Gaming Ballistic - GURPS Content Posts

[DouglasCole]

Today, a guest post by Kalzazz, looking at variations of a fireball using the Ritual Path Magic system.

Guest Post: Ritual Path Magic – The Many Faces of Fireball

[DouglasCole]

Two GURPSDay repeaters I missed.

GURPSDay Summary Sep 1 – Sep 7, 2017

GURPSDay Summary Sep 8 – Sep 14, 2017

Last night Ghostdancer and his B-Team crew got our game on:

We research a cursed sword, try and go to a barbecue, get attacked by vampires, and our house gets blown up. Wild times.

Ceteri Campaign – S1E1: Vampires and Vengeance

[DouglasCole]

Suppression fire in action. This is somewhere between "the way it probably is already" and "slight tweaks to encourage believability and speed at the table." But it's how three experienced GMs use suppression fire at the table, and it's fast, easy, and produces the results we like.

Action Report: Suppression Fire in GURPS

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Suppression fire in action. This is somewhere between "the way it probably is already" and "slight tweaks to encourage believability and speed at the table." But it's how three experienced GMs use suppression fire at the table, and it's fast, easy, and produces the results we like.

Action Report: Suppression Fire in GURPS

Nice, quick, simple.

Consider it yoinked.

[sir_pudding]

Yeah the point of supression is to supress, it isn't about inflicting casualties, but rather allowing a maneuver element to close and inflict casualties or to repel an assault by forcing them to engage your defenses where concentrated.

[vicky_molokh]

IIRC, there's some weirdness in the RAW with Suppression causing Fright Checks and outright autofiring at a person either not causing them, or not enjoying as significant a modifier. Am I recalling correctly? Do you change that in your campaigns, or is there a logical reason for it? Do you waive a Fright Check if there are reasons to believe that the burst is unlikely to penetrate (e.g. a person is in a battlesuit)?

(This may or may not require splitting into a separate thread.)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

IIRC, there's some weirdness in the RAW with Suppression causing Fright Checks and outright autofiring at a person either not causing them, or not enjoying as significant a modifier. Am I recalling correctly?

Near misses of any type causes a fright check from Tactical Shooting; mostly this is waived in play for speed, I suspect. It is inconsistent, but it's the kind of inconsistent that doesn't bug folks at the table.

Do you waive a Fright Check if there are reasons to believe that the burst is unlikely to penetrate (e.g. a person is in a battlesuit)?

(This may or may not require splitting into a separate thread.)

There was some discussion of that either on my blog or the Discord - seems legit.

[sir_pudding]

Getting wounded also can trigger Fright Checks so basically getting shot at period.

[Kallatari]

With respect to fright checks for non-suppression fire, Tactical Shooting does make it more relevant. (see p.34, Cool Under Fire). It applies to Suppression Fire, but also to any hit or near miss (defined as miss by 2 or less) from non-suppression fire. There are also several modifiers to the fright roll which make it more interesting, such as from the RoF or awareness of the attacker.

The RAW Suppression rules give a maximum cone size based on RoF. It ends up with a minimum effective RoF of 5 per hex in the target zone. The Gaming Ballistic Post doesn't suggest a maximum cone size (although, admittedly, it doesn't say it should be different from the RAW either). But what about beyond the target zone, where the bullets would spread out even more and you get an effective RoF less than 1? Do fright checks still apply in these situations (e.g., you shoot at someone 10 yards away, but the guy behind him at 11 yards gets off no problem because he was just behind the target zone)? If you do affect those behind, then you can ultimately wind up with fractional RoF? Does that give a bonus? At what point do you say fright checks no longer apply? If a kid took an automatic weapons and spun in circles while holding the trigger, firing bullets in a 360-degree arc at random (and thus unlikely to hit anything other than by sheer luck), would that be less scary than if an opponent purposefully aimed all the shots in the 2-m wide area right around you?

Granted, these situations are unlikely to come up at the table, and I'd just wing it if it ever did in my games.

What actually bothers me more than the fright check effect between Suppression Fire and non suppression fire (prior to the Tactical Shooting rules equalizing them) is why does the former leave an "area of effect" that if anyone crosses the line of fire for the entire turn you can hit them, but an ordinary attack - even if fired along the same line with the same RoF - doesn't.

I know, it's a simplification for game playability. And it's one that I actually agree with in regards of making combat play faster. But I still find it jarring to treat ordinary fire and suppression fire differently.

Edit: Don't mean to turn this into a full discussion in your Blog's thread. If people want to discuss further, we can start a new thread.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Suppression fire in action. This is somewhere between "the way it probably is already" and "slight tweaks to encourage believability and speed at the table." But it's how three experienced GMs use suppression fire at the table, and it's fast, easy, and produces the results we like.

Stand still in suppression fire zone: get attacked once.
Step left and right, all while in suppression fire zone: get attacked three times.

Um..no. There should be a modifier for what fraction of the turn you spend in the zone, but basing it on hexes traveled doesn't make sense.