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Old 04-24-2018, 11:31 PM   #1
Colarmel
 
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Default Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

So I'm being driven slowly mad over the costs of firearms in an AtE adjacent game.

tl;dr - does anything break if you say that because of the proliferation of guns BtE vs the population AtE, TL 6, 7 and 8 guns all have the same multiplier?

For clarity: We're embarking, soon I hope, on a MH AtE mash-up. I, sick of swordplay from too much DF, would really like to play a shooter.

The apocalypse involved the temporary darkening of the sun, and vampires took over the world. Our story takes place about 25 after TEOtWAWKI. We've got some odd money switches, allowing PCs to start out significantly better geared than standard AtE. Among these: and likely to cause my numbers to seem off: TL 5 is where our economy stabilized. So TL6 gear costs x2, 7 costs x4, and 8 costs x8.

The struggle I have though, is I understand cheaper TL 4 and 5 weapons. They're easier to manufacture with hand tools, they assume black powder. It makes sense. The versimilitude problem comes here though when I compare TL6-8 semi autos.

There are 5 million Glocks. There are 1.5 million FN Browning HPs. There are plenty of modern guns around. We can assume a lot of them were ruined by people firing black powder through them, but they'll have done that with their Hi Power as often as their Glock 17.

I don't think game balance is compromised there either. The capability increase amounts to -.5 lbs and +4 shots. That's not nothing, but it doesn't justify a price difference of $3240, or double that if you're using AtE's assumptions.

Now I don't have any issues with the AtE book. The conventions make sense if you're playing that sort of game. We're playing a weird mashup. And I really want modern guns. My GM is an understanding sort, and he's willing to work with me on getting the concept I want.

The point of this rambling mass: Does anything break if you split out the TL 6 semi-autos, and give all the semi-autos a consistent multiplier?

I figure there's three potential reasons for not doing it this way in our particular situation,

1) Balance: Semi-autos are better than lever-guns, but they're not wildly different from each other in GURPS terms. You can make an argument that detachable magazine comes in here too, but that only really distinguishes a couple of weapons.

2) Realism: Hi Powers and Garands aren't likely to be easier to find and cheaper to buy AtE than Glocks and AR15s

3) The book says so: Like most GURPS players, we usually don't worry overmuch about this.

Am I missing something, is there a great reason to have an AR15 cost double the cost of an M1A??
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Old 04-25-2018, 03:50 AM   #2
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

It's important to keep in mind that becouse your setting is TL5, and the End was presumably TL8, there aren't going to be many Garands around, who would of made them?

Not just that but the big limitation upon TL6+ firearms is the lack of smokeless powder. So TL8 rifles and pistols have limited and very expensive ammunition, as long as that's addressed I could easily see them only going for doable cost if effective TL5 weapons are available. That ammunition just needs to be properly expensive and rare.
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Old 04-25-2018, 06:36 AM   #3
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

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Originally Posted by Minuteman37 View Post
Not just that but the big limitation upon TL6+ firearms is the lack of smokeless powder. So TL8 rifles and pistols have limited and very expensive ammunition, as long as that's addressed I could easily see them only going for doable cost if effective TL5 weapons are available. That ammunition just needs to be properly expensive and rare.
Setting aside the fact that where you are will massively affect the supply of firearms for a large number of reasons (from the place having strict firearms regulations to how likely the guns are to have suffered from wear and tear), this is a big point.

If ammunition is sufficiently expensive and the world sufficiently dangerous high-tech firearms will decrease in value, theoretically to the point of actually being less expensive than TL5 guns (although this is highly unlikely). If the world has areas of differing TL, or places capable of making TL6+ ammunition, then the prices for guns will vary based on how easy it is to import those TL6+ bullets. Even places that can make TL6 guns might be willing to trade for them, if only to free up production capacity for other things.

You could also ask your GM if they're willing to run a setting that's generally TL5 but has TL6 or higher in weapons, although in this case everybody will be using the TL6+ guns so the feel is different.

Another possibility to suggest to your GM is to remove or reduce cost multipliers in character creation. So it's easy to start with a TL8 rifle, but getting ammunition or new ones will cost eight times (or more!) the standard price.

From a strict realism perspective you'd probably want to go through the list of guns, and assign multipliers based on both 'how likely are you to find it' and 'how easy would it be to supply ammunition for it'. You'd likely end up with some guns with multipliers of x30 or more, while others are at x2 or potentially even x1 (if they're easy to find but ammunition is extremely hard to make).
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Old 04-25-2018, 08:24 AM   #4
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...he-end-is-nigh

We provide a good discussion of guns after the end in this article. In short, there is no reason to assume guns will become more scarce, or even as close to scarce as many games assume. Also, we discuss different types of guns that gamers might find useful in a PA setting.
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Old 04-25-2018, 10:15 AM   #5
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

Quote:
Originally Posted by Colarmel View Post
The point of this rambling mass: Does anything break if you split out the TL 6 semi-autos, and give all the semi-autos a consistent multiplier?
I don't think there is. I did something similar in my game, lumping all the pistol ammo into TL6, so that the ammo for a Glock 22 in 10mm didn't cost 4x as much as a Glock 17's 9mm ammo.

In your situation, I'd treat all manual actions at TL6 and all semi-autos and automatics at TL7 - with the possible exception of water cooled machine guns staying TL6, since there's a significant weight penalty for them and the advantages don't show up on the personal mayhem scale that PCs deal with.

I'd treat all standard cased ammo as TL6. If you want to be complicated, you can categorize bullets by rarity, and make the rarer bullets worth less since they're less useful. (see http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...c-bullets.html for what I did in my own game.)
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Old 04-25-2018, 01:30 PM   #6
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

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Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'd treat all standard cased ammo as TL6. If you want to be complicated, you can categorize bullets by rarity, and make the rarer bullets worth less since they're less useful. (see http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...c-bullets.html for what I did in my own game.)
I like that very much. I find the flattening of ammo prices maddening; though I understand why they did it, and I'll understand if my GM keeps it, although it really makes me want to shoot .338 lapua, just to show him.
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Old 04-25-2018, 02:07 PM   #7
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

I think the basic assumption is that the end was long enough ago that most guns have been rebuilt from parts by now, including some newly machined parts. You don’t have a real vintage TL5 Garand, you have a rebuilt gun with the same stats.

If you want “there are so many guns around” setting, the only issue I can see it that price multiplier correlates directly to Gadgeteering and repair difficulty, so remember that.

A smaller multiplier seems like a reasonable idea, such x2 at TL5, then x4, x5, x6 for TLs 6-8.

There’s little reason this wouldn’t apply to non-guns equipment, though. TL8 camping equipment is far more plentiful than TL6 nowadays.
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Old 04-25-2018, 03:07 PM   #8
Colarmel
 
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
I think the basic assumption is that the end was long enough ago that most guns have been rebuilt from parts by now, including some newly machined parts. You don’t have a real vintage TL5 Garand, you have a rebuilt gun with the same stats.
I've really got no issues with those assumptions under those circumstances, which is why I laid out that the campaign we're talking about is in no way far enough out to have laid waste to the gun supply.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ArchonShiva View Post
There’s little reason this wouldn’t apply to non-guns equipment, though. TL8 camping equipment is far more plentiful than TL6 nowadays.

Yeah. But with camping equipment, you're going to be dealing with new-make for the most part. A TL 8 Tent isn't going to stand up to trekking through the wilderness for 25 years, especially if there are werewolves tearing through those tents to eat the people in them. Most TL8 stuff isn't built for durability, and will be wrecked by prolonged use. Guns aren't like that. You oil up a gun, it'll live forever. You leave a gun in a damp shed for 20 years, and it's covered in rust: there's a good chance it's horribly inaccurate but still functional once you apply some elbow grease.

Original Old West guns still work, Original TL 6 guns still work. 25-50 years isn't going to break all the AR-15s in american households. Guns are among the most durable goods on the planet. You can shoot out barrels and such, but even then, you're not dealing with a broken gun, you're dealing with an inaccurate one.
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Old 04-25-2018, 06:25 PM   #9
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

What limits the utility of modern firearms is not the guns, themselves, but the lack of an industrial infrastructure and supply-chain to make the ammunition. The main problems are the smokeless powder and, most especially, the primers.

If people spend the first decade, AtE, rockin' out on full auto, and chewing through ammo that nobody has the chemistry knowledge, or the assembly line -- or the vast quantities of chemicals and copper and zinc needed -- to make bullets, then modern firearms rapidly become spare parts for simpler weapons, or really lousy spears (assuming bayonets).
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Old 04-25-2018, 07:27 PM   #10
Colarmel
 
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Default Re: Versimilitude in Firearms AtE

Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
If people spend the first decade, AtE, rockin' out on full auto, and chewing through ammo that nobody has the chemistry knowledge, or the assembly line -- or the vast quantities of chemicals and copper and zinc needed -- to make bullets, then modern firearms rapidly become spare parts for simpler weapons, or really lousy spears (assuming bayonets).
Sure: but those modern firearms that become spare parts include TL6-8, at equal rates. And no one is making the TL 6-8 guns again until the ammo is available, so this maybe is a good argument for TL 6-8 semi-autos being rarer than TL4-5 guns, but not for TL8 being rarer than TL6
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