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Siege Tower
2012-11-30, 11:00 PM
Does any system have rules for contemporary gun fights? Something where if you got shot you would be very injured. I was going to work on a game where everyone is a normal human in a contemporary setting. if a gunfight does somehow break out, I want to have a fair system where aiming and being hit is somewhat realistic. It can be a little James Bond-y if that's all that's out there.

DarkestKnight
2012-12-01, 12:01 AM
I would recommend the Serenity RPG system, based on the movie of the same name and Firefly, though there are some downfalls.

The systems is quite forgiving with your stats, you can use strength or dexterity to aim guns (strong arming or finessing your gun as appropriate) and the skill system allows you to specialize in weapons (shotguns, rifles). most of the time the players can ask if they can use different combinations of attributes and skills for checks.

Health is fairly realistic, most people only have about 10 health points, around 16 if they felt like playing a solid wall of flesh. even small guns do about 1d6-1d8 so even if you were playing a wall you will want to avoid being shot.

The aiming rules make sense. for up to three rounds you can take aim, getting a +1 step each round (there are no static modifiers, all bonuses increase the size or amount of dice you roll).

The aforementioned downfalls raise their head here. If you are aiming at someone that is unaware of you, you have to beat a 3 to hit them (without range penalties, cover etc.). Now while it makes sense that it should be pretty easy to hit a target that is sitting still for anyone generally proficient with guns, beating 3 with 2d8 for example is pretty easy. easier still if you were aiming for 3 rounds making your roll 1d8+1d12+1d2).

This is compounded by the fact that what ever you beat the target by is added straight to damage. If someone decides to play a sniper, as one person in my group did, prepare for people to die very, very fast. We ended up playing without this rule, and combat didn't feel any less lethal.

And for the love of all that is good, never ever let anyone near flashbangs, unless you want to earn unending hate.

Siege Tower
2012-12-01, 12:38 AM
Another issue with a contemporary system with really low hp is hand to hand combat. Is there any way to make combat between two (or more) average dudes more interesting than taking turns rolling a d4 until one falls down?

RandomLunatic
2012-12-01, 12:47 AM
The Reflex system (used in the Twilight 2000 series) is a rather deadly gunfight simulator. Getting shot will mess you up good.

Melee, while not the focus, also has some interesting options-in addition to just straight-up shanking dudes, you can also parry or grapple 'em.

Anxe
2012-12-01, 02:31 AM
Aces and Eights by Kenzer&Co does gunfights for the western genre. It might work as a modern setting as well.

Hanuman
2012-12-01, 03:27 AM
Shadowrun 4.0 is my preferred, but if you need to PvP then I'd suggest airsoft.

Ninjadeadbeard
2012-12-01, 03:56 AM
I ended up trying to make a custom D6 system with that goal in mind. It never worked right, but the guns...oh man. While testing it with my players, we realized that guns were so deadly (several dice of base damage plus high marksmanship plus luckily high attack rolling over into damage) that, to quote a movie: "The only winning move is not to play". One player (a Troll) could punch a talking Bear to death in a few swings, and even he would go down if anything bigger than a pistol got waved around.

Suffice it to say: We're looking for other formats. :smallsmile:

Ravens_cry
2012-12-01, 04:21 AM
Yeah, they don't call guns 'the great equalizer' for nothing. 'Realistic' guns will kill people. You are lucky if a hit it is anything *but* a shot that, at least, will put you in the hospital for an extended recovery.

Yora
2012-12-01, 08:46 AM
In a realistic gunfight, almost every shot will be a miss. And the people who win are usually with the better cover and not those who do well on the shoting range. And if you happen to hit someone, the effect can range from instant death to barely noticable. Some people take one hit to take down, others may need 30 or 40.
And if ambulances arrive in reasonable time and get a person who is shot to a hospital, only 5% will actually die. (Not sure if that number is per person injured in a gunfight or per bullet injury, but I think the former.)

Glimbur
2012-12-01, 10:44 AM
Have you looked at GURPS? Getting shot is a bad idea in that system.

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-12-01, 11:20 AM
Have a look at this (http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/activeshooter.html), for a heavily realistic take on things.

Tengu_temp
2012-12-01, 12:02 PM
I've heard the Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! (yes, that's how it's called) splatbook for Cyberpunk 2020 has a very good and realistic gunfight system, but I haven't read it so it's second-hand information. And that'd be the only good thing about the system, because other than that the mechanics are wretched.

Badgerish
2012-12-01, 12:04 PM
Half the number of health boxes in ORE (GODLIKE or project:NEMESIS, which is free) and you have a very harsh and realistic gun fighting system.

It may seem rather chaotic, but that's how gunfights are.

Yora
2012-12-01, 12:45 PM
Have a look at this (http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/activeshooter.html), for a heavily realistic take on things.
Isn't that the site that always pretty much comes down to "never ever get into a fight" and "if a fight gets to you, get away as fast as possible"?
That one is quite good and apparently realistic.

CarpeGuitarrem
2012-12-01, 01:30 PM
Isn't that the site that always pretty much comes down to "never ever get into a fight" and "if a fight gets to you, get away as fast as possible"?
That one is quite good and apparently realistic.
Yup. Highly pragmatic and sensible. And very, very detailed explanations.

Whybird
2012-12-01, 01:56 PM
I quite like Unknown Armies for this (it's basically my go-to system if I'm running something present day). I don't know enough about the reality of guns to know what makes a system of rules 'realistic' but it does do a good job of capturing a feeling of being really damn fragile once the guns get pulled out: one good hit is more than enough to instakill a character.

Zorg
2012-12-01, 03:10 PM
I've heard the Listen Up, You Primitive Screwheads! (yes, that's how it's called) splatbook for Cyberpunk 2020 has a very good and realistic gunfight system, but I haven't read it so it's second-hand information. And that'd be the only good thing about the system, because other than that the mechanics are wretched.

Listen Up! is a really good GM's resource regardless. I actually quite like the Cyberpunk system - it's basically D10 + skill + stat vs GM assigned target number. I've run it and found it very easy to use on the fly.
The combat is hella deadly though, and Listen Up! has a good section about running rules-lite combats vs dice heavy, as well as running more 'realistic' battles.
The Pacific Rim sourcebook for CP2020 has an expanded martial arts section to make it more interesting also.

Hiro Protagonest
2012-12-01, 05:28 PM
Shadowrun 4.0 is my preferred, but if you need to PvP then I'd suggest airsoft.

So... you're suggesting the players should just shoot pellet guns at each other to decide the outcome of fights between their characters?

I like airsoft, and I'd personally do that every week there's decent weather (20-80o F, not raining or snowing, although wet/snowy ground is fine) instead of playing a realistic modern TTRPG, but it's not a game system.

Anderlith
2012-12-01, 06:41 PM
Top Secret & Shadowrun come to mind for the best shooting rules

Zahhak
2012-12-01, 08:42 PM
Is there any way to make combat between two (or more) average dudes more interesting than taking turns rolling a d4 until one falls down?

Use strategy? I'm sorry to sound denegrating, but these kinds of comments really irritate me. If you have two characters with firearms standing there shooting each other, everyone involved is so wrong it isn't funny. You and your opponents should be thinking 2-3 steps ahead, and treating the combat as a chess match. One person provides suppressant fire, while another sneaks around cover to take out the target. Each round should involve fire and maneuver. Take a good shot, move as far as you can, preferably while behind cover.

Think about this IRL for a moment. You are fighting someone who can kill you in one shot, and you can kill them in one shot. Are you going to present a target if at all possible? Of course not. You're going to present a low target by bending down, not being on top of anything, taking cover behind sturdy objects, or atleast conceal yourself behind something. Each second you're going to be thinking to yourself "how do I get to a place where I can shot him, without him being able to shot me?"

Some resources you might find useful when talking about modern military combat, is these:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19883658/Leading-Marines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_arms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuver_warfare

Toy Killer
2012-12-01, 10:58 PM
In a realistic gunfight, almost every shot will be a miss. And the people who win are usually with the better cover and not those who do well on the shoting range. And if you happen to hit someone, the effect can range from instant death to barely noticable. Some people take one hit to take down, others may need 30 or 40.
And if ambulances arrive in reasonable time and get a person who is shot to a hospital, only 5% will actually die. (Not sure if that number is per person injured in a gunfight or per bullet injury, but I think the former.)

^ This.

Guns are incredibly non-lethal for the rep they have. There is a reason why we have medics and corpsmen in the front lines. 8% fatality rate for every shooting in the history of the united states when medical treatment has been administered within the HOUR of shooting. Compared to something like hammers (When wielded as weapons; The most common item used in homicides in the states.), which are in the upwards of 80% or more, guns are relatively soft weapons.

In fact, friendly fire is typically more dangerous then enemy fire in tactical situations. People have survived having full clips unloaded into central mass, and most often, complications of the wound are more dangerous then the wound itself (Dysentery is a big one, when the bullet goes through the colon).

Eric Tolle
2012-12-02, 04:54 AM
Any system that haas hit points, can't be called realistic. Period. Humans aren't fence posts that get chipped away until they topple over. Also, has been mentioned before, the results of damage are incredible variable. People have died from being stabbed by a pencil, and others have taken a dozen high-caliber bullets and survived.

WHat works well is a damage save mechanic like in True20 or Traveller 2300, or one where the category of damage varys depending on how well one rolls and location, such as Albedo. In these systems, depending on the roll, one could get a light wound or a fatal wound based solely on how well one hits. For realism, I strongly recommend checking those systems out.

Actana
2012-12-02, 05:09 AM
There's a system called Phoenix Command for extremely realistic "small arms simulations". I haven't read it through completely, but it does seem to be quite realistic, all things considered. Things like reflexes, impulse-ducking, the time it takes to figure out what you're doing in the heat of combat, and individual damage location for the pellets of a shotgun are all part of the system. Surprisingly the character sheet is only a single A4, even for the advanced rules, and while there are tables, there aren't very many of them. The system does claim to be fast to use, but I suspect a rather steep learning curve before it flows smoothly. But if realistic gun fights is what you want, you could do worse than Phoenix Command.

The rulebook itself is only under 100 pages, but I have no real clue where to get hold of a copy. It also supposedly has supplements for hand-to-hand combat, power armor, artillery, WWI&II weapons, and what have you.

ThiagoMartell
2012-12-02, 09:45 AM
+1 to ORE. Very good overall mechanics, quite deadly and it fits guns well.

LibraryOgre
2012-12-02, 01:43 PM
Aces and Eights by Kenzer&Co does gunfights for the western genre. It might work as a modern setting as well.

I don't know if A&8 includes it, but one thing I have very much liked in Hackmaster is the "Threshold of Pain"... even if it doesn't kill you, a significant hit might cause you to collapse in pain. A lot of fights in HM are decided by ToP.

Donnadogsoth
2012-12-03, 12:04 PM
There's a system called Phoenix Command for extremely realistic "small arms simulations". I haven't read it through completely, but it does seem to be quite realistic, all things considered. Things like reflexes, impulse-ducking, the time it takes to figure out what you're doing in the heat of combat, and individual damage location for the pellets of a shotgun are all part of the system. Surprisingly the character sheet is only a single A4, even for the advanced rules, and while there are tables, there aren't very many of them. The system does claim to be fast to use, but I suspect a rather steep learning curve before it flows smoothly. But if realistic gun fights is what you want, you could do worse than Phoenix Command.

The rulebook itself is only under 100 pages, but I have no real clue where to get hold of a copy. It also supposedly has supplements for hand-to-hand combat, power armor, artillery, WWI&II weapons, and what have you.

Dear Actana,

I use Phoenix Command (in its Living Steel form) and can vouch for its verisimilitude and moderate complexity. If you can play D&D with its baroque rules set you can play Phoenix Command. It's a fun system and makes players wary of violence. It only gets really complex if one throws in the whole basket of optional rules (gun jam %, recoil, grenade foliage penetration) but if you want an accurate odds of hitting, and/or wounding system, I know of none better than PC/Living Steel, and the skill system is serviceable, too.

Copies of Phoenix Command Combat System, Living Steel and the Hand-to-Hand System are sometimes on Ebay. Or, you could investigate the mailing list at yahoo.com:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/phoenix_command/

Donnadogsoth

The Glyphstone
2012-12-03, 12:42 PM
I'm not certain about realistic, but New World of Darkness (barring any supernatural abilities) can be extremely lethal in both ranged and melee combat.

LibraryOgre
2012-12-03, 02:51 PM
I will get a bit pedantic here... what do you mean by "realistic"? Because, from what I understand, most gunfights expend a lot of bullets for each hit, and the lethality of bullets is seldom instant. It's not likely people get hit and instantly die from most handguns. They may get shocky, but they're not going to pass out, sometimes.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-03, 03:09 PM
I will get a bit pedantic here... what do you mean by "realistic"? Because, from what I understand, most gunfights expend a lot of bullets for each hit, and the lethality of bullets is seldom instant. It's not likely people get hit and instantly die from most handguns. They may get shocky, but they're not going to pass out, sometimes.
Die instantly? No, but still likely out of the fight. There have been exceptions, but many of those come from adrenalin or other, artificial, drugs.
Also, just because only 5% of gunshots kill with proper medical attention, that number doesn't tell how long the recuperation period was. A gunshot that doesn't kill, but still needs weeks or months, or even years of recuperation still takes you out of the adventure.

Vamphyr
2012-12-03, 07:55 PM
I'm going to assume the OP was using "realistic" to describe a high mortality game and not one where the PC's are unflinching walls of health. If that is the case, I'd suggest trying the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu 6th edition. The most I've ever seen any player have for hit points is 18 and it's possible to kill someone in one blow.

It's a percentile system so it's really easy to convert it to any style of game you'd like. Right now I'm working on a zombie apocalypse survival horror game with the system and it works great.

Hanuman
2012-12-03, 11:24 PM
So... you're suggesting the players should just shoot pellet guns at each other to decide the outcome of fights between their characters?

I like airsoft, and I'd personally do that every week there's decent weather (20-80o F, not raining or snowing, although wet/snowy ground is fine) instead of playing a realistic modern TTRPG, but it's not a game system.
I suggest players shoot each other when wanting to simulate shooting each other.

Gahrer
2012-12-04, 07:57 AM
I'd like to second GURPS. Scoring a hit with a modern firearm in GURPS is hard at range but a single hit could do anything from minior damage to killing you instantly. Often one or two hits is enough to take someone out of the fight, but with quick medical attention they can survive.

Greylond
2012-12-04, 11:23 AM
There's a system called Phoenix Command for extremely realistic "small arms simulations". I haven't read it through completely, but it does seem to be quite realistic, all things considered. Things like reflexes, impulse-ducking, the time it takes to figure out what you're doing in the heat of combat, and individual damage location for the pellets of a shotgun are all part of the system. Surprisingly the character sheet is only a single A4, even for the advanced rules, and while there are tables, there aren't very many of them. The system does claim to be fast to use, but I suspect a rather steep learning curve before it flows smoothly. But if realistic gun fights is what you want, you could do worse than Phoenix Command.

The rulebook itself is only under 100 pages, but I have no real clue where to get hold of a copy. It also supposedly has supplements for hand-to-hand combat, power armor, artillery, WWI&II weapons, and what have you.

I've played Phoenix Command. A&8's from Kenzer&Co has some similarities, but is less complex.


I don't know if A&8 includes it, but one thing I have very much liked in Hackmaster is the "Threshold of Pain"... even if it doesn't kill you, a significant hit might cause you to collapse in pain. A lot of fights in HM are decided by ToP.

No, ToP in A&8s. A&8's tracks wound effects a bit more than HM. Each shot can have an individual effect, i.e. possibly reducing a Stat permanently or until the wound is healed, dropping prone, dropping items, severe bleeding, etc. Also, as your Wound Total increases(as a % of your Total HP) your reaction time slows down and you rack up penalties for everything.


I will get a bit pedantic here... what do you mean by "realistic"? Because, from what I understand, most gunfights expend a lot of bullets for each hit, and the lethality of bullets is seldom instant. It's not likely people get hit and instantly die from most handguns. They may get shocky, but they're not going to pass out, sometimes.

See A&8's for this kind of Gunfight. Yes, sometimes people die from a single shot, but not usually for a pistol. Most of the Instant Kills I've had in my games come from rifle shots to the Head. :)

Tvtyrant
2012-12-04, 11:31 AM
If I was going to make a gun game, I would ditch hit points and damage roles. There is some sort of armor or reflex not to get hit, and then a D20 roll on a chart to see the effect of the bullet hitting you. The effects are anything from a flesh wound to instant death, with things like body armor and helmets allowing saves against specific conditions. If the save is made the player rerolls the D20, and if the same roll appears again they die anyway.

Knaight
2012-12-04, 11:39 AM
Half the number of health boxes in ORE (GODLIKE or project:NEMESIS, which is free) and you have a very harsh and realistic gun fighting system.

It may seem rather chaotic, but that's how gunfights are.

Nemesis is fairly solid even without halving the number of health boxes. People often do take multiple shots, and Nemesis has this, while at the same time having the very real possibility for near instant death at all time. Plus, it handles cover, armor (in the sense of bullet resistant vests more than tanks), etc. quite well.

Donnadogsoth
2012-12-05, 09:21 PM
Guns are incredibly non-lethal for the rep they have. There is a reason why we have medics and corpsmen in the front lines. 8% fatality rate for every shooting in the history of the united states when medical treatment has been administered within the HOUR of shooting.
Compared to something like hammers (When wielded as weapons; The most common item used in homicides in the states.), which are in the upwards of 80% or more, guns are relatively soft weapons.

Dear Toy Killer,

Hammers are ten times more lethal than guns? You mean one blow of a hammer is more lethal than one gunshot? Colour me unconvinced.

And All,

Realism in gun fights doesn't just begin and end with weapon lethality. Whether the combatant is knocked out of the fight is more to the point. Any gunshot that's not a glancing hit is going to incapacitate most civilians. Not many games treat on combatants deciding fighting no longer appeals; they tends to emulate videogames' fighting-to-the-death.

Donnadogsoth

Knaight
2012-12-05, 09:29 PM
Hammers are ten times more lethal than guns? You mean one blow of a hammer is more lethal than one gunshot? Colour me unconvinced.

What he said was that people involved on the receiving end of hammer injuries were 10 times as likely to die. Given that people need to be up close and personal, "hammer injuries" likely tend to involve some sort of prolonged beating, which is just wonderful.

Donnadogsoth
2012-12-06, 12:50 PM
What he said was that people involved on the receiving end of hammer injuries were 10 times as likely to die. Given that people need to be up close and personal, "hammer injuries" likely tend to involve some sort of prolonged beating, which is just wonderful.

Dear Knaight,

Ten times as likely to die based on repeated blows, not on respective single blows. So it's not fair to say hammers are more lethal than guns, since we're only giving the guns one shot to do their thing.

And what guns are we talking about? Low calibre pistols? Or shotguns? Would anyone honestly rather be shot with a shotgun than hammered somewhere on their body?

Consider also that it's easier to shoot someone, psychologically, than it is to hammer them. So there are many more people who were shot compared with relatively fewer who were hammered.

Donnadogsoth

Knaight
2012-12-06, 12:54 PM
Dear Knaight,

Ten times as likely to die based on repeated blows, not on respective single blows. So it's not fair to say hammers are more lethal than guns, since we're only giving the guns one shot to do their thing.


We're not only giving guns the one shot, we're looking at all injuries maintained in a conflict involving guns. The difference is, shooting someone doesn't necessarily make shooting them again easier, so it's entirely plausible for someone to get shot once and then get away. On the other hand, once someone has been hit with a hammer, the situation has likely changed to one where it is much easier to continue to do so, at which point people do (particularly given that the psychological barriers involved in hitting people with a hammer are already down).

Basically, nobody has ever said that getting hit once by a hammer is worse than getting shot once, merely that one is much more likely to die in an altercation involving a hammer than in one where they get shot. That's entirely plausible.

Donnadogsoth
2012-12-06, 01:48 PM
We're not only giving guns the one shot, we're looking at all injuries maintained in a conflict involving guns. The difference is, shooting someone doesn't necessarily make shooting them again easier, so it's entirely plausible for someone to get shot once and then get away. On the other hand, once someone has been hit with a hammer, the situation has likely changed to one where it is much easier to continue to do so, at which point people do (particularly given that the psychological barriers involved in hitting people with a hammer are already down).

Basically, nobody has ever said that getting hit once by a hammer is worse than getting shot once, merely that one is much more likely to die in an altercation involving a hammer than in one where they get shot. That's entirely plausible.

Dear Knaight,

I think the difference here is that the hammer is more likely to be used in a murder than in a scrap, whilst a gun is more likely to be used in a firefight than in a murder.

Donnadogsoth

Knaight
2012-12-06, 05:31 PM
Dear Knaight,

I think the difference here is that the hammer is more likely to be used in a murder than in a scrap, whilst a gun is more likely to be used in a firefight than in a murder.

Donnadogsoth

That's a large part of it, yes. I'd also add drive by shootings to the second list, and note that if the hammer is used in a fight of some sort, the extreme proximity involved still basically guarantees that it will get used multiple times (because really, after hammer blow one the person being hit is probably not in the best place to defend themselves).

Donnadogsoth
2012-12-06, 06:48 PM
Dear All,

One last note: Scanning the Living Steel tables for firearms injury and recovery, I see that the wound level corresponding to an 8% mortality rate in the hospital is 400.

For small calibre guns, the odds of scoring a wound higher than 400 is 4%.

For medium calibre guns, the odds of scoring a wound higher than 400 is 26%

Where is this 8% figure coming from anyway?

Donnadogsoth

Hiro Protagonest
2012-12-06, 07:07 PM
Dear All,

One last note: Scanning the Living Steel tables for firearms injury and recovery, I see that the wound level corresponding to an 8% mortality rate in the hospital is 400.

For small calibre guns, the odds of scoring a wound higher than 400 is 4%.

For medium calibre guns, the odds of scoring a wound higher than 400 is 26%

Where is this 8% figure coming from anyway?

Donnadogsoth

So... that means it's actually way less chance than 8% (but your studies seem to indicate *per shot* rather than over a total shootout or firefight).

Chainsaw Hobbit
2012-12-07, 02:34 AM
GURPS. You want GURPS.

It pains me to say this, because I dislike the system, but it does gritty realism well. It can do gunfights. Its a bit hard to GM, and character creation takes a while, but it has gritty realism nailed.