As I understand it, "Throwing lead" (spraying gunfire rapidly) is first shot rolled as aimed, all subsequent shots are a GE roll. That kind of makes all hits completely lucky. A skilled shooter can still aim fairly well when "Throwing Lead." I personally can still score 10 out of 10 hits with a 9mm at practice distance, even when throwing lead. Those old gangster movies of the guy drawing a perfect X with a fully automatic Tommy gun? Completely realistic. I don't think just blind luck would be the right mechanic to handle that, but then again, I have no idea what would be better.
Just to be clear, I'm not contesting the rules of the game, just wondering if there might be a better mechanic to use than just blind luck. Just wanted to get some other thoughts on it.
Perhaps there's a skill at throwing lead that you could roll against? I would think that a penalized roll against your own skill would probably work. Or perhaps a specific "Throw lead from 9mm" skill would be made? I just don't think blind luck would cover a situation like that. You are still aiming, just not as carefully. Just curious if anyone else had any similar thoughts.
I guess I should clarify this. In some situations, a GE roll for throwing lead would be absolutely appropriate, but not in all situations. Probably a referee's thing then. I just thought some dialog on the subject might be useful, that's all.
I'd consider a skill for aiming, or perhaps guiding a bit, rapid fire. There is 'spray and pray' which needs your GE roll. And some peoples have a cultural fatalism which is reflected in their shooting skills, or lack of the same.
There is 'spray and pray' which needs your GE roll.
Yeah, that's a GE roll. Indisputable.
However, there are also skills at speed shooting. To an untrained observer, it would look like you were just spraying and praying, but you would hit all of your targets.
I was just thinking about the gunfight I had in Dancing Princess. I had a bunch of palace guards coming at me, I fired 10 shots, scored one hit, according to the GE roll. I can see exactly how I did that. I fired at someone, saw the guards coming, and wheeled around shooting from the hip. I don't dispute the GE roll would have been perfect for that.
However, in a slightly different scenario, I would have raised the gun to my shoulder, rapid fired, and probably scored at least 5 direct hits out of 10, shooting about as fast. I've seen a guy with a handgun let loose 10 rounds, and all 10 were direct hits. You'd think he was spraying and praying if you didn't know any better. It was just something I was thinking about, that a gun can still be reasonably controlled in that rapid fire situation, especially a low-recoil gun like a 22 or an M-16.
I agree that this seems reasonable. I'm having trouble working out how best to do it, though. I'd have replied earlier, but I didn't have any good suggestions; I wouldn't be replying yet, actually, but I wanted to let you know that I am thinking about the problem.
Whatever solution I eventually endorse (whether I come up with it myself or not), I think it should usually be less effective, for the amateur, to use this aiming-lead skill than to fire normally. That is, it should increase the rate of fire somewhat, but reduce the chance of successes disproportionately.
Thus, at the amateur level, this still has the effect that the shooter probably will hit fewer targets than if he were aiming each shot, but he might hit more than he could have otherwise. However, at the expert level, this skill would enable the shooter to often hit more targets than he would usually hit - but only in some situations.
I'll post more when I have something more concrete.
Yeah, I'm with Scott. A skill at throwing lead would probably be what I would use.
Each successive shot could have an accuracy penalty that slowly escalates, maybe? No, then it would affect damage. Hmmm.
That would work if you were only firing 2 or 3 shots rapid fire, but for more than that, you would eventually miss completely by default.
Depends on how many bullets are allowed to be let out in a single burst, and how big the penalty per shot is. Once your turn ends, and the next turn starts, the penalty resets. Maybe even in the next action. So as you gain more actions because of skill, the more accurate you are and less bullets per action are used, until the penalty is nigh meaningless at 3@10-which would be a perfect representation of godlike skill.
Which leads to the problem of game balance. that is why I revised my opinion.
I note with some annoyance at myself that none of John's weapons are listed with an RF, that is, a repeat factor. I think that's important to the thinking here. I'm going to pull a few weapons from other sheets:
- 2x FN-Five Seven w/ 20 clips of 20 bullets of 7x28mm ball round caliber (15lbs) RF10 dangerous, titanium parts for critical elements, anti-corrosion exterior finish, night sights, laser sights q.v. 10':75':150':300':+1/3'
- PSG-1 w/10x sight w/ 10 clips of 10 bullets, (25lbs), RF3, base lethal, ranges 20:80:200:800:+1/8 feet, with the scope's effect doubling effective ranges but cutting the RF in half when used, optional silencer
- 9mm Beretta Pistol RF10, 15 shot clip, dangerous (+2DC) 10':75':150':300':+1/3'
O.K., the two small guns have repeat factors of ten. That means that a rank amateur with an ordinary ranged strike value can aim and fire ten shots in a minute, one bullet every six seconds. That means if you want to stand and shoot for a full minute, picking your targets, you'll be able to roll ten times in the minute. I don't know how many rolls your opponent gets, because I don't have his weapon listed here, but if he's got a lot of attacks his attacks will quite reasonably fall between yours (or yours between his).
If you reach professional level, or if you have a 2@ ranged strike value, one of its effects is that you double your rate of fire. That means you now can aim and fire this weapon twenty times in a minute, once every three seconds, with full accuracy.
If you reach expert level, then with that particular gun you triple your rate of fire over the baseline, so you're looking at thirty aimed shots in a minute, one every two seconds. This is also your rate of fire if you manage to attain a superhuman 3@ ranged strike value.
If you reach professional level and attain a 2@ ranged strike value, you double the rate of fire for each of those scores, and so get forty shots in a minute--ten every fifteen seconds, one every one and a half seconds. Those are all fully aimed and fired rolled shots.
Combine a 2@ ranged strike value with a 3@ expert skill ability level, and you are firing sixty shots per minute from a gun with an RF10, one shot per second. I would think that to someone who did not have such skill, it would look like throwing lead long before you reached this speed.
And you can go faster, because if you mix the expert skill with the superhuman attribute, you're nine times faster than the base fire rate, ninety shots per minute, fifteen every ten seconds, three shots every two seconds, 0.666 seconds per shot, aimed and fired.
So why would you throw lead?
You would throw lead if you wanted to fire the gun faster than your skill and attributes allow you to aim it, or if you wanted to fire the gun very rapidly without being able to look at the target.
Now, the PSG-1 has a considerably slower fire rate, repeat factor 3. But the thing's a sniper rifle, designed for careful aim at very long ranges. The numbers here
- 1@x1@x3=3
- 1@x2@x3=6
- 1@x3@x3=9
- 2@x2@x3=12 2@x3@x3=18
- 3@x3@x3=27
So I don't see the problem; or maybe you just didn't realize the math.
--M. J. Young
So I don't see the problem; or maybe you just didn't realize the math.
I think you will understand it better when you get to my game.....
Well, I can understand it on my end better. Good way to handle it, looks like with fast weapons and decent skill you already "throw lead" by normally attacking in a way, attacking as fast as you are able.
In my game, I am rapid shooting at stationary targets. When it is said and done, I will have fired over 100 rounds. A GE roll is in no way appropriate for what I'm doing, because I already know how likely I am to hit the target from past experience. I also don't think it would be right to roll over 100 times for whether or not I hit the target. I thought perhaps a compromise of some sort could be reached.
I was thinking of lower repeat factors, myself, which I suppose falls under not realizing the math.
Still, I was operating (I suppose I am still operating) under the principle that, for any imaginable effect defined without reference to mechanics, there should be a skill or combination of skills that achieves it.
Just as the martial artist may say "I want to devise a maneuver which sacrifices accuracy for striking power,", the gunman ought to be able to say "I want to devise a technique which sacrifices accuracy for rate of fire."
I would accept a ruling which responded, "you may not do such a thing as a tech skill unless it involves altering the device, because the device you are using was neither designed nor built for such operation." I would also accept a ruling which said "the outcome of using this skill is strongly influenced by a General Effects roll."
I would have difficulty accepting a ruling which said "this skill is wholly unnecessary because your rate of fire already increases with your SAL at operating the gun," because that mechanic does not replicate the stated effect - it increases rate of fire and accuracy simultaneously, while the desired outcome was a sacrifice of accuracy in pursuit of rate of fire.
I might accept "your skill at operation already influences the outcome of the GE roll for throwing lead, so an additional skill is not necessary and any practice of such a technique goes toward your general operation SAL." I suspect that's what MJ's stance is, though I don't think I've read it in so many words.
Edit: Cross-posted with the most recent from Brock and John. John, does the solution in my last paragraph seem like good middle ground to you, or does it still need improvement?
Cross-posted with the most recent from Brock and John.
Considering that we posted about 2 1/2 hours ago, perhaps you should, from now on, reload the page before posting. Just an observation.
John, does the solution in my last paragraph seem like good middle ground to you, or does it still need improvement?
I'm not certain I understood what you were saying. Not offense to MJ or to Mr. Jones, but I can tell that the rules were written by people with very little firearms experience.
I think that there should be a "Throwing Lead" skill. At the same time, I'm not at all certain how it could be worked out. Firing 30 rounds at a target, you're almost certainly going to hit SOMETHING. It would be a heavily bonused chance to hit, but also not, since you're not aiming as carefully. At the same time, I don't think a single roll would be sufficient to cover it. On the other hand, 30 individual rolls would become tiresome quickly. Where do you draw the line? Maybe a roll for every 5 or 10 shots fired? A high success on the roll means all the shots in that group hit, roll for the next 5 or 10 shots. A failure means that you missed. I really don't know enough about the mechanics to say. When you said that you were stumped Scott, I knew we were in trouble.....
I'm not stumped, I'm not just not there yet. The kind of rule you describe is used in some game systems I'm familiar with - Deadlands: Weird West, for example. I'm not sure it's best for Multiverser.
What I was saying in the last paragraph is: a GE roll doesn't need to mean "blind luck." Yes, it involves luck, but so does rolling 100 skill checks. If the referee pays attention to your SAL while he's figuring out what the GE roll means, then I think that might solve the problem on its own.
For example:
1) An amateur throws lead with a six-shooter (that is, he fans), and he gets a 12 GE roll: Good Enough. That means he successfully fires all six shots, and the bad guys have to take cover to avoid getting hit. (They have the option of not taking cover and taking the bullets, of course.) Not bad, considering he's smacking the gun around like a red-headed stepchild.
2) A professional fans that same six-shooter at short range, with the same 12 GE roll. This time, Good Enough means he rolls normally for the first shot and he hits with two others for half damage, all in the time it would normally take him to aim and fire one shot.
3) An expert does the same thing and gets the same 12. He rolls normally for the first shot and gets a one skill roll for the other five: RS/20 = the number that hit. He gets to pick which targets half of his bullets strike, and they do full damage.
I'm not sure that those exact rulings are the ones I would make; that's just a demonstration of the idea that the same GE roll could mean different things depending on how skilled you are. That way, your skill does matter, but you don't roll every shot - you aren't fully in control of where the bullets go.
Considering that we posted about 2 1/2 hours ago, perhaps you should, from now on, reload the page before posting. Just an observation.
I almost always do. This time, I sat down at the computer, brought up the window, got distracted (ADHD, remember), and when I returned my attention to the browser I thought I had opened it moments before instead of hours. It happens.
(ADHD, remember)
Actually no, I didn't remember you saying that. I have that. For hundreds of years, fathers took care of ADHD with a belt. Now the "experts" say you shouldn't do that, and give the kids Ritalin. Belts worked just fine for hundreds of years, why change it now? And this is speaking as a kid who got the belt for his ADHD.
I understand what you're saying now, but isn't that pretty much the way the rules currently work? To use the example from my game, I'm 50 feet away from the target and opening up "Throwing Lead" at the target. I don't care what the dice say, I'm going to hit that target. Under the system, at least as I understand it, you would roll the dice to tell me that I missed, when I know from hundreds of rounds of past experience that I wouldn't miss. Maybe in this case just take it as unrecorded practice, and use the GE rolls for combat. It was just something about the system that didn't seem right to me.
O.K., "throwing lead" is not at all appropriate to the situation in game to which John was applying it. I did not really need to roll a hundred times there, because no one needed to know the effects of any one shot--only the overall effects of a lot of shots hitting the material being tested for suitability as cover. I have ideas about that, and what I need to do there (which I hope I have done) is convey some notion of what the stuff does when attacked.
I would mostly object to a "throwing lead skill" because it would be confusing--in the same way that I would object to a "strike and run" skill, since "strike and run" is something any combatant can do without skill. I note, though, that I I would certainly allow someone to devise a B7@2 Tactical that was in essence an "aggressive escape", that used a weakened attack as a preliminary for flight.
I also have a problem with just how fast you can fire a weapon. I assume that that pistol with an RF10 can actually fire 90 shots in a minute if the shooter knows what he's doing. I can't imagine that anyone could fire it faster than that. But maybe what we're talking about here is someone who wants to fire the gun sixty times in the minute but can only aim ten of those shots. That works for me--you're going to roll ten shots and a GE roll for the other fifty. I don't know that I'd let you fire sixty, though--that assumes that you are so expert with this weapon that you know exactly how much pressure and release are necessary to fire that fast. I'll give you forty shots in a minute, because you can't work the trigger faster than that without that kind of expertise. You'll roll ten of them.
I find the entire question a bit dubious, though, since the clip only holds fifteen bullets plus one in the chamber, so you're going to roll two of them before the clip is empty.
--M. J. Young
Unrecorded practice did seem to me like the best way to handle my game situation. The point I was making though is that it is possible to aim with a modicum of accuracy whilst throwing lead. Sometimes, yes, a GE roll is indisputable as the way to go. However, in some instances, it wouldn't be at all applicable. I just wanted to get some thoughts on it.
While downstairs washing dishes, I reversed my position on this. I now support a skill in this only if there is an identifiable alternative method of operating the device when throwing lead.
The only specific example I can think of is the classic single-action six-shooter, which can be fanned. Fanning the pistol is an entirely different technique than normal operation; it involves holding down the trigger while repeatedly smacking the hammer with your free hand. I would buy that someone could practice fanning independently of firing it normally. I would assign a new repeat factor for the alternate mode of operation and assess an appropriate sit-mod for accuracy, or possibly deal with the accuracy question by adjusting the range increments. Mechanically, this isn't much different than use of a rifle which also has a bayonet: this is a pistol which may also be fanned.
For any gun without a discrete alternative method of operation, all the player can say to me is either "I try to fire the gun faster than I can normally aim it, sacrificing accuracy for number of shots," or "I try to fire the gun faster than I normally can while retaining accuracy." In the first case, I use MJ's GE mechanic, and in the second, I assume the player is merely practicing his Operate Firearm skill. (After all, isn't one always trying to improve rate-of-fire while retaining accuracy?)
Scott, usually a gun with a manual cocking device can be modified to do what you're talking about. A lever action rifle, a pump shotgun, your aforementioned single-action revolver. The lever action rifle can be modified to fire when the lever is closed. (Ever seen The Rifleman?) The pump shotgun can be modified to fire every time the gun is pumped. I personally would never own a gun like that, for the obvious safety concerns.
I still think there should be a skill at throwing lead, although I haven't a clue how it should be done.
Two Posts
As far as the RF is concerned, a MAK 90, as fast as you can pull the trigger, you could empty a 30 round clip in about 20 seconds. Hope that helps you determine it.