So, I'm watching CSI Miami. On this episode they have "fused alloy" bullets, which apparently go through an armored car like butter when fired from an uzi. The miraculous properties of these bullets, which fragment inside the body in such a way as to produce more mass then the original bullet actually had, resulting in shotgun-sized exit wounds and set cars on fire in addition to piercing armored cars so easily, reminded me of the magical anti-tank pistol bullets from Art of War: The Betrayal, a recent Direct to Video film staring Wesley Snipes, which reminded me of the magical teflon coated bullets of yesteryear and, of course, Lethal Weapon 3. This has inspired me to write up so quick house rules for early 90s action movie silliness.

Please note that these rules assume that the PCs will be loose-cannon police officers of the Lethal Weapon mold (or possibly Renegade ex-cops of the Renegade mold).

Cop Killer Bullets
Teflon coating lubricates the bullet's point of impact allowing it to pierce any armor, no matter how strong, with ease. In game terms, Cop Killer bullets negate all of the target's armor.
Cop Killer bullets are not available to the police or the military, due to local laws and international treaties restricting their use. Major gun manufacturers, however, commonly market them to street gangs and they are easy to obtain on the black market (Availability 3, 100 for 10).

Everything Explodes
Whenever something mechanical or electronic is destroyed, it explodes, without exception. The power and size of the explosion depends on the size of the object and dramatic necessity.

Gas Tank Called Shots
Any character can make a called shot to a vehicle or drone's fuel tank, even if it does not have an exposed fuel tank. A successful hit will instantly destroy the vehicle or drone, causing it to explode.

Kicking the Gun Out of the Hand
Anyone with the Unarmed Combat skill at any level can spend an action to kick the gun out of an enemy's hand. This action always succeeds.

Conservation of Ninjutsu
Friends in Melee penalties are reversed. You get bonuses for being outnumbered and suffer penalties for having a numerical advantage.

Luckily, X broke my fall
Landing on any object other than the ground, no matter how hard it is, will reduce falling damage to 1 box.

Sign me up!!!

I'm going to have to introduce these into the next campaign we play. Do you think it would be better to tell the players first, or just wait for their reactions?

GURPS had a good set of Cinematic rules. One of them was "Bulletproof Nudity" a la Rambo; a male character with no shirt and a muscular upper body gets a bonus to soak wounds down to trivial scrapes and minor cuts. A similar principle allows female characters to expose their shoulders and midriff at will without incurring any more danger than a fully armored character.

Sounds like the armor rules of "Macho women with guns".

Awesome. I want to play in this game.

Sounds like a perfect idea for a Metaplane.

You _think_ the ritual failed, cause it looks like you are in the same room...

But you aren't in Kansas anymore.

Actually, I was imagining mixing this with Renraku Shutdown. Imagine the fun!

What's interesting is Shadowrun already implements a lot of 80srun rules. Handguns are as powerful as assault rifles, APDS ammunition is available for uzis, etc. Vehicles exploding is, of course, a major ommission however.

I think armor should be reworked to represent that the guy with the armored vest is generally the one who gets shot dead, while the one in the leisure suit and mullet usually escapes unscathed. Probably figure Quickness as 0 for the purpose of determining armor stacking penalties.

Last Action Shadowrunner!

Or play a free spirit who comes from a movie metaplane, and has no idea how different the "real" world physics work.

I would add that instead of giving people in armour 0 in armour give them a minus half armour rating to dodge and add base reaction to any dodge test for unarmoured people.

Someone with reaction 4 and augmentations of any kind taht raise it to 6 would have 6+4 to dodge test.

"Ouch! Dat hurts!"

If you want to make these playable in a normal game, just require that the PC's spend a point of Edge to invoke them.

Two Gun Mojo
A 10 point quality that can be bought which eliminates the penalty for using two pistols at once. A player with Two Gun Mojo, while wielding two pistols, gains +2 dice to Dodge checks when performing a slide, dive or roll.

Explosives Are Vehicles
A PC who is in the area of effect for an explosion that they caused may spend an edge point to suffer no damage from the explosion. They are instead thrown a distance equal to 1/2 the blas radius of the explosion. Damage incurred from falling or hitting objects is applied as normal.

Never Ending Bullets
A character wielding a semi auto or automatic weapon in a combat scene does not need to reload as long as they continue to fire at an enemy. If a player ceases to fire at an opponent for any reason and has exceeded the magazine for their weapon their weapon is considered empty.

I Know Kung Fu
Any skill in Unarmed Combat can be used at twice its value up to 10 dice against mooks.

It's All in the Reflexes
Spending a point of Edge allows any object thrown at a character to be caught and thrown back.

Explosives Are Vehicles should require a complex action as the character throws himself into the air at the moment of explosion. He can extend that power to one other character he is standing close enough to grab.

Its all in the reflexes lol jack burton is awsome.

Need rules for a 6 deamon bag and a potion of invincability

Big shadow run in litle china for the win.

Shadowrun already comes factory-equipped with "assault rifles" that are considered better than "sport rifles".

I actually toyed with porting the Savage Worlds NPC ammo system over to Shadowrun. I really dislike having to count each bullet everyone fires. It causes too much beancounting in large battles, particularly if the corpses are looted for extra guns and ammo. I personally would like to simply abstract it to the system of: lots of ammo/good on ammo/low on ammo/out of ammo. No counting is required.

Too Cool to Care (about Light)

Any character wearing sunglasses receives a +1 bonus to vision tests, regardless of lighting conditions.

Walk of Fire

If the character has kickin' shades applied, ignore all damage from explosions or fireballs if walking away from the source of ignition. Time slows for duration to be determined by GM.



Out of necessity (and lazyness) I just force them to reload by gut feeling. I'm usually generous about it so I haven't had any complaints so far.

And +2 to Intimidation skill checks.

Sucks to be you
Any bad guy underling standing on an over head walkway, will be automatically hit in a fire fight and fall over the bannister to the ground

Actually those fused alloy bullets are real. I saw them on the History Channel on Modern Marvels-bullets. They demonstrated the bullets puncturing steel plate and also one bullet that cut a lamb haunch in half. They acutally can cause damage close to that depicted on CSI. Additionally those bullets, while extremely effective are banned by almost all governments, as the Geneva convention excludes weapons that cause grevious wounds. Though, of course they were somewhat exaggerated by hollywood.

Come to think of it, I propose we re-name "AV Ammo" or "APDS Ammo" as "Cop-Killer Ammo".

Actually, they aren't real. That's already been determined. http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=81496
These bullets (referred to as Blended Metal Technology bullets, actually) are nothing but regular copper-jacketed lead bullets given a cosmetic molycoat and re-branded. The cartridges are loaded with a great deal more powder than is usual for the caliber, resulting in a great increase in velocity, which improves penetration and increases wound cavity size, but also reduces barrel life and increases the chance of catastrophic failure. Any hot-loaded jacketed lead cartridge would produce similar results.

Along a similar vain,

Railing kill!

If a non important character is sent over railing, whether through gun fire or a stray fist, that character is killed instantaneously upon impact, regardless of height.

Link is to part 1 of 10 of MST3K's viewing of Space Mutiny, one of the funner 70's B-movies. It features, perhaps, the highest number of railing kills in a single movie.

These are not to be confused with the Cowboy Balcony Law Of Physics, which states that when someone standing on a balcony or roof is shot they are then compelled by dark forces beyond human comprehension to then leap forward over the edge to their death.

Beyond the grip of realism

Here is a site to some cinematic action rules for GURPS. I particulary like the Truly Badass quality.

Hyz. Didn't anyone tell you that watching CSI makes you stupid?


Only in 4e


How dare you mock Jack Burton.

CSI Miami is awesome. David Caruso has sunglasses, and he always puts them on after saying a witty pun about the victim's horrific manner of death and Won't Get Fooled Again by the Who starts playing. The only way it could be awesomer is if they remade it as a Super Sentai series.



To commerate the single best one-liner in the history of action movies.
Lead Farming
Any Firearm can be dual-wielded, regardless of size or type.

http://www.biggercheese.com/index.php?comic=701

On topic:

The color of death
Any barrel or oil drum colored in RED will explode violently when shot.

That's actually totally unnecessary in shadowrun. You could easily get Sunglasses with a low light mod and a rating 1 vision enhancement for 225 nuyen at an 8 availability.