Weapons in Shadowrun
Sean Malloy
that most of the existing arms manufacturers go under in the upheavals
associated with the Awakening, there are going to be dozens of
different types of firearms in production -- not to mention all of the
old, outdated weapons that are no longer being made (there are places
now where you can buy replicas of 1700-era muzzle-loading black powder
guns -- a fairly wide spread between them and an H&K G11).
Not being entirely content to wait for the Street Samurai Catalog (and
being fairly sure that it's going to be almost entirely state-of-the-art
equipment, I want to add weapons on my own. Unfortunately, there isn't
enough information in the weapon descriptions to walk them back to
real-world numbers.
What I want to know is whether there was some fixed conversion method
that would take the characteristics of a weapon (caliber, bullet mass,
muzzle velocity, etc.) and generate the damage code for that weapon.
If anyone has such a conversion system, or if Jennifer could pass the
request on to the FASA people and find out if there was such a system,
I would be very interested in seeing it.
Sean Malloy | "The Crystal Wind is the
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | Storm, and the Storm is Data,
San Diego, CA 92152-6800 | and the Data is Life."
mal...@nprdc.navy.mil | -- _Emerald Eyes_, D.K. Moran
Carl Rigney
>The list of weapons in Shadowrun was incredibly short.
So who wants endless lists of weapons that differ only by a hair?
Shadowrun is a *storytelling* system, not a wargame. If you want
different weapons just take the ones that are there and change the
name and designation. For example, in my game most firearms use
caseless ammo, so magazine capacities can be made higher very easily.
Lots of weapons have a 3-round burst mode. And so on. You can go
to a JiffyLathe and get a weapon kitbashed to spec, after designing it
using your home PC & a HotCad package, or downloading any of a thousand
designs for a modest copyright fee. Its just a question of which
features get traded off - if you want a highly accurate high powered
rifle its not going to be easily concealable, because it'll have a long
barrel. And so forth.
There are even a few weapons that almost unique; but I think it's wrong
to list those in a catalog - they're a reward for the imaginative
player who thinks them up. For example, Crystal Daemon's Skullpopper
is a two shot disposable maser; jury-rigged out of military surplus
commo gear and a flair for ignoring safety margins. It expensive,
unreliable, melts down after a single use and its range is miserable,
but it does the job in a fashion few will forget. And next time she'll
use something else.
Remember Style over Substance and the Future is Disposable. Guns are
rare on my streets because they lack style; but there's a huge variety
of hand to hand gear - stunchucks, 3 section web staffs, Mono-Bolos,
collapsible Katanas with orbital diamond edges - and those are last
year's tricks. The only way to survive the flashlife is to hold out an
edge no one knows about, and if you have to play your hole card you'd
better get a fresh one, cause next time they'll be prepped for what
you've used before if they're pros.
>What I want to know is whether there was some fixed conversion method
>that would take the characteristics of a weapon (caliber, bullet mass,
>muzzle velocity, etc.) and generate the damage code for that weapon.
Nothing of the sort. They list Heavy Machine Guns as 12S4, which is
ridiculous - a .50 caliber round will blow through you, your body
armor, the car you're sitting in, and the building behind you. A
kilometer away. Accurate portrayal of these kinds of damage levels
don't lead to exciting stories, however :-) so instead they made it
survivable. Look at the examples they gave and fit any new weapons
into the similar scheme. Heavy pistols are 4M2; SMGs are 4M3, Assault
Rifles are 5M3, Sniping Rifles are 6S2 but clumsy. But you don't buy a
Heavy Pistol. You buy a Glock 911 Flechette Express with all-plastic
construction and compressed nitrogen firing neurotoxin-tipped soluble
gelneedles. The whole thing is dissolvable in water after you remove
the protective coating, and undetectable by the next-to-latest security
systems. Its sleek and black and smooth and sexy, what more do you
need from a weapon?
--
Carl Rigney
c...@amdcad.AMD.COM {ames att decwrl pyramid sun uunet}!amdcad!cdr
"A communications laser??"
"It got the message across, didn't it?"
Sean Malloy
>In article <49...@skinner.nprdc.arpa> mal...@nprdc.arpa () writes:
>>The list of weapons in Shadowrun was incredibly short.
>
>So who wants endless lists of weapons that differ only by a hair?
>Shadowrun is a *storytelling* system, not a wargame. If you want
Well, let's take two different assault rifles that 'differ only by a
hair' and see what that difference can make in a storytelling
situation. Your group of shadowrunners has had the poor taste to get
itself in a gun battle while leaving a protected area. You're down to
your last five rounds as you take out the troll guard that's the last
obstacle between you and the gate. As you reach the gate, a truck full
of corpcops rounds the corner. Your gun is almost empty, so you grab
for the troll's gun -- but he fell on it, and bent the barrel. No
problem, you'll just scavenge his ammo. But his assault rifle fires
4.77mm caseless, and yours fires 5mm cased. Such a minor difference,
having no effect on the way the weapon handles in combat, yet it has a
major effect on the way the action goes. Better hope your mage can
cover your ass; it's hanging way out there asking for someone to cut
it off.
> You can go
>to a JiffyLathe and get a weapon kitbashed to spec, after designing it
>using your home PC & a HotCad package, or downloading any of a thousand
>designs for a modest copyright fee. Its just a question of which
>features get traded off - if you want a highly accurate high powered
>rifle its not going to be easily concealable, because it'll have a long
>barrel. And so forth.
There are already gun design rules that I can use to generate weapon
sizes, weights, and costs; what I want is some way to be able to take
a description like "This gun will have a damage code of XMY, fire
selectable semi/full/3-round burst, and use the same range listings
as gun _Z_" and be able to get data to plug backwards through the
design rules to let me say "it's going to be _this_ big, weigh _this_
much, and cost you _N_ nuyen for the gun, but you can use the same
ammunition that these guns over here use, so you won't have to have it
custom-loaded for you."
And as a quick aside, how many of you have noticed that the 'Colt
American L-36' illustration is a picture of a toy gun that a company
called Edison used to (and may still) sell? The toy is a bolt-action
air gun firing yellow soft rubber bullet-shaped projectiles from a
four-round clip that fits in the rectangular projection on the bottom
of the barrel, in front of which is a rail that can take two balancing
weights. I laughed myself silly when I saw the illo.
>Remember Style over Substance and the Future is Disposable.
The future may be disposable, but your _gomi_ is somebody else's
source of income. And regardless of how obsolete a weapon may be
compared to current technology, if you're on the ground bleeding while
he's rifling your pockets, _he's_ the one with the better weapon, by
the only truly objective measure, chummer.
> Guns are
>rare on my streets because they lack style; but there's a huge variety
>of hand to hand gear - stunchucks, 3 section web staffs, Mono-Bolos,
>collapsible Katanas with orbital diamond edges - and those are last
>year's tricks.
Carrying the max in style in hand-to-hand weapons isn't going to do
you a lot of good when the target you need to take down is 100 meters
away and your decker hasn't been able to shut down the alarm systems
between you and him. Out and around town, sure, carrying a piece
can be an admission that you aren't good enough to hold your own
without a big reach advantage, but out on a job, you're going to use
what the job takes, and style becomes secondary.
>year's tricks. The only way to survive the flashlife is to hold out an
>edge no one knows about, and if you have to play your hole card you'd
>better get a fresh one, cause next time they'll be prepped for what
>you've used before if they're pros.
But if they are prepared for you to do something different the next
time, because you're clearly not stupid enough to try something that
they already know about, then pulling some hoary time-worn trick may
be just what you need. Edge is as much psychological as gimmickry.
>>What I want to know is whether there was some fixed conversion method
>>that would take the characteristics of a weapon (caliber, bullet mass,
>>muzzle velocity, etc.) and generate the damage code for that weapon.
>
>Nothing of the sort. They list Heavy Machine Guns as 12S4, which is
>ridiculous - a .50 caliber round will blow through you, your body
>armor, the car you're sitting in, and the building behind you. A
>kilometer away. Accurate portrayal of these kinds of damage levels
>don't lead to exciting stories, however :-) so instead they made it
>survivable. Look at the examples they gave and fit any new weapons
>into the similar scheme. Heavy pistols are 4M2; SMGs are 4M3, Assault
>Rifles are 5M3, Sniping Rifles are 6S2 but clumsy.
All that means is that the conversion scale isn't linear; it gets
compressed at the high end. As long as the conversion method isn't
along the lines of "well, it should be better than this weapon over
here, so we'll give it an extra point of Force for the damage code",
you can convert back and forth.
And look at the examples of the weapons they give. 1970s technology
all the way. Take a look at the more recent crop of assault rifles,
like the Steyr AUG, the H&K G11, and the like. Bullpup design allows
the same barrel length to be put in a smaller gun, and placing the
action closer to the butt means that the recoil torque is smaller. The
FN HAR pictured in the rulebook doesn't appear to have any more modern
design freatures than the Israeli Galil, which was designed in the
60s.
> You buy a Glock 911 Flechette Express with all-plastic
< . . . >
>systems. Its sleek and black and smooth and sexy, what more do you
>need from a weapon?
Curious that none of the weapons depicted in the rulebook fit that
description. Style over Substance? The weapons they show run all the
other way. "Yesterday's Weapons Today. Tomorrow's Weapons Real Soon Now."