I really can't get over the idea that there is no example bonus for explosive-driven slug throwers, and laser rifles of comparable size and shape. I'd say I have 2@2 skill with a Ruger 10/22. Professional in one is amateur in all, right? Couldn't be perhaps a 2@2 with an explosive-driven slug thrower would have 1@5 with a laser rifle of similar shape? It's just a thought, that's all.
Scott described a fusion rifle shaped like a steering wheel with 2 joysticks on each side, and a special pair of gloves and eyepieces needed to use properly. Something like that, yeah, I have no skill, but a Star Trek phaser rifle is pretty close in shape. It was just a thought, and I thought it might open a discussion on the topic.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm with you on that. I mean, most laser weapons in sci-fi are shaped like that because they are easy adaptations/evolutions of firearms, and would be familiar to people who grew up either seeing, using, or reading about firearms.
And yes MJ, I freely admit that I have never shot a laser rifle, therefore, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but then again, neither have you.
That's the main reason why I'm not buying any high-tech weapons in my current world. I don't want to start out at 1@1 with it, when I can get a 9mm with 2@2 skill.
Shape? Are we seriously arguing for example bonuses for high-tech devices based on the shape of the device?
I'm not even sure what I'm meant to be arguing against, here. Why exactly should the similarity of the laser rifle's three-dimensional outline to a .22 carbine's give the slug-thrower a bonus on learning? Gosh, you know my TV remote is shaped an awful lot like a phaser - do I get an example bonus?
Actually, yes. You are beaming a signal from the remote to the TV. That's a laser gun, isn't it?
(Serious Therapy)
Two Posts
Just joking about the remote. However, how does a line of sight attack work? The bullet drops, yes, but at the same range where the bullet hasn't dropped much, it should be pretty close.
(Serious Therapy)
It seems like what you're angling for is some kind of pointing bonus. "I have pointed at object shaped like a laser rifle at a target before, and part of using a laser rifle involves pointing it at a target, so I should get a bonus on learning how to use a laser rifle."
If that's what you're saying, I have a response (see below); if it's not what you're saying, I'm not sure what you're saying.
If you want the "pointing bonus", you already have it. It's your Ranged Strike Value, composed of your Hand/Eye and Intuition. Your ranged strike value doesn't help you learn to use a laser rifle*, but it does help you hit your target after you've learned.
(I think that's an accurate reflection of the concepts being simulated: years of going to Laser Tag give you no knowledge of how to load and fire an M16, but the resulting hand/eye coordination might help you hit your target once you've gone to boot camp.)
If that didn't address your concern, I'm all ears.
*though your Intuition might, if it's higher than your Intellect and Ed Level
Marty McFly in Back to the Future III used his experience with a laser pointer pistol in a video game to do some ace shooting with a gun with real bullets.
I'll have to disagree with Wodium. Laser Tag would teach you valuable lessons in pistol fighting.
And of course, one of MJ's favorite movies is The Last Starfighter which is about a kid tranferring his skill on what he thinks is a video game and is actually a simulator to real starfighter combat. And you're probably going to say...but thats a simulation. And thats where you ask the question...is the experience that is sought to learn from close enough to the new experience to be a simulation?
His skill is with the interface, a T11@0 Computer Use specialized at the expert level to T11@0 Starfighter Simulators. Because this particular starfighter has an interface identical to the video game, his skill transfers. Also, it generalizes to 2@10 Video Game Play and a more general 1@10 Operate Computer with Visual Interface.
What he does not have is a 3@5 Pilot (this model of) Starfighter, which generalizes to a 2@10 Pilot Starfighters and generalizes further to a 1@10 Pilot One-man Space Vessel.
Your example makes a good movie precisely because it is the exception.
Separately: yes, Laser Tag may give combat lessons. Any of those lessons which are not represented by an increase in RSV are tactical and strategic in nature. The skill is not T6@1 Fighting with Guns; it is T6@1 Operate Explosive-Driven Slug Thrower.
(By the by, "fighting with guns" shouldn't even be a skill: it's an aggregate of many things, only one of which is the operation of a device.)
What I'm arguing is exactly what you are arguing - that the similarity of the interface would allow the transfer of the skill, because the weapons are, in fact, normally specifically designed to capitalize on that similarity of interface.
Otherwise, explain to me why it makes that much difference what comes out of the gun. If I point a rifle at a target and pull the trigger, does it matter whether it shoots a bullet or a laser? Not by a hell of a lot - I just have to lead my target a little bit less and ignore the effects of wind and gravity. Two, three shots and someone with A1Nut's level of marksmanship will be shooting a fly out from between his wings as easily as if he'd been using one all his life.
Moreso - what if I don't realize what it is? I pick up a weapon expecting it's a .22 caliber Remington rifle, of exactly the type I was taught marksmanship on. I point it at the target and pull the trigger and a disruptor bolt comes out. Am I going to miss the target simply because the ammo isn't what I was expecting? (Again, maybe the first time. Then I would aim lower and start hitting bullseyes again.)
And yes, I think you would get a bonus on using a Federation-issue Type 1 hand phaser based on your level of skill at using a TV remote. Ever tried to change the channel when there's something in the way of the cable box? You've already dealt with line-of-effect 'attacks'. You might not be very good at it. Your level of skill, and thus your example credit, might not be very much, but it is similar if you realize that the same principals apply.
I let one of my players have 'hitting people with lead pipes' as a skill (which they claimed they had BEFORE they versed out...no I didn't dig deeply into the subject with them.) I don't know, I think you can have a very wide array of things in a skill like having Good Soldier Skill which would include everything from knowing how to salute to digging foxholes to shooting M-16's.
You of course, go up very slowly in this skill. And that concept, even if not the exact example, is I think, from the horse's mouth. Although we're sure MJ is a thoroughbred.
O'Sevens, I think you've missed my point. You're talking about aiming, and having good aim, and the transference of aim from one "gun" to another. All of that is covered by Ranged Strike Value. That's your coordination and your ability to guess where your opponent will be. It is one factor in skill success.
Another factor is your Tech BRA.
Another factor is bias - yours and the world's.
Another factor is your skill with this kind of device. Despite their similarity in shape, a Remington .22 and a disruptor rifle are very different in nature, and that difference in nature will affect their use in combat. I'm not talking about your aim in general, your "marksmanship"; that's RSV. I'm talking about your ability to monitor and operate this device in order to achieve optimal results.
Moreso - what if I don't realize what it is? I pick up a weapon expecting it's a .22 caliber Remington rifle, of exactly the type I was taught marksmanship on. I point it at the target and pull the trigger and a disruptor bolt comes out. Am I going to miss the target simply because the ammo isn't what I was expecting? (Again, maybe the first time. Then I would aim lower and start hitting bullseyes again.)
This entire scenario is bizarre. Why on Earth would you mistake a disruptor rifle for a Remington?
I'll be charitable and assume the designers of this rifle are practicing a deliberate deception on you, and that this deception was so masterfully carried out that you did not realize you had been deceived until you actually saw the disruptor bolt leave the barrel.
I am in awe of these engineers, because they have managed to design this weapon such that you need no knowledge whatsoever of disruptor technology to fire it (it's an @0 skill). Further, they have thrown in a bunch of extraneous moving parts whose only purpose is to make the gun handle as though it were actually a Remington, and they still had room left over for the real innards. On top of that, the weight, the balance - nothing has been overlooked; all give the impression of a .22, and someone who treats the gun like a .22 will get disruptor bolts out of the barrel.
In exchange for significant sit-mod penalties on the design and construction of this very special gun, we have a weapon which may be operated as a T14@0 disruptor rifle - and for an additional massive penalty on design, we allow that anyone with skill at firing a .22 may apply that skill to the operation of this device.
Notice that this whole thing is an exception due to very special circumstances. If you picked up an ordinary disruptor rifle, you would (1) know right away it wasn't a Remington, and (2) be very lucky if you managed to get it to fire at all, much less get a decent rate of fire while expecting it to handle like a gun-powder-driven practically-Stone-Age slug thrower.
Almost missed this:
And yes, I think you would get a bonus on using a Federation-issue Type 1 hand phaser based on your level of skill at using a TV remote. Ever tried to change the channel when there's something in the way of the cable box? You've already dealt with line-of-effect 'attacks'. You might not be very good at it. Your level of skill, and thus your example credit, might not be very much, but it is similar if you realize that the same principals apply.
The skill is not "aiming line of effect attacks." (What would the bias of such a skill be, by the way?) There is more to it than that. The skills are Use Remote Control T10@1 and Use Hand-Held Phaser T14@1. Knowing the difference between fast-forward and rewind does not improve my ability to judge the recharge interval on my phaser by the way it warms and clicks. Having an intuitive feel for how inaccurately you can point the remote and still have it work just fine does not give you a working knowledge of how to adjust the phasar beam for different target materials to achieve optimal burn-through time.
They are different devices. The do different things and work different ways. The fact that their operation sometimes overlaps in one area (they both involve pointing one thing at another thing) just not justify allowing knowledge of the workings of one device to assist in the acquisition of completely unrelated knowledge concerning a completely unrelated device.
If you were using an aiming device like a scope, I would especially expect some of the skill to transfer. The scope doesn't know what kind of gun it's on. A bullet drops a few inches and a disruptor blast wouldn't, but that just means you hit them a little higher. If that's problematic, just aim a little lower and pull the trigger again. The only time it should really make a difference is if you were shooting at incredibly long distances, where even the rotation of the earth comes into play. For shots like that, you have to do a trigonometry problem in your head, and that's way beyond my knowledge, however, for 100 yards shots, that isn't even a factor.
You do get a "bonus" for your knowledge of firing an explosive-driven slug thrower when you attempt to fire a laser rifle: your bias. Having a 6@1 bias from the use of the slug thrower means you have a better understanding of how to aim and fire a laser rifle than someone with a 5@4 water turbines or a 2@1 use bow.
And, as Scott says, you have your ranged strike value, which you have probably managed to improve through your practice with the weapon.
Seriously, though, this is Pandora's Box. Should the ability to ride a bicycle give you an example bonus for driving a car? Then should the ability to drive a car give you such a bonus for flying an airplane? Should flying airplane skill bonus your ability to pilot a starship? If you say yes in all cases, then your skill ability level at riding a bicycle ought to be an example bonus for piloting a starship--the chain of similarity is there.
Example bonuses in Multiverser apply when someone showed you how to do something or you were able to watch them do it in a way which might have given you understanding of the process. So when you saw the storm trooper pick up the laser rifle, you noticed that he adjusted the power dial, checked the temperature gauge on the coolant tank, and engaged the coolant circulatory system prior to aiming and firing. You have some understanding of how the laser works that makes it different from an explosive driven slug thrower.
That's why citing that a character used a certain psionic ability in some story you read does not constitute an example, because the story did not explain how he did it, only that he did it.
John, using a scope is a separate skill, what we call a targeting skill. In essence, you roll your ability to use the scope, and if you succeed you get the bonus (whatever bonus applies for this scope--it can be improved range or a sit-mod on your shot, but it might be that it's something like a night vision or infrared scope, in which case the bonuses are different). If you have skill in using scopes and you use one on a different weapon, the same rules apply to the use of the scope.
If you picked up a laser rifle, I suspect the first question you would have to answer is, how do I get this out of power saver mode? Don't know? I guess you have to learn how a laser rifle works, don't you? Your ability to aim any missile weapon is going to be based on your intuition and hand/eye (which means your ranged strike value); your specific ability with a specific weapon depends on your familiarity with that weapon.
And indeed, your RSV can give you a better chance to learn a weapon--if you are teaching yourself to use it by shooting at something, in which case your RSV and the target's TV become part of the equation (along with cover, range, size, and movement, if applicable).
--M. J. Young
This apparently needed to be brought over here from the Behind the Screens thread. John quotes me:
Kick can spoil your aim, and particularly at range.You have to pull the trigger, of course, but you also have to be ready for the kick, don't you?Yeah, but by that point, the gun is fired, the bullet has left the muzzle, and has hit whatever it was pointed at. Not knowing that there is a kick would do very little to change that.
But I think we've covered most of it already.
--M. J. Young
I get it MJ, it's a question of "Where do you draw the line?" And rather than ask that question, you just made it all unrelated. (That probably makes more sense to me.)
Two Posts
Just out of curiosity, could a referee rule that the weapon IS close enough in design to merit an instant 1@10 use Plasma Rifle?
I could imagine that, perhaps in a futurist Western setting, the gun looks and feels just like a 30-30 Winchester lever action, but shoots a plasma bolt. Levering the action releases a small amount of plasma into the chamber, and is required for repeat shooting. Maybe it even uses cartridged plasma and has to be loaded the same way and everything. The botch when you roll a 30 and it explodes? Well, it explodes in a shower of super-heated plasma....
Could a referee make a ruling like that? Just curious.
(Doing Therapy)
On reflection, I'm going to say that's not how it would work.
- Instead, first I would make this particular plasma rifle an @0 operate skill, stating that the use of this weapon does not require or confer understanding of how or why it works, but all necessary plasma functions are controlled by the gun's own user-friendly systems. This avoids the problem inherent in @0 versus @1 skills, which is if you can use a car or a computer or a weapon you should be able to translate that that understanding to any other car or computer or comparable weapon. To limit this, a distinction is made between operating systems you don't need to understand and operating systems you do need to understand. That's why driving vehicle with a standard transmission is an @1 skill while an automatic transmission is @0: you need to understand something about how the engine and the transmission work together to operate a standard transmission. So I've decided to make this particular fusion rifle an @0 operation skill, a gun you can operate without knowing quite what it does or how it does it.
- Second, I'd give it a sit-mod bonus. I've got a few choices in how I can do this, and each has its advantages and disadvantages.
- First, I have to decide whether the sit-mod goes to learning only, as an example bonus might, or whether it goes to use as well--for example, the use of a match is in essence light fire from friction, except that you're using a device that gives you a +20 sit-mod on being able to light the fire. The downside of the sit-mod for learning only is that it doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a better chance with the weapon on the second shot--only on the roll you're using to learn it. The downside of the sit-mod for everything is that you'll still have it when you reach 3@10 with the weapon, and that will make it a formidable weapon.
- Second, I have to decide whether the sit-mod is linked to a particular skill or category of skills, or simply a fixed sit-mod. That is, I could say that anyone who knows how to use large hand-carried explosive-driven slug throwers gets the bonus, but do I also include small or heavy hand-carried guns? Do I include pneumatic weapons and rail guns and lasers and sonic blasters? On the other hand, just about anyone who has a bias of at least 8@ probably has some skill in some similar weapon, and anyone with a bias lower than that hasn't got much chance of learning to operate a fusion rifle even with the bonus.
- Third, if I'm linking it to an existing skill, do I make it a flat bonus or tie it to the SAL of the other skill? The latter gets complicated. What if the character has multiple skills, such as skills in several different weapons? Obviously we're thinking that only one applies, but is it the one most like the weapon in question or the one with the highest SAL? Also, if it's a continuing bonus, if the SAL in the other weapon increases, does that increase the bonus to this one?
My inclination would be to make it a fixed sit-mod to learning this particular type of device without reference to any other skill; but that's just the way I would do it. I don't like skill crossover, particularly where there is very different technology involved.
On the other hand, I think there's some basis for allowing the use of simulators to increase skill ability levels, and thus of practicing with something other than the device in view. This would cover things like using wooden practice swords for beginner swordsmanship, operating a well-designed flight simulator, and possibly learning to use a gun by using a fake. I'm a lot less comfortable with giving someone skill in a device he has never used or handled at all, but I can see contexts in which that would be the case. Our shuttle pilots always trained in simulators, and although I do not think the simulator ever simulates perfectly, those particular simulators were designed well enough to bring someone to professional level before putting him behind the controls of the real thing.
--M. J. Young
OK, how about this one. You've got a guy who is a 3@10 expert with the 30-30 Winchester lever action rifle. He lands in this imagined futuristic Western setting, and before he manages to get acclimated and find out what the guns really shoot, he picks up one of the rifles I described for some action or another. As far as he knows, it's one of his trusty 30-30 rifles which he has been shooting for years. He won't know that it's actually a plasma rifle until he pulls the trigger. Does he STILL only have 1@1 skill with it? I know, it's kind of an odd scenario, but ANYTHING is possible!!!!
First, we know that he does not have 3@10 skill in it, because it is patently not his gun, and therefore not the gun in which he has 3@10 skill.
We can also be pretty sure that he does not have 2@10 skill in it. Professional skill means that he's quite sensitive to the nuances of how this gun fires. He would know the difference in feel between a 30-30 and, for example, a .22 long. A great deal of his skill--his rate of fire, for example--is based on that familiarity with the nuances of the weapon type, and even a different brand of 30-30 might not fall in the same category, because its nuances would be different.
Let me bring this into focus: there are (or some years back there were) twelve world-class concert pianists. Eleven of them will only play concerts on a Steinway Grand; one of them will only play on a Yamaha Grand. Me? I've played both, and can't tell much difference. I mean, I can hear and feel that the Yamaha is different, but it would never affect my playing--I'm nowhere near good enough for differences of that sort to make the slightest difference. At the same time, I was supposed to play a concert with a professional piano player, and when we got to the hall the piano they had was worthless, and when I picked up an electronic piano for him to play instead, he wouldn't play, because the instrument was too different from what he knew. I've had to adapt to an electronic piano at times, and they are different in a number of ways that impact my playing; you'd not be too far off if you said that I had to learn a different kind of piano.
So the only question is whether the guy who is expert in the 30-30 Winchester would automatically have 1@10 amateur skill in the imitation 30-30 that was designed to be like the real thing but was not in the same category of weapon.
And I think the answer is still no. He has a crack at teaching himself to use it, and if he uses it by shooting at an easy target (giving himself the benefit of his undoubtedly high ranged strike value and very little penalty for target value and modifiers) he might be able to pull off a 1@3 SAL on his learning roll. This, though, is not that weapon, and he does not get to use the wrong skill here.
Again, the exception is if this was designed to be a training weapon for the use of the 30-30, you could use the 30-30 skill ability level to fire this; but why would anyone design a powerful laser weapon to be a "practice sword" for an explosion driven slug thrower? The amount of technology that would have to go into creating the right (instead of the wrong) amount of heat, the fire rate, the kick, the balance--
And yes, kick matters, because a significant part of the SAL is fire rate, so compensating for kick is part of the skill.
And yes, what it fires matters, because a good part of the SAL is compensating for wind and gravity, and if the missile performs differently from a bullet, you've lost the benefit for that.
So if you don't know how to use the weapon, you don't know how to use the weapon well.
Footnote: Although I think that a bo-ku-toh can be designed to simulate a katana for practice purposes, and I think that a flight simulator can be designed to train pilots, I do not think that it is at all plausible to design a laser or kinetic blaster as a training weapon for a slug thrower. There's too much that has to be emulated that is not natural to the higher-biased weapon. I can see a game like Duck Hunt being designed to train someone in the use of a laser (which does not mean that someone who played that game has skill with lasers), but there's no kick, no heat, no fumes, no blast, and a lot of other problems that make it too different from the explosive driven type.
You can use such a game to improve your hand/eye and intuition and thus your strike value.
--M. J. Young
I'd certainly go with a heavy sit-mod bonus at the least...
A few points...
1. The producer of Back to the Future III disagreed with you. He made Duck Hunt or something similar give a decent skill to Marty McFly when he shot a pistol.
2. If you remember in Starsong, you had to learn to fly a spaceplane. And the spaceplane adapts to you, to your learning style, to make it easier for you to fly.
This was a similar idea to the Mark-Ryu in that world. Thus...a truly advanced tech will adapt to its user rather than the other way around. Of course, Starsong is arguably the most or very close to it, tech advanced society, built for Multiverser, and I think definitely the most advanced ever published.
3. I could definitely see a force of Space Green Berets showing up on a planet, telling them the nasty aliens are on the way, and handing everyone on the planet a 'shoots just like the M-16' grav pulser and then the planet waits for two weeks for the alien conquerors to come, and everyone plots guerrilla warfare.
4. One of my WAW's which I'd love to turn into a novel was about a world in which computers are used to 'run magic'. When you speak the proper computer code, the wireless transmitter in the 'magic gem' you carry sends a signal to the computers which then activate various devices to make your 'spell' work.
Another world had future SCA people create an asteroid belt society with 'magic' available to their descendants.
5. Think about it this way...you're not learning the skill 'shoot .30-30'. You're learning the skill, 'shoot stuff just like a .30-30'. Its just relatively rare that the distinction comes into play.
I think some authors have faced this question, and come out with the answer...a vibroknife is pretty much a knife.
There are a couple reasons for this...
1. A lot of authors don't have that much familiarity with certain things. So stuff gets glossed over.
2. Lack of imagination, or logic. Your description of the differences between a laser rifle and a rifle is good. (This is the type of detail that needs to go into your novels. You would impress some of your readers with an unexpected and realistic idea which a lot of SF readers like.)
3. Roughly the same reason that there is a 15@10 Paintbrush in Northgate City for the Dreamweaver. Its a way to quickly and painlessly power up your hero. Say you send your hero off to fight the aliens armed with a rifle and a knife. He barely survives the first five. Whew. He then gets rescued by the Alien Resistance, and they give him some Really Powerful Stuff that might takes months to learn how to use, but in the story, the author does not want to wait around for four months while the hero learns to use the weapons so he merely says that it takes a few warm up shots for the hero to get used to using his Gamma Caster. He then joins the Main Strike on the Evil Aliens Base and sets the Gamma Caster on slaughter...
"The caster shot remarkably similar to a nine millimeter, but the impact of a half terrawatt of gamma radiation would boil an Armored Personal Carrier, and that was totally different."
Now arguably, thats bad logic...
Not necessarily. It is entirely reasonable to interpret that as that Marty's video game practice had improved his hand/eye and intuition sufficiently to give him a 2@ ranged strike value, and thus made him good with all ranged attacks. We do not know whether he also had skill in any weapon in the category of the gun he uses there (for example, most people on this board would not have guessed that I have used bows, crossbows, flintlock pistols and rifles, cap-and-ball pistols and rifles, shotguns of several gauges, and rifles--it simply has never been mentioned, and my skill is clearly amateur with them all).1. The producer of Back to the Future III disagreed with you. He made Duck Hunt or something similar give a decent skill to Marty McFly when he shot a pistol.
So I think it's possible to have that inherent ability to use weapons that does not require that you have high skill in any weapon individually. A lot of the action heroes can pick up any gun and use it with about the same level of proficiency, and that suggests that it is not proficiency with the gun but skill at firing missiles that is involved here.
--M. J. Young
I think I'm with MJ on that. I had a girlfriend who could shred me at the video game Area 51. You're shooting a light pistol at alien targets. This girlfriend beat me at it every time. She wanted to shoot a real gun, so I took her to the shooting range and let her shoot a 9mm. She couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with the 9mm. She must have had skill at the video game, but it didn't translate to real gun skill. My gun skill didn't seem to translate to the game, either.
Ahhh, it is now crystal clear why slug-throwers don't relate to lasers of similar shape.....
(Doing Therapy)