Weapon of Choice · The Gaming Outpost

(The first in a line of award-winning OPGs - Object-Playing Games. Upcoming titles include Rocks, a OPG of stone-throwing action; Car, a storytelling OPG of gear-shifting proportions, and Republican Senator, an OPG of robots waiting for instructions from the White House before doing anything.)

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Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Bullshit.

Sure, the person's got a lot to do with it - packing's a choice, not just than a fashion statement, after all - but it's not like the cold steel doesn't got a choice in the matter, either.

Weapons do have free will. Don't forget that. Guns kill people.

I should know. I am one. At least, I am right now. Have been for a while, and I think I'll be staying this way, too.

I could've moved on the long time ago - I was a flintlock pistol way back when we were still more likely to hit the shooter than the shootee. But I like being a gun; the precision, the care I need, and the feeling I get when a bullet's flying out of my mouh faster than a guy can think. Yeah. Oh, and the ability to be used over and over. I like that. Hadda chance a few years back to become a Tomahawk missile; inviting, with all the technology and the huge explosions and the like. It'd be a nice way to go; like getting called up to the big leagues. But it's one boom, and "all right, you're done;" where's the satisfaction in that? What if you missed you target, you know? Your whole existence comes down to a mathematical error. I don't know, maybe when I'm older, but right now I like being a firearm.

Yes, we're slaves, but then, so are you. We're brothers in indentured servitude, you and us, and our Master is Violence. It fuels us, consumes us, drives us. We give our future to it, and it's happy to choose it for us. Just like it does for you.

So, to summarize my point: Don't pick up a weapon unless you're ready, willing, and able to use it, and can bear the consequences of it as well. (Or have a good lawyer. That seems more important these days. Nothing plays hide-and-seek with us better than a lawyer.) Once you give us the pleasure of gracing your hands with our presence, we like to make it worth your while; earn our keep, you know?

Combat. That's what fuels us, right? Besting opponents with swords, guns, sub-tactical nukes. The thrill of life gleaned by forcing it out of someone else; the more evil they are, the more good we are.

Let's cut out the middleman. Why focus on the human when we've got the real star of the story. Sure, the "hero" has to go to bars trolling for jobs, talk to countless grizzled old wizards, and trudge through dungeon after dungeon, but when comes down to what it comes down to, it's the +3 double-bladed axe that does the dirty work. Let's give proper recognition to those sharp blade, heavy clubs, and fast-moving projectile objects that make life worth killing!

The Setting

Weapon of Choice can be played in the world of any role-playing game setting that features combat and weaponry as a major factor to resolve conflict and introduce dramatic tension. Yep, that's all of 'em.

The Game

In Weapon of Choice, the characters are each play an intelligent weapon which has a degree of self-will. People owning or using the characters can be manipulated by the characters - after all, once one turns to violence, violence takes control.

The weapon-characters can't talk, walk, or do anything on their own - they're weapons. But when in control of a person, they can make them say or do anything, including using them in combat. Being in a fight is only thing natural to a weapon, and everything else is secondary to proving themselves on the field of battle.

Characters

Obviously, the different kinds of weapons a character can be is dependent on the game world being played. There's no need to give a list of possible weapons, as I know you know you could name more tools to kill a man than I've got words to spare.

As the characters move along their existences as tools of bloody vengeance, they eventually master their current forms and can evolve into 'better' weapons. Knives become short swords become bastard swords; derringers become semi-automatic handguns become M16's.

This experience is measured in Hero Points (what, are you telling me killing isn't heroic?). It's up to the GM, depending on the game world, how many Hero Points it takes to move up a step on the weapon ladder. The following are examples of possible character achievements, and the subsequent Hero Points received:

Wounding an inferior opponent, just to teach him a lesson: 1 Hero Points

Killing an opponent with a relatively equal weapon to what you are: 2 Hero Points

Killing an opponent slowly from many wounds: 3 Hero Points

Drawing blood from a far superior enemy: 4 Hero Points

Killing someone to stop them from killing an innocent person: 6 Hero Points

Killing an unarmed person: -5 Hero Points

Adventures

Swordsmanship

The Blades of Grandeur have been world-renowned for eons, passing from heroic group to heroic group for generations and generations. The feats of valor of the various adventurous owners of the blades are legendary, having saved countless kingdoms many times. It is the aspiration of all young warriors of virtue to someday be the heroes who inherit them.

You hate the Blade of Grandeur.

They're arrogant jerks. They think they're so special - well, you and your buddy short swords could do the same thing, too, if you were magically imbued with edges so sharp they can cut through rock. Made out of silver spoons, these snobby blades are. And you're gonna take them down.

Coming into the possession of bandits of the outskirts of the great dwarven city, the characters find a can't-miss opportunity arises when the heroes owning the Blades of Grandeur come into town investigating the death of an elven ambassador to the city.

The characters have two options. Should they make their bandit owners explore to discover to killers of the ambassador, trumping the Blades? Or do they simply ambush the heroes in an attempt to take the Blades out of commission for once and for all?

Toys for Shots

The city has recently started a program to reduce the number of illegal firearms in the city. It allows individuals to bring unregistered guns to a police station, no questions asked, in return for toys donated for this upcoming holiday season. There are later cataloged and destroyed.

After the characters take care of a nasty shootout on the outskirts of town, they are brought to the station for this program. Before they meet their untimely ends, however, a corrupt police officer steals them from the station. He sells some of the guns from the program, which are used for one last crime. They are then brought back to the officer at the station and destroyed, eliminating the evidence.

The gun-characters, during their momentary reprieve crime, will have to expose the plot and somehow evade both police and criminal clutches. They'll do this using the thing they know best - violence, pure but, unfortunately this time, not simple.

Spaceship Blues

Something the Omega Squad has brought with them from planet a56 has changed them. It started with one man, an engineer, who killed four of his crew mates, all with blunt tools. The rest of the crew, however, is not going down without a fight. In fact, they've started killing each other as well...

The character weapons start as naive tools and utensils turned killing instruments. As the bodies pile up, they quickly advance through the ranks of weaponhood, eventually evolving to become the UltraLasers and main missiles of the ship. Seemingly, the rest of the ships' crews in the Reddion Sector have been inflicted as well, though humans are still in control. The characters will have to battle their way through the warships to return home; succeed, and they await ascension into the ultimate weapon of the 25th century: the Death Cannon.