Flintlock guns

[larsdangly]

Cool; well, ask and ye shall receive. My house rule tables include flintlocks from little boot pistols, belt pistols and horse pistols to musketoons and muskets, and a crude 'hand gunne' that has to be set up by a couple of people but fires a fist sized stone that will mess you up. They don't really change game play in any way I've noticed, but a lot of my players love them!

[JohnPaulB]

What I would like is a TFT Splatbook article on Guns similar to a stripped down version of GURPS High-Tech and made available in Warehouse 23.

Yes, I understand many would feel that to delve into GUNS for TFT is sacrilege as the game is about Fantasy Combat and guns distort that style. The splatbook article I request would not be for them. However, this is for TFT so the article should be more conservative towards its use of Guns.

The article I’m looking for would have Tech Levels so you could match the type of gun to the level your scenario is playing at that moment. Technology is in the TFT genes as part of the background story of Cidri and the Mnoren.

There would be a list of all the gun-type weapons and their TFT Stats: Hand Weapons, artillery pieces, explosives, flammables, misc. Gun related items. Stats would also include distance it could reasonably hit something in feet/yards and perhaps hexes, what does a critical failure actually mean, etc. It would just list the generic type of gun (like "revolver", not "Smith and Wesson 38 special")

This is not GURPS, so there will be no gritty details of how the item works in the real world. It would have maybe a sentence or two about how the weapons were used, the loading, risks of usage, etc.

It would cover the use of guns by an individual, by a small group and by an army platoon, by racial preferences… all from a TFT prospective.

It might have a discussion on gun tactics in a Magic World, commando gun teams, artillery use, along with how Aiming, Waiting for an Opening, Crippling hits, Long-Distance Duels apply to gun usage.

It would have maybe a half-page about Gunpowder in a sulfur-metabolizing microorganism environment; the whys, costs and how gunpowder is kept in the current TFT. It would have a talk about how gunpowder & gunpowder weapons would be if there was only limited sulfur-metabolizing microorganisms and its ramifications on Cidri.

It would cover the sources & manufacture of gunpowder on Cidri; even those not from Dragon Dung. How about Dragonet Dung? Dragonet is a true dragon in miniature (new ITL p92). Its dung should be useful too and not as difficult to get. That might even bring the price down. Maybe the Mechanician's Guild got together with the chemist's guild to work on a way to eradicate those sulfer-metabolizing microorganisms (as discovered by scholars in a back issue of Scientific Cidririan.)

Also, it would have various ways these guns would be manufactured on Cidri. Single mechanician working in his back room; Small cottage industry of mom & pops; King's armory; Mechanician Guild franchise; imported via Gates from other worlds...

Ways to reduce Guns - Dragons are a source of Antipathy towards guns. So is the Wizards Guild. But there could be others that hold antipathy that might hold sway and restrict its use even if it weren’t expensive to get. Religions, Nobles, Armorer’s Guilds, Elves might put social pressure for gunpowder to be outlawed, repressed or ridiculed. The use of guns in the army might be too new-fangled or unmanly, just too expensive or not needed because we have magic.

Ways to promote Guns - It might cover those groups which would support Gunpowder. The Mechanician’s Guild would absolutely support it. Dwarves would probably support it because it would aid in mining. Some navies might support it if they knew off-Cidri use of naval guns.

There would be rules for the affect of gunshots producing smoke in the days before smokeless powder. The sound of a gunshot and how far in hexes it could be heard. The affect of artillery shell on a wall or roof and how to represent this in game terms.

There might be a few new Talents for this subject. A few new weapons. Even perhaps guns using magic enhancements.

I really liked having Tech Levels as described in GURPS High-Tech. This included travel, communications, medicine and other advance from EARTH history.
Deciding a games or environments Tech Level would help a GM decide what goes in or stays out of a scenario. So grouping guns by their technological level would help in this.

The writer should read and compare the various TFT gun data already developed. Those printed in Interplay, Space Gamer and other articles published. Also the https://tft.brainiac.com/archive/index.html, and the links of sites noted. There is a wealth of data that TFT Fans have hashed out and brought up over the years.

And lastly, these rules and stats should be play tested before they are submitted for W23.

[rattraveller]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Flintlock guns are a tricky case: They arise from technological innovations that I would say are within the scope of what a master Mechanician could probably do.

It is fairly common to forget how complicated older technology is. While a blacksmith could make a decent sword (although you would still want to go to a specialist for a high quality sword) in a world where they are not common, it take a team to make a musket. First you need a metal crafter to make and assemble the several individual metal components. Because mass production techniques do not exist each one would need to be individually fitted together and not interchangeable with other muskets. Next you need a wood carver to make your frame and again while they look similar all the components need to individually fitted together.


Now you have a musket but no powder. You are going to need to find an alchemist to make your gunpowder. Musket balls and shot would be easier to obtain but again need to be made for your caliber weapon. The accessories such as a powder horn, bag or box to keep your shot, ramrod, cleaning materials and maybe carrying bag would need specialists in other fields such as leatherwork.


Overall a musket is expensive to get and maintain in a world that does not have them in regular use.

[David Bofinger]

When I see combat with modern (Late C19+) firearms in a movie or whatever, it tends to have a paradigm very different to that of canon TFT. Characters duck down behind cover, occasionally poking their head out to snap off a shot then pulling it back. If you want to move, you request covering fire. If someone has the drop on you you make no sudden motions.

I think if a modern RPG with firearm combat wants to emulate movies &c like this, then a modern firearms combat game needs to handle these sorts of paradigms. TFT would need some serious modification.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

When I see combat with modern (Late C19+) firearms in a movie or whatever, it tends to have a paradigm very different to that of canon TFT. Characters duck down behind cover, occasionally poking their head out to snap off a shot then pulling it back. If you want to move, you request covering fire. If someone has the drop on you you make no sudden motions.

I think if a modern RPG with firearm combat wants to emulate movies &c like this, then a modern firearms combat game needs to handle these sorts of paradigms. TFT would need some serious modification.

This is exactly my feeling as well. Fighting with accurate deadly ranged weapons is about what you do to not get shot. Most of those things aren't really in TFT, and seem challenging to add. If you just add the weapons, you mainly get people either moving like pre-gunpowder people standing around getting shot, or you have them wanting to do various gun-combat-related tactics (overwatch, peeking around cover, pop-up attacks, suppression, moves on a smaller than 5-second scale, etc) and not having rules for how to do and represent the details of those things, nor the effects you might want.

[Jack O'All Trades]

I think you might be able to get away with a minimal modification- add "overwatch" as an action so that a character gets a chance to get a shot off against someone running around a corner in the next turn. Things like cover and bracing weapons and different stances are already in the rules, although often mentioned in passing. The main issue that comes to mind is that moving while crouched and transitioning between stances is probably a little less fluid than it should be.

Come to think of it, this should probably be able to overwatch in the rules as is. If I'm DX 12 with a crossbow sitting in a corner of a room watching a door and a DX 13 orc comes through through the door to shoot me, let alone stab me, I should probably be able to shoot first. GM would probably want to roleplay whether or not two figures can see each other and the effect of seeing something while moving, perhaps giving a -DX modifier to acting, although to a degree with proper 'blind movement' this would be mitigated as the DX 13 orc only gets a chance to shoot if he was going 1 hex at a time and manages to pick the right facing as he moves... hm... a lot to think about, and frustratingly so given that I haven't even done my "Chain Reaction/Tomorrow's War" reactive combat modification to Classic Traveller yet!

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Jack O'All Trades

I think you might be able to get away with a minimal modification- add "overwatch" as an action so that a character gets a chance to get a shot off against someone running around a corner in the next turn. Things like cover and bracing weapons and different stances are already in the rules, although often mentioned in passing. The main issue that comes to mind is that moving while crouched and transitioning between stances is probably a little less fluid than it should be.

Come to think of it, this should probably be able to overwatch in the rules as is. If I'm DX 12 with a crossbow sitting in a corner of a room watching a door and a DX 13 orc comes through through the door to shoot me, let alone stab me, I should probably be able to shoot first. GM would probably want to roleplay whether or not two figures can see each other and the effect of seeing something while moving, perhaps giving a -DX modifier to acting, although to a degree with proper 'blind movement' this would be mitigated as the DX 13 orc only gets a chance to shoot if he was going 1 hex at a time and manages to pick the right facing as he moves... hm... a lot to think about, and frustratingly so given that I haven't even done my "Chain Reaction/Tomorrow's War" reactive combat modification to Classic Traveller yet!

Yes, quite - the devil is in the details! And the details make the difference between who dies and whether it feels like it made sense or not.

The initiative and movement system and 5-second turns with no "overwatch/opportunity fire" or interruption during movement are some of the main issues, as well as needing a GM to handle a lot more hidden movement, since one of the main ways to avoid getting shot is to not be seen.