Firearm-rules in BRP

[Rurik]

It sounds like Cthulhu Now is the most detailed set of rules that can be recreated using the BRP rules and options from what I've read so far.

Which is fine for many games, but lacking for a Special Forces/Mercenary type game or another one where gun combat is central.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Rurik

AP Rounds lose accuracy because they are teflon coated. The reason is that AP rounds are made out of harder metals (steel or alloys) than non AP rounds. When first being developed the hard rounds ruined a weapons rifling in short order. The teflon coating helps reduces friction and so the round does less damage to the barrel's rifling, but also does not 'take' to the rifling as well, and less rotational spin is created (which is the whole point of the rifling).
Good old soft lead takes to the rifling very well so actually shoot straighter (and also does verry little damage to the rifling because lead is so much softer than the barrel's steel).

Ah, intersting. Of coruse that does explain steel cored bullets and other forms of encasing a penetrator with a softer outer metal. The Russian 5.7mm pistol round does that.

It also explains why that doesn't happen with tank guns, too, as they fire fin stabilsehd rather than rifled rounds (rifling is a disadvantage at those velocities).

Originally Posted by Rurik

Positive I've never read Timelords. Sounds decent though.

I7m going to have to show you a copy some day. It is a little overcomplicated by today's standardards, but very detailed and does things very well. It has a lot of nice ideas, and is one of the few games where modern (even futuristic) weapons and primitive ones can coexist. Like is life, pretty much anything can kill you, just some things are better at it than others.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Rurik

While the psychology of combat applies to melee as well, in a medieval type game most combatants are conditioned for personal combat to the point it is a non factor (until the Fear Spell is cast, or some

I think this makes big assumptions; many combatants may well have had little exposure to combat outside of some militia training before the events of a campaign. After that they get used to it of course, but that's just as true in the firearms case. Take a look at the occupation tables in RQ3 some time and ask yourself how many of those professions are _really_ "conditioned for personal combat". I suspect, especially at the Barbarian and Civilized levels, the answer would be "not many". The professional combatants and no others.

creature that inspires fear come along). Also, the best defense against the axe weilder in your face is fighting back, or at least defending yourself. Curling up into a little ball and wimpering like a baby is not likely to save you. When

Running like hell may well, however, when you see him charging you in the first place. The fact the survival techniques are different doesn't matter; the fact standing and fighting isn't usually the ideal for either is.

good ditch. Modern soldiers, even with the best of training, panic under fire. That is why people trained in firearms that can hit a target every time at a range miss with most rounds in a real firefight, even at very close range.

I'd be really interested to see if its actually worse than it was with weapons. With artillery I can believe it, but I'm honestly unconvinced an experienced soldier reacts any more badly to bullets winging past than an arrow storm or just the sight of a charging mass of enemy.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I7m going to have to show you a copy some day. It is a little overcomplicated by today's standardards, but very detailed and does things very well. It has a lot of nice ideas, and is one of the few games where modern (even futuristic) weapons and primitive ones can coexist. Like is life, pretty much anything can kill you, just some things are better at it than others.

Though parts of Greg's impairment rules seem a bit unrealistic in light of studies the FBI and military have done in recent years. It turns out that (at least in firearm combat, though I'm hard pressed to assume its much different in melee) that a lot of assumed impairment just flat out doesn't happen short-term. This is apparently because the adrenaline rush at the start of a combat does two things; it masks further damage, and it impairs you itself. This turned out to mean that even things you'd intuitively assume would cause impairment (hand wounds for example) usually didn't (there are obvious exceptions, such as severed tendons). The result was that there were only three likely results of fireams combat: the target shocked out (which could happen with surprisingly minor wounds in theoretically noncritical areas), he bled out (usually because of hitting an artery) or there wasn't much effect until the adrenaline faded and everything caught up.

This has implications for most death-spiral combat systems, but the information isn't very widely distributed and I've had trouble in the past finding it on the Net, so its hard to get people to believe it as its rather counter-intuitive.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah,
From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Yeah,
From what I've read, it seems you sort of take a "blanket impairment" when the adrenaline rush kicks in and can basically ingore most of your injurues, for the short term, unless they are very severe, or make fucntioning impossible (i.e. you can't used severed body parts).

Right.

Once the adrenaline wears off, then it all seems to hit at once and the guy crashes.

Not too many RPGs work that way, do they?

None that I know of, really, but as I said, the information was commonly available (on the Web) for a relatively brief period after the studies were done, and as far as I know largely vanished off the radar after that. I suspect if you aren't in certain corners of the firearms effectiveness field, or in trauma medicine, its almost unknown. And as I said, its counterintuitive, and an awful lot of game rules are written by intuition rather than research anyway.

[Atgxtg]

It does match what I used to see in the tramua room as well as personal experience.


I used to get adrenaline shots at the ER, and would go into a state of hyperactivity, despite being sick, dead tired, and low on oxygen (asthma being one of the reasons for the adrenaline shot). When I was a child, there were times when I had to be physically retrained to keep my from running around, at least until I coughed up blood and got freaked out.

That old fight or flight reflex is scary.

[soltakss]

(Un)fortunately, I am not a gun nut and don't know the ins and outs of all the different types of gun and how they would affect targets.

The only thing I think of is a gut feeling of what would this gun do to a person and if it feels right.

I'd group similar guns together, so all .38s do the same damage, all .45s do the same damage etc. Different ammo types might do extra damage or might penetrate armour better, so a dum-dum might do an extra D6 or an armour-piercing bullet might have the APs of protecting armour.

But I wouldn't go much more complicated than that.

Also, I don't see how being shot is any different to being stabbed or being crushed in terms of subsequent damage, bleeding or shock. If someone pops a bullet into me or a crossbow bolt, the results would be quite similar. I know I wouldn't much care for either.

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

One thing that you have to watch when setting weapon damages is making them _too_ robust. Handguns kill people, and do so regularly, but people also eat four or five shots and keep coming; rifle rounds are more reliable, but people still survive being shot with rifles (and even .50 caliber machine guns). That's why I suspect keeping the damage somewhat modest and expecting impales to make up the difference is going to work better than getting too carried away with base damage.

But, because BRP damage is random, this is taken care of.

Just because something does 3D6 damage does not mean it automatically kills someone. It can do 3 damage as easily as 18.

What happens on average is more important. Shoot 100 people in the chest with a .38 and see how many die immediately. Do the same again with a .22, a .45, a 12 bore(guage) and so on. It might be a bit messy but it would probably be worth it from a gaming-reasearch point of view.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

What happens on average is more important. Shoot 100 people in the chest with a .38 and see how many die immediately. Do the same again with a .22, a .45, a 12 bore(guage) and so on. It might be a bit messy but it would probably be worth it from a gaming-reasearch point of view.

Well, most people who try that either get stopped before they get a statistically significant sampling, or have government backing.

But, based on the stuff that we found out from wars and firefights, pretty much no one actually dies immediately. There are very few spots on the body that will kill you right away if destroyed. So instant kills are probably less than 5% with all of the above.

That said, the chances of someone dying with a few seconds, minutes, hours, or days without proper medical attention is pretty close to 100% for all of the above, too. And not being killed isn't the same as "up and fighting". Some who is down in 5 seconds and won't wake up for an hour is effectively out of the fight.


There are some differences between gunshot wounds and wounds from other weapons, but all in all the primitive weapons probably have worse complications than bullet wounds. Such weapon leave bigger, more jagged holes, and are not as clean so the wounds go septic more often (warriors are notorious for not sterilizing their greatswords between opponents).