In real life, a USA dollar is worth around 100 Japanese Yen (give or take).

For the future they wanted the UCAS and CAS dollars to be devalued compared to the USA dollar, and they wanted Japanese currency to have become the world currency (much like the dollar is in real life).

However, from a game design point of view, the game currency having the same buying power as a real life dollar makes estimating prices for anything not listed in the books easy.

So: 100 Yen ~ $1 (USA) ~ 1 Nuyen ~ $3 (CAS) ~ $4 (UCAS)

See Nuyen at the Sixth World Wiki for more detail.

In real life, a policeman in Calgary thinks that paranormal animals and a Megacorporation run by the Yakuza are coming to kill everyone in one of the few cities in Canada where you can carry a pistol with the right license and training. (OK, it's only at one time of the year, and will still get you looks, but still, that's better than most places in Canada!).

Truth is far stranger than any fiction.

Its better than Pennsylvania gun laws. Here you can carry a gun after your license is revoked because you can just go "Hey Florida, I want a gun" and Florida goes "Here you go, have a license" which is then valid in PA!

[bait]
Better?? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
[/bait]

Better? Well, let's see... An unarmed victim versus an legally armed person with the proper training that criminals don't even want to try anything with. I know which side of the fence I would like to be on.

Note that I stated they were allowed to wear pistols. As in "Unconcealed".

As an aside to get us back on track, I bet this police officer also thinks the Gun Registry is a good idea and is working, and will not be used to slowly make various forms of firearms illegal and then rounded up to be destroyed, just like was done in England.

Just to counter the argument of "legally armed citizens" look at Arizona:
Loosest gun control in this country and not one person at the shooting the other week was carrying a gun with which they could have confronted Jared Loughner with. Everyone at that rally could have had a gun but none of them did, thus invalidating the self-defense rational.

Anyway, enough politics for me before I get banned. :X

And Counter to Counter before I get banned too: Is that failure of the laws allowing you to arm yourself or a failure of those present to be armed? Also, as I recall, one person was armed, but due to the crowd did not shoot for fear of hitting innocent bystanders.

People expecting any law (pro gun or anti-gun) to be the pnacea for eliminating crime is highly delusional. It is just opposing opinions on how to deal with it.

Back on topic please! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Actually, to be more precise, there WAS one responsible gun-owning citizen legally carrying a concealed weapon at the shooting. He stepped out of a store as it was going down, and ran toward the site, flicking the safety off and getting ready to shoot the guy with the gun...

...which was one of the heroic unarmed civilians that had tackled the gunman and wrestled the gun out of his hand. If another of the unarmed civilians hadn't told him to drop it (lest he look like the gunman), the responsible gun-owning civilian would have mistakenly shot him.

The fantasy of the heroic armed citizen shooting the crazed gunman and saving everyone is possibly the most common adolescent fantasy I can think of, in terms of seeing so many people buy into it against all evidence of how things go in real life.

(Note: as a Calgarian, I am quite happy with the notion of nobody ever walking around with a handgun other than the police, Stampede or no Stampede. inbefore "BUT CRIMINALS")

That's pretty much my point. Things "don't work that way."

Wasn't aimed at you, was just kind of musing out loud by that point.

I can think of an Israeli classroom that could tell you otherwise.

But, yes, back to the idiot cop who thinks Shadowrun is IRL.

*Nods vigorously in much agreement*

Someone must have e-mail him, they pulled the slideshow down.

Pfff. Mitsuhama just didn't want the truth getting out. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

Did anyone happen to save a copy?

It might still be in browser cache, but it'd be hard to locate.

I didn't. I have enough of the stupid in my head already from working Tech Support. I don't need any more.

There is also a issue of being confused with the gunman once police shows up.

If someone ups and starts shooting in a group of people that do not know each other, and others attempt to return fire, there is a likelihood that they will confuse each other for the initial shooter.

Hell, even military forces manage to shoot at their own (blue on blue i think the US term is). This thanks to misreported locations, not being able to tell the enemy from the friendly (thats why there was brightly colored uniforms in use for centuries, to counteract that problem) and various other issues that gets lumped into "fog of war".

Most of the bullets that get fired in real combat wind up missing their target. Not even talking about suppressive fire here, but in a relatively close quarters firefight with armed police officers or soldiers. And those bullets GO SOMEWHERE. I know it's not modeled in most RPGs other than the occasional "shooting into melee" rule for hitting people fighting hand to hand, but bullets that miss your target, when that target is in a crowded area, have a decent chance of hitting a bystander. So the more people shooting in a crowded area, the more bullets flying, potentially, at bystanders...

This usually isn't factored into the "if only some law-abiding person at a mass shooting had a gun" scenarios.

EDIT: Actually, something just popped into my head to make this SR-related. Even if there aren't many rules for it, this issue is mentioned in SR's setting itself. Namely, one of the perils of running in (or living in, or visiting legally, for that matter) Aztlan. That any legally authorized security forces in the country (which includes Aztechnology corpsec, naturally) shooting at a lawbreaker (meaning, anyone they feel like shooting at) that hit a bystander add the charge involved in the shooting of said bystander (aggravated assault, attempted murder, murder, etc) to the "lawbreaker"'s list of charges. So if some Aztlan cop guns down three innocent bystanders trying to bring in some guy, said guy will be facing three additional murder charges if he gets caught. Oh, Aztlan sourcebook. You still so good.

Surprisingly, Deadlands had rules for stray bullets... I called it the "Little Suzy" rule, which made the group very sensitive about firearms and spraying weapons everywhere. (I explained it as such "It might take time, but for every bystander that could possibly be hit will have a chance. That includes Little Suzy down the road.").

This got to be even scarier in Deadlands: Hell On Earth when Full-Auto weapons became common. The group still chose Semi-Automatic or Lever-Action weapons rather than them. That, and bullets are expensive. (One of my favourite intimidation lines: "You're currently $4 worth of annoyance. My bullets are worth $5 each. Don't become worth more dead than it costs for the bullet.").

Which is a good reason for using ammo that isn't APDS or Regular ammo. Most of them don't "Overpenetrate", which means going through Thug #4 in the credits and hitting, well, Little Suzy.

Loot more bullets than you use killing the looted.
For armed thugs, this is always the case.
Problem solved.

That's actually one of my favourite mini-drama devices: A figure comes around the corner, he obviously noticed something in his periphal vision and the huge piece he's carrying starts traversing towards you. What do you do?

Ha.

Ha ha ha!

MUH-HA-HA-HA!!!

Why do you think a bunch of thugs were willing to pick a fight with a group like the PCs to begin with? They had almost nothing and wanted what they had, all or nothing.

Also, when they realized just how big a fight they had on their hands against the PCs, they flipped the selctor switches from "Semi-Auto" to "Full Auto" in the hopes that it would make a difference. I had a player cry at the bullets lost from that.

For video game junkies, another good example of "Bullets as Currency" is Metro 2033.

I presume that 1) it takes more bullets to kill a PC than it does to kill a thug 2) thugs won't engage without enough ammo to reliably end the PC.
On that assumptions, killing a thug statistically brings you net ammo gain.

Deadlands is weird that way. Most Humans are equally easy to kill. Doesn't matter how powerful or skilled you are, the bullet hits you, you're hurting.

PCs are more likely to have body armour, which helps out a little. That's it. It's a deadly and unforgiving system when it comes to that. Which my players were happy with, actually.