy was okay, but I had always prefered contemporary RPGs (maybe with a slight sci-fi edge...). Any PnP RPG geeks out there? What's your favorite system for gunfights? I've honestly only played a game of Feng Shui (which is a KISS 2D6 system... almost too simple for my tastes) and BattleTech w/ guns. Any D20 gunfighting systems?

[Porter-Glockwell]

Not d20... but for total gungeekiness with near-realistic physics... GURPS can't be beat.

Porter

[Blackhawk]

Sounds like video games.

How is this firearms related?

[Tamara]

...of gun geekiness in the RPG world is the now-discontinued Phoenix Command system by Leading Edge Games.

Aim-time modifiers based on the mass of the weapon and the quality of the sights, bullet drop, patterning from various shotgun chokes, differing penetration for FMJ/AP/JHP, et cetera. What other game (if you have all the expansions; which, of course, I do, being extremely geeky and into guns. ) gives you weapons ranging from a caplock Philadelphia Deringer to a modern, scoped bolt-action Sako in .25-'06?



Blackhawk,

What does it have to do with guns? Well, duh! Some of us have such bad addictions to firearms that poker or Pac-Man won't do it for entertainment; we'd rather carry our joy of firearms into our non-shooting time with tabletop games like Phoenix Command or video games like Rogue Spear: Urban Operations (except we note that the G-11 doesn't quite sound right in three-shot-burst mode in Urban Ops and we don't have the Browning GP35 as an optional sidearm, so we spend time searching the web for downloadable mods like NATO III or Lloyd's Weapons Mod to rectify the only-noticeable-to-gun-geeks deficiencies of the factory product).

[vertigo7]

but I have to disagree.. the ultimate geeky RPG firearms system has to be Guns!Guns!Guns! by BTRC. It's the dullest, densest, most numbers-packed firearms design tool ever made for an RPG. From the web page:

3G3 is technically sophisticated weapon design supplement for virtually any role-playing game. You can design weapons of any type at any Tech Level where they are possible (not just historically available), and then convert that design to the role-playing game you prefer most. 3G3 lets you design conventional firearms, lasers, particle beams, railguns or gauss weapons, melee weapons and the next printing will include more detail on archaic weapons like bows, crossbows and siege engines. The new edition is now available and has detailed conversion information for TimeLords(tm), CORPS(tm), GURPS(r), Hero System(r), Cyberpunk 2020(r), Heavy Gear(tm), Battlelords of the 23rd Century(tm), Nexus(tm), Feng Shui(tm), Traveller New Era(r), Heavy Gear(tm) and Traveller 4th edition(r). How's that for value for your gaming dollar!

EDIT: ok so it's not an RPG system all by itself. I had to post it anyway. It's too much fun to leave out.

Want to find out what a rail gun would have been like if it was built by the Roman Empire? You can do it. Want to see if the ancient Greeks could have built an AR-15 workalike? How powerful would an Uzi have been if built by a member of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table? Or maybe you'd like to see how devastating a SWAT entry rifle of today would be if built with 24th century technology. Or perhaps you've finally built that awesome semi-auto anti-tank pistol. You can find out how hard and how far you'll be knocked on your butt when you pull the trigger. One of the examples in the book was a full-auto pistol that fired 2mm aluminum pellets, basically BBs. The designer made it as an exercise in discovering how small a round could be made and still be an effective manstopper. The effect was like a shotgun blast or a glaser round at close range.

Edit: ok, I dragged out my dusty copy of 3G3 for fun.
They tried to cover all angles with the system. I hunted down my copy and cracked it open to the chemically-propelled weapons section. Ammunition options include rocket-propelled, caseless, inert armor-piercing, tungsten armor-piercing, depleted uranium armor-piercing, hollowpoints, HE rounds, HEAT rounds, frangibles, multiple projectile, and discarding sabots. The design system scales all the way from a one-shot derringer to a tank's cannon to a battleship's gun to an anti-missile satellite-mounted railgun or laser cannon.

It's great fun.

vertigo7

[Blackhawk]

Tamara,

Generational gap thingy.

I was looking for the thread to be about real RPGs that we used to encounter in actual gunfights.

Couldn't figure out what Pen-n-Paper could have to do with it.

Virtual reality is very boring compared to reality....

[Beowulf_93]

"Twilight 2000" was a good RPG system for weapons, vehicles, & such.

[Blackhorse]

You mean RPG doesn't stand for rocket propelled grenade?

[Blackhawk]

You mean RPG doesn't stand for rocket propelled grenade?

Does to me. No telling what it means in the language of this thread.

[Kaylee]

Hrmmm.. WAAAAy back in the day, when I used to do the RPG thing, my brother and I settled on -- of all things -- a variant of the Top Secret/SI combat system. It was quick, shot placement mattered, and ONE round could do ya in. We pretty much made our own pre-GURPS GURPS with that system..

.. thanks for the memories.


(FWIW.. as I recall, it went something like -- roll 2d10. Result is a percantage #, if under your skill level you hit. Ones digit reflects hit locale. Damage is a separate die roll, armor subtracts from damage roll. Anything that gets through, hurts. Bad. )


edit

Virtual reality is very boring compared to reality....

Which was why I ended up giving 'em up eventually. I recall sitting in front of one of those character sheets doing some kinda of skill allotment thing, and thinking "why on earth am I writing down fantasy 'trauma medic' stuff when I can learn how to do this stuff in real life?" Not too long after I ditched gaming entirely and was in a First Responder course. Much more satisfying, I thought..

[Oracle]

Palladium's system (as presented in Rifts and numerous other games) is d20 and is pretty good for gunfights and whatnot. I think that their weapons proficiency system is fairly stupid (there is a different proficiency for revolvers and semiautomatic handguns), but that's not hard to fix with a little judicious GMing . The only problem with Palladium is that it takes you a week and a degree in mathematics to come up with a character, after that, you're set.

[Christopher II]

Twilight 2000 had a very good combat-modeling system. I particularly liked the full-auto rules. Empty a 30 round magazine in one burst? Okay, get 30 d6, toss 'em in a box lid, every six is a hit. If that's not a realistic model for spray-and-pray, I don't know what is.

- Chris

[Zundfolge]

Way back when (in them pre-comp days) I played too much D&D ... well I got bored with magic and monsters and switched to another TSR game called Top Secret. It was pretty much a James Bond, spy type game, but the weapons handling was pretty good.

[Velocipede]

Maybe I'm too young, but I played shadowrun a lot (probably wasn't there while you were playing, and isn't there for current high school folks anyway ... each one his generation)

It was a lot and lotsa d6 system. Not too complicated so gaming was slowed with calculations, but ok for realism. Good choice of weapons and some supplements for the really freaks. Good difference between rifle and pistols!

[cslinger]

I have played most of them and found that the problem is too much realism makes for too slow a game.

The Palladium D20 system is a great base for realistic combat but needs a lot of work by the GM to in order to make it a much more relistic depiction of modern combat.

Feel free to email me if you want any ideas. I have done some writing for Palladium as a freelance writer and have been role playing for years. Well I haven't played in many moons but I would love to start again.

Anyway drop me a line if you want any suggestions.

GM:"You fired how many missiles?"
Player: "All of them."
GM: "He's dead."
Player: "Don't you want me to roll for damage?"
GM: "We don't have that many dice."

[ChrisR246]

Of current games, I think PEG Incs, Deadlands RPGs and combat system is fast and simple while still being realistic enough.

Deadlands - Weird West is a combination of Western and Horror - very cool setting.

Deadlands - Wasted West - is the same setting in a post apocalyptic future.

[GunGeek]

I don't do RPGs, does this mean I'm not a geek?

[Cee-Zed]

If you don't roleplay and/or play the Star Trek: the Next Generation CCG, you are actually pretty safe. Actually, calling yourselves "Geeks with Guns" always seemed a little wrong to me. "Where are the references to Nimoy's poetry?" I secretly thought.

I pretty much stopped playing RPGs when I could drink and buy handguns legally. That was back when TSR, ICE, Runequest (Avalon Hill?), and Chaosium pretty much dominated, and Steve Jackson's GURPS was just getting started.

On the reality spectrum, I rate Feng Shui the lowest and GURPS about the highest (limiting this to games people actually play today). The system Chaosium uses for Call of Cthulu is about exaclty in between. The new system TSR/WotC is using for Star Wars could be adapted easily to our setting; it is a "'tweener" as well. Top Secret was pretty good, as was TSR's "30's gangster" game of that period (same system, can't remeber the name). Both are getting as hard to find as first editions of Gamma World!

I actually always liked Feng Shui; it is very fast and allows for a lot of goofy fun (not that statistically difficult to get "boxcars," after all). Feng Shui is the only game I have EVER played with any regularity after I owned "real" guns. Of course, I am also the world's biggest Jackie Chan fan, which didn't hurt its popularity with me...

[PaladinX13]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll look into 'em... though, what typically used to happen would be I'd buy a book or two, build a character and campaign, then spend a week psyching everyone up to play a game, playing one or two games, then everything going back into storage. All in all, a big waste of time, money, and energy on my part! (but fun to revisit nostalgic days and get some organized story-telling going) So in that respect I'll probably play Feng Shui or look at Palladium (since it's similar to D&D somewhat)... GURPS sounds like too much and the others sound cool but too specialized/obscure, maybe. Anyways, thanks again guys!

[Cee-Zed]

That recently happened to me with the new Star Wars game. Got the books, made a campaign, etc. After everyone got to the second or third level (and could FINALLY reliably hit with a lightsaber), we all lost interest...

[Blackhawk]

RPG = Remote Player Game ?

Still tryin' to figure it out....

[Kaylee]

Blackhawk -- Velocipede answered your question above --

RPG == Role Playing Game.

Basically, it's "let's pretend" for (nominal ) grownups.


-K

[PaladinX13]

"Role Playing Game" The term has become pretty loose lately so you often need to qualify it with words in front like PnP (usually played w/ dice, charts, tables, a game referee, and players), console (like Nintendo, usually japanese-styled), or computer (basically a stat tracking game where your character grows stronger progressively).

When people run self-defense scenarios, they're role playing (AF/CQC forum role plays all the time). You add in rules, refs, charts/tables/dice to help you plot out what happens in FUBAR situations or when things swing your way and you're PnP RPGing. Then you can take it further by creating a role to fullfill... often those with skill sets one can't possess or wouldn't have an opportunity to use in real life, like a counter-terrorist or soldier of fortune. Then load them up with guns and then tackle various senarios w/ this role. The ref sets up a situation, the players make a decision, the ref rolls dice and checks his tables to see the outcome, then updates the players.

Why would anyone want to play a PnP gunfight when we have videogames, paintball, and firing ranges? Personally, because there's more tactics involved than reflexes, is less involved than paintball, and allows for more diverse situations than target shooting.

[Oracle]

White Wolf's d10 system (ala Vampire: The Masquerade) can also be easily adapted to provide simple, realistic gunfights. It's also very easy to create characters using that system, and very easy to resolve challenges (just roll the requisite number of 10-sided dice, the person who gets the most successes (determined by the difficulty number of the challenge) wins, ties go to the defender).

I've got a chart that I made up a while back to use with the newer Vampire Storyteller's Guide that takes into consideration things like hollowpoint bullets and what not (using a modified version of the old World of Darkness: Combat rules supplement).

And yes, some of us still play RPG's well into our 20's and 30's, even (gasp) live-action RPG's...

[Cee-Zed]

One of the advantages of PnP over say, paintball, video games, etc. is that intoxication neither poses safety problems nor impairs performance (much). I have played quite a few RPGs, AH military strategy boardgames, etc. while working on a 12 pack. I wouldn't do that with "REAL" guns.