gun options, the trade off Options

[Snow_Fox]

I don't know if this will have much interest, and anything I get off I'm sure Raygun can correct. More details than you get in SR but something to consider for role playing.

After an unpleasant experience on a country road I realized I needed something heavier to carry with a suit than my little .25. so I picked up a .38sp S&W with very interesting extras but each had a trade off.
pros:
It was hammerless-meaning no spur sitting off the back to snag when you draw it,

A snub nose- only a 2in barrel so again easily fits into a pocket or bag.

light weight material so not too much drag on pockets.

Slim build for a revolver.

It has a laser sight, but this is set on the side, behind the cylinder just above my thumb, NOT under the barrel

Cons;
The lack of a hammer means it is definitely a double action gun but you cannot manually cock it, that means the pull is tougher than I'm use to. also the lack of a hammer was compensated by a slightly longer frame. No big deal in your hand but a stone bitch to fit into a holster. Officially a "J Frame" it did not fit into a S&W shoulder holster for a "J frame"

The snub nose, combined with the more powerful bullets means range is really limited. At my usual 50ft training range I was aiming so high I was getting badly frustrated. Finally I took out the .25, also with a 2 inch barrel and was relieved to see that hit with the accuracy I'm use to.

The light weight material kepts the drag on my cloths down BUT the material holds heat a LONG time and there was nothing to absorb the recoil. I've got a .357 mag with a 4 inch barrel and have a Mataba Uniqua that abuses the hell out of your ear drums even with padding and has a back blast of air right in your face but this little S&W had the nastiest kick of any gun I've ever fired.

It took about 2 full boxes (100 rounds) to get comfortable with the weapon and even then at 30 feet it was aiming high because of the kick-the guys at the range were shocked I was sticking with it.
This was just a .38sp and I was feeling it for days afterward. The same shelf in the store also had .50 magnums with a 2 inch barrel-great if your mugged by a killer whale but pretty much going to break your hand.

The slim build limits the chamber to only 5 bullets before you reload.

So these are pretty crappy trade offs but they are all logical. and for what I want the gun for it is still a great piece. If I don't need a fitted suit I can get away with my .380 beretta Cheetah.

Again I know this is far more detail than most SR games will come close to but it certainly gives food for thought, I hope.
One thing very interesting is the placement of a laser sight on the side, which opens up a lot of possibilities for other guns.

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, in terms of weird placements of things on the gun (i.e. laser sight on the side) what immediately comes to *my* mind is a Bren LMG from World War II with the magazine jammed in upside down on the top, which precludes the use of alternate sights. The actual iron sights are off to the side.

Don't carry a .25 or a .38, carry a machine gun! :)

Joking aside, I really would love to have firearms customization in my RPGs with the level of detail like you're describing. I've been thinking a bit about this sort of thing in the context of my personal "80s-run" project, but I feel like I've kind of hit the following problem: I love the SR system and am more familiar with it than I am any other systems, but in order to try and make probability curves that are realistic or simulationistic with the firearms I started toying with tweaks to the system and from that point on wasn't sure which way was the best to proceed. Since the SR system has a degree of granularity which would seem to not be sensitive enough to reflect such things as the laser sight on the side or a 2 inch barrel on a .38 versus a 2 inch barrel on a .45 making the pistol harder to operate, it would seem like if you did want to have a whole firearms customization system you'd need to really overhaul the system to make it more sensitive.

Does that make sense?

The other gaming site where I think about guns a lot is ja-galaxy-forum.com, and there in the context of JA2 they've gone and implemented foregrips, bipods, grip pods, various types of LAMs, 7x scopes, 10x scopes, 2x scopes, a bunch of reflex sites, and folding stocks, but the problem with all of this is that a lot of times there are disagreements about how exactly each thing should work in terms of game statistics.

I almost feel like if you start with a system that's designed to represent certain things and later try to add all sorts of details that weren't there before you're going to have a really hard time. Maybe we need to hire some Nobel prize physics winner to write us "Firearms Realism: The RPG" that is set up to handle all these sorts of accessories in great detail for it to really go smoothly. I dunno.

[kzt]

SR isn't a sufficiently detailed "or granular" enough system to reflect these in a realistic fashion. HERO or GURPS might, but I'm not sure you could capture all of them without creating something silly.

In my NSHO most of the variations on the basic models in SR are pointless, or they arbitrarily create some supergun that violates all the rules and everyone uses because it's a supergun that violates all the rules. I'd argue that 25 to .38 special is light pistol to heavy pistol, but .38 to .45 isn't enough of a change to justify a change. In terms of th real world I'd probably want to go the the bizzaro handcannon rounds (as in .500 SW), before giving more damage than the base "heavy pistol". And I'd accompany them by not allowing multiple shots per IP due to the recoil.

[Critias]

I've always thought a dirt simple mechanic would just be "better concealability = worse recoil compensation," as a quick slap patch. The lighter and sleeker and easier to hide a handgun is (due to a slim profile, light material, short barrel, etc), the harder it is to fire quickly and accurately at the same time.

Since recoil doesn't really matter very much in Shadowrun, though (unless you make the mistake of firing a weapon on full auto), it matters about as much as the bipod on a sniper rifle.

[Mercer]

My theory is if you describe your firearm as being more concealable, the NPCs will roll worse to spot it. I don't know why I think this or where it comes from, but I believe it on an instinctual, lizard-brain level.

Also, if I declare my character is doing weapon maintence, I will be less likely to roll a botch.

And if I describe the care my character takes when aiming, I will roll better on my shot.

The Defiance T-250 springs to mind. There's the normal shotgun, and then the sawed-off version mentioned in the text with a shorter range and less damage. (The weird thing is as a shotgun it was as concealable as the Ruger Super Warhawk, and as a short barreled rifle it was as or more concealable than any Heavy Pistol and all but one of the Light Pistols in the BBB. Basically, in order of Concealability it goes Hold Out Pistol, Light Pistols and Short Barreled Shotguns, and the Heavy Pistols and Long Barrelled Shotguns. (Just pointing it out, I'm not claiming it isn't wonky as all hell.)

But that's probably what I'd do. A bonus to Concealability and a drop in range and Power Level. Of course, saying it out loud (or typing it, as the case may be) it occurs to me that you can convert a Heavy Pistol into something more concealable as a Light Pistol this way-- but you almost make it Light Pistol doing so. Say a 9M Heavy Pistol becomes a 7M weapon that uses the Light Pistol range, with a Concealability of around 7. A snub-nosed Super Warhawk would be a Con 6, 8M pistol that uses the Light Pistol range. That doesn't offend me.

I'd probably raise the concealabilities of all the Light and Hold Pistols by 2. (In fact, I am 90% sure my group did that. Otherwise, there was no reason for Light Pistols to exist.)

[Crusher Bob]

Why the wheel gun over something like a Kel-tec or sub-compact glock?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Just as an aside...

I wonder what the "unpleasent encounter" was. That said, I'm not sure the move from .25 to .38 is really all that useful - especially if you 'upgraded' to a weapon which it harder to use comfortably, and especially if it gets hot in a hurry.

Woulden't it be wiser to tailor your suits so that you can carry something effective and comfortable to use - a larger semiautomatic, such as a compact or even a full 9mm - without looking too awkward? In the manner that police detectives wear theirs in shoulder holsters - if you have a full, closed jacket, it shoulden't be too noticable if the jacket is appropriately padded and bulked out.

[Snow_Fox]

I'll admit a temptation to give an anoyingly ambiguous SR answer like "it was on a run, you don't need to know where."

But the short version was driving home from work on a back country road I was brought to a stop by a man who had blocked the road with his car and was running around screaming. There was one car between me and him and he was screaming at them. A car came behind me so I couldn't turn around. So as he came towards my car, still screaming, I drew my .25 and, keeping it low, had it ready. From what he was screaming it seems he had been drinking and gotten lost on unlit country roads, some of these lanes can get pretty confusings and add booze to the mix and he reached melt down level. Luckily the car behind him could give him directions.

It occurred to me that if he was going to be a problem the little .25's might not be enough, a .38 sp at that range would be. After all a woman along on a back road with a lunatic screaming at you and no room to turn around? Not good.

[Wounded Ronin]

[CircuitBoyBlue]

Not to mention the egg that will be on your face when the cops show up and ask why you shot an unarmed man.

[kzt]

Women who go hand to hand with crazy men don't do well, even if they are really good. Hell, men who who go HtH with crazies often don't do well. Crazy/drunk/high people often don't react to pain and unnaturally strong. Had a friend who watched a crazy (on PCP) throw 4 cops across a room. This is why you often see pictures where 4 cops pile on these people to take them down. And why they often use tasers on probe mode as an opening move if they have to go HtH.

I've been told be people who know a lot more than me that a j-frame s&w is the most concealable gun that they would trust. J-frames in ankle holsters are hard to spot, and they work well in pockets. I have a kel-tec in .380, and it's just not that well made. I had the hammer spring break (for no reason - I wasn't using it) at a class once, and it's not going to go bang then. It's better than nothing, I hope. But .38 special with good HP is a lot more effective than .380s.

And the glock 27 is twice as thick as the p3at and larger overall. But 10 .40 sure beats 7 .380. I'm going to try a desantis nemisis, but we'll see.

In a car, you could have lock box under the seat with a full sized pistol in it.

[Critias]

[Snow_Fox]

Exactly, and thank you for understanding. I'm 5' 1" and petite, I have defeated a mugger in NY with judo but I'd rather not have a repeat performance thank you very much. I was calm enough NOT to wave the gun around, in a 'get away from me' panic. Being well aware of ther perminant state of things if I pulled the trigger, I'm not going to blaze away on a country road at 50 feet BUT if a crazy man tries to break into the car while I'm sitting there, and there's only the glass window between me and him, we enter quickly into the 'justified use of force' realm of things. I have/had no idea what was going on but there was enough evidence of him not being in his right mind.

Even if a man and built like Arnold I still wouldn't want to risk the rough and tumble with someone clearly a few fries short of a happy meal on an unlit country road if I could avoid it.

[ShadowDragon8685]

This is why I don't like to stop dead behind someone, especially on a place like that.

Your pistol can send a little lead flying in Mr. Maniac's direction.

The accelerator can send two tons of steel flying in Mr. Maniac's direction. Plus, if you have to flatten him to get away, you can tell the cops you were just trying to evade him and he got in front. Of course, it's better if it's the TRUTH...

That said, if you're in a car, why futz with what you can conceal on your person? Dosen't a CCL cover in your own auto? Then why not have something that's clearly a "get the fuck away", like a full-sized Glock 9mm or something big and flashy in the range of .357-.44 where you know it is and can get at it, but nobody can see if they just look in the window.

Hell, if you get a Mr. Crazy, even a round from a .38 special might not put him down.

[martindv]

[martindv]

[Mercer]

[G.NOME]

The Mounties decided on 9mm over .38 and wrote a report to say why.
Here it is.

That having been said, being able to shoot your firearm straight is more important than its stopping power, and most ballistics experts agree that bullets with more mass are better as far as damage goes.

Sidebar for the purposes of showing off some cool gear: Being a fairly healthy man living in a decidedly liberal city where they've effectively banned firearms for self-defense purposes (and don't have any country roads), I'd probably use this as my self-defense weapon of choice, if I felt like I needed one.

[Mercer]

[JBlades]

Snow Fox: Got one of those Airlights, eh? Titanium frame? with the Crimson Trace grips? Been wondering about those. Seems like a good little CCL gun but I imagined the kick would be as you describe it. :)

I'm a big guy (6'1" 250), and have training (black belt, ex-cop, ex-bouncer), and Critias is absolutely right, if I could help it I wouldn't engage the guy at grapple range. Crazy people are not a party, contrary to many people's beliefs.

Sounds to me like you called the situation perfectly, Snow, as far as pulling the gun but keeping it down. Better safe than sorry, but safe and unnoticed is best!

As for SR, a lot of details are brushed over in the system, and adding detail can be fun, but the first 2 sentences of this post probably lost half the readers on Dumpshock, and they're the ones who put a lot into it, so I can see why they keep it general. I usually just go with the common sense rule, and tailor what I consider to be common sense to the player's knowledge in an area in RL. Some of my players I expect more of as far as gun choice in a given situation, others less, but as long as it's fun and doesn't make me spew soda all over the table through my nose I figure it's ok. ;)

[ShadowDragon8685]

I thought it wasen't a good night until you've had at least one laugh-propelled, soda-powered nasal cleansing?

The sting is how you know it was a good one!

[martindv]

[CircuitBoyBlue]

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Snow_Fox]

To calm the vitriol, gentlemen, when on my own time and can dress less formally I usually have a .380 berretta cheetah with a 4 inch barrel in a hip holster. A loose jacket covers it.

but I work in finance and usually wear fitted suits. I can usually get away with the .25 I do not accept carrying a larger gun in my bag because that can be grabbed by a mugger and bingo, I'm disarmed and he's suddenly doing much better.

The .38sp is too large to carry in my suit-but it does fit nicely in the breast or side pocket of my coat.

I'm still frustrated with formal wear. Men can carry a gun in a tux. I wear the little black cocktail dress and there, biggest thing I can hid on it is a small lock blade.