Flechette Round Rule Confusion (especially pertaining to shotguns), Please help an old SR3 player just moving to SR4 understand this. Options

[kzt]

I guess it's just that SR doesn't account for all the variables in guns...how could they really? There are so many variables to account for it gets out of hand in a hurry. Is the DV for 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot or is it for 000 3.5 inch magnum? What gauge is the shotgun? How is it that the smooth bore barrel that fires the buckshot can lob a slug 150 meters without rifling? Why doesn't barrel length in rifles affect range in SR or even muzzle velocity? Doesn't make any sense, but it makes the rules easier and by goodness I can live with that!

Their whole model of shotguns is comic book level. Shotguns don't produce the meter wide spread that the rules have until you are far past the range where they are effective. At medium range with a shotgun you are only going to hit two people with a single shell if you'd have hit them with a single rifle bullet. It's more like a 10 inch diameter pattern using no choke (equal to wide in SR).

You can hit man-sized targets at 100 meters with a smoothbore shotgun slug pretty regularly, never tried 150, but it seems reasonable. 35 meters with shot is where the best pattern I've seen in a shotgun has nearly all the pellets in the best-working 00 load on a man-sized silhouette. At 60 meters I think you'd be shooting up the neighborhood for a while to hit the guy. Buckshot can still do a lot of damage at that range if you were to eventually hit him.

[Wounded Ronin]

Yeah, people will always complain when a particular part of a system (usually the part where they have the most real world knowledge) isn't as accurate as they'd like it to be, but in the end if you actually try to create a rules system that perfectly simulates everything, well, you just end up with FATAL

Somehow I don't think that the guy who wrote FATAL actually knew about what he was writing about, though.

[Dr Funfrock]

Yeah, it's just the one that people immediately recognise. A better example of simulationism gone mad would actually be Hybrid (have a read if you really want to break your brain).

[kzt]

I like the previous attempt by one of authors of SR 1st. Aftermath. http://www.fantasygamesunlimited.net/shop/...e.php?prod_id=1

It's horribly detailed, to to the point of needing a flowchart for combat. And still doesn't work. There was an old Murphy's rules about a stick of dynamite in Aftermath killing everything within 100 meters...

[AngelisStorm]

... where as a stick of dynamite held in your hand in SR is no different then one set down next to you (except that if you armor your hand, you get less armor for holding it). Either way, it won't kill you.

I think my personal pet peive is the range categories. Sure, guns CAN fire super far... but your not going to hit anything (that your aiming at, at least) over basic iron sights after a point. (Unless you "take a perk," of course.)

[Wounded Ronin]

Yeah, it's just the one that people immediately recognise. A better example of simulationism gone mad would actually be Hybrid (have a read if you really want to break your brain).

Is that just a collection of the guy writing out random rules based on mathematical modeling of entirely random crap? There's no way the author could have a working knowledge of everything he writes rules for. I would argue that that is just like a more intelligent less socially unacceptable version of FATAL.

[hobgoblin]

(except that if you armor your hand, you get less armor for holding it).

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[Dr Funfrock]

Is that just a collection of the guy writing out random rules based on mathematical modeling of entirely random crap? There's no way the author could have a working knowledge of everything he writes rules for. I would argue that that is just like a more intelligent less socially unacceptable version of FATAL.

No, that's the best part; Hybrid does work, more or less (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) . The rules are not in sequential order, so you have to be willing to go through and cross reference a lot, and deal with the fact that the author is almost certainly insane. The basic idea, however, is sound, just ridiculous. He's attempting to create a superhero roleplaying game that essentially functions as a perfect simulation of reality. There are examples of how you can accurately stat Nostrodamus, Galactus, and Hitler, all with reference to real world energies, velocities, and other properties. It's this nightmarishly convoluted system that tries to be the most accurate recreation of "reality" possible (insofar as a superhero game can be reality).

[Wounded Ronin]

No, that's the best part; Hybrid does work, more or less (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) . The rules are not in sequential order, so you have to be willing to go through and cross reference a lot, and deal with the fact that the author is almost certainly insane. The basic idea, however, is sound, just ridiculous. He's attempting to create a superhero roleplaying game that essentially functions as a perfect simulation of reality. There are examples of how you can accurately stat Nostrodamus, Galactus, and Hitler, all with reference to real world energies, velocities, and other properties. It's this nightmarishly convoluted system that tries to be the most accurate recreation of "reality" possible (insofar as a superhero game can be reality).

That actually sounds pretty sweet, in principle. But how did you know that it more or less works? Did you yourself ever read all the rules and play a game?

[Dr Funfrock]

Not personally, but other, more adventurous souls have braved that dark abysss. Essentially what I've been told is that the math is solid, but actually trying to create a character should only be attempted if you have a spare decade (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)