Nitroglycerin invention date and TL

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

That's why I specifically used revolvers as an example. Revolvers don't have a safety. Revolvers don't have magazines. It is pretty easy to learn how to shoot one of these from a movie.

It's still useful to actually shoot one for a while just to get used to the sound and recoil enough that you won't flinch.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It's still useful to actually shoot one for a while just to get used to the sound and recoil enough that you won't flinch.

That takes less than 8 hours and much less than 200 hours with an instructor.

Some things are less than Skills and even less than Familiarities. Some might e just IQ or Will rolls.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That takes less than 8 hours .

But 8 hours is an abstraction. A way of saying "If this isn't the first day when you have worked with the tool of question then you no longer have the penalty.". It also doesn't take 8 hours to get the hang of an automatic's safety and magazine reloading either

[AlexanderHowl]

It takes a while to be familiar enough that you do not suffer a penalty during combat. The idea that people intuitively know how to use a gun because they watched movies is a laughable idea, especially since most movies do not accurately portray gun use (or the loudness of using a gun). That is why responsible gun owners make sure that everyone in their household knows how to use every gun in their house, so they will not blow off their own faces during an emergency.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

But 8 hours is an abstraction. r

If "8 hours" does not mean "approx. 1 normal 20th century working day devoted to the task (possibly split up over multiple chronological days)" then it doesn't mean anything.

If it's not a measure of time why bother to use the related concept? Familiarities are noted as an optional rule anyway.

[AlexanderHowl]

Familiarities are a default rule (Basic, p. 169). Of course, GMs are free to ignore familiarities in cinematic and/or silly campaigns, but I find them useful in realistic campaigns.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Familiarities are a default rule (Basic, p. 169)..

Uh huh, and I've read that. As far as I can see the text assumes that you're familiar with one item for you to suffer penalties for unfamiliarity of another item. What I'm curious about, and my example above was meant to suggest, was if you suffer from unfamiliarity when you're familiar with none of the items the skill uses?

[AlexanderHowl]

Yes, otherwise someone with CP invested in Guns would actually do worse than someone without CP invested in Guns when applying the familiarity penalties for type, action, and grip. For example, a DX 10 character with Guns (Rifle)-10 would suffer a -6 for using a weapon with unfamiliar type, action, and grip, for a final effective skill of '4'. A DX 10 character defaulting to Guns (Rifle) would have an effective skill of '6', reduced to '0' when attempting to use any rifle because all types, actions, and grips are unfamiliar. They would, however, be able to do quite well at a target range though because of a +10 to skill for exceptional ease, nothing is easier than firing at a stationary and inanimate object, and for the bonuses for aiming (though they would suffer range and size penalties).

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

There has never been a telegraphic attack bonus nor +4 for all out attack on ranged attacks.

Unless by 'close range' you mean 'so close you can literally touch the barrel to the target'. Then Tactical Shooting p25 will give that to you.

It's really truly not.

I mean, the level of basic knowledge you get from seeing an action movie occasionally, yes. Almost everybody's got the background to have the basic gist of what they're looking to accomplish.

But actually having ever handled one, or knowing any details of the mechanics? No. Not really. (Maybe in your environment that is different. Describing the US as having a single culture is largely wrong.)

You are right re: any bonuses , its actually only +1 all attack attack determined for handguns. Sorry.

It has been a while since I've done much but melee or an occasional bow shot in GURPS

However most people in the US and possibly Europe have watched hundreds of hours of TV and media a single season of say a decent police or action show might have an hour and a half of decently realistic gun handling (22 episodes per year, 5 minutes per episode comes to over a hundred minutes) Chicago PD for example regularly shows point shooting , aimed shooting one handed shooting, reloading, pistols , rifles, shotguns and automatic weapons in a fairly realistic manner

Now with cord cutting one could argue less exposure to mass media but again there are gun videos on YouTube too and self teaching

Given the number of movies seen, TV watched and so on modern people should have very basic familiarity with how a gun is gripped and how one is shot.

Its not proper training but its enough to count as familiarity even in someplace like the UK

Someone with a sheltered life who've never watched a violent movie of handled a gun maybe in the UK could take sheltered as a perk though most games tend to action so its odd for an adventurers

Truth is guns are quite easy to learn. So easy 3e gave a IQ bonus to guns skill represent that.

Now takes a little time to learn how to reload them properly (for some guns) clean them and so on but many people can manage under range conditions to keep rounds in a human sized target at 3 yards.

[Kale]

What would you say to a TL3 crossbowman suddenly finding a musket? Would they get a default? They might not know how to reload it but they would have a general idea of how to point it and what the trigger does. Now the priming mechanism would probably throw them for a loop, but I think this would be more an IQ based roll (at all the TL penalties) just to figure out how to ready it to fire. Assuming they somehow made this roll, would you still throw TL and familiarity penalties to shoot the thing? (issues would be things like time between pulling the trigger and actual ignition being slower than a crossbow, recoil being a thing, etc)