From: rcashman@cs.ulowell.edu (The Jester)
Subject: Re: SR:  Alternative dodge rule.
Keywords: shadowrun
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Lowell Computer Science
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 22:52:11 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.175931.22967@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> pmwg1641@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Peter M. White) writes:
>
[Nice little story deleted.]
>
>What is wrong with this picture?  Why do PCs carry assault rifles, but
>rarely SMGs?  What is a light pistol for, except New Year's Eve?
>All weapons serve well in the appropiate situation.  Certainly
>some are easier to conceal that others.  But that does not mean the
>highest caliber is always the best choice, even if subtley is not
>your style.

I don't know about your game, but in mine the Heavy Pistol and SMG are
the weapons of choice.  Nobody went for the chromed-Troll archetype:
it draws way too much attention, and subtlety is integral to the Shadow-
run/Cyberpunk genre.

>An assault cannon is simply NOT the correct weapon for close up
>firefights.  If one asks the local NRA activist about his favorite
>weapon for home defense, he'll name some large caliber handgun.
>Not a hunting rifle or shotgun, although they would clearly pack
>more punch.  Why?  Most shots in defense of home are fired at ranges
>of 2-5 meters.  (Yes, one can reach out and shake that burglar's
>hand, often enough.)  In this situation, the gun's weight and
>especially the barrel length will significantly affect how quickly one
>can react to a threat in an unknown direction.  One gun advocate, who
>apparently has helped train many FBI agents, claims that a single man
>armed with a pistol can potentially take out an entire rifle squad
>with surprise.  They will never aim a clean shot before they are all
>cut down.  Maybe.  The point:  how cumbersome a weapon is is an important
>factor for its close quarter effectiveness.

Not necessarily.  I shoot handguns.  I own a .22 Ruger pistol and a .45
ACP pistol.  I find that, while the .22 tends to be more accurate at long
ranges, it would be of little or no use in a combat situation (its just
too easy to bat out of the way).  By the same token, the .45 is a BIG gun
that fires BIG slugs.  Its unwieldy as hell, but I'd rather have that with
me in a combat situation than a smaller gun.

>How should the rules
>reflect this?  One possibility is to assign Reaction penalties.  Light
>gun = fast draw/aim.  Heavy gun = slow draw/aim.  The difficulty
>is how to compare the speed of aiming with any bizarre activity
>other than fighting a character may choose to do during combat.
>I believe the above effects should be best included in the dodge rules.

The difference between combat with a light gun and a heavy gun is that,
when you fire a light pistol at someone, the shot needs to be fairly care-
fully aimed or it will a) pass right through the body, causing less than
impressive damage (light caliber rounds do not expand), or b) it will
hit an extremity and likewise not cause any significant damage.  With
a heavy pistol, you take less time to aim because you really don't care
where the shot hits; a .45 slug has a great deal of stopping power, and,
even if a hit is not lethal, it'll definitely knock you on your ass.

>Unfortunately, SR uses weapon power level as the target for
>dodging.  Ridiculous.  There is simply no basis for asserting
>that a light pistol is easy to dodge; if anything, it would be
>nearly impossible.  And it can not possibly get any easier than
>evading our friendly troll's cannon blast.

Before you get all bunged up over this, remember that the accuracy of
a gunshot is factored into the damage that it does.  Though the system
hardly parallels the real world, its pretty logical to assume that,
if the shooter's proficiency with the gun can cause more damage, the
victim's ability to dodge should reduce damage.

Furthermore, I have to disagree with you insofar as your assumption that
it is near impossible to dodge a light pistol round and easy as pie
to dodge an assault cannon round.  Having fired my .22 pistol at live
game, and also having fired a .30-06 (a poor relation to an assault cannon,
but, nevertheless, the parallel is there) at live game, I find that they
dodge out of the way of the pistol FAR more easily than they do the
rifle.  Reason?  The rifle shell travels perhaps ten orders of magnitude
faster than the pistol shell, and aim with a pistol is, at best, erratic.

>Consider what each weapon is actually best suited for:
>
>	heavy weapons		vehicles, massed troops

	Agreed.

>	assault rifles		long range fire combat

Nope.  An assault rifle is best suited to combat in which you want to
fire damaging shells at a high rate of fire.  I am told that, in the
Vietnam War, nearly all squad level firefights (that is, firefights
involving assault rifles) took place at ranges of fifty feet or less.
I hardly consider that long range.  If you want something effective for
long range, look into a sniper rifle or a hunting rifle.  The SR rules
are fairly accurate in this regard.

>	SMGs			bringing abundant firepower up close
>				and friendly, also medium ranges

The only purpose of an SMG is to get off a great many rounds in a short
period of time.  Range is seldom a consideration, as SMGs fire pistol
ammunition which has minimal effective range at best.

>	heavy pistols		short ranges
>	light pistols		short ranges, easier to use than
>				heavy pistols

Not neccesarily true.  Granted there is a great deal less recoil with
a light shell, but many people prefer heavier pistols because they are
more weighty (the heavier a weapon gets, the easier it is to bring it
close to your center of gravity, making it easier to aim).


>Taking the above into account, new dodge target number based on
>weapon type:
>
>	heavy weapons			2
>	assault rifles			3
>	SMGs				4
>	heavy pistols			5
>	light pistols			6
>
>These target numbers are for Short ranges.  For each range category
>above short, shift one step towards target # 5.  Alternatively, just
>make it 5 for non-Short ranges.

I think you're trying to make your game WAY too realistic.  Shadowrun,
while relying heavily on an element of realism, is, after all, a cinem-
atic game.  You don't need to incorporate rules like this into such
a game: it would make combat even more lengthy than it is already.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brett Cashman (The Jester)			    	rcashman@cs.ulowell.edu

"There's a place I like to hide,
 A doorway that I run through in the night."		- Geoff Tate
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