Knockback Optional rule, Why I hate it. Options

[TBRMInsanity]

I was reading through my Classic BattleTech RPG rules yesterday and I came across the knockback rules. I hate this optional rule (and its corresponding one in SR). Weapons don't knock you back as they do in the movies. Weapons kill by focusing their limited energy on a single point, thus penetrating the target and shreading up your insides. To get the needed force to "knockback" someone you would need a cannon that would apply the same force to the shooter. The only weapons out there that do that are the recoiless rifles and vehicle mounted weapons. Most of these weapons have a rear exhasut to balance out the force applied to the shooter (eg the Carl G anti-tank gun). I never play with the knockback rules and I wish Fanpro would remove them form their games.

[James McMurray]

SR4 weapons don't knock you back like they did in previous editions, they knock you down, and then only if you're hurt really bad by them. Don't think of it as the force of the weapon driving you to your knees, but rather then force of the impact combined with the pain and being knocked off balance and it might be easier to stomach.

If not, feel free to remove it from your games, just don't let FanPro know or they'll send the SR Gestapo to your house while you're gaming. :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

[James McMurray]

Can bullets not knock you off balance? i've never been shot, so wouldn't know for sure, but it seems like they could.

[Thorn Black]

I like the knockdown rules. It adds a bit of cinema to the games I run. Nothing like describing someone dancing the chaingun cha-cha to bring home how brutal firearms are.

[Aaron]

The knockdown rules, when linked with the rules for getting back up, are another way that the new rules protects characters from getting killed without reducing the lethality of the weapons to unrealistic levels, in the same way that the rules about armor changing physical damage to stun do. If you're down and can't get back up, you're a bit safer from gun fire and are more easily overlooked as a threat.

[James McMurray]

And there's the surprose factor. when you shoot a guy in the chest and he drops, you're apt to assume he's dead and focus your attention elsewhere. When he pops back up you'll be wondering what the heck happened while looking down at the grenade at your feet.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[James McMurray]

Cool. I didn't mean it alone would knock you down, but that it would knock you off balance, which could in turn cause you to fall. But I'll defer to the more experienced gunmen here, since my experiences are drastically limited. :)

[Moon-Hawk]

It is my belief that sometimes, when people are shot, they fall down but are not dead. They may even have trouble standing back up again right away. I think SR4's rule handles this well. It has nothing to do with kinetic energy or momentum, it has to do with, "Oh fuck I'm shot that hurts!!!" :-)

[Eryk the Red]

That's how I see it. I like knockdown (I sometimes even remember to use the rule!). But if you don't like it, there's no harm in ignoring it. Game balance isn't really affected much by it.

[Squinky]

Almost every (real) gunfight I have seen have showed the person who was shot falling to the ground. That is how i play it, the victims just fall forward on there knees, or sometimes drop there weapon or something like that. It adds a good deal to the game I believe.

[Aaron]

[Austere Emancipa...]

If the bullet would otherwise have fully penetrated, then armor theoretically increases the probability of being knocked down through work and impulse. If the probability rounded to zero before, as it does for most small arms, it is highly unlikely this will make a real, observable difference.

Do you propose that, ceteris paribus, spreading the work over a wider area increases the probability of a man being physically shoved to the ground?

[Shrike30]

Does it increase the probability? Sure, why not. That probability is so low, however, that an increase isn't really going to produce a massive change in the number of people who get physically knocked down by the impact of a bullet.

People do, however, FALL down when struck by bullets, either because their reflexive action is to drop low to avoid getting hit again, because the shock of being hit with a bullet disorients them for a second, or because they were already off-balance and the nudge of a round hitting them combined with the muscles near the point of impact tightening up in a trauma response certainly didn't help.

I've expanded SR's "knocked down" state to include being off balance or disoriented... systemically it handles identically (in that it takes a Simple Action to get rid of the modifier), but fluff-wise it can consist of staggering, being in severe pain, or getting the wind knocked out of you. It flows better with my understanding of the realities of gunfights, and doesn't require me to hack out a piece of the system to make it work.

[SL James]

Eh. I'll use the rule when I switch to a new set of rules. For firearms and most other weapons it'll be a Willpower test to convince your body not to crumple like a piece of paper when you get shot. But to give credit where credit's due, it was someone else who came up with the rule.

[James McMurray]

If you just say "someone else" you're only disavowing credit, not actually giving it where it's due. :)

[Kyoto Kid]

[SL James]

It's not "not with me." Aside from that, since he doesn't read DS and no one else on DS knows him, it doesn't really matter.

[James McMurray]

Honor always matters.

[Dr. Dodge]

[James McMurray]

If he was a white guy you found a fraud. :)

[Dr. Dodge]

[Protagonist]

I like the knockback rules. I describe it as both of an "oh shit, I've been stabbed!" sort of thing, and also as a cinematic device (having a guy get blown across a room by a shotgun is just plain cool); it varies on the situation. The key thing is to make sure everyone is having fun. If everyone in the group hates a rule (or if you're GMing and it's giving you a headache), just ignore it. Problem solved.

On another note, I've always wondered why people even bother complaining about a rule they don't even use in the first place. It's not like it's affecting their game.

[James McMurray]