the gun's too big for me, do you role play your guns? Options

[Snow_Fox]

ok, the other gun thread got me thinking. How many of you actually think about the gun you charatcer holds or do you just go for the desert eagle, I mean predator II becasue of the standard clip and link?

My main character has a small revolver, colt Asp as her public, licenced gun, but has a colt manhunter for runs. big gun, goes boom. BUT when I look at my hands with guns, assuming I'm roughly the same size, there's no way i could do this.

In the game, no problem, I take out the manhunter and booom boom boom. in RL I am very comfortable with a Webly heavy revolver (.455) but a magnum is a joke in my hands. I don't like the balance of a browning so most heavy pistols are out.
With light guns a barretta cheetah has a smaller frame than a comperable Taurus, but the taurus has a smaller grip, easier for a woman's small hand. This has all made me think about my character's weapons.

More than just encumberance would I use any sort of MG or would the recoil be too intimidating

[Crusher Bob]

I would assume that if you have small hands you can get a wonder-10 or a 1911 with a single column magazine that will fit ok. With modern guns like the M-16/AK or M249/RPD the felt recoil is pretty low, it's the weigth of the gun + ammo (in addition to all you other gear) that is the problem. If you are on a 'standard' run, then you don't have that much 'other gear' (dude, leave your NVGs we'll be back in 30 minutes :rotfl: ) so the weight of a SAW + 500 rounds or so might not be too bad...

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Crusher Bob]

The XM8 is supposed to have multiple stock positions, both for portability and different arm lengths I would assume that the 'Matel' guns of 2060 will be similar.

[Austere Emancipa...]

End-user customizable enough to be easily handled by humans with rather short arms, sure. Problems might occur with bullpup weapons (the G11 and OICW look like they might cause trouble for smaller people) and some machine guns (with the recoil spring-thing assembly running all the way through the butt-stock). And dwarves would still have a lot of trouble.

[Glyph]

I generally wouldn't give a light pistol to any character, unless that character was extremely inexperienced with firearms - a sheltered corporate or academic type. Light pistols are so useless under the current rules that I assume any character I make with a decent skill would know this.

For heavy pistols, I take the personality of the character in mind. The Predator guns are for either people who use guns to intimidate, or people who like using ubituous guns that can be bought anywhere and easily disposed of. The Colt Manhunter is for people who are from the streets or the wilderness, and want a gun that performs reliably and has a decent-sized clip. The Brownings or Morrissey Alta are for corporate types, or people concerned about concealability. The Morrissey Elite is not good in a sustained firefight - it is for people who use a gun as a last resort self-defence, but still want it to be effective. The Viper is for infiltrators, assassins, and places where you're not expecting a lot of body armor. Sometimes, the character will use the gun more for personality than for role (the decker with pistols: 2 who picks a Predator because it's the biggest and baddest gun, the pimp who picks the Alta because it's stylish and expensive-looking, etc.).

[Liquid_Obsidian]

the viper is an urbal mithos , i Never EVER allow it
it's even rayed in my BBB

[Siege]

Are you kidding? I've seen a DE on the range and the damn thing made my eyeballs pulse from three stalls down.

The guy using it was twice my size and he still had to kneel and grip it with both hands.

As to the original question -- not really. I tend to pick weapons that fit the characters, although the weapons in SR don't reflect the RL nuances to properly make those choices.

I tend to lean towards a Colt Manhunter for personal taste. If I have to carry something lighter, it's not worth the effort of hauling the dead weight around.

-Siege

Edit: And a Savalette Guardian when I expect to be on a run requiring firepower. :grinbig:

[Foreigner]

Austere Emancipator, Siege:

Until about 15 years ago, I owned a Desert Eagle (A Mark I, one of the original, Israeli-made models). It was a .357 Magnum, although I later purchased the .44 Magnum conversion kit.

The gun was ALMOST too big for me (IRL, I'm 5'6, about 200 pounds (YES, I ADMIT it, I need to go on a diet! :eek: And I HAVE!)), and have, I think, average- sized hands for someone that size. (For example, my Dad isn't much bigger than I am (we can look each other in the eye), but his hands are quite a bit larger than mine.) Anyway, I was barely able to make the tips of my thumb and middle finger touch around the DE's grip.

The gun was controllable, even using the .44 conversion unit with full-power factory ammunition, or equivalent handloads. It was the muzzle blast and the associated noise that I couldn't handle. I eventually sold the whole setup, and bought a gun with which I was more comfortable--a Browning High-Power 9mm Parabellum. Even with loads that approach the .357 Magnum power-wise, that handgun is nowhere near as intimidating to shoot as the Desert Eagle was.

My character in SR, as some of you know, is quite a bit larger than I myself am ("The Foreigner", in the comics, is 6' 2" tall, and weighs either 180 or 240 pounds, depending upon which source you consult--THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, DELUXE EDITION (December, 1986--December, 1989) and MASTER EDITION (December, 1990--November, 1993), claim the former stats, but THE MARVEL ENCYLOPEDIA, Volume 4 (2003), claims the latter height/weight as correct). My version of "The Foreigner" stands just shy of 2 meters tall (he's 6' 6") and weighs between 130 and 150 kilos (about 300 to 330 pounds)--just slightly larger than the average adult male Ork (6'3" tall, 280 pounds), and well above the average (at least twice the size of, at any rate) for a male Human (5' 7", 150 lbs.), if you use the revised height/weight rules postulated by Patrick Goodman in his article, "How Much Did You Say He Weighed?", in Issue #13 of THE SHADOWRUN SUPPLEMENTAL. Currently, he carries a Morrissey Alta Heavy Pistol (as decided by Sahandrian, our group's GM), but I may change that at some point. Only time will tell, as the saying goes.

Incidentally, Siege, what you said about the Desert Eagle making your "...eyeballs pulse from three stalls down..." reminds me of a similar experience my brother reported happening to an acquaintance of his. The gent in question was breaking in a new .22-caliber pistol (I don't recall the make or model) at the time. Anyway, he'd just put up a new target at an indoor range, and sent it out to about 25 yards.

Unbeknownst to him, the fellow in the next shooting position is also getting ready to start breaking in his new pistol--only this guy's weapon of choice is a TAURUS RAGING BULL in .454 Casull.

Anyway, at the EXACT moment the guy with the .22 fires a shot, the fellow with the .454 Casull does likewise. The .22 owner blinks a moment from the concussion, then pauses to look at his own pistol, as if uncertain whether or not it was functioning properly, or if he was merely experiencing an auditory hallucination. At this point, the guy with the TAURUS RAGING BULL (please excuse the caps, but the shooting industry magazines *always* print it this way) touches off another shot.

Now realizing that there is, in fact, nothing wrong with his pistol, the owner of the .22 indulges in a brief moment of semi-insane laughter (more like an hysterical giggle fit, I think) before resuming his target practice. :)

--Foreigner

[Hot Wheels]

lol, that sounds almost like a comedy routine.
I think the myth of the punishing mg recoil comes from men with more macho than brains. Every now and then you get some tV reporter going to a miltary camp and getting to play with the toys. Male reporters getting behind and mg usually complain, women reporters listen to the instructors and really dig in with the stock and hodl it properly. Implied the male reporters try to be Rambo and find out why the professionals hold it so steady.

[JackWill]

Yeah my self.. i have shot almost every handgun once and in every caliber... .22 .32 .357 .380 .40 .45 .50 9mm 10mm and non of them are too itemidating.. the .50 and .45 are a bit big for a hand gun to me.. i like the 9mm but i persoanlly liket he grips on berettas.. noe the other side of the boat.. i have fired ever Major AR out there.. to and the only complications i had was the FNFAL it was heavy! that thing ways a ton. it makes your forearms sore!

[Diesel]

Wow, dude, hit the spellchecker or the shift key once in a while. :D

On-topic: I don't like big guns, and I don't like the SW50 most of all. That thing kicks hard enough that I almost fire twice. Uncool. Mostly because I have squishy hands. :D

[Catsnightmare]

Well Snow Fox, from an in-game point of view the Manhunter shouldn't be a problem for your char. After all it was designed by a woman to begin with.

[Foreigner]

Indeed, Hot Wheels.

Reminds me of one of A&E's news specials.

Their intrepid reporter, Joan Lunden, went to an Army camp to play soldier. (If there are any real-life Army or Marine personnel lurking here, I apologize in advance for my remarks, but you shall soon see that they're accurate in her case.)

She barely qualified as "Marksman" ("Markswoman"?), the LOWEST ranking on the military scale of "Marksman" (168 or fewer points out of a possible 200), "Sharpshooter" (169 to 178 points out of a possible 200), and "Expert" (179 to 188 points out of a possible 200) with the M-16A2 and the service automatic--I forget what it was at the time, either the M-9 (Beretta M-92F) or the M-11 (SIG-Sauer P-228).

The most ridiculous part was when she attempted to use the Browning M-2HB .50-caliber Heavy Machine Gun mounted atop an M-1A2 Abrams tank. This is an 84-pound weapon (not counting the ammo box and 100-round belt, which together add another 20 pounds or so, 12.5 of which is the ammunition) which measures just over five and one-half feet in length (68.1 inches, to be exact, according to SMALL ARMS OF THE WORLD, Eleventh Edition, by E.C. Ezell).

The tank itself weighs another 69.5 TONS.

After the tank commander showed her how to do it right, Ms. Lunden engaged a man-sized silhouette target A MERE 100 METERS AWAY--and MISSED WITH THE ENTIRE BELT!

Amateurs... :P

--Foreigner

[Arethusa]

Yes! And, if a handgun is designed by a woman, all women everywhere can use it!

Seriously, don't roleplay your guns. I appreciate the approach to roleplaying, and hell, am personally quite fond of roleplaying minutia like that, but the fact remains that the canon guns are just fucking silly. When almost none of the heavy pistols appear to be built smaller or lighter than a Desert Eagle, you either need to rewrite the stats or ignore the stupidity, but don't read more reality into it than it can handle.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Hot Wheels]

Joan Lundun is a complete waste of space. I dispise her.
Sure we shouldn't gop too far, but there is an element of realism to help. If I play an ork I'm going to having bigger hands than a human. A troll with a hold out will look damn silly. An angry troll- scary. An angry troll whose hand is swallowing a .22 is well, weird.

[Arethusa]

[Austere Emancipa...]

The Ares Predators in my games fire 10mm Auto. The standard magazine holds 12 rounds. Not the size of a submachine gun or a carbine. The grip is still rather wide, but none worse than what you get on double column .45ACPs, which AFAIK can be rather easily handled by most people. I'd call my method of house ruling size (ie remaking the whole weapon list) simple, and I happen to think the weapons in my games make sense.

I think what Hot Wheels meant was "Sure we shouldn't go too far, but the element of realism might help. If I play a troll [troll woman?] I'm going to have bigger hands than a human."

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Jan 24 2004, 07:47 PM

[Hot Wheels]

sorry I corrected that I tried to write "Ork woman" then realized it would go for any ork so meant to erase "woman" but took out "ork"

[Fortune]

[Diesel]

I think he lined them up wrong a tiny little bit.

It should be fail, marksman, sharpshooter, expert. I'm not sure about the numbers though. And I don't think so, maybe "kickass".

[Arethusa]

Well, either Kickass or Send This Kid to Delta. Hard to say.

Anyway, the fact remains that a Predator has the same concealability rating as a small carbine or an SMG. Sure, can house rule that out, but the wacky ass concealability rating problem runs across all of the guns (the SMGs are particularly fun). Not that I disagree with just rewriting a lot of the weapons stats, and hell, I don't really think that it's as difficult as people often claim, but fact remains that there's no elegant way to roleplay this stuff per canon.

[Siege]

The Predator is probably about the same size as the HK Expert/Tactical/new spec-op weapon.

I've got a Sig 220 that holds 7 - 8 rounds and it fits quite nicely in my hand.

I hate to imagine how big the HK must be to squeeze in 12 rounds.

And while I've never handled a MG of any caliber, I hate to admit that I probably couldn't have done any better my first time up. :grinbig:

-Siege

[Raygun]

"Oh, you know, it's a toolbox. I don't care. You put the tools in for the job, that's all. You know, I actually favor the old 1911." -Sam