Ya know MJ, all this time we've been arguing about guns jamming, I forgot the most fundamental part about it.
Guns don't jam until AFTER they fire. So, my first shot is rolled, a botch, gun jammed. Well, the gun STILL fired BEFORE it jammed. The SECOND shot would be the one that didn't fire because of the jam. The FIRST shot still fired. Jams are usually caused by the action closing before the casing gets out of the way. These are called "Stovepipe" jams. The gun fired fine, the jam would prevent the SECOND shot. How does that work?
Maybe guns don't work like that wherever you were when they jammed.
It has to fire before it can jam. In order to jam the way the game seems to suggest, it would have to jam without firing. So you're saying that the gun is just going to be in your hand and jam without the trigger being pulled? That essentially what this game would suggest. The gun has to jam AFTER being fired. If it's pointed at the target, it will still hit the target BEFORE it jams. That's just the way it is. Unless the laws of physics get changed when you verse or something.
Yeah considering there are worlds in which magic is possible, it's not that much of a stretch.
And considering that a 9mm pistol is not covered under magic, it is quite a stretch.
You miss my point, but okay.
Is there any reason the botch can't mean the gun jammed last time and you didn't notice until now?
Edit: Or, considering that a roll that botches is even worse than a roll that fails, why do you think that just because the gun fired that the bullet hit? Here's the sequence:
1) Roll the botch.
2) Bullet fires, misses.
3) Gun is jammed.
That should make more sense.
Yeah, that does make more sense Scott. And that is how it would work out. The thing though is that MJ seems to imply that the gun just jams without firing. Given his level of knowledge, I wanted to educate him a bit in how these things work.
I'll admit that I probably overuse "gun jams". That's because given my "level of knowledge" that seems the easiest botch to fix, and so would only cost "you missed this time and need to use the next attack to clear the jam".
If you would prefer, your guns will all misfire--the bullet in the chamber will be a dud, and when the hammer strikes it it will not fire. That will mean you will have to manually remove that bullet from the chamber and feed the next in. It will take the same amount of time as clearing the jam, and you'll argue with me that the quality of ammo is such that so many bullets would not misfire, and I will argue that in high-bias worlds they don't but in low bias worlds combustion is less reliable (and yes, the laws of physics do change with bias) and you're going to have a lot of bullets that would certainly fire in their world of origin that just don't work as well in lower bias worlds, and so you'll just continue arguing but change the point.
I'll just stick with "jam" because to my "level of knowledge" that's a sufficient word for "something went wrong with your gun such that you did not hit a target and cannot feed another bullet into the chamber until you manage manually to clear the problem."
Or else your guns will start exploding and melting and having other serious problems because I don't feel like arguing about whether a gun can jam when you pull the trigger.
--M. J. Young
No MJ, I'm not arguing at all. "Gun Mirefires" would probably be far more appropriate. With that explanation, it makes complete sense. I would certainly go along with that.
With your knowledge of "Guns Jamming" the way you describe it, the gun would have to jam before it even fired. THAT is not possible. "Gun Misfired" would be more appropriate. I would manually rack the bolt back, ejecting that round, chambering a new round, and I'm ready to rock and roll.
Also, given military grade ammo, duds are actually more common than you would expect. (Especially other than United States made) "Gun Misfires" would be a perfect thing to say for the botch.
And yes, military grade ammo would, in fact, be MORE LIKELY to misfire. Murphy's Laws of Combat. "Never forget that the weapon you are holding was manufactured by the lowest bidder."
Saying that the gun misfired would suit me. What you're saying when you say it jammed is that it jammed without firing. That would be physically impossible. However, it could misfire, rack the bolt, problem solved.
And a true jam would probably take up more than one attack to fix. In order to fix most jams, you have to eject the magazine, rack the bolt back (sometimes you have to physically remove the spent case) reinsert the magazine, then chamber a round. And this would be AFTER the gun already fired in its aimed direction. That is, to do it safely. A MAK 90 doesn't jam, but a misfire, with military grade ammo, totally acceptable and believable.
of course, for a referee who has mo0re time to devote to each individual game, they can draw up a botch list for guns in combat each time, or more likely keep one handy if a character uses them a lot, and then you would get jams AND misfires and such. My problem with jams is-a jam does not necessarily indicate a miss, but a botch does. It is entirely possible to hit your foe, and the gun jammed anyway; but the botch system doesn't allow that without adding another attack roll if jam is rolled on the botch table (or if the referee just declares a jam).
Of course, you can just ignore that problem entirely.
It is entirely possible to hit your foe, and the gun jammed anyway;
Right, that's the problem that I had with it. The gun still fired, just the casing got stuck. I've more than once hit the target and had the gun jam anyway.
(Doing Therapy)
Let's clarify something.
The reason that the jam automatically misses is because in combat a botch with an ordinary weapon (anything from a fist to a knife to a machine gun to a laser blaster) is limited to "you missed and lose the next attack". That is because combat is already dangerous enough that that much of a botch can kill you, and because there are so many skill checks flying back and forth that the probability of a botch has gone up significantly (the more rolls you make, the greater the probability that one will botch).
If you are using a gun in a non-combat situation, such as sniping, that limitation is eliminated. You could have the gun explode. You could have the gun jam but the target be hit anyway. You could shoot yourself in the foot. You could misfire. You could shoot one of your allies, or your equipment. You could drop the gun. You could give away your position before getting off the shot. You could slip and fall from your perch. I could come up with a really creative botch list for the use of a gun in a non-combat situation.
Now, I could say "You missed and lost your next attack," but since four out of five players will ask how that's possible, I try to provide a color-based explanation. It doesn't matter whether the gun jammed or misfired, or slipped out of your grip, or the kick jarred your arm and left it numb for a moment. What matters is that you missed on this attack and lost the opportunity for the next because you had to do something else (whether clear the jam, clear the misfire, grasp the gun afresh, or shake the numbness out of your hand). It's more trouble than I want to keep rotating the results when the results are color, particularly since I've got a lot of other things to create in combat color as I track attacks and defenses and try to make sense of the rolls versus the skills used.
--M. J. Young