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The Fury
2015-11-06, 01:37 AM
So as threads about RPG do's and don'ts is kind of a thing now, here's my contribution. I'm late to the party, but what the heck? Medieval fantasy tropes are something near and dear to a lot of us, including me. However, what about the tropes in modern or science fiction RPG settings?

Maybe this came to mind because of ThinkMinty's sword thread--

DON'T have your character use a katana. Unless your character is supernaturally quick, they're probably not faster than bullets. There's a good reason why swords started falling out of common use around the 19th century. Also, they don't make your character nearly as cool as you think they do.

Maybe I'm thinking of this is because I've been dealing with car stuff lately--

DON'T have your character purchase a car or personal vehicle of any kind. It will be either stolen, lit on fire, riddled with bullets or wrecked fairly early on. Possibly all of these things. Your group will probably steal one if it's needed anyway.

DO familiarize yourself with any real-life city that you plan on running a game in, especially if it's present day. It's just good for verisimilitude.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-06, 01:56 AM
As a GM, I'd say do encourage adventurers to get cars and transport in the setting. They'll find things awkward without a getaway car.


DO Make sure there are plausible threats that are interwoven with the setting, so your adventurers aren't just working 9-to-5 day jobs.

DON'T Make it vampires.

DO Make it vampires if you think you can do it well.

DON'T Mo, that's been done already.

DO Well, OK, that's an interesting twist on things.

DON'T Your players won't care if it's well done because they're sick of vampires.

DO They love vampires? OK, that'll work.

DON'T They like Twilight vampires? Back to the drawing board.


DO Remember that players will try to use convienences like cellphones, internet, GPS, and etc.. This must be stopped.

goto124
2015-11-06, 02:31 AM
DON'T have your character use a katana.

To be fair, said character could be an anime fan... :smalltongue:

Florian
2015-11-06, 03:22 AM
Basic thought on that: The closer we get to the "real world", the more breaking of SoD will be a problem.

DO talk about expectations and limitations on playing near to what we know. Get together and clear up as much as you can before starting the game to prevent things breaking down during actual play.
(Example: Weapon, wounds and lasting consequences.)

DO talk about Theme and Mood, what expectations are on according behavior.
(Example: Do we play heroes or do we just phone the cops?)

DON'T force skill checks or even possessing certain skills or skill levels for everyday things that we all do on certain levels, like driving a car, cooking, and so on.

Steampunkette
2015-11-06, 05:22 AM
DO use a real city map for verisimilitude and realistic design.

DON'T be afraid to get out of New York or LA.

DO let players use cell phones at the table to look up addresses and information.

hifidelity2
2015-11-06, 07:57 AM
DO use a real city map for verisimilitude and realistic design.

DON'T be afraid to get out of New York or LA.


I use London - Lots of twisty streets, little alleyways etc - a lot more fun

rooster707
2015-11-06, 10:04 AM
DON'T have your character use a katana. Unless your character is supernaturally quick, they're probably not faster than bullets. There's a good reason why swords started falling out of common use around the 19th century. Also, they don't make your character nearly as cool as you think they do.

But katanas are better! (http://tvtropes.org/main/katanasarejustbetter)

The Fury
2015-11-06, 10:59 AM
As a GM, I'd say do encourage adventurers to get cars and transport in the setting. They'll find things awkward without a getaway car.


Hey, renting one or stealing one is fine. After all, when it's not really yours who cares if it gets trashed?

Segev
2015-11-06, 11:13 AM
DO figure out a reason why the super-cool aesthetic you like makes sense in your futuristic setting. For example, if you want epic sword-fights in a space opera, they can make sense in a ship whose hull would be pierced by modern (by your setting's standards) ranged weapons.

MadGrady
2015-11-06, 11:22 AM
DO ensure that you account for the technological advances and what tech might be there to use. Makes a lot of sense that futuristic soldiers will have easy access to night vision goggles, radar, teleportation (dependent on setting of course), guns, lasers, grenades, aircraft, etc.

It was said above, and I wholly agree - set those expectations of what is allowed, what is available, and what might be gained in game or given only at DM discretion.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-11-06, 11:58 AM
DON'T force skill checks or even possessing certain skills or skill levels for everyday things that we all do on certain levels, like driving a car, cooking, and so on.

I tend to disagree. Well, depending on the specific setting and stuff. But something like a car or a mobile phone or navigation on that phone is powerful equipment. It's fine if your players are aware of that. You're probably making them pay for the ability to hit someone with a stick, so why not for the ability to instantly communicate over large distances to coordinate their actions? Sure, you can just say "the setting is the modern day, so everyone can do that", basically just give it to them for free. But maybe players don't want to be able to drive a car, and would rather be good at something else. If your campaign can handle it, I think that should be an option. And yes, your party is going to consist of a Japanese soldier who has lived in hiding since the second world war, a cavewoman who was frozen in ice, a gargoyle coming alive at night and a dog who recently gained sapience just so their backstories can justify not having a drivers license. But really, is there a problem with that? :smallbiggrin:

Segev
2015-11-06, 01:03 PM
And yes, your party is going to consist of a Japanese soldier who has lived in hiding since the second world war, a cavewoman who was frozen in ice, a gargoyle coming alive at night and a dog who recently gained sapience just so their backstories can justify not having a drivers license. But really, is there a problem with that? :smallbiggrin:

Don't forget the 13-year-old precocious genius who just isn't old enough to drive, yet!

The Fury
2015-11-07, 03:40 AM
How often does not knowing how to drive a stick come up?

Kami2awa
2015-11-07, 03:54 AM
DO think: What happens if the PCs call the cops right now? (Especially in horror games.)

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-11-07, 05:27 AM
How often does not knowing how to drive a stick come up?

Oh, right, their character could be an American. :smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 08:46 AM
How often does not knowing how to drive a stick come up?

Where I live, majority of cars have manual gears, and pretty much everyone is taught how to handle those.

Someone who didn't know how to handle them would be SOL trying to steal cars, like you suggest. :smalltongue:

On the other hand, if someone like me would be thrown behind the wheel of a car with automated gears, you'd hear a confused "wait, where's the switch pedal?"

Anyways:

If you want weapons and firearms to play part in the game, DO make sure the characters are in a position to actually own those things.

DO remember that using any such thing in public will get you in trouble with law-enforcement in any reasonably stable society.

DO anticipate repercussions of the player characters engaging in rabidly antisocial and criminal acts, as they are wont to do.

DON'T gloss over the fact that in a functional modern society, a typical player character will feel like a paranoid schizophrenic with a temper problem. :smalltongue:

Xuc Xac
2015-11-07, 09:09 AM
DO figure out a reason why the super-cool aesthetic you like makes sense in your futuristic setting. For example, if you want epic sword-fights in a space opera, they can make sense in a ship whose hull would be pierced by modern (by your setting's standards) ranged weapons.

If your ship's hull is vulnerable to personal small arms fire, it's not safe to leave the atmosphere. It won't withstand micrometeorites or space trash in orbit. It certainly won't survive a single shot from a ship mounted weapon.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-07, 10:14 AM
Admittedly, there can be a lot of delicate parts on the interior of a spaceship which futuristic weapons could badly damage.

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 12:20 PM
If your ship's hull is vulnerable to personal small arms fire, it's not safe to leave the atmosphere. It won't withstand micrometeorites or space trash in orbit. It certainly won't survive a single shot from a ship mounted weapon.

Apollo landers (and several other spaceship modules) actually were fragile enough to be bothered by small arms fire.

Durkoala
2015-11-07, 02:21 PM
DO familiarize yourself with any real-life city that you plan on running a game in, especially if it's present day. It's just good for verisimilitude.

How would you go about this? I've got a game upcoming (though likely not for a few months) set in a city that's very far away and difficult to reach and I'd like to find out a bit more about it.

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 03:14 PM
Try Google streetview or plain photography books from the nearest library.

Beleriphon
2015-11-07, 03:26 PM
How would you go about this? I've got a game upcoming (though likely not for a few months) set in a city that's very far away and difficult to reach and I'd like to find out a bit more about it.

Tourist books are a good place to start since they tend to feature the prominent features of the city. Checking the city's website, if they have one, or the local business authority can help. Many places have books about local history that you can find in public libraries, for example if you wanted to find out about Peterborough ON there close a dozen books focusing on different aspects of local history.

Other options include biographies of prominent people from the city, they tell you a great deal about the character of a city that is hard to learn without living there.

Strigon
2015-11-07, 03:47 PM
If your ship's hull is vulnerable to personal small arms fire, it's not safe to leave the atmosphere. It won't withstand micrometeorites or space trash in orbit. It certainly won't survive a single shot from a ship mounted weapon.
First off, space trash is moving around at speeds measured in kilometers per second. Very few things can survive that; it makes more sense for your ship to be able to identify them and move out of the way than it does for anything less than a capital ship to survive getting hit by space debris.

If we're talking about spacecraft, anyway, it's entirely reasonable to assume that we're talking about the future.
Thus, it's quite possible that small arms are far more powerful than anything we have today.

Plus, while I'm no expert, I don't think it's safe to fire off an AK-47 in the ISS. Just a hunch.

Roxxy
2015-11-07, 04:10 PM
Where I live, majority of cars have manual gears, and pretty much everyone is taught how to handle those.

Someone who didn't know how to handle them would be SOL trying to steal cars, like you suggest. :smalltongue:

On the other hand, if someone like me would be thrown behind the wheel of a car with automated gears, you'd hear a confused "wait, where's the switch pedal?"Then you get into adults who don't know how to drive at all. I never bothered learning, and I don't really want to. Setting aside political views regarding cars not allowed on this forum, I live in San Francisco. A car would be a gigantic time and money pit with little to no value to my preferred lifestyle. put me behind the wheel of anything, and I won't have the skill required to operate it. You see this in New York City, too, and even more so in Western Europe.


If you want weapons and firearms to play part in the game, DO make sure the characters are in a position to actually own those things.

DO remember that using any such thing in public will get you in trouble with law-enforcement in any reasonably stable society.

DO anticipate repercussions of the player characters engaging in rabidly antisocial and criminal acts, as they are wont to do.

DON'T gloss over the fact that in a functional modern society, a typical player character will feel like a paranoid schizophrenic with a temper problem. :smalltongue:I find that making the players government agents addresses all of these points. It gets them access to firepower civilians can't have, lets them carry it publicly and justify using it, and discourages players from rampant criminality and murderhoboing.

Milodiah
2015-11-07, 04:14 PM
Traveller does make the point that the hulls of warships are more than strong enough to take almost all man-portable weapons without receiving damage (and the power-armor toted PGMPs, FGMPs, etc. do some damage, but still not comparable to ship grade weapons). However, the ship is filled with very sensitive pieces of equipment that one would do well to avoid shooting, such as reactors, computers, munitions, wiring, plumbing, etc. etc. Rifts also does it to a point, with ship hulls being measured in thousands of MDC, structural components being measured in hundreds of MDC, heavy-duty systems being measured in the high tens or low hundreds, and minor structures being in the single-digit MDC range or even the high SDC range (meaning that a few dozen hits from a regular old baseball bat could break it). Given that any infantry weapon worth carrying does more than 3d6 MD, it's reasonable to be concerned that firing at a target with his/her back to the nuclear power cell might just ruin everyone's day.

It's not an issue of the hull being able to take a shotgun blast, it's an issue of whether the oxygen scrubber unit you just accidentally peppered can take a shotgun blast.

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 04:46 PM
I find that making the players government agents addresses all of these points. It ... discourages players from rampant criminality and murderhoboing.

I find this implausible. In my experience, it makes them more likely to encourage in rampant criminality and murderhoboism while muttering about "collateral damage, chalk it up to our insurance". :smalltongue:

Honest Tiefling
2015-11-07, 04:47 PM
How often does not knowing how to drive a stick come up?

Where I am, there's a huge interest in older cars. Some people won't steal stick shift cars, so there's that.

I'm going to re-emphasize the idea of verisimilitude, especially since it can easily confuse people who know the area. Even if you have to get over small nitpicky things like the idea that a 'pasty' is not a naughty thing and is made with cheese.

Beleriphon
2015-11-07, 05:26 PM
Where I am, there's a huge interest in older cars. Some people won't steal stick shift cars, so there's that.

I'm going to re-emphasize the idea of verisimilitude, especially since it can easily confuse people who know the area. Even if you have to get over small nitpicky things like the idea that a 'pasty' is not a naughty thing and is made with cheese.

Or a meat filled portable pastry, if you happen to be Cornish.

Anonymouswizard
2015-11-07, 06:31 PM
I use London - Lots of twisty streets, little alleyways etc - a lot more fun

I've played two games in London, it's a great city, especially if you have a justification for the PCs having guns (otherwise, most players won't bother, and pick weapons they can hide more easily. At least if your players are English, and know that the average Joe in London can't get a pistol).


DO figure out a reason why the super-cool aesthetic you like makes sense in your futuristic setting. For example, if you want epic sword-fights in a space opera, they can make sense in a ship whose hull would be pierced by modern (by your setting's standards) ranged weapons.

Assuming your components are properly shielded, the first side to upgrade to electrolasers will have a serious advantage (will fry the enemy but cause less damage to the walls than regular firearms).

Here's mine for a futuristic setting:

DO explain why none of the soldiers are wearing fighting suits/powered armour/exosuits, and please make it a good reason, not 'this setting was written after Starship Troopers but before we managed to make working prototypes'.

EDIT:

Or a meat filled portable pastry, if you happen to be Cornish.

Traditional Cornish Pasties, all the way from Yorkshire. :smalltongue:

Brother Oni
2015-11-07, 08:53 PM
DON'T force skill checks or even possessing certain skills or skill levels for everyday things that we all do on certain levels, like driving a car, cooking, and so on.

I don't know about that. Some drivers I meet on the road, I wonder how they can walk and chew gum, let alone co-ordinate pressing the pedals and turning the wheel with the Byzantine machinations of the turn signal lever forgotten in the eons since their driving test practical exam (assuming that they didn't pay someone to take the test for them).


Traditional Cornish Pasties, all the way from Yorkshire. :smalltongue:

Or Mexico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paste_%28pasty%29) (it even has a Pasty museum (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8887155/Worlds-first-Cornish-pasty-museum-opens-in-Mexico.html)).

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-07, 09:51 PM
Don't be silly, the obviously got their driver's license from their morning cereal box.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-08, 01:53 AM
Apollo landers (and several other spaceship modules) actually were fragile enough to be bothered by small arms fire.



Plus, while I'm no expert, I don't think it's safe to fire off an AK-47 in the ISS. Just a hunch.

My car can't handle small arms fire either, but it's not a military vehicle with a crew that plans to regularly engage in boarding actions. I understand naval vessels are a bit more resilient.

Realistic space combat would not be much fun to play:
*lights dim, ship lurches, and then lights return to normal*
"Computer, what was that?"
"Sensors detected an object that is 82% likely to be an enemy vessel approximately 33 light minutes away. According to standing orders, a firing solution was calculated and our weapon banks discharged. We also altered course to avoid any incoming fire that may already be approaching if they detected us first. One hour, five minutes, 30 seconds remain before the results of our attack are available. Have a nice day!"

If you're engaging in boarding actions (or even combat close enough to be shooting something you can see with your eyes), then your ships aren't that fragile.

Lord Raziere
2015-11-08, 02:12 AM
Realistic space combat would not be much fun to play:
*lights dim, ship lurches, and then lights return to normal*
"Computer, what was that?"
"Sensors detected an object that is 82% likely to be an enemy vessel approximately 33 light minutes away. According to standing orders, a firing solution was calculated and our weapon banks discharged. We also altered course to avoid any incoming fire that may already be approaching if they detected us first. One hour, five minutes, 30 seconds remain before the results of our attack are available. Have a nice day!"

If you're engaging in boarding actions (or even combat close enough to be shooting something you can see with your eyes), then your ships aren't that fragile.

and which quickly becomes two Ship AI's planning out all the possible moves and firing trajectories they can make and the other will make within the first few seconds, then spending the next few hours playing out the plans they've made and not knowing which one won until the last move with the last shot piercing the hull of the other and killing everyone by opening the ship to the vacuum of space like a game of chess with ships firing at places they think they are going to BE and the other ship charting out a trajectory to make the first ship think they're going to go this way then go THAT way.....

Brother Oni
2015-11-08, 05:29 AM
Realistic space combat would not be much fun to play:
*lights dim, ship lurches, and then lights return to normal*
"Computer, what was that?"
"Sensors detected an object that is 82% likely to be an enemy vessel approximately 33 light minutes away. According to standing orders, a firing solution was calculated and our weapon banks discharged. We also altered course to avoid any incoming fire that may already be approaching if they detected us first. One hour, five minutes, 30 seconds remain before the results of our attack are available. Have a nice day!"


If the ship is lurching, it's due to recoil from a kinetic energy weapon and if it's a kinetic energy weapon, what's it doing travelling at c? :smalltongue:

To expand on Lord Raziere's AI fun and games, you could play it like submarine warfare - not much going on, but still incredibly tense.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-08, 07:51 AM
If the ship is lurching, it's due to recoil from a kinetic energy weapon and if it's a kinetic energy weapon, what's it doing travelling at c? :smalltongue:

To expand on Lord Raziere's AI fun and games, you could play it like submarine warfare - not much going on, but still incredibly tense.

The lurch was the sudden course change.

And there isn't much tension to play out when all the decisions are made by an AI in a fraction of a second and all you can do is wait an hour to see if the other guy already killed you. The characters might sit around and sweat for an hour, but i don't know why you'd play that out in real time.

Florian
2015-11-08, 08:53 AM
Don't be silly, the obviously got their driver's license from their morning cereal box.

Or you simply take a look at what stuff is common in the region you actually want to set your game in?

For example, having a drivers license in germany is pretty cheap and most adults get theirs at 18, ar least when they're not living in an inner city area, where a car is pretty useless anyways. Stick shift conpacts are the norm and automatic tends only to be in use in upper class cars.
Smartphones and mobile internet are ubiquitous and outside of elderly folks, most people own one and can handle it quite well.
In the northern regiona, it's pretty common to obe able to sail, handle a CB radio or go fishing.

Putting that into D20 terms:

DO look at what common activities for a region are and put these on DC5 or DC10, so regular people can always handle it with Take10 and, if it fits, even impaired people can use it regularly.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-11-08, 09:36 AM
If you're engaging in boarding actions (or even combat close enough to be shooting something you can see with your eyes), then your ships aren't that fragile.

Or the action is taking place on a different level. There's a semi-old Sean Connery movie called Outland which is basically a western in space. The town sheriff is fighting mercenaries sent by the corrupt mayor who is the local representative of an interplanetary drug ring. In such a setting you could soft-ban firearms by saying they could damage the hull or sensitive equipment running along the inside of the walls. There is no ship to ship combat, you're on a civilian installation not designed for hosting firefights and you have no way to attack the enemy before they come in through the airlock. (Although you could trap the airlock, that should be fun.) This particular movie didn't ban firearms of course, because it's a western, but it could be done in a similar setting. The same thing goes for Alien for instance. So if your players are space detectives or private eyes, a space SWAT team, space traders or space smugglers you could set them up for a "low ranged weapon" campaign. (Until someone finds a targeting computer that prevents discharging the weapon if no firing solution is found or some other fix for the issue.)

themaque
2015-11-08, 08:55 PM
You STILL don't take the Katana.

Yes, you get cool points, but even if you are in a Sci-Fi environment where you want a melee weapon instead of shooting things, there are much better options. A simple Short Sword doesn't require nearly the room that a Katana does making it much easier to wield and control in the tighter quarters of a spaceship.

in response to the Car Question, I actually like how HERO system handled things. I Believe the GM had a selection of universal skills that everyone had a set number of freebie points to spend on. So in a game set in New York you could have

Computers
Driving
Streetwise
Haggling
Seduction

all as Universal skills and everyone can pick three to start at rank 1 for free.

DON'T forget the bad guys can call the cops too.

DO Make space big

DON'T make Forrest World or Dessert world or Texas Land or Planet USSR. An entire planet has a greater ecology than one feature. Humanity does too.

goto124
2015-11-09, 02:07 AM
DO call all your bladed weapons 'katanas', even if they're blatantly not katanas. Yes, even your trusty little dagger.

themaque
2015-11-09, 03:47 AM
DO call all your bladed weapons 'katanas', even if they're blatantly not katanas. Yes, even your trusty little dagger.

An elegant solution for a more civilized time.

Anonymouswizard
2015-11-09, 09:05 AM
DO call all your bladed weapons 'katanas', even if they're blatantly not katanas. Yes, even your trusty little dagger.

DO make all your metal items using this superior katana creating technology. You deserve the best!

On a serious note.

DON'T give your players the ability to name their ship whatever they want. Everybody will be laughing too much to come up with a better name than 'Rimhopper'. Their next ship will get a more ridiculous name, like the 'On Top'.

comicshorse
2015-11-09, 10:50 AM
DON'T give your players the ability to name their ship whatever they want. Everybody will be laughing too much to come up with a better name than 'Rimhopper'. Their next ship will get a more ridiculous name, like the 'On Top'.

In a Babylon 5 game I was in the Centurai PC insisted on naming his ship 'The Love Tentacle' :smalleek:

Segev
2015-11-09, 11:50 AM
If your ship's hull is vulnerable to personal small arms fire, it's not safe to leave the atmosphere. It won't withstand micrometeorites or space trash in orbit. It certainly won't survive a single shot from a ship mounted weapon.



Assuming your components are properly shielded, the first side to upgrade to electrolasers will have a serious advantage (will fry the enemy but cause less damage to the walls than regular firearms).

Here's mine for a futuristic setting:

DO explain why none of the soldiers are wearing fighting suits/powered armour/exosuits, and please make it a good reason, not 'this setting was written after Starship Troopers but before we managed to make working prototypes'.


Actually, the last point in the second quote is half-answered by and half-answering the first in it and the point in the first quote.

If I wanted a swashbuckling space opera, I'd say that people aren't in power armor for the same reason modern military units don't wear plate mail: modern firearms cut through it like swiss cheese and it just slows you down (and is expensive if fitted well enough that it won't). In order for modern firearms to be that powerful, though, they also are powerful enough to be a hazard to hulls of space ships. Even if the hull can take a stray shot or two from a personal sidearm, too many shots are likely to punch through a weak spot (randomly found) or to hit spots weakened by prior shots.

So modern, high-tech swords which could cut right through modern body armor are the norm, and people tend not to bother with body armor because it just isn't convenient or comfortable and provides too little protection against modern weaponry. Swords are still preferable, even though a particularly poorly-placed thrust could pierce the hull, because most thrusts will stop short of doing so. They don't keep going until they hit something.


That's how I'd justify it if I wanted swords in my space opera.

Brother Oni
2015-11-09, 12:17 PM
That's how I'd justify it if I wanted swords in my space opera.

The typical justification I see is personal shielding with either a high velocity object proximity trigger or constantly on setting.

The Dune books had an example of the latter, with the shields automatically repelling anything above a certain speed, so the duelling style was a strange 'fast to defend, but slow to attack' so they could penetrate the enemy shields while protecting themselves.

The RPG Fading Suns had example of the former, with duellists intentionally pulling their blows to land hits that wouldn't trigger the shield, while missile weapons used special low velocity ammo to do the same or extreme HV ammo to overload the shield (in game terms, shields significantly reduced damage rolls above a certain threshold, up to their maximum rating, at which point they failed completely).

Segev
2015-11-09, 12:23 PM
The typical justification I see is personal shielding with either a high velocity object proximity trigger or constantly on setting.

The Dune books had an example of the latter, with the shields automatically repelling anything above a certain speed, so the duelling style was a strange 'fast to defend, but slow to attack' so they could penetrate the enemy shields while protecting themselves.

Oh, sure. I almost even mentioned the Dune series as an alternative example. I was just outlining one way to do it, as a counterpoint to the claim that it was not feasible (due to the reasons listed in the quotes I ... er, quoted).

My broader point is: justify your aesthetic. It's doable if you set up your future-tech right, no matter what that aesthetic is.

Even katanas could be justified, if you set it up right. Their primary strength is similar to the scimitar's: longer cutting edge in contact longer to create nastier slashing wounds. Their primary reason for having their iconic form is rarity and impurity of the material involved; the folding process worked impurities out (to a degree). Those can probably be combined to justify a futuristic version of them.

halcyonforever
2015-11-09, 12:34 PM
DO make all your metal items using this superior katana creating technology. You deserve the best!

DO: Make the average replica katana prone to random breakage as the quality of many modern available models does not stand up to real use.

(on a side note, I have a family heirloom battle ready bastard sword that you can sure bet is in my gear pack for the zombie apocalypse
on an equal note: I have numerous time contemplated how I would explain to law enforcement if I ever ended up using it in home defence... "Yes officer, I dismembered the intruder with a sword...")

halcyonforever
2015-11-09, 01:08 PM
Do: Set your game in a real life location, great resources already exist

Don't: set your game anywhere your players are familiar with. (did the above with Lawrence KS and had a player who knew the streets intimately.)

DO: use a generalized map

Players can get too bogged down in small details like streets and parking. For the city map I use a general over-lay of neighborhoods, each neighborhood can be given some unique details such as Emergency services response time, powerful elements, socioeconomic factors, and architecture.

Example below,

Downtown is all skyscrapers, lots of places for lunch but nothing to eat after 5. Heavy police presence, includes foot patrols, bike, and mounted officers. Response time 3 minutes.

Midtown is apartment buildings, medical centers, and has a thriving night life. Light police patrols, response time 7 min.

Uptown is a housing district that is going through cycles of decay and gentrification, with a patch work of expensive houses and urban blight. Roads are angled with many parks and turns. police response time 10 min,

Asian District is thematically asian architecture but has only a small actual asian population. Presense of an asian gang, increased crime and increased police presence - response 6 min

and so on... This is what I give my players to go on so it is easy to say, your meeting your contact in midtown, they can visualize the environment and have an idea what kind of businesses they can find, or if they get into a chase you can generalize what they see in different areas and so on.

http://imgur.com/yaLXxAD

VoxRationis
2015-11-09, 03:36 PM
For futuristic settings:
Do remember that technology informs and is informed by society; a highly feudal, decentralized state with a warrior-elite is unlikely to be persistently stable above a certain tech level (namely, the level where either a central authority or the masses get enough practical weapons to seize power from the nobles). Ergo, having a culture be "Vikings with laser guns" is unlikely.

However, as a caveat:
Don't believe that modern Western culture (or worse, American culture) is the only possible result of technological advancement. While much of modern Western culture is informed by the technologies that have been invented in the past few centuries, there is also a lot of this culture which is purely societal and is not intrinsic to our technology. If your culture-creation process is based on giving advanced technology to a culture that didn't historically have it, don't have modernization of that culture include mimicry of Western culture from nowhere.

Anonymouswizard
2015-11-09, 03:47 PM
Actually, the last point in the second quote is half-answered by and half-answering the first in it and the point in the first quote.

If I wanted a swashbuckling space opera, I'd say that people aren't in power armor for the same reason modern military units don't wear plate mail: modern firearms cut through it like swiss cheese and it just slows you down (and is expensive if fitted well enough that it won't). In order for modern firearms to be that powerful, though, they also are powerful enough to be a hazard to hulls of space ships. Even if the hull can take a stray shot or two from a personal sidearm, too many shots are likely to punch through a weak spot (randomly found) or to hit spots weakened by prior shots.

You still have the exosuit part of the powered armour though. Even if the armour is stripped down to just being anti-shrapnel, as soon as you have decent power supplies for them it makes sense to keep some exosuits on hand just in case you need somebody to punch through a bulkhead or the like. Also, the exosuit makes a great harness for adding more tech on as well as armour, leading to jetpack equipped support troops with heavy weapons.


So modern, high-tech swords which could cut right through modern body armor are the norm, and people tend not to bother with body armor because it just isn't convenient or comfortable and provides too little protection against modern weaponry. Swords are still preferable, even though a particularly poorly-placed thrust could pierce the hull, because most thrusts will stop short of doing so. They don't keep going until they hit something.


That's how I'd justify it if I wanted swords in my space opera.

You still have to deal with the fact that a blast of electricity will be just as good, and with an electrolaser will have a longer range than swords. Sure, it might damage the hull, but probably less than a sword hit, and if the hull conducts the electricity will probably just head to the closest ground.

I came into this problem when I tried creating a setting where marines used halberds. I just gave up and armed boarding parties with electrolasers and concentrated on other parts of the setting.

Segev
2015-11-10, 03:49 PM
You still have the exosuit part of the powered armour though. Even if the armour is stripped down to just being anti-shrapnel, as soon as you have decent power supplies for them it makes sense to keep some exosuits on hand just in case you need somebody to punch through a bulkhead or the like. Also, the exosuit makes a great harness for adding more tech on as well as armour, leading to jetpack equipped support troops with heavy weapons.If you mean "space suit" by "exosuit," sure. But I was discussing what people do IN the ship, not while space-walking.




You still have to deal with the fact that a blast of electricity will be just as good, and with an electrolaser will have a longer range than swords. Sure, it might damage the hull, but probably less than a sword hit, and if the hull conducts the electricity will probably just head to the closest ground.Not really. We don't know that those weapons would work the way you say they would. We theorize they would, but we lack actual prototypes. And they could introduce other problems with firing them in a pressurized tin can full of sensitive electronics. You may be more into speculative/hard sci-fi, there, but until the tech is actually extant and in full production and used, you can't be certain it's where we're going. That's what makes it sci-fi.

Thus, softer sci-fi will have alternatives that aren't what you outline. Assuming specific tech in sci-fi, when that tech doesn't yet exist in the real world, is spurious when the assumption is used to discredit a setting element.

"They don't have the lightning-guns you described," is a valid reply. What's important is internal consistency, more than anything else.


I came into this problem when I tried creating a setting where marines used halberds. I just gave up and armed boarding parties with electrolasers and concentrated on other parts of the setting.Why? Because you'd settled on electrolasers working a specific way. If you wanted halberds, you could have made the "electrolasers" too powerful, after all, or not effective enough on humans, or not sufficiently compact enough for personal firearms. Now, halberds have reach, but are long and swung more than stabbed, so them making sense in a space ship with narrow corridors is questionable.

Were I trying to justify it, I'd make a marine halberd for this setting by a sophisticated weapon with a haft that is adjustable with simple controls. It can expand or contract to fit within a given corridor, and is the weapon of choice precisely because it allows a single marine to hold an entire hallway with its adaptable reach. It would be the kind with a pronounced spear-point spike on the end, so shoulder-to-shoulder marines could use them like pikes, as well. If I wanted electro-lasers that worked as you'd outlined, I'd justify the form factor of the halberd because the workings of it takes at least a rifle-length tube, so incorporating it into the halberd design makes for a more sophisticated sort of bayonet weapon. With a cool staff-weapon blaster aesthetic thrown in.

Anonymouswizard
2015-11-10, 04:20 PM
If you mean "space suit" by "exosuit," sure. But I was discussing what people do IN the ship, not while space-walking.

Exosuits (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton).


Not really. We don't know that those weapons would work the way you say they would. We theorize they would, but we lack actual prototypes. And they could introduce other problems with firing them in a pressurized tin can full of sensitive electronics. You may be more into speculative/hard sci-fi, there, but until the tech is actually extant and in full production and used, you can't be certain it's where we're going. That's what makes it sci-fi.

Thus, softer sci-fi will have alternatives that aren't what you outline. Assuming specific tech in sci-fi, when that tech doesn't yet exist in the real world, is spurious when the assumption is used to discredit a setting element.

"They don't have the lightning-guns you described," is a valid reply. What's important is internal consistency, more than anything else.

Yes, there are theoretical problems with electricity possibly not working in the way we think it would (and you could design a ship to ground lightning guns before they reached their targets), but try to justify the use of swords on spaceships will run into the problem of 'why not make your ships too small to swing a sword in and train all your marines in unarmed combat', although that applies less to fencing weapons.

Also, you say that, but I know a lot of geeks who would cry foul at electrolasers. I also found this article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18630622) which implies that the theory works, but I currently don't have the time to go looking for others.


Why? Because you'd settled on electrolasers working a specific way. If you wanted halberds, you could have made the "electrolasers" too powerful, after all, or not effective enough on humans, or not sufficiently compact enough for personal firearms. Now, halberds have reach, but are long and swung more than stabbed, so them making sense in a space ship with narrow corridors is questionable.

The rest of the setting demanded technology that meant electrolasers could have multiple settings, and power sources were powerful enough that lethal ones could be carried fairly comfortably. The main lie was more the ability to carry around insane amounts of power on a person, with FTL being a side effect.


Were I trying to justify it, I'd make a marine halberd for this setting by a sophisticated weapon with a haft that is adjustable with simple controls. It can expand or contract to fit within a given corridor, and is the weapon of choice precisely because it allows a single marine to hold an entire hallway with its adaptable reach. It would be the kind with a pronounced spear-point spike on the end, so shoulder-to-shoulder marines could use them like pikes, as well. If I wanted electro-lasers that worked as you'd outlined, I'd justify the form factor of the halberd because the workings of it takes at least a rifle-length tube, so incorporating it into the halberd design makes for a more sophisticated sort of bayonet weapon. With a cool staff-weapon blaster aesthetic thrown in.

I did get them into the setting, but they were more of a 'royal guard' ceremonial weapon occasionally used when fighting reaches palaces (where you have both enough space to swing and the ability to get to a person while their energy weapons are still charging).

Mr. Mask
2015-11-10, 04:39 PM
Exosuits: If firepower starts to greatly outpace armour, then exosuits will be popular for carrying heavier weapons that allow you to challenge larger vehicles. For personnel combat, aside form artillery weapons, light exosuits designed to enhance your speed would be popular. Generally, being able to carry some armour without it slowing you down is pretty useful. As well as the jet-packs and stuff.

Electro-Laser vs. Halberds: For this, you need the right set-up. Armour has outpaced firepower, where the rockets needed to kill personnel armour have kill radius that make them dangerous to use outside of mid to long-range combat. Plus, with the powered armour's improved speed and attached point-defence lasers, it's possible for infantry to close a mid-range gap while under fire. More importantly, the heaviness of the anti-personnel rockets means it's difficult to carry a ton of them around and they take a while to reload. This makes certain melee weapons popular, and essentially brings back the age of muskets and sabres. Electrolasers would not be an issue due to the armour working as a great Faraday cage for the user and the suit's electronic parts, along with ceramic-like materials so that heat weaponry aren't very efficient.

Gnoman
2015-11-10, 06:12 PM
For futuristic settings:
Do remember that technology informs and is informed by society; a highly feudal, decentralized state with a warrior-elite is unlikely to be persistently stable above a certain tech level (namely, the level where either a central authority or the masses get enough practical weapons to seize power from the nobles). Ergo, having a culture be "Vikings with laser guns" is unlikely.


That's far from certain. In the real feudal era, the highest authorities could have gotten enough weapons and men to crush their subordinate lords, but doing so was not only more trouble than it was worth, but the feudal system turned out to be a pretty efficient way of governing thanks to the communications lag imposed by the increasingly poor state of roads that nobody had the spare cash to maintain.

A feudal system in an empire that spans a solar system (via space habitats as well as colonization of moons and planets) in a setting with no FTL communication is hardly unlikely. A colony in Jupiter orbit, for example, would have a communications lag of two hours (one hour each way), which isn't a big deal for policy setting, but in a developing crisis or jsut for day-to-day administration that is impractical. There are many solutions to this, and the feudal system is one of them.

Cluedrew
2015-11-10, 06:46 PM
DO: Put the cool things you want into the story.

DON'T: Worry if it doesn't hold up perfectly. It should be plausible, but it doesn't have to be full proof.

DON'T: Ignore the implications of what you put into the world.

Some of this may seem contradictory... so let me right out a checklist:

Create a list of cool things you want into the story.
Create justifications for why those cool things would exist in world. ^
Check the implications of those justifications, if they break the world go back to 2.

Because we want nice things but they should mesh with the world and each other.

^ Side note: Decide how much real science & logic vs. handwave you would like, there is no correct amount.

As for all the talk about melee weapons in space it is actually surprisingly likely, just remove one (much less likely) piece of technology: artificial gravity. If all combat happens in zero-gravity than the recoil of a sidearm could actually render it unusable when you aren't clinging to a surface. BattleTech did this, I read a navigation where in a the hand-to-hand space battle there was exactly one shot fired, from a specially made bazooka that had no recoil. Everything else was handled with melee weapons.

It has similar repercussions for exosuits although through different means. The mechanics of movement change dramatically in zero-gravity. Lifting power becomes less important as any non-zero amount of force will move something. Speed becomes not how fast your legs move put how much force you can put into that single push... two pushes actually, one to start and one to stop and you don't want to mess up the second one, unless you want to use your forehead as a brake.

Also remember for exosuits, it is just something else that can break. What if someone finds a way to fry the computer on the suit or disconnects the power supply? Even if it was designed to not lock up when this happens you are still suddenly carrying around a lot of dead weight. I'm not sure how much exactly but it would probably be significant.

goto124
2015-11-10, 08:08 PM
"unless you want to use your forehead as a brake."

Sometime in the future, a soldier will smash his helmet by kicking himself in his own head.

Mr. Bitter
2015-11-10, 11:06 PM
DO assume all misses with firearms end up somewhere awful. Like, the engine of a car, the television in the next room, the third grader crossing the street. Like in The Wire (https://youtu.be/9pjIrqyo7qQ?t=91). Every gun discharge should break something.

DO NOT ever use the d20 modern rules as written. Blech.

Segev
2015-11-11, 12:23 PM
Given that one of the major reasons Giant Robots (piloted or not) are infeasible is the square-cube law, once you get to lighter gravities or zero-g, you can justify them again. In fact, if things are built on a scale for "giant robot hands" to handle, they might be a safer form of "space suit:" make those shuttle pods instead be humanoid robots with manipulators. The legs may or may not be something to dispense with, but could be justified with sufficient narrative effort.

If I were getting fancy in my sci-fi design of these devices, they'd have a harness for controlling the robot directly (letting you basically feel like you were the robot), and a means of disconnecting and putting it on auto-pilot or semi-auto-pilot (some sort of generic button-press controls for simple adjustments and navigation instructions) while you stepped away and enjoyed a small personal apartment's worth of amenities (bathroom, possibly a kitchenette). Artificial gravity (whether from rotation or from some sort of gravitic tech) is optional; space efficiency is better without it, but comfort is probably higher with it.

The robots themselves, to accommodate those cabins, would probably be about semi-truck-and-trailer sized, or a bit (maybe 1.5x) bigger.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-11-11, 01:24 PM
The legs may or may not be something to dispense with, but could be justified with sufficient narrative effort.

The legs are a hull breach risk (how big of one depends on the design) wrapped around a lot of dead weight. If you follow your line of thinking towards realism you probably end up with robot arms on a compact (not small, but with little outside compared to the amount of inside) shuttle. It gives you much more room for mechanics, controls and living quarters for the same amount of support beams, hull and shielding.

I know opinions wildly differ on this even amongst fans of the genre (which I don't count myself as) but if I were doing a giant robot setting I'd want to have them stomping around. I might so for mountainous terrain, the old "wheels can't go everywhere" excuse (even though I suspect a thousand ton tank would cause less problems even in this terrain than a thousand ton humanoid robot, but as long as my players don't realize that I'm golden).

Brother Oni
2015-11-11, 02:04 PM
I know opinions wildly differ on this even amongst fans of the genre (which I don't count myself as) but if I were doing a giant robot setting I'd want to have them stomping around. I might so for mountainous terrain, the old "wheels can't go everywhere" excuse (even though I suspect a thousand ton tank would cause less problems even in this terrain than a thousand ton humanoid robot, but as long as my players don't realize that I'm golden).

Diving back into space fantasy, you could have that these gigantic city robots have faith engines that offset their actual weight and reinforce their structural integrity by drawing on the belief of their inhabitants. That way you end up with a self perpetuating loop of it standing because people believe it stands thus it stands. The shock, awe and eventually conversion from new people seeing it for the first time helps maintain the belief levels. :smallbiggrin:

Velaryon
2015-11-11, 03:29 PM
DON'T force skill checks or even possessing certain skills or skill levels for everyday things that we all do on certain levels, like driving a car, cooking, and so on.

I was surprised to see so much opposition to this one. While it is true that there are plenty of people who don't, for example, have even basic driving skills, does anyone really find the following scenario the one they want in their modern RPG?

Player: "I drive to the store to buy <insert mundane item available at any neighborhood store that the PCs need for their insane plan of the day>"
GM: "Okay, roll Drive."
*Player rolls a 1 if playing a d20 game, or no successes in a game that uses dice pools*
GM: "You crash the car backing out of your driveway and are unable to go to the store."

Of course nobody wants that. Unless a character's background dictates otherwise, all characters in a modern setting should be assumed to have adequate skill at everyday tasks. Save the Drive skill (if there is one) for weaving lanes in a high speed chase or making a tight turn on an icy road.



DON'T gloss over the fact that in a functional modern society, a typical player character will feel like a paranoid schizophrenic with a temper problem. :smalltongue:

In other words, DON'T play characters as typical D&D murderhobos if you want any semblance of versimilitude in a modern game.



in response to the Car Question, I actually like how HERO system handled things. I Believe the GM had a selection of universal skills that everyone had a set number of freebie points to spend on. So in a game set in New York you could have

Computers
Driving
Streetwise
Haggling
Seduction

all as Universal skills and everyone can pick three to start at rank 1 for free.

This is a sensible way of handling things, but I would still not require skill checks for routine tasks.



DON'T give your players the ability to name their ship whatever they want. Everybody will be laughing too much to come up with a better name than 'Rimhopper'. Their next ship will get a more ridiculous name, like the 'On Top'.

I can attest to this. My Star Wars group has a running tradition of naming all our ships after things from Homestarrunner. We just about singlehandedly won the Mandalorian War with the Strong Bad.



DO NOT ever use the d20 modern rules as written. Blech.

As a corollary: DO make sure that if your setting has firearms, you are using a system that has halfway decent firearms rules.

Strigon
2015-11-11, 03:53 PM
This is a sensible way of handling things, but I would still not require skill checks for routine tasks.

You'd be surprised how many people have at least a couple routine tasks they can't perform - driving, navigating basic social encounters and computer use are among the most common.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-11, 04:28 PM
Robot Capsules: Interestingly, legs might be useful for landing, if you build them to absorb a lot of force should something go wrong. That'd make landing with rockets much easier, when the legs give them a wider margin of error.

In low gravity or zero G environment, legs might have some advantages. In the moons highly mountainous terrain for example, being able to jump or climb somewhat could be of a lot of use (notably, jump jets for treaded vehicles are also an option).

I don't know how efficiently treads would work compared to legs at different levels of G, for travelling. Would be interesting to know.



I've come to think robot vehicles might be good for making more versatile use of cover, in rocky and urban environments. Also more versatile aiming, presumably. In those close urban ranges, that'd be nice. Make it easier to target treads, robot legs, and etc..

Milodiah
2015-11-11, 04:42 PM
You'd be surprised how many people have at least a couple routine tasks they can't perform - driving, navigating basic social encounters and computer use are among the most common.

Almost every point-buy system, or even just systems with advantages/disadvantages, have a mechanism for this. I've built a character in GURPS, for example, who cannot even default on swimming, in-universe because he has a pathological fear of bodies of water and starts panic-drowning the second he hits it.


Robot Capsules:I don't know how efficiently treads would work compared to legs at different levels of G, for travelling. Would be interesting to know.


A few things to be said about treads is they are much less likely to get you airborne by mistake than legs, or even wheels, in a low-gravity situation. Legs have an inherent spring to them, simply because you are pushing off against the ground a little bit in a normal gait, and much more so in a running gait. Wheels, unless they have very good shock absorption, will also have the tendency of bouncing should they encounter a dip, mound, or other incongruity, and that can cause them to go airborne. In relatively extreme situations, like hitting a steep rise or dip at a rather high speed, tread-based vehicles will do this too, but it's not quite as pronounced in a proper track setup due to the fact that each gear has more or less independent suspension, and the minor reshaping ability of the tread will help as well.

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-11-11, 05:36 PM
I was surprised to see so much opposition to this one. While it is true that there are plenty of people who don't, for example, have even basic driving skills, does anyone really find the following scenario the one they want in their modern RPG?

Player: "I drive to the store to buy <insert mundane item available at any neighborhood store that the PCs need for their insane plan of the day>"
GM: "Okay, roll Drive."
*Player rolls a 1 if playing a d20 game, or no successes in a game that uses dice pools*
GM: "You crash the car backing out of your driveway and are unable to go to the store."

Of course nobody wants that. Unless a character's background dictates otherwise, all characters in a modern setting should be assumed to have adequate skill at everyday tasks. Save the Drive skill (if there is one) for weaving lanes in a high speed chase or making a tight turn on an icy road.

This is a general flaw with the D20 system, but there's also a general fix: taking 10. You cannot fail a task that's within your comfort zone. Now if you're driving to the store while a chipmunk is trying to collect your eyeballs for its hoard, that's when accidents happen.

If anything breaks realism it's the opposite situation, a person with just enough driving experience to be allowed to make drive checks who sets the fastest lap in a formula 1 race because they rolled 20.

If I ever design a system you get more dice as you get better, like one D3 per skill level or something. Yes, I like being a killjoy who does not allow untrained characters to break records.


A few things to be said about treads is they are much less likely to get you airborne by mistake than legs, or even wheels, in a low-gravity situation.

In a low gravity situation you use conical wheels.

http://www.resonancepub.com/images/Marsokhod_Russian_Rover.gif

No, I don't really know why either, they're probably a bad compromise at high speed, but just look at them!

Telok
2015-11-11, 07:00 PM
Do not be afraid to say "yes" when the guy woth invention, electrical, mechanical, whatever, skills wants to build or adapt something reasonably simple like a tracking device or one shot EMP weapon.

Do give it complications or limits if it isn't part of their level/character points alowance. In my game they made trackers for a couple of villian cars, one led them to a hideout (reward for a good idea) and the other was found by the villian and will be used to lure them into a trap in a couple of days (complication).

Do some basic research if your game is set in the recent past. My current game is in 1989, dial-up modems, brick mobile phones, and 386 processers being state of the art are things that a little checking turned up and help enforce that '80s feel.

Do not fear explosions. Players love them and it's a good way to help you plot villian escape or add a extra complication to a combat scene.

Do remember that gossip and the media exist. If the characters aren't completely separated from civilization and/or perfectly stealthy people will talk about them. My players might be in for a bit of a shock when a well bribed reporter starts putting out stories on their "rampage of destruction and arson".

Anonymouswizard
2015-11-11, 07:44 PM
Do not be afraid to say "yes" when the guy woth invention, electrical, mechanical, whatever, skills wants to build or adapt something reasonably simple like a tracking device or one shot EMP weapon.

I once had a GM deny me a railgun in a near-future setting. Because his knowledge of science comes from 40k and movies he thought it would be much more powerful.

This is after spending most of the campaign unable to use my skills. I eventually applied the points in electronic engineering to trying to train zombies, and when that failed seeing if I could kill them with a taser shot to the head. I think the GM really wanted to shut me down because I'm smarter than him, and can come up with tech to lay waste to a zombie horde, unlike the mechanical engineer who's inventions were defensive.

I plan to see if my current GM will allow me to get away with my latest ploys: gamma ray lasers, a hive mind droid swarm, and the Tesla Bomb, a device that launches several waves of high energy electricity to fry anything near it. I would try for a magnetabomb where magnetic waves are sent out to mess with electronics, but I'm playing a droid.

Hawkstar
2015-11-11, 09:49 PM
You'd be surprised how many people have at least a couple routine tasks they can't perform - driving, navigating basic social encounters and computer use are among the most common.

The best way to handle this sort of incompetence/technical illiteracy is through 'flaws', I think.

Anyway, not original, but:
DON'T: Let players have access to chemicals with more than one fluorine atom per molecule.

Velaryon
2015-11-12, 02:33 AM
You'd be surprised how many people have at least a couple routine tasks they can't perform - driving, navigating basic social encounters and computer use are among the most common.

Indeed. I, for example, can't cook to save my life, and made it to my late 20s before I obtained any sort of minimal skill at social interaction.

However, do we really need our RPGs to simulate "realism" to that degree? Just because people exist who do not possess certain skills that one might consider an everyday baseline does not, in my opinion, mean that RPG characters need to be capable of failing simple routine tasks in order to simulate this. Someone who can't back a car down a driveway without plowing into a wall, or can't heat up a can of soup without starting a fire, is an edge case, and I don't think characters should have to make checks, let alone waste character creation resources, to model simple everyday behaviors.



This is a general flaw with the D20 system, but there's also a general fix: taking 10. You cannot fail a task that's within your comfort zone. Now if you're driving to the store while a chipmunk is trying to collect your eyeballs for its hoard, that's when accidents happen.

If anything breaks realism it's the opposite situation, a person with just enough driving experience to be allowed to make drive checks who sets the fastest lap in a formula 1 race because they rolled 20.

If I ever design a system you get more dice as you get better, like one D3 per skill level or something. Yes, I like being a killjoy who does not allow untrained characters to break records.

In my experience, a lot of DMs like to find excuses to not allow characters to take 10. It does seem to be intended to stop this sort of problem, but for whatever reason it seems to rub many DMs the wrong way to let people use the rules to succeed at a task without a die roll.

My objection is less about breaking realism (though I do think it's an issue), but rather that it breaks fun. I do agree that the possibility of succeeding with a high roll when your character should not be capable of it strains believability, but IMO it's better to err on the side of letting characters accomplish more rather than less.

BlacKnight
2015-11-12, 11:04 AM
I've always been interested in justifications for melee weapons in futuristic settings. But I've never found a justification that really conviced me.



If I wanted a swashbuckling space opera, I'd say that people aren't in power armor for the same reason modern military units don't wear plate mail: modern firearms cut through it like swiss cheese and it just slows you down (and is expensive if fitted well enough that it won't). In order for modern firearms to be that powerful, though, they also are powerful enough to be a hazard to hulls of space ships. Even if the hull can take a stray shot or two from a personal sidearm, too many shots are likely to punch through a weak spot (randomly found) or to hit spots weakened by prior shots.

So modern, high-tech swords which could cut right through modern body armor are the norm, and people tend not to bother with body armor because it just isn't convenient or comfortable and provides too little protection against modern weaponry. Swords are still preferable, even though a particularly poorly-placed thrust could pierce the hull, because most thrusts will stop short of doing so. They don't keep going until they hit something.


That's how I'd justify it if I wanted swords in my space opera.

This doesn't work. If people didn't use body armor you don't need super firearms. If there is a chance that the enemy infiltrate an unit with body armor the local militia will have a supply of military weapons. That means you can't capture a space station with such infiltration. But you can take it hostage.


The typical justification I see is personal shielding with either a high velocity object proximity trigger or constantly on setting.

The Dune books had an example of the latter, with the shields automatically repelling anything above a certain speed, so the duelling style was a strange 'fast to defend, but slow to attack' so they could penetrate the enemy shields while protecting themselves.

The RPG Fading Suns had example of the former, with duellists intentionally pulling their blows to land hits that wouldn't trigger the shield, while missile weapons used special low velocity ammo to do the same or extreme HV ammo to overload the shield (in game terms, shields significantly reduced damage rolls above a certain threshold, up to their maximum rating, at which point they failed completely).

Dune-like shields are full of problems.
If they block molecules you can't breath. If the don't, shockwaves can kill you.
If they block light you are blind. If they don't, laser can kill you.

Even if you manage to solve these problems you have to deal with mini-missiles that start their engines when they are blocked by the shield to go through it.
You can say that the shield depth is enough to slow the missile for enough time to allow a guy to move away.
Now the only way to kill somebody is to block him somehow and then stab him. The sword duels won't happen.

There is also the issue of what happen when something or somebody enters the shield area. It would be immediately frozen.



Electro-Laser vs. Halberds: For this, you need the right set-up. Armour has outpaced firepower, where the rockets needed to kill personnel armour have kill radius that make them dangerous to use outside of mid to long-range combat. Plus, with the powered armour's improved speed and attached point-defence lasers, it's possible for infantry to close a mid-range gap while under fire. More importantly, the heaviness of the anti-personnel rockets means it's difficult to carry a ton of them around and they take a while to reload. This makes certain melee weapons popular, and essentially brings back the age of muskets and sabres. Electrolasers would not be an issue due to the armour working as a great Faraday cage for the user and the suit's electronic parts, along with ceramic-like materials so that heat weaponry aren't very efficient.

This shows the core problem of trying to justify melee weapons in future settings. You have to find something that can't be used at distance.
In your exemple you didn't say what kind of melee weapons you use, so I assume molecular blades.
Well, people won't use swords and pikes to kill infantry. They will use rifles that shots molecular darts.
Laser point defense for infantry doesn't solve this. First in a battlefield full of sharpnels, shock waves, dust and enemy lasers your mirror will be down soon. Second if you manage to solve first point you can use them to burn the guy you are duelling with.



As for all the talk about melee weapons in space it is actually surprisingly likely, just remove one (much less likely) piece of technology: artificial gravity. If all combat happens in zero-gravity than the recoil of a sidearm could actually render it unusable when you aren't clinging to a surface. BattleTech did this, I read a navigation where in a the hand-to-hand space battle there was exactly one shot fired, from a specially made bazooka that had no recoil. Everything else was handled with melee weapons.

It has similar repercussions for exosuits although through different means. The mechanics of movement change dramatically in zero-gravity. Lifting power becomes less important as any non-zero amount of force will move something. Speed becomes not how fast your legs move put how much force you can put into that single push... two pushes actually, one to start and one to stop and you don't want to mess up the second one, unless you want to use your forehead as a brake.


If you are in zero gravity you need to be clinging to a surface. Otherwise you can't even deal a blow with a sword.
When you "jump" from one surface to the other with a handgun you can at least shoot in any direction. With a sword you can't even hit in a different direction that which you are going.

Frozen_Feet
2015-11-12, 11:12 AM
Dune books adress much of that. Unless the wind gets real fast, air isn't fast enough to trigger a shield; a shockwave above some tresshold would likely be repelled.

Light does pass through, but lasers (for some reason) cause a chain reaction causing both the shield generator AND the laser weapon to explode rather spectacularly.

Strigon
2015-11-12, 11:15 AM
Indeed. I, for example, can't cook to save my life, and made it to my late 20s before I obtained any sort of minimal skill at social interaction.

However, do we really need our RPGs to simulate "realism" to that degree? Just because people exist who do not possess certain skills that one might consider an everyday baseline does not, in my opinion, mean that RPG characters need to be capable of failing simple routine tasks in order to simulate this. Someone who can't back a car down a driveway without plowing into a wall, or can't heat up a can of soup without starting a fire, is an edge case, and I don't think characters should have to make checks, let alone waste character creation resources, to model simple everyday behaviors.

I was mainly using that to defend "freebie points".
And, as to whether we need them? Depends on the game you're running.

Segev
2015-11-12, 11:35 AM
I've always been interested in justifications for melee weapons in futuristic settings. But I've never found a justification that really conviced me.You may not be aware of this, but melee weapons are used in modern day. Even in military situations. There are purposes for which ranged weapons are ill-suited.


This doesn't work. If people didn't use body armor you don't need super firearms. If there is a chance that the enemy infiltrate an unit with body armor the local militia will have a supply of military weapons. That means you can't capture a space station with such infiltration. But you can take it hostage.True! You could conduct your battle with low-grade ranged weapons, banking on your foes not wearing combat armor because you took them by surprise and they didn't have time to don it.

Of course, to prevent them from using those same low-grade firearms against you, you will don your armor.

Now, if you're on the other side of this, and you aren't wearing your armor all the time, you might well want to carry a weapon that can nevertheless punch through that armor, since any hostile ambush will involve people who are wearing it. But you don't want to use that firearm that can punch through it, for the aforementioned reasons. So it makes sense to carry a melee weapon (or have it within easy reach) that CAN puncture those kinds of armor.

This leads, then, to a personal sidearm being a melee weapon for standard duty and even off-duty readiness. It leads to the armory having melee weapons for quick assignment in the case of any sort of attack which doesn't give time to don armor.



Dune-like shields are full of problems.
If they block molecules you can't breath. If the don't, shockwaves can kill you.
If they block light you are blind. If they don't, laser can kill you.

Even if you manage to solve these problems you have to deal with mini-missiles that start their engines when they are blocked by the shield to go through it.
You can say that the shield depth is enough to slow the missile for enough time to allow a guy to move away.
Now the only way to kill somebody is to block him somehow and then stab him. The sword duels won't happen.

There is also the issue of what happen when something or somebody enters the shield area. It would be immediately frozen.All of this is actually addressed in the Dune novels, if you read them. The shield is basically an energy form of corn-starch-and-water mixture: the harder and faster you push, the harder it resists. Light isn't harmful at the intensities we see by, and the shields thus distort it only a little. Hit it with high-energy light, high enough to do damage, and it causes a detonation that blows up your laser and your shield with nuclear-weapon-scale force.

Sword fighting in this setting is a strange set of fast-and-slow motions: fast on defense, slow on attack to slip through the shield.




This shows the core problem of trying to justify melee weapons in future settings. You have to find something that can't be used at distance.
In your exemple you didn't say what kind of melee weapons you use, so I assume molecular blades.
Well, people won't use swords and pikes to kill infantry. They will use rifles that shots molecular darts.
Laser point defense for infantry doesn't solve this. First in a battlefield full of sharpnels, shock waves, dust and enemy lasers your mirror will be down soon. Second if you manage to solve first point you can use them to burn the guy you are duelling with.Honestly, this isn't a convincing argument. It fails to address any of the considerations that discuss why melee weapons might be preferred, simply pointing out the standard battlefield tactics that make ranged weapons desirable.




If you are in zero gravity you need to be clinging to a surface. Otherwise you can't even deal a blow with a sword.Not true; swinging that sword will send your body flying in another directly, halving the force you bring to bear, but it's possible. Still, tactics in zero-g would involve finding good surfaces to push off of, or a form of grappling to lock your reference frame and your target's, if you're doing melee combat.


When you "jump" from one surface to the other with a handgun you can at least shoot in any direction. With a sword you can't even hit in a different direction that which you are going.Sure you can, as long as your target is moving in a fashion which puts them in reach. Presumably, if you're on the attack, you're moving towards your target. Otherwise, you're likely counter-attacking.

BlacKnight
2015-11-12, 12:58 PM
Dune books adress much of that. Unless the wind gets real fast, air isn't fast enough to trigger a shield; a shockwave above some tresshold would likely be repelled.

If I remember correctly air molecules moves locally at 500 m/s


Light does pass through, but lasers (for some reason) cause a chain reaction causing both the shield generator AND the laser weapon to explode rather spectacularly.

So if you are attacked by a group of enemies with shields you can:
- fight with a knife
- extract your laser gun and say: "Ok guys, now we'll solve this diplomatically". Basically you have nuclear deterrence available to all.
Needless to say terrorists will be very happy...


You may not be aware of this, but melee weapons are used in modern day. Even in military situations. There are purposes for which ranged weapons are ill-suited.

Knifes are used by the military. Not swords, not halberds.


True! You could conduct your battle with low-grade ranged weapons, banking on your foes not wearing combat armor because you took them by surprise and they didn't have time to don it.

Of course, to prevent them from using those same low-grade firearms against you, you will don your armor.

Now, if you're on the other side of this, and you aren't wearing your armor all the time, you might well want to carry a weapon that can nevertheless punch through that armor, since any hostile ambush will involve people who are wearing it. But you don't want to use that firearm that can punch through it, for the aforementioned reasons. So it makes sense to carry a melee weapon (or have it within easy reach) that CAN puncture those kinds of armor.

This leads, then, to a personal sidearm being a melee weapon for standard duty and even off-duty readiness. It leads to the armory having melee weapons for quick assignment in the case of any sort of attack which doesn't give time to don armor.

No. You don't want to attack the guys that have super weapons. Unless you are a kamikaze.
If some guys have super weapons that can lead to the destruction of the space station you can:
- attack with melee weapons. You will die
- attack with super weapons too. The station blow up and you die.

Either way you die, so you won't attack. This is called MAD, and in the real world world it works pretty well.
Obviously scaling it to individuals can lead to unpleasant consequences...



Honestly, this isn't a convincing argument. It fails to address any of the considerations that discuss why melee weapons might be preferred, simply pointing out the standard battlefield tactics that make ranged weapons desirable.

And what uses swords and halberds could have ? I don't see any reasons to use them in your example.



Not true; swinging that sword will send your body flying in another directly, halving the force you bring to bear, but it's possible. Still, tactics in zero-g would involve finding good surfaces to push off of, or a form of grappling to lock your reference frame and your target's, if you're doing melee combat.

Sure you can, but the strength you can use is limited. And you are going to be pushed away when the enemy parries. You can't control better your movement doing melee combat than shooting with a gun.


Sure you can, as long as your target is moving in a fashion which puts them in reach. Presumably, if you're on the attack, you're moving towards your target. Otherwise, you're likely counter-attacking.

In zero-g movements are limited. When you jump you can't change direction until you arrive. Engaging the enemy in melee would be really hard. Shooting at somebody that is coming at you in straight line isn't hard.

Really how can the guys with swords reach the guys with guns without being shot first ?
If the gunslingers are holding on something there is no chance.
If they are jumping they can still shoot.
If recoil make them rotate like crazy the swordsmen still have to reach them (they have to calculate perfectly timing and trajectories and gunslingers can still shoot).

Mr. Mask
2015-11-12, 01:07 PM
Black Knight: I figured self-sharpening vibro molecular blades. Plasma cutters may also be worth considering.

Molecular darts is a questionable idea. If it doesn't self-sharpen, it's going to lose its edge on contact and not penetrate very deeply. Assuming you can even maintain a molecular edge of you fire something via explosive force (you might be able to). They might be a usable idea, but they don't sound like they'd be the most reliable weapon.

You'll have to source that example that a laser mirror will be destroyed immediately in combat. I've seen enough surviving wristwatches and gas masks from the world wars to doubt the idea that anything made of glass will be broken (if it was with certainty, then humans would be broken with certainty).

Point-defence lasers will likely be used to try and inflict some damage on your opponent whenever possible. Are you under the impression that a laser capable of detonating small warheads will be able to defeat armour that takes small artillery rockets to defeat? Even if the armour they're using is comparable to ceramic in nature?



Segev: Can't remember if he explained what they do against specially designed rockets. A rocket that slows down to a speed to invade a shield would be trivial to hit with point defence, but I don't remember much in the ways of point-defence in the setting.

With low/zero-G, you could rappel onto a target then wrestle and knife them. With some very good jump-jet technology, you could try to dash about and slash at each other as if you were playing Gundams. Shooting each other with lasers is still much easier, so you would need the armour that's ahead of weapons in the same way as the halberds.

Will zero-G halve the strength of your swing? If you can't plant your feet, you won't be able to properly use several muscles in the swing, but a proper swing is about putting a lot of weight/strength behind the attack.

Brother Oni
2015-11-12, 01:30 PM
Anyway, not original, but:
DON'T: Let players have access to chemicals with more than one fluorine atom per molecule.

So you're permitting access to fluorine free radicals? :smalltongue:



Even if you manage to solve these problems you have to deal with mini-missiles that start their engines when they are blocked by the shield to go through it.
You can say that the shield depth is enough to slow the missile for enough time to allow a guy to move away.
Now the only way to kill somebody is to block him somehow and then stab him. The sword duels won't happen.


The slow moving projectile was a valid countermeasure in the film version and the Fading Suns version had a very close activation range (on the order of single centimetres). The Dune version was a manually activated (no proximity trigger) which projected a fair distance out (excuse the early 80s effects): link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkQFhPJuxgk).



Well, people won't use swords and pikes to kill infantry. They will use rifles that shots molecular darts.


What's stopping the molecular darts from shredding the inside of the rifle barrel? If you're making the rifle barrel out of some super hard resistant material, then what's stopping people making armour out of it?

If you sidestepped the barrel durability issue by using saboted ammunition then the minimum calibre of your weapon is significantly increased requiring more propellant per round to maintain the same velocity and hence lethality with kinetic penetrators.
This would have the side effect of increasing the power and recoil per shot; the former would make it undesirable for use in environments where collateral damage is unacceptable (in space where hull breaches and/or vital infrastructure like life support systems could be destroyed; hostage situations; heavily urbanised areas), while the latter requires additional (and possibly bulky) equipment (mechanical recoil compensators, powered armour, etc) to overcome, restricting its operating environment (not in zero-G or enclosed CQB for example).

All of this adds to the cost and training requirements of a weapon and what's a modern setting without everything being made to the minimum standard by the lowest bidder? :smalltongue:

Segev
2015-11-12, 02:09 PM
So if you are attacked by a group of enemies with shields you can:
- fight with a knife
- extract your laser gun and say: "Ok guys, now we'll solve this diplomatically". Basically you have nuclear deterrence available to all.
Needless to say terrorists will be very happy...Certainly. Though that's a limited subset of people who want to perform violence. Most want to hurt the other guy and not get hurt (as much), themselves.


Knifes are used by the military. Not swords, not halberds.Not quite true; swords are still used in some environs and some services. (And a fair number of "knives" in use in combat would have counted as "swords" in earlier times.)


No. You don't want to attack the guys that have super weapons. Unless you are a kamikaze.Who said anything about "super weapons?" The context you're implying here suggests you mean nuclear weapons or stronger. This is not what I was suggesting.

They have weapons powerful enough to pierce your armor. They do not wish to use ranged weapons that powerful on the space ship, lest their pierce the hull. So they have melee weapons.

Because you can't guarantee that they'll not manage to get into their own armor, you probably have weapons strong enough to pierce armor, too. If you don't care about taking the ship intact, you don't board it in the first place: you hole it from space and come in after most of the crew are dead from vacuum exposure. So if you're boarding, you probably bring melee weapons of your own to back up the low-power ranged weapons, in case they get into armor.


And what uses swords and halberds could have ? I don't see any reasons to use them in your example.Swords? For the same reason they always have been used. Honestly, probably with more emphasis on thrusting versions, like rapiers or short swords, than slashing versions, if only because of the constraints of hallway space, but it would be a matter of what kind of battle happens where.

Halberds? They're trickier; I gave a suggestion earlier of making them a more sophisticated weapon with multiple functions in different situations. A spear would honestly work just a little better, but aesthetic choice is not an invalid final decision-maker. It doesn't have to be the single most efficient form-factor ever, just useful enough not to be silly.



Really how can the guys with swords reach the guys with guns without being shot first ?
If the gunslingers are holding on something there is no chance.
If they are jumping they can still shoot.
If recoil make them rotate like crazy the swordsmen still have to reach them (they have to calculate perfectly timing and trajectories and gunslingers can still shoot).I don't think anybody is arguing against these points. People don't tend to take swords into gunfights in open fields, unless they plan to close the distance somehow.

veti
2015-11-12, 03:00 PM
The best way to handle this sort of incompetence/technical illiteracy is through 'flaws', I think.

Anyway, not original, but:
DON'T: Let players have access to chemicals with more than one fluorine atom per molecule.

A more general-purpose rule might be:
DON'T: play a modern setting with a chemistry major.

Seriously, you thought engineers were dangerous? They've got nothing on these guys (http://what-if.xkcd.com/40/).

Drynwyn
2015-11-12, 03:02 PM
If I remember correctly air molecules moves locally at 500 m/s



So if you are attacked by a group of enemies with shields you can:
- fight with a knife
- extract your laser gun and say: "Ok guys, now we'll solve this diplomatically". Basically you have nuclear deterrence available to all.
Needless to say terrorists will be very happy...



It's been a while since I last did anything involving the Dune canon, but if I recall correctly, there are answers to all of these points:

One, the shield extends far enough out that, even assuming it blocks the passage of most air molecules, there would conceivably be enough air in there to breath for a time. (And the shields had a fairly limited battery life- maybe not a "battery life" per se, but I'm fairly sure there was a solid reason why people didn't walk around with shields up all the time.)

Two, laser guns are very, very, expensive, and very bulky (juuuuust barely man-portable IIRC). This actually makes sense- the Dune universe doesn't have ultra-high-density energy sources, and a decent laser weapon takes a LOT of juice. It's not something you carry around as a personal defense weapon. The expense was significant enough that they are far, far out of reach for you standard terrorist.

So blades were used because they can bypass shields, but are light enough to be practical to carry around with you routinely.

Beleriphon
2015-11-12, 03:07 PM
Two, laser guns are very, very, expensive, and very bulky (juuuuust barely man-portable IIRC). This actually makes sense- the Dune universe doesn't have ultra-high-density energy sources, and a decent laser weapon takes a LOT of juice. It's not something you carry around as a personal defense weapon. The expense was significant enough that they are far, far out of reach for you standard terrorist.

Also, the fact that if you zapped a dude with a shield is created an explosion somewhere between a tactical nuke and and a thermonuclear explosion may have factored into not investing in laser to a greater degree. I recall the shields also being uncomfortable to use because they causing an itching sensation.

BlacKnight
2015-11-12, 03:54 PM
I figured self-sharpening vibro molecular blades. Plasma cutters may also be worth considering.

The plasma cutters could be the most promising idea. If you need a big power source linked to the damaging element of the weapon a personal firearm became problematic.


You'll have to source that example that a laser mirror will be destroyed immediately in combat. I've seen enough surviving wristwatches and gas masks from the world wars to doubt the idea that anything made of glass will be broken (if it was with certainty, then humans would be broken with certainty).

Laser mirrors are a lot more complex than watches and googles, but the main problem is that an infantry that charges to close distance is going to take a lot more hits than an infantry that stay hidden, like in the real world.


Point-defence lasers will likely be used to try and inflict some damage on your opponent whenever possible. Are you under the impression that a laser capable of detonating small warheads will be able to defeat armour that takes small artillery rockets to defeat? Even if the armour they're using is comparable to ceramic in nature?

The armor could withstand the laser. The molecular blade can't. If you make it immune to laser, how can the laser stop the darts ?





The slow moving projectile was a valid countermeasure in the film version and the Fading Suns version had a very close activation range (on the order of single centimetres). The Dune version was a manually activated (no proximity trigger) which projected a fair distance out (excuse the early 80s effects):

Thanks.
I still wonder about what happen to a living being inside the shield...


What's stopping the molecular darts from shredding the inside of the rifle barrel? If you're making the rifle barrel out of some super hard resistant material, then what's stopping people making armour out of it?

If you sidestepped the barrel durability issue by using saboted ammunition then the minimum calibre of your weapon is significantly increased requiring more propellant per round to maintain the same velocity and hence lethality with kinetic penetrators.
This would have the side effect of increasing the power and recoil per shot; the former would make it undesirable for use in environments where collateral damage is unacceptable (in space where hull breaches and/or vital infrastructure like life support systems could be destroyed; hostage situations; heavily urbanised areas), while the latter requires additional (and possibly bulky) equipment (mechanical recoil compensators, powered armour, etc) to overcome, restricting its operating environment (not in zero-G or enclosed CQB for example).

All of this adds to the cost and training requirements of a weapon and what's a modern setting without everything being made to the minimum standard by the lowest bidder? :smalltongue:

Yes, I was thinking about saboted munition. Using a bullet smaller than the barrel is going to increase the speed (infact anti-tank guns use saboted munition).
The dart idea is to counter armor. Armor equipped with point defence laser. If an armor can carry the power source for these I think that carry a big rifle is trivial.




Certainly. Though that's a limited subset of people who want to perform violence. Most want to hurt the other guy and not get hurt (as much), themselves.

If the enemy want to kill you and your chance in melee are low... You are really threatening a scared guy with the finger on a nuke button ?


Not quite true; swords are still used in some environs and some services. (And a fair number of "knives" in use in combat would have counted as "swords" in earlier times.)

Examples ? Possibly about professional militaries.


Who said anything about "super weapons?" The context you're implying here suggests you mean nuclear weapons or stronger. This is not what I was suggesting.

With "superweapons" I mean the rifles that pierce armors, hulls ect.


They have weapons powerful enough to pierce your armor. They do not wish to use ranged weapons that powerful on the space ship, lest their pierce the hull. So they have melee weapons.

Because you can't guarantee that they'll not manage to get into their own armor, you probably have weapons strong enough to pierce armor, too. If you don't care about taking the ship intact, you don't board it in the first place: you hole it from space and come in after most of the crew are dead from vacuum exposure. So if you're boarding, you probably bring melee weapons of your own to back up the low-power ranged weapons, in case they get into armor.

Why would people use melee weapons ? To let the enemy a chance to win ?
Yes, the use of firearms would result in the death of both. But using melee weapon would result in your death.
You can't prevent this, so your only hope is to persuade the enemy to not attack. Ensure his death in the case he attacks is a very effective way to avoid being attacked.


Swords? For the same reason they always have been used. Honestly, probably with more emphasis on thrusting versions, like rapiers or short swords, than slashing versions, if only because of the constraints of hallway space, but it would be a matter of what kind of battle happens where.

But swords weren't used in the last century ! And for good reasons.


I don't think anybody is arguing against these points. People don't tend to take swords into gunfights in open fields, unless they plan to close the distance somehow.

Problem is that fighting in zero-g doesn't help in closing the distance.




It's been a while since I last did anything involving the Dune canon, but if I recall correctly, there are answers to all of these points:

One, the shield extends far enough out that, even assuming it blocks the passage of most air molecules, there would conceivably be enough air in there to breath for a time. (And the shields had a fairly limited battery life- maybe not a "battery life" per se, but I'm fairly sure there was a solid reason why people didn't walk around with shields up all the time.)

Yes, I haven't tought that there could be a space between the user and the shield.


Two, laser guns are very, very, expensive, and very bulky (juuuuust barely man-portable IIRC). This actually makes sense- the Dune universe doesn't have ultra-high-density energy sources, and a decent laser weapon takes a LOT of juice. It's not something you carry around as a personal defense weapon. The expense was significant enough that they are far, far out of reach for you standard terrorist.

So blades were used because they can bypass shields, but are light enough to be practical to carry around with you routinely.

While is possible to make an universe with FTL and batteries worse than today, it's not very realistic.

Segev
2015-11-12, 04:17 PM
Why would people use melee weapons ? To let the enemy a chance to win ?
Yes, the use of firearms would result in the death of both. But using melee weapon would result in your death.
You can't prevent this, so your only hope is to persuade the enemy to not attack. Ensure his death in the case he attacks is a very effective way to avoid being attacked.I'm...not sure where you get this idea. First off, not only is it possible for a guy with a knife to charge a guy with a gun, but we're talking about close-quarters fighting on a space ship. Yes, it's very hazardous to take on a ranged weapon with a melee weapon, and the more distance you have to close, the worse it gets. But that doesn't make it impossible.

Secondly, this is a space ship. Corridors intersect, blind spots abound. Come at them when they are trying to round a corner, and suddenly it's a melee fight: their ranged weapon at melee range, and your knife/sword/whatever at similar range. It's not like every fight starts at 100 ft. or more away in a space ship where encounter distance might be 10 ft. or less.

Thirdly, the invading force probably COULD survive depressurization of the hull if they're in armor; it's probably sealed. So all you're doing is spitefully denying them easy use of the ship later, at the cost of your own and your crewmates' lives. Better to at least TRY to fight in a way that keeps you alive and in control of the ship.

Which, as I've indicated, is doable with melee weapons and a little bit of tactical fighting: waiting at doors and intersections, attacking without giving them a long time to take a bead and fire repeatedly, etc.




But swords weren't used in the last century ! And for good reasons.Again, combat knives ARE, and many modern ones are effectively at least short swords.



Problem is that fighting in zero-g doesn't help in closing the distance.I'm really not following you, here. You seem to be arguing something entirely unrelated to what I think we're discussing.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-12, 04:18 PM
"The plasma cutters could be the most promising idea. If you need a big power source linked to the damaging element of the weapon a personal firearm became problematic."

I'm afraid I don't understand this statement.


"Laser mirrors are a lot more complex than watches and googles, but the main problem is that an infantry that charges to close distance is going to take a lot more hits than an infantry that stay hidden, like in the real world."

I don't believe they're fragile. Many soldiers in WW1 did not stay hidden, but charged through no man's land while facing artillery, rifle and machine gun fire, at the worst times. The percentage of watches and goggles smashed wasn't especially high.


"The armor could withstand the laser. The molecular blade can't. If you make it immune to laser, how can the laser stop the darts ?"

When did I say the lasers would stop the darts?

Brother Oni
2015-11-12, 08:07 PM
Thanks.
I still wonder about what happen to a living being inside the shield...


In the clip, sound still penetrates, although it's distorted, indicating that air can still pass through. However I'm wondering where you got this 500 m/s value from and how you're reasoning that air molecules have enough energy and/or mass to trigger the proximity sensor (even if it did, you could just raise the sensitivity threshold until still air stopped triggering it).



Yes, I was thinking about saboted munition. Using a bullet smaller than the barrel is going to increase the speed (infact anti-tank guns use saboted munition).
The dart idea is to counter armor. Armor equipped with point defence laser. If an armor can carry the power source for these I think that carry a big rifle is trivial.


If your setting has a man portable point defense system that can intercept and vaporise a molecular bladed fletchette travelling at supersonic speeds at typical firefight distances of less than 50m, then why aren't they using the point defence systems to simply vaporise the enemy instead?

I think you're making the mistake of assuming all future settings have equal technology advancement. As mentioned earlier, the Dune universe neither has massively micronised energy sources or advanced computers (such as the FCS computer required to run your point defence system), so bladed weapons do make sense in that universe.

As for close quarters combat, 21 feet is the minimum distance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh8qf9My2pg) required to draw your weapon, put two rounds COM and get out of the way in time. I believe the FBI's current recommendation to their agents is 30 feet.
While there are ways of reducing this reaction gap (have your weapon out and ready to acquire a target, defensive shoot techniques, etc), having a long arms in spaces less than 10 feet is not ideal..


But swords weren't used in the last century ! And for good reasons.

During WW1, swords were issued to some ANZAC forces who were still cavalry mounted, and various short bladed stabbing implements were commonplace in trench raids. The British Army did actually issue a gladius-like short sword for trench warfare, but it was found to be too cumbersome.

Ghurkas carry a khukri, which aren't too far off a small sword.


While is possible to make an universe with FTL and batteries worse than today, it's not very realistic.

While I'm generally all for realism, assuming that all technology will advance in the same way is also not very realistic, neither is assuming that all cultures will advance equally. There was a short story where modern day Earth was invaded by aliens and everybody was quaking in their boots, until the aliens started launching attacks with black powder weapons. In that setting, anti-gravity was generally discovered very early on by most cultures except on Earth for some reason (I forget whether the raw materials required didn't occur in our solar system or we just didn't think of it), so when the aliens were defeated in short order, and as we gleefully took apart their ships to reverse engineer their technology, the alien leader suddenly realised that they had unleashed humanity on the rest of the universe.

Until comparatively recently, the various native populations of North America were still in the technology equivalent of the Stone Age, whereas Europeans had gunpowder weapons. In the 19th Century, during the Anglo-Satsuma War, British ships shelled Kagoshima with modern guns armed with exploding shells, while the samurai only had cannon firing solid shot.

Drynwyn
2015-11-12, 08:35 PM
While is possible to make an universe with FTL and batteries worse than today, it's not very realistic.

First of all: Effective laser weapons being bulky does not require batteries "worse than today". Power consumption is the main barrier to laser weapons, the other being atmospheric diffraction.

Second of all: Without going into detail, the Dune method of FTL transit is poorly understood in universe, and is much closer to psychic powers then it is an application of understood scientific principles.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-12, 10:42 PM
During WW1, swords were issued to some ANZAC forces who were still cavalry mounted, and various short bladed stabbing implements were commonplace in trench raids. The British Army did actually issue a gladius-like short sword for trench warfare, but it was found to be too cumbersome.

Ghurkas carry a khukri, which aren't too far off a small sword.


The British, French, and US (and probably many others) are still using bayonets. Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carried tomahawks too because they found it to be a useful weapon for the first guy through the door when clearing houses and doing room to room fighting in close quarters.

All of those weapons are made of molecules too! Deadly, deadly molecules...

Seriously, though. What the hell are you guys talking about when you say "molecular blades"? All blades are molecular except maybe things like lightsabers.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-12, 10:57 PM
Well, like obsidian being used for scalpels because it holds a finer edge. The fewer molecules the blade's edge has, the better it cuts. A molecular blade of just one or two molecules would be able to cut through almost anything. Problem is, that's a really brittle edge. So self-sharpening becomes important, so it can continuously hone that edge.

Fiery Diamond
2015-11-12, 10:59 PM
The British, French, and US (and probably many others) are still using bayonets. Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carried tomahawks too because they found it to be a useful weapon for the first guy through the door when clearing houses and doing room to room fighting in close quarters.

All of those weapons are made of molecules too! Deadly, deadly molecules...

Seriously, though. What the hell are you guys talking about when you say "molecular blades"? All blades are molecular except maybe things like lightsabers.

I think it's something like a mono-molecule edge or along those lines. Supersharp.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-12, 11:22 PM
Well, like obsidian being used for scalpels because it holds a finer edge.

Note that scalpels are used for cutting soft tissues. They don't use super-sharp obsidian blades for bone saws. Obsidian slices through anything softer than obsidian and shatters against anything harder. That makes it great for cutting people who aren't wearing armor, but not very useful as a weapon otherwise. A mono-molecular blade that sharpens itself would quickly shrink to nothing after being used in a fight with an armored opponent because sharpening means removing parts of the blade to hone its edge. Every time you sharpen a blade, it gets a little smaller.

A useful, mono-molecular blade that sharpens its edge after every solid impact is basically "space magic" like a lightsaber. It's still cool, but let's not pretend it's somehow more "realistic" than a lightsaber.

hifidelity2
2015-11-13, 05:15 AM
You'd be surprised how many people have at least a couple routine tasks they can't perform - driving, navigating basic social encounters and computer use are among the most common.


Indeed. I, for example, can't cook to save my life, and made it to my late 20s before I obtained any sort of minimal skill at social interaction.

However, do we really need our RPGs to simulate "realism" to that degree? Just because people exist who do not possess certain skills that one might consider an everyday baseline does not, in my opinion, mean that RPG characters need to be capable of failing simple routine tasks in order to simulate this. Someone who can't back a car down a driveway without plowing into a wall, or can't heat up a can of soup without starting a fire, is an edge case, and I don't think characters should have to make checks, let alone waste character creation resources, to model simple everyday behaviors.



I disagree e using character point. I run GURPs. If you want to know the basics of driving a car then put 1/2 a point in it. I will not make you roll to nip down to the shops. IF you have no points in it then you have never driven a car - you can roll at -ves to try and drive the car and if its an automtic on a clear road and you are not hurrying then you will probably make it

I (generally) allow at the end of character creation the PC's to have an extra 4 points for hobbies / mundane skills with a proviso that it cant be to useful (so no 4 points in judo as a hobby - as DM if have final veto on these points ) at the start - although I had a PC who took 1 point in parachuting as a hobby and later on was the only one who had an idea as to what to do when they were in a plane and had to jump out with parachutes (they survived)

Brother Oni
2015-11-13, 05:42 AM
The British, French, and US (and probably many others) are still using bayonets. Many American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carried tomahawks too because they found it to be a useful weapon for the first guy through the door when clearing houses and doing room to room fighting in close quarters.

Sticking a bayonet on a rifle turns it into a short spear rather than a sword, but I concede the point. :smalltongue:

I wasn't aware they actually used the tomahawk for actual combat outside of an emergency and it was more a generic tool, much like the khukri.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-13, 07:09 AM
Xuc Xac: Oh, I'm not saying that self-sharpening blades are realistic. I mean, they only exist: http://www.google.com/patents/US6105261

You see them in fancy paper cutters.... And no, the blade does not disappear if you use the paper cutter a dozen times. A molecular blade will have more molecules shaved off from contact and sharpening. I figure you'll lose blade in the range of microns with use, but I'd have to see the design to be sure.

Also, obsidian is hard. That's why it holds a fine edge, and that in conjunction with it having no elasticity is why it is brittle. So, for it to not cut hard things, you'd need something harder than steel (like obsidian). Which is why obsidian blades were famously noted to cut through Spanish steel during Cortez's campaign in South America. They're the reason people are interested in molecular blades, as a good obsidian scalpel is a few nanometres thick.

Hawkstar
2015-11-13, 09:25 AM
I disagree e using character point. I run GURPs. If you want to know the basics of driving a car then put 1/2 a point in it. I will not make you roll to nip down to the shops. IF you have no points in it then you have never driven a car - you can roll at -ves to try and drive the car and if its an automtic on a clear road and you are not hurrying then you will probably make it.
In GURPS and similar systems, you're better using Flaws for things that are the social equivalent of illiteracy... because that's what they are.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-13, 09:31 AM
Katanas were famously noted to cut through machine gun barrels. I'm fairly sure that didn't happen either.

If you want to test it for yourself, there's a simple experiment you can do in your kitchen. Break a glass bottle and try to use it to cut through a steel knife. You won't succeed.

That's what obsidian is. It's glass. Naturally occurring volcanic glass. The fact that it's produced naturally in a volcano might make it magically superior (i.e. easier to enchant in a fantasy setting) but it's probably softer than the purer silica glass in a bottle or drinking cup in your kitchen.

The hardest obsidian and the softest steel used in cutting blades actually overlap a bit on the hardness scale, so with luck, a given piece of obsidian might be harder than a particular sword. However, the sword will be much more flexible and able to withstand a blow. If they meet violently, the steel blade might get nicked (no worse than hitting the edge of another steel sword) but the obsidian one will shatter (just like hitting another obsidian sword). The steel one can be resharpened. The obsidian one will have to be replaced.

Metal can be sharpened by grinding down the rough spots on the edge. It's malleable so you can do that without destroying the rest of the blade. You can't do that with obsidian. Sharpening obsidian involves shattering it at just the right angle to chip off some flakes with a sharp edge. Unfortunately, it breaks in unpredictable curves called conchoidal fracturing, which is why obsidian (and flint) blades always have a wavy serrated edge. With a metal blade, you can shave off a very fine layer at a time. You could even take off one layer of atoms at a time if you had fine enough sandpaper and were willing to spend that kind of time on it. With a glass blade, you have to shatter another chip or several off the sides. There are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube if you want to see flint and obsidian knapping in action (and even more about sharpening knives and swords if you want to compare).

BlacKnight
2015-11-13, 09:33 AM
I'm...not sure where you get this idea. First off, not only is it possible for a guy with a knife to charge a guy with a gun, but we're talking about close-quarters fighting on a space ship. Yes, it's very hazardous to take on a ranged weapon with a melee weapon, and the more distance you have to close, the worse it gets. But that doesn't make it impossible.

Secondly, this is a space ship. Corridors intersect, blind spots abound. Come at them when they are trying to round a corner, and suddenly it's a melee fight: their ranged weapon at melee range, and your knife/sword/whatever at similar range. It's not like every fight starts at 100 ft. or more away in a space ship where encounter distance might be 10 ft. or less.

Thirdly, the invading force probably COULD survive depressurization of the hull if they're in armor; it's probably sealed. So all you're doing is spitefully denying them easy use of the ship later, at the cost of your own and your crewmates' lives. Better to at least TRY to fight in a way that keeps you alive and in control of the ship.

Ok, so we are talking about a starship and not a big space station.
The first question I ask is: how can the enemy enter the ship without being noticed ? If this is a boarding action, the pirates can simply threaten the crew with their ship weapons. So non need of boarding.
Or maybe we are talking about terrorist that somehow manages to hide their armors (?) aboard a passenger ship ?
But if this is the case they will have hostages, that makes melee combat a little hard (how can you kill the terrorist in the middle of the hostages group ? Crossing the entire room to reach and stab him ?)
But the main problem I see is: if combat aboard starships is common, why the critical areas aren't protected ?

Maybe I'm misundertanding what you mean, so can you make an example about a fight inside a starship ? How the hostiles enter the ship ? What is their goal ?




Again, combat knives ARE, and many modern ones are effectively at least short swords.

Military knives have limited uses in fight. You can use them for stealth kills, if you are out of ammo and... What other ?
I'm not saying that knives should disappear in a sci-fi setting. I'm saying that they can't be a primary weapon.


I'm really not following you, here. You seem to be arguing something entirely unrelated to what I think we're discussing.

I don't remember if you are the guy who pulled out the zero-g argument.
Short story: zero-g makes movements harder, that helps the guy that can shoot, not the guy that have to close the distance.





I'm afraid I don't understand this statement.

To justify melee you need a weapon with properties that a ranged weapon can't have. So you can model your defence to require that property to be pierced.
For example if people can make magic shields and magic weapons are only melee because magic doesn't work without a direct contact between you and the item...


When did I say the lasers would stop the darts?

If the lasers can't stop the darts and the darts can pierce the armor... you can't close distances.
If lasers can stop the darts they can also fry the swords (they are made of the same material of the darts)
If lasers can stop the darts, but the darts can't pierce the armor... how can the swords be useful against armor ?




In the clip, sound still penetrates, although it's distorted, indicating that air can still pass through. However I'm wondering where you got this 500 m/s value from and how you're reasoning that air molecules have enough energy and/or mass to trigger the proximity sensor (even if it did, you could just raise the sensitivity threshold until still air stopped triggering it).

500 m/s is the root-mean-square speed of air with normal temperature and pression.
I've never been very careful during physics lessons, but it should be the medium speed of the particles in a gas.

If the shield is unable to block single particles it can't block: shock waves, lightnings, particle beams and heat shocks.
It can't even block water jets, poisonous gases and probably other things.


I think you're making the mistake of assuming all future settings have equal technology advancement. As mentioned earlier, the Dune universe neither has massively micronised energy sources or advanced computers (such as the FCS computer required to run your point defence system), so bladed weapons do make sense in that universe.

I undestand the reasoning, but if this is taken to the extreme it become ridicolous.
No super batteries ? Ok
No AI smarter than men ? Ok
No AI similar to those we have today ? This novel is fantasy, not sci-fi.


As for close quarters combat, 21 feet is the minimum distance required to draw your weapon, put two rounds COM and get out of the way in time. I believe the FBI's current recommendation to their agents is 30 feet.
While there are ways of reducing this reaction gap (have your weapon out and ready to acquire a target, defensive shoot techniques, etc), having a long arms in spaces less than 10 feet is not ideal..

I don't see the point of the video. Sure you can take the enemy by surprise, but his doesn't make the knife preferabale to the gun. And a handguns doens't require more space than a knife.



During WW1, swords were issued to some ANZAC forces who were still cavalry mounted, and various short bladed stabbing implements were commonplace in trench raids. The British Army did actually issue a gladius-like short sword for trench warfare, but it was found to be too cumbersome.

Ghurkas carry a khukri, which aren't too far off a small sword.

Melee weapons had some uses during WW1 because they hadn't tought about trenches. But later the SMG was invented.


While I'm generally all for realism, assuming that all technology will advance in the same way is also not very realistic, neither is assuming that all cultures will advance equally. There was a short story where modern day Earth was invaded by aliens and everybody was quaking in their boots, until the aliens started launching attacks with black powder weapons. In that setting, anti-gravity was generally discovered very early on by most cultures except on Earth for some reason (I forget whether the raw materials required didn't occur in our solar system or we just didn't think of it), so when the aliens were defeated in short order, and as we gleefully took apart their ships to reverse engineer their technology, the alien leader suddenly realised that they had unleashed humanity on the rest of the universe.

Until comparatively recently, the various native populations of North America were still in the technology equivalent of the Stone Age, whereas Europeans had gunpowder weapons. In the 19th Century, during the Anglo-Satsuma War, British ships shelled Kagoshima with modern guns armed with exploding shells, while the samurai only had cannon firing solid shot.

I don't see the point. Guys who don't have guns use what they have ? It's obvious. But if they have guns... why use knives (except for stealth) ?




First of all: Effective laser weapons being bulky does not require batteries "worse than today". Power consumption is the main barrier to laser weapons, the other being atmospheric diffraction.

Second of all: Without going into detail, the Dune method of FTL transit is poorly understood in universe, and is much closer to psychic powers then it is an application of understood scientific principles.

You are right, I was thinking more about military applications and less about self defense.
Still the availability of WMD it's a problem. If the raiders rob the town continuously, anybody with a shield and a laser can nuke their haunt.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-13, 10:04 AM
Xuc Xac: I've heard it on authority from a historian that the account pan out. They commented the macuahuitl couldn't cut through steel plate, because the wielders weren't strong enough. A good atlatl, on the other hand.... If you want, I can ask the historian to comment again on the effectiveness of obsidian blades.

Umm.... no, glass does not have the cutting properties of obsidian. Getting it to form a continuous edge is pretty difficult. Otherwise doctors everywhere would be using glass scalpels and we wouldn't need obsidian ones (which are fairly expensive).

Yes... a large obsidian blade would shatter, and this is why no one would make a conventional sword out of obsidian. The closest is the macuahuitl. Did you think a self-sharpening molecular blade would be a conventional sword shaped out of obsidian?



Black Knight: I still don't know how you statement argues with anything I've stated.

I commented about the problem of the darts already. And it had nothing to do with lasers. Go back and read the response.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-13, 10:37 AM
Umm.... no, glass does not have the cutting properties of obsidian. Getting it to form a continuous edge is pretty difficult. Otherwise doctors everywhere would be using glass scalpels and we wouldn't need obsidian ones (which are fairly expensive).

Yes... a large obsidian blade would shatter, and this is why no one would make a conventional sword out of obsidian. The closest is the macuahuitl. Did you think a self-sharpening molecular blade would be a conventional sword shaped out of obsidian?

3 minutes of Google: Those obsidian scalpels have blades less than a centimetre long. They cost 82 US dollars. Most of the cost comes from the fact that they are a specialty item made by hand. They are offered as a cheap alternative to diamond blades that cost several hundred dollars. They are mostly used in procedures where metal traces can't be left behind because the glass is inert. Doctors are warned that the blades are too fragile to exert any lateral pressure during cutting.

I already told you that a "self sharpening molecular blade" is basically space magic. There's no current material with the necessary properties to make such a thing, nor are there any theorised potential materials that could have those properties. It's certainly a cool science-fantasy weapon but it is not in the realm of "not currently possible but with future developments of carbon nanotubes..." It's well into "unobtainium" or "psychic space crystals" territory.

Drynwyn
2015-11-13, 10:39 AM
Still the availability of WMD it's a problem. If the raiders rob the town continuously, anybody with a shield and a laser can nuke their haunt.

In Dune, a lasgun is a REALLY expensive and REALLY heavily regulated device-not "military grade weapon" expensive, more like "stealth bomber" expensive. It's like saying "Anyone with a tactical nuke can just nuke the bandit camp!"

They're also capable of shooting through essentially anything that ISN'T a shield, IIRC.

braveheart
2015-11-13, 10:53 AM
Do: whatever you and your playgroup find fun and entertaining

Don't: force yourself to be realistic if it detracts from your groups enjoyment of the game, or the flavor of your world

JoeJ
2015-11-13, 11:17 AM
I undestand the reasoning, but if this is taken to the extreme it become ridicolous.
No super batteries ? Ok
No AI smarter than men ? Ok
No AI similar to those we have today ? This novel is fantasy, not sci-fi.

"Thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of the human mind." They had the technical ability to build AIs in Dune, but they were forbidden for religious reasons to do so. Before the Butlerian Jihad they had used them, however. (Otherwise nobody would have been able to navigate interstellar space to reach Arrakis and discover the spice in the first place.)

Mr. Mask
2015-11-13, 11:24 AM
3 minutes of Google: Those obsidian scalpels have blades less than a centimetre long. They cost 82 US dollars. Most of the cost comes from the fact that they are a specialty item made by hand. They are offered as a cheap alternative to diamond blades that cost several hundred dollars. They are mostly used in procedures where metal traces can't be left behind because the glass is inert. Doctors are warned that the blades are too fragile to exert any lateral pressure during cutting.

I already told you that a "self sharpening molecular blade" is basically space magic. There's no current material with the necessary properties to make such a thing, nor are there any theorised potential materials that could have those properties. It's certainly a cool science-fantasy weapon but it is not in the realm of "not currently possible but with future developments of carbon nanotubes..." It's well into "unobtainium" or "psychic space crystals" territory. Umm... that's 82 dollars not for a knife, but for essentially one use. 82 dollars for every time you want to use one is not cheap, even if it's cheaper than diamond ones. If you could make a comparable glass one, then you could buy two hundred of them for a hundred bucks, and use them whenever is convenient, let the kids do tests with them whenever they want. Actually, that mightn't be a wise idea--to heck with no lateral pressure, those things will take off your hand if you're not careful. Sure, it'll break in the process, even from cutting bone... but it'll take your hand off while it does so.

You apparently weren't aware of obsidian scalpels or that self-sharpening blades existed when you said as much, and were under the impression accounts of obsidian's cutting power were comparable to legends of the katana. It's amusing you say this technology isn't like all the "plausible" ones based off the hopeful rise of carbon-nanotubes, when the half-nanometre carbon nanotubes are one of the methods discussed for making an atomic blade. Whether it's plausible is about as questionable as other nanotube-based dream-tank tech. And of course, unlike all the tank-dreams which involve doing stuff that isn't possible now, self-sharpening blades and molecular edges are things we do have today.

FlumphPaladin
2015-11-13, 11:28 AM
DO make all your metal items using this superior katana creating technology. You deserve the best!

On a serious note.

DON'T give your players the ability to name their ship whatever they want. Everybody will be laughing too much to come up with a better name than 'Rimhopper'. Their next ship will get a more ridiculous name, like the 'On Top'.

I had a d20 Modern character named Arnold Rimmer once, in honor of Red Dwarf.

First IC response to introduction: "Rimmer? That sounds like a buttlicker name to me!"

JoeJ
2015-11-13, 12:00 PM
Do: Set your game in a real life location, great resources already exist

Don't: set your game anywhere your players are familiar with. (did the above with Lawrence KS and had a player who knew the streets intimately.)

Caveat: Unless you're also very familiar with the place. I once ran a superhero campaign set in the greater Los Angeles area, where we all lived. I found it was incredibly easy for me to fill in details of whatever the PCs were seeing and hearing, where businesses were located, what kinds of people were encountered, etc. Even if I didn't know exactly what was on a particular street corner I could easily make up something plausible during play. The next time I run a supers game, or anything else modern, I'll probably do the same thing again.

BlacKnight
2015-11-13, 12:18 PM
Black Knight: I still don't know how you statement argues with anything I've stated.

I commented about the problem of the darts already. And it had nothing to do with lasers. Go back and read the response.

Do you mean the self-sharpening blade ?
I don't know how can you sharp a blade in the middle of a duel, so can you explain what do you mean ? And if you have a technology that sharp your sword, why can't it sharp your darts ?



In Dune, a lasgun is a REALLY expensive and REALLY heavily regulated device-not "military grade weapon" expensive, more like "stealth bomber" expensive. It's like saying "Anyone with a tactical nuke can just nuke the bandit camp!"

They're also capable of shooting through essentially anything that ISN'T a shield, IIRC.

Ok, but this is not realistic. At this point you can simply say: "laser weapons are never invented".
Or also: "firearms are never invented" and avoid the entire shield problem.

To be clear: making those decisions doesn't make a bad setting.
But it doesn't make even a realistic setting.



"Thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of the human mind." They had the technical ability to build AIs in Dune, but they were forbidden for religious reasons to do so. Before the Butlerian Jihad they had used them, however. (Otherwise nobody would have been able to navigate interstellar space to reach Arrakis and discover the spice in the first place.)

Here as above. Removing all AI from an advanced civilization is basically impossible.

JoeJ
2015-11-13, 12:31 PM
Here as above. Removing all AI from an advanced civilization is basically impossible.

How could anyone possibly know that?

Mr. Mask
2015-11-13, 12:35 PM
Black Knight: Well, mostly because the system for continuously sharpening the darts is probably going to be fairly bulky in any way I can figure it. Shooting it out of a gun seems very questionable, so you'd basically only have atomic-edged darts whose penetration is questionable (as it seems liable to lose its edge before it cuts deep enough into layered power armour).

Roxxy
2015-11-13, 03:38 PM
I do assume that a player with no skillpoints in drive does not know how to drive a car. However, I established at only one third of people in the Republic of Vendalia have a car. Not knowing how to dri e is very common.

Segev
2015-11-13, 04:58 PM
Even on a space station, the analog to urban fighting will be magnified, not diminished, in terms of how often close-range and ambush situations arise.

As for how attackers can get the jump on you? You're all moving at ludicrous speeds. If your setting has easy-to-don armor or you lack sufficient acceleration technology to quickly spring up and match velocities with a target, then no, it's unlikely that anybody will be caught by surprise and unable to don armor. But if either of those things is false, or cloaking tech is a thing, then sneaking up and ambushing is a very real possibility.

There's ALSO an argument to be made as to how expensive the armor is vs. how expensive the weapons are. If it's too costly, then only those actively planning boarding actions will have the armor. If the weapons are not too costly, then people will have more of those. Heck, if both sides want the ship usable afterwards, even WITH armor the melee weapons are preferable. If both armor and weapons are pricey, then it is possible that many crewmen won't be armed for repelling boarders, but at the same time, boarders will not number as high as "all crewmen." So armored security will fight armored boarders, using melee weapons because they don't want to hole the ship and kill the un-armored crew.

Brother Oni
2015-11-13, 08:44 PM
500 m/s is the root-mean-square speed of air with normal temperature and pression.
I've never been very careful during physics lessons, but it should be the medium speed of the particles in a gas.

If the shield is unable to block single particles it can't block: shock waves, lightnings, particle beams and heat shocks.
It can't even block water jets, poisonous gases and probably other things.


Now I see we're arguing about two different things - I thought you were quibbling the proximity trigger rather than the shield's effectiveness.

By the way, 500 m/s is ~1800 km/h and I'm not experiencing super hurricane force winds while I'm typing this, so it's disingenuous to take standard air pressure as 500 m/s velocity air for the purposes of this conversation..



No AI similar to those we have today ? This novel is fantasy, not sci-fi.


Why? You've mentioned this repeatedly, but why is AI a requirement for an advanced civilisation? In any case, the Dune universe has Mentats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentat) to replace some functions of AI.



I don't see the point of the video. Sure you can take the enemy by surprise, but his doesn't make the knife preferabale to the gun. And a handguns doens't require more space than a knife.


It's a demonstration of the distances where a bladed weapon is more effective than a gun. A significant proportion of combat in urban environments are typically conducted in rooms and corridors are less than 21 feet across, so in conditions that mimic this (boarding actions for example), combined with other issues like no acceptable collateral damage, is it so hard to believe that a setting would have melee weapons in conjunction with ranged weapons?


I don't see the point. Guys who don't have guns use what they have ? It's obvious. But if they have guns... why use knives (except for stealth) ?

Demonstration of asymmetric warfare and technology advancement.

As mentioned earlier, bayonet charges are still used even today (link (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bayonet-charge-foils-enemy-ambush)), thus even though we have guns, we still use knives (or rather short spears). The point is, melee weapons are a supplement for ranged weapons, not the sole armament.
What happens if you need to reload and there's an enemy in the room? Do you try and reload and fire or engage them with what you have? I know some soldiers who could reload their M4 in ~4 seconds but at that distance, it's not quick enough, thus why soldiers (or at least British Army doctrine) tend to fix bayonets when they know they're going to be in a CQB situation.

Gnoman
2015-11-13, 09:19 PM
Xuc Xac: I've heard it on authority from a historian that the account pan out. They commented the macuahuitl couldn't cut through steel plate, because the wielders weren't strong enough. A good atlatl, on the other hand.... If you want, I can ask the historian to comment again on the effectiveness of obsidian blades.


An Atl-Atl (which completely tops out in power to an average bow or crossbow) wouldn't be able to punch though Spanish-level steel plate with any kind of tip, let alone an obsidian one, which will shatter on contact. Spanish reports of the macuahuitl describes them as "cutting like Toledo steel" against unarmored horses and decapitating men in single swings (note that even the most heavy Spanish armor of the period did not cover the neck), but none suggest that it cut through armor, which is a physical impossibility.

Cluedrew
2015-11-13, 09:29 PM
Well this thread had basically transformed into "do melee weapons make sense in the future". I'm OK with that.


If you are in zero gravity you need to be clinging to a surface. Otherwise you can't even deal a blow with a sword.
When you "jump" from one surface to the other with a handgun you can at least shoot in any direction. With a sword you can't even hit in a different direction that which you are going.Back up for a second. Did I say swords? ... Shoot did I say swords? I can't remember now. If I did I take it back. Melee weapons means a lot more than swords. Someone mentioned a halberd with an adjustable staff, go with that and add hook or magnet and suddenly it becomes a very useful tool for maneuvering. And in hand to hand to combat you could literally hold onto your opponent.


Removing all AI from an advanced civilization is basically impossible.Yes I agree. Also the earliest computers were clay tablets. Its not the existence of a decision making technology that is the issue, but its power. If removing AIs over a threshold is the problem is more doable, particularly as that threshold rises.

My last point is I think we should separate "are melee weapons used in this setting" from "are melee weapons the primary type of weapons in this setting". Even if they are not all round as good as range weapons they still have there place and so most professional combatants will pack one on the side, even if they reach for their gun first.

In fact one of my favourite futuristic fighters, who has been going through me head during this thread, does get into 0G Kung Fu matches (both as sport and in combat situations) but most of the time, BANG!, shoot them with a gun and get behind cover.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-14, 12:36 AM
An Atl-Atl (which completely tops out in power to an average bow or crossbow) wouldn't be able to punch though Spanish-level steel plate with any kind of tip, let alone an obsidian one, which will shatter on contact. Spanish reports of the macuahuitl describes them as "cutting like Toledo steel" against unarmored horses and decapitating men in single swings (note that even the most heavy Spanish armor of the period did not cover the neck), but none suggest that it cut through armor, which is a physical impossibility. Captain Bernal Díaz del Castillo mentioned an armour test he did, in the same records that mention the case of the horse you mention. In the test, the arrow punctures the breastplate.

You should try an atlatl sometime. A proper atlatl does NOT have force equivalent to an "average" bow. Military atlatl (not a toy for target practice) is monstrous. They compare with heavy crossbow bolts for stopping power.

VoxRationis
2015-11-14, 01:18 AM
Military atlatl (not a toy for target practice) is monstrous. They compare with heavy crossbow bolts for stopping power.

How does a military atlatl differ from one used for target practice? Aren't they both just rigid arm-extension mechanisms? Is the military atlatl longer, and if so, wouldn't that throw off targeting for one who has practiced with a shorter device?

Mr. Mask
2015-11-14, 01:55 AM
Same way you get different kinds of bows and slings. And yeah, Mayan warriors would practice with military atlatls.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-14, 02:16 AM
Umm... that's 82 dollars not for a knife, but for essentially one use. 82 dollars for every time you want to use one is not cheap, even if it's cheaper than diamond ones. If you could make a comparable glass one, then you could buy two hundred of them for a hundred bucks, and use them whenever is convenient, let the kids do tests with them whenever they want. Actually, that mightn't be a wise idea--to heck with no lateral pressure, those things will take off your hand if you're not careful. Sure, it'll break in the process, even from cutting bone... but it'll take your hand off while it does so.


5 seconds on Google: Obsidian costs about 2 dollars a pound for blade quality material. That 82 dollar price tag is about 3 cents in materials (a flake of obsidian for the blade and a little wooden dowel for the handle) and $81.97 in labor, shipping, and specialty premium markup. They absolutely will not "take your hand off" but you can cut yourself with it if you're not careful. On the contrary, taking off a hand would require being very careful because it would take a lot of careful slicing to do it. The blade isn't long enough to cut very deeply with one stroke and it can't cut through bone, so you'd have to slowly work your way through the wrist and between the bones. It would take a long time. They don't use little scalpels for amputations and it's not because scalpels aren't sharp enough.

I don't know if you're being hyperbolic or if you're just grossly under-informed about physics and materials science (and economics and marketing for that matter). Either way, your statements are really inaccurate. I don't want to to get into waving my nerd wang too much here, but I've got a degree in this stuff and I spent several years as the manager of a materials testing lab so I've seen it first hand several thousand times. I know a thing or two about the strengths and weaknesses of stones, metals, glasses, and soils. And more than I ever cared to know about concrete and mud.



You apparently weren't aware of obsidian scalpels or that self-sharpening blades existed when you said as much, and were under the impression accounts of obsidian's cutting power were comparable to legends of the katana.

I mentioned the katana because you said an obsidian blade could cut through steel armor, which I think is just as ridiculous as the katana cutting through a machine gun (or a scalpel of any sharpness "taking a hand off"). I'm sure a powerfully swung macahuitl could break a steel sword if they collided at the right angle. It's just like smashing it with a cricket bat: the obsidian flakes in the edge are incidental at that point. I'm well aware of the existence of obsidian scalpels. I first heard of them about 20 years ago (1992 to be exact). I'm also well aware of self-sharpening metal blades. Unfortunately, real physics doesn't work like D&D. You can't just take the "Self-Sharpening" +1 bonus weapon enchantment and apply it to any weapon made of any material. It works with metal but it doesn't work with ceramic or other non-metallic blades because they aren't sharpened the same way. Self-sharpening folding blades just have a sharpener set into their handles so it gets a honing stroke every time it's opened or closed. I've also heard of some fixed blade knives that have a sharpening stone set into their sheaths at the proper angle to do the same thing every time it's drawn or sheathed. That only works on blade materials that can be honed (i.e. metals).



And of course, unlike all the tank-dreams which involve doing stuff that isn't possible now, self-sharpening blades and molecular edges are things we do have today.

Yes, we have self-sharpening blades and monomolecular edges today. They can't be combined because they work on different principles. This is like saying "We have wires that transmit electricity and pipes that transmit water today. We also have induction chargers that transmit electricity wirelessly across short distances. Why can't we transmit water without pipes? A shower head that can spray water without a hose attached to it seems totally plausible!"

BlacKnight
2015-11-14, 06:04 AM
How could anyone possibly know that?

If you find a justification for it I can believe you.
The Butlerian Jihad is a weak justification.



Black Knight: Well, mostly because the system for continuously sharpening the darts is probably going to be fairly bulky in any way I can figure it. Shooting it out of a gun seems very questionable, so you'd basically only have atomic-edged darts whose penetration is questionable (as it seems liable to lose its edge before it cuts deep enough into layered power armour).

I'm not an expert of sel-sharpening blades. I know paper cutters and knives with a sharpening scabbard. None of this can work for a sword. What do you mena for "system that continuosly sharp the blade" ?
How can you sharp your blade while it is cutting the armor ?


Even on a space station, the analog to urban fighting will be magnified, not diminished, in terms of how often close-range and ambush situations arise.

And what weapons are mostly used in close quarter fights ? SWAT use SMG's


As for how attackers can get the jump on you? You're all moving at ludicrous speeds. If your setting has easy-to-don armor or you lack sufficient acceleration technology to quickly spring up and match velocities with a target, then no, it's unlikely that anybody will be caught by surprise and unable to don armor. But if either of those things is false, or cloaking tech is a thing, then sneaking up and ambushing is a very real possibility.

If acceleration technology (you mean jet-packs ?) is a thing both sides will have it. So the gunslingers can mantain the distance.
If cloaking is a thing why don't you shoot while cloaked ?

Still I don't see an example scenario.
Situations I can forecast:
-you have to kill some targets and you can go next to them (because it's a checkpoint, there is a near corner, you have cloaking ect.). Why use knives ? You can surprise them, so a gun is as helpful as a knife.
-you have to reach some place, fighting along the way. What the guards will do when the alarm sounds ? They will stand around the corners, ready to shoot. When the intruders come in sight... they will have to cross the space (at least 3 meters) before the guards pull the trigger... not easy as surprising the checkpoint guys.



There's ALSO an argument to be made as to how expensive the armor is vs. how expensive the weapons are. If it's too costly, then only those actively planning boarding actions will have the armor. If the weapons are not too costly, then people will have more of those. Heck, if both sides want the ship usable afterwards, even WITH armor the melee weapons are preferable. If both armor and weapons are pricey, then it is possible that many crewmen won't be armed for repelling boarders, but at the same time, boarders will not number as high as "all crewmen." So armored security will fight armored boarders, using melee weapons because they don't want to hole the ship and kill the un-armored crew.

First you need a justification for boarding actions. Why would the aggressors board instead of threaten to destroy the target ship ? Yes, they want the ship intact, but if the boarding action fails... they would destroy the ship anyway. So the target ship can choose between:
-surrender immediately and hope
-resist to the boarding: they win, but the pirates destroy the ship for revenge
-resist to the boarding: they lose and they die.

It seems to me that the first choice is the better.


If instead we are talking of a big space town where you can sneak inside:
-it seems really strange to me that the critical areas aren't protected with better armor than personal armor.
-holes in some sectors can cause civilians deaths, but not blowing up the entire station.

The only way to have melee weapons work is:
-a big space station with a lot of people that comes and goes
-the station design is projected to kill claustrophobic people (and everybody who isn't a submariner)
-the station is full of critical systems without protection, despite the flow of people
-the station doesn't have compartmentalized, despite being a town in space.





Now I see we're arguing about two different things - I thought you were quibbling the proximity trigger rather than the shield's effectiveness.

By the way, 500 m/s is ~1800 km/h and I'm not experiencing super hurricane force winds while I'm typing this, so it's disingenuous to take standard air pressure as 500 m/s velocity air for the purposes of this conversation..

Air molecules doesn't move together like a single body, (and they don't move in the same direction) so they don't have effects on big bodies (but the casual movements of air molecules makes winds).

Pressure is another thing. And, by the way, medium atmospheric pressure is 1.03 kg for square centimeter, but we aren't crushed by the atmosphere ! This to say that common experience could be misleading about such arguments.

Back to topic, can the shield block single particles ?
In the novels there are references about flamethrowers or gases ?
There are some clues about the mass and the speed that the shield can block ?


Why? You've mentioned this repeatedly, but why is AI a requirement for an advanced civilisation? In any case, the Dune universe has to replace some functions of AI.

More than being a requirement, it's something that exist today. It can disappear only if replaced by something better.

This comes out from some justifications for melee weapons that assume technology worse than today.
They don't work, because technologies are linked. If electrical circuits are a thing, computers will be invented sooner or later.


It's a demonstration of the distances where a bladed weapon is more effective than a gun. A significant proportion of combat in urban environments are typically conducted in rooms and corridors are less than 21 feet across, so in conditions that mimic this (boarding actions for example), combined with other issues like no acceptable collateral damage, is it so hard to believe that a setting would have melee weapons in conjunction with ranged weapons?

In the video you posted above the aggressor could have also used a gun. It wouldn't have been less effective.
Counterterrorism operators use SMG's, not blades.


Demonstration of asymmetric warfare and technology advancement.

As mentioned earlier, bayonet charges are still used even today, thus even though we have guns, we still use knives (or rather short spears). The point is, melee weapons are a supplement for ranged weapons, not the sole armament.

I was sure somebody would have cited that episode :smallwink:
That worked because:
-the enemy was really inaccurate (80 meters !)
-the enemy was really undisciplined (they retire when the british closed the distance... why ?)

It was simply an intimidating maneuver. They don't even use their bayonets !
Try do to the same against professional militaries...


What happens if you need to reload and there's an enemy in the room? Do you try and reload and fire or engage them with what you have? I know some soldiers who could reload their M4 in ~4 seconds but at that distance, it's not quick enough, thus why soldiers (or at least British Army doctrine) tend to fix bayonets when they know they're going to be in a CQB situation.

In this situation you would have to use your knife, or your handgun if the distance is enough or there obtacles.
Knives have their uses in fight, but they are limited.
Again I'm not saying that future soldiers won't carry a knife. I'm saying that they would use it in desperate and limited situations (exactly as today).
And they won't use big weapons like swords or warhammers.





Well this thread had basically transformed into "do melee weapons make sense in the future". I'm OK with that.

Back up for a second. Did I say swords? ... Shoot did I say swords? I can't remember now. If I did I take it back. Melee weapons means a lot more than swords. Someone mentioned a halberd with an adjustable staff, go with that and add hook or magnet and suddenly it becomes a very useful tool for maneuvering. And in hand to hand to combat you could literally hold onto your opponent.

Thinking about fighting inside a space station... you can use a harpoon-rifle.
It works like this:
-laser pointer gains the range of the target
-you shoot your harpoon, but the range in which the string unwinds can't be greater than the range obtained with the laser. This prevents overpenetration.
-after the hit the harpoon it's retracted quickly

It can have a secondary mode for movement, which shots a magnet at lower speed.

Cluedrew
2015-11-14, 09:26 AM
There's another idea, you could launch the head of the halberd as a ranged attack or grappling hook. That would probably bring its effective range up to anything you would encounter in a ship.

Actually, especially if attack power outstrips armour, than movement becomes really important as not getting hit is really the only way you can survive. As movement speed increases being an effective combatant at any range becomes more important. So melee weapons or close courters fighting techniques have to be part of a combatant's gear so they don't die the moment someone ends up beside them.

To reiterate I'm not saying that range weapons would be replaced by melee weapons (unless there is some sort of regression of technology) but just that melee weapons will likely to continue to be used along side ranged weapons.

Brother Oni
2015-11-14, 09:34 AM
If you find a justification for it I can believe you.
The Butlerian Jihad is a weak justification.

The Butlerian Jihad was a response to a stop a second Terminator/The Matrix style 'rise of the machines' revolt. The first triggered a (most likely interplanetary) war lasting for 100 years. In light of that, I don't think the prohibition is unwarranted.

Over time, the response has become almost like a religious ideology, so it's easy to see why it persists (I believe board rules prohibit further discussion of this).



Pressure is another thing. And, by the way, medium atmospheric pressure is 1.03 kg for square centimeter, but we aren't crushed by the atmosphere !

We do however lose consciousness in seconds if that pressure is removed: link (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=11b_1363672986&comments=1).



Back to topic, can the shield block single particles ?
In the novels there are references about flamethrowers or gases ?
There are some clues about the mass and the speed that the shield can block ?


I'm not sure on the details as it's been a decade or two since I've read the books, but I don't think they go into the level of detail required for a scientific analysis.



More than being a requirement, it's something that exist today. It can disappear only if replaced by something better.

Again, you haven't started why AI is required for an advanced civilisation, just that it is.

Edit: On reflection, I think there's been an interpretation mis-communication. In the Dune setting, anything smarter than an expert system is prohibited, not that all AI is banned. The title character regular spars against an ancient combat drone which has pre-programmed attack routines, but can also learn attack patterns and develop counter measures or new attack routines. It's noted that the robot is probably near the limit imposed by the Butlerian Jihad and if it wasn't for the robot being hidden away in a Great House, it would likely be destroyed.



I was sure somebody would have cited that episode :smallwink:
That worked because:
-the enemy was really inaccurate (80 meters !)
-the enemy was really undisciplined (they retire when the british closed the distance... why ?)

It was simply an intimidating maneuver. They don't even use their bayonets !
Try do to the same against professional militaries...


Here are some more examples then:
Operation Telic 4, Iraq, 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8016685.stm)
Battle of Mount Tumbledown, Falklands, 1982 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Tumbledown). This one is against a more professional military, although I concede the troop quality argument in light of the then Argentine conscription policies.
I can find more examples references from other militaries if you like.

Accuracy on the range should never be used as an indication of accuracy on the battlefield. It's hard to take your time and shoot when your whole body is shaking from adrenaline and rounds flying past your head.
Bayonet charges are vastly intimidating things and there are cases where the defending troops withdraw rather than take a charge dating all the way back to at least the Napoleonic Wars; incidentally this lead to some absolute stupidity in WW1 where French troops weren't given ammunition so as to force them to charge the enemy in a philosophy called Attaque à outrance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attaque_%C3%A0_outrance), championed by General Foch.



Again I'm not saying that future soldiers won't carry a knife. I'm saying that they would use it in desperate and limited situations (exactly as today).
And they won't use big weapons like swords or warhammers.

Excellent so we are in agreement that melee weapons, or at least knives and bayonets, have their place as an emergency weapon in today's environment?

So suppose we have a setting where defensive technologies are considerably more advanced than offensive technologies, thus rendering long to mid range projectile weapons of limited use. Wouldn't that promote the development of more effective short ranged weapons, of which melee could be one of them?

Raimun
2015-11-14, 09:49 AM
So as threads about RPG do's and don'ts is kind of a thing now, here's my contribution. I'm late to the party, but what the heck? Medieval fantasy tropes are something near and dear to a lot of us, including me. However, what about the tropes in modern or science fiction RPG settings?

Maybe this came to mind because of ThinkMinty's sword thread--

DON'T have your character use a katana. Unless your character is supernaturally quick, they're probably not faster than bullets. There's a good reason why swords started falling out of common use around the 19th century. Also, they don't make your character nearly as cool as you think they do.

Maybe I'm thinking of this is because I've been dealing with car stuff lately--

DON'T have your character purchase a car or personal vehicle of any kind. It will be either stolen, lit on fire, riddled with bullets or wrecked fairly early on. Possibly all of these things. Your group will probably steal one if it's needed anyway.


Ahem. With my best John Cygan-voice:

DO use a sword. The type of the sword doesn't matter. You can do this, if you got any stones. There was no good reason why swords started falling out of common use around the 19th century. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Swords save bullets and they are not as loud guns. They're also the part of the of the way of the true warrior. "A more elegant weapon from a more civilized age.".

DO also carry a gun. Is it too much to ask for both of these things? No.

Even if you don't use a sword? DON'T neglect your close combat skills. That's a serious mistake. Just because they invented these insignificant things, the guns, doesn't mean that close combat doesn't exist anymore. CQC!

Do get a car. They are useful. Doesn't really matter how you do it. Buying is the safe option.

Don't drive an unarmored vehicle into battle. Instead, drive it at the edge of the battleground, then disembark and carry on by foot. This is how you utilize a common vehicle to its fullest in a battle and it's a common tactic among mobile infantry.

goto124
2015-11-14, 10:45 AM
DON'T ask why swords instead of daggers.

Raimun
2015-11-14, 11:05 AM
DON'T ask why swords instead of daggers.

Indeed!

You can't kill everything with a dagger.

Just like no soldier ever carried a derringer as a personal weapon.

BlacKnight
2015-11-14, 01:10 PM
There's another idea, you could launch the head of the halberd as a ranged attack or grappling hook. That would probably bring its effective range up to anything you would encounter in a ship.

Launching the head of the halberd is still slower than a rifle-shooted harpoon.
But I agree that an halberd can be useful. I remember something about hooks that astronauts uses for move inside spacecraft. With an extension system and a retractable blade it can become an multi-purpose tool.


Actually, especially if attack power outstrips armour, than movement becomes really important as not getting hit is really the only way you can survive. As movement speed increases being an effective combatant at any range becomes more important. So melee weapons or close courters fighting techniques have to be part of a combatant's gear so they don't die the moment someone ends up beside them.

If we are talking of fights inside narrow corridors movement will be really limited. You can't dodge. If some men are camping go through could be really hard. The melee aggressors would have to expose themselves. 3-5 meters are few if you have the surprise, not so few if the enemy have the weapons pointed in your direction.

A jungle would be a better environment for melee. You can approach the enemy from every direction.
A spaceship would have a lot of choke points, that heavily favor the ranged defenders.





The Butlerian Jihad was a response to a stop a second Terminator/The Matrix style 'rise of the machines' revolt. The first triggered a (most likely interplanetary) war lasting for 100 years. In light of that, I don't think the prohibition is unwarranted.

Over time, the response has become almost like a religious ideology, so it's easy to see why it persists (I believe board rules prohibit further discussion of this).

Problem is that AI provide too many advantages, in too many fields.
You can't defeat an enemy with AI and industrial production without using these too.
But when you defeat the enemy, your society is completely dependent from these. So you can't erase them.

Take our world. It's possible (for the entire world) to quit technology and come back to middle age ?



We do however lose consciousness in seconds if that pressure is removed:

This makes me wonder if a shield would affect the atmospheric pressure. If it affects the air particles movement it would have some effect, but I do not know to what extent.


I'm not sure on the details as it's been a decade or two since I've read the books, but I don't think they go into the level of detail required for a scientific analysis.

Then we have to speculate. Stopping kinetic energy isn't enough to bring back swords. There are a lot of other means to harm people and the shield have to block all of them.




Here are some more examples then:
This one is against a more professional military, although I concede the troop quality argument in light of the then Argentine conscription policies.
I can find more examples references from other militaries if you like.

Well I would be interested in references of bayonet charges against professional militaries, where as "professional" I mean no conscripts, no guerrillas.
Consider that a lot of "bayonet charges" were actually... charges to the enemy positions, but the bayonet element wasn't essential. All the battles you have cited could have worked without bayonets. Obvioulsy once the distances were closed bayonets were used alongside other weapons... but those actions would have worked without bayonets too.


Accuracy on the range should never be used as an indication of accuracy on the battlefield. It's hard to take your time and shoot when your whole body is shaking from adrenaline and rounds flying past your head.
Bayonet charges are vastly intimidating things and there are cases where the defending troops withdraw rather than take a charge dating all the way back to at least the Napoleonic Wars; incidentally this lead to some absolute stupidity in WW1 where French troops weren't given ammunition so as to force them to charge the enemy in a philosophy called , championed by General Foch.

Again, it's important to make a distinction between the charge and the bayonet use. The charge is tactical maneuver used for closing distances. It doesn't necessarily presuppose the bayonet use. The enemy charged usaully withdraw because:
-you have charged a defensive position. Now that the enemy has lost the defensive advantages it withdraw.
-the enemy is poorly trained and the sight of the enemy is enough to cause a withdraw.

A charge is used to engage the enemy in close distance fight, but close distance doesn't mean melee distance.


Excellent so we are in agreement that melee weapons, or at least knives and bayonets, have their place as an emergency weapon in today's environment?

So suppose we have a setting where defensive technologies are considerably more advanced than offensive technologies, thus rendering long to mid range projectile weapons of limited use. Wouldn't that promote the development of more effective short ranged weapons, of which melee could be one of them?

To make melee weapons more than emergency weapons you need to make ranged weapons ineffective. Or to make them having the same efficiency of XVIII firearms.
What technology can do this ?

The Fury
2015-11-14, 01:32 PM
You can't kill everything with a dagger.


You can if you're Knifey Joe.

raygun goth
2015-11-14, 04:15 PM
You can if you're Knifey Joe.

It's true, statistics say that Knifey Joe can kill within 30 feet, regardless of whatever Bleedy McStabwound is packing, and that's not counting a prison yard rush or getting the drop on someone.

Telok
2015-11-14, 06:06 PM
In a point buy game where you can buy both a wealth attribute and vehicles with character points:

Do make a distinction between stuff bought with wealth and stuff bought with character points.

Do feel free to blow up the cars and stuff the millionaire character buys with wealth.

Don't trash the stuff that people buy with character points.

Explanation: This is one of the common complaints about superhero systems like M&M or Champions, buying a "flashlight" costs character points. The difference here is the expectation in genres. A superhero pays points to buy a power that creates light and calls it a flashlight, it is always on him, it's batteries never suddenly run dry, it works in outer space and at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. If this flashlight is taken away it's part of the plot or story, a move by the villain, or just a temporary setback for dramatic purposes. A superhero can also pay points to be wealthy and just buy a flashlight at the store. This flashlight will not work everywhere, may be left behind by accident, or it's batteries may run out. I can also be broken if the hero is blown up, incinerated, frozen, or punched through a wall. This applies to things like cars and buildings. If they pay character points for it then it's part of the character and you treat it that way, like a arm or leg, or another power that they paid for. If they are a millionaire and spend untracked 'money' that never runs out then whatever they buy is scenery. And scenery explodes.

Mr. Mask
2015-11-14, 11:11 PM
Xuc Xac: "That 82 dollar price tag is about 3 cents in materials (a flake of obsidian for the blade and a little wooden dowel for the handle) and $81.97 in labor, shipping, and specialty premium markup.
[...]or if you're just grossly under-informed about physics and materials science (and economics and marketing for that matter)."

.......Really? Yes, working obsidian into an edge is extremely labour intensive. That is WHY it's expensive. Whereas obsidian itself is dirt cheap--you can get a bunch of it wherever magma has hit water (that's how the Maya had loads of the stuff). But what's most amazing is that you, a materials scientist, apparently believe glass can be sharpened to match obsidian blades, and couldn't see any advantage if glass could be sharpened to that extent (you're also apparently rich, if you consider that cheap).


Scalpels: They won't cut deep? Have you handled a razor? An obsidian scalpel will cut through tendons and arteries like it's pushing through water. Ask a surgeon, and that's how they'll describe what it does to meat (I am basing this off people who have handled them, not five second google searches).


"I mentioned the katana because you said an obsidian blade could cut through steel armor, which I think is just as ridiculous as the katana cutting through a machine gun (or a scalpel of any sharpness "taking a hand off"). I'm sure a powerfully swung macahuitl could break a steel sword if they collided at the right angle. It's just like smashing it with a cricket bat: the obsidian flakes in the edge are incidental at that point."

So, you're a professional materials scientist? If so, you don't know anything about swords. You can't break a sword with a cricket bat or club, not unless it's one of those cheap ones people buy for show. Even steel.... what kind of steel are you thinking of where it'll just break from a six pound club? Stainless steel hardened to the point where you can snap it with your bare hands?

Your understanding of physics is also pretty questionable. How do you think copper and lead bullets defeat steel? Run the numbers on an atlatl (a real one, not the toys which are as strong "as a common bow or crossbow") and see what you find on its penetration power. You might get a result like the engineer who calculated the energy of a sling stone--where he was convinced they were far, far less powerful than in reality (that's the problem with numbers, you miss a variable and it's highly misleading). I also recommend you look up the case in the travelogue of Captain Bernal Díaz del Castillo, or ask someone who actually practices with the atlatl instead of relying on five second google searches.


And yes, I'm well aware as to self-sharpening blades work.... If there was a material perfectly suitable for it, we'd have self-sharpening molecular blades already. That's why the idea is an idea and not a reality, as it depends on material science in the future (based off this conversation, I'm feeling much less hopeful for that). Transmission of water without pipes would be easy... it'd just be terribly inefficient as water vapour moves and is collected much more slowly than electricity (and water is used it pretty large volumes). This should be obvious.

I'm just going to suggest you see for yourself. I'm not sure where you're working presently, but getting an obsidian blade and some meat shouldn't be too hard, and it'll do you a lot better than my opinion or google.


Oh, and here's a quick test for your ability as a materials scientist. What might've happened to make it appear to a soldier that a katana cut a machine gun barrel? Anyone who has worked a metal shop should be able to answer this one.




Black Knight: They don't exist, presently. Like any talk of distant scifi warfare, it's a guess based off current technology and what is theoretically possible.

Xuc Xac
2015-11-16, 12:41 AM
Xuc Xac: "That 82 dollar price tag is about 3 cents in materials (a flake of obsidian for the blade and a little wooden dowel for the handle) and $81.97 in labor, shipping, and specialty premium markup.
.......Really? Yes, working obsidian into an edge is extremely labour intensive. That is WHY it's expensive. Whereas obsidian itself is dirt cheap--you can get a bunch of it wherever magma has hit water (that's how the Maya had loads of the stuff).


If you could make a comparable glass one, then you could buy two hundred of them for a hundred bucks

So, in summary: You claimed that obsidian was 200 times as expensive as glass. I said it was cheap and only expensive because of the labor. You said it's expensive because of the labor and obsidian is dirt cheap, but you said it in a way that makes it look like you're correcting me instead of repeating me.


But what's most amazing is that you, a materials scientist, apparently believe glass can be sharpened to match obsidian blades, and couldn't see any advantage if glass could be sharpened to that extent (you're also apparently rich, if you consider that cheap).

Glass can be sharpened to match obsidian blades because obsidian is glass. Your refusal to acknowledge that fact is equivalent to insisting that champagne isn't wine because it's used at special occasions. And how much money I have is irrelevant. The important thing is that 82 dollars is much less than 700 dollars. Even someone with no money can see that the 82 dollar scalpel is the cheaper alternative (especially when the supply company that sells it actually lists it as a cheap alternative to their 700 dollar diamond scalpel as one of its selling points). Also, unlike steel blades, glass scalpels aren't disposable. They can be reused several times.

The doctor who started testing these blades was Dr. Don Crabtree. He made them from obsidian, other stones, and commercial glass. Obsidian is better for surgery than commercial glasses because the color makes it easier to see. Colored commercial glass is also available, but it's colored with trace metals that they want to avoid introducing into the wound. You can check the March 1982 issue of the Western Journal of Medicine for more information about these blades.



Scalpels: They won't cut deep? Have you handled a razor? An obsidian scalpel will cut through tendons and arteries like it's pushing through water. Ask a surgeon, and that's how they'll describe what it does to meat (I am basing this off people who have handled them, not five second google searches).


How many surgeons do you know that "took a hand off" with one stroke of a scalpel? When you said it would take your hand off if you weren't careful, did you mean "so careless that you repeatedly slice at your wrist until you work your way completely through it"? I don't think it's possible to be that careless. After the first slice or two, even the most absent-minded person would notice all the blood and realize they were slicing into their wrist. The blade is half a centimeter long. Even if it passes through flesh with no resistance, it couldn't "take your hand off" unless you made multiple cuts and pulled the sides of the wound open after each cut to allow the handle to reach in deeper. Also, remember that they can't cut bone or scrape bone without breaking. Check the medical journal articles about it, like the one I mentioned above.


"I mentioned the katana because you said an obsidian blade could cut through steel armor, which I think is just as ridiculous as the katana cutting through a machine gun (or a scalpel of any sharpness "taking a hand off"). I'm sure a powerfully swung macahuitl could break a steel sword if they collided at the right angle. It's just like smashing it with a cricket bat: the obsidian flakes in the edge are incidental at that point."

So, you're a professional materials scientist? If so, you don't know anything about swords. You can't break a sword with a cricket bat or club, not unless it's one of those cheap ones people buy for show.

Very many tanto and wakizashi were originally made as katana but had new handles put on them when the sword broke. That's how a longer sword can become a shorter sword or knife. That seems to have been less common in Europe because they had better steel, but even until well into the modern period, quality control was unreliable in the steel industry. The conquistadors predate that by about 350 years. They were actually at the dawn of the modern period. A good craftsman who paid a lot of attention to detail could make the steel more uniform but he couldn't match the uniformity we reliably produced after industrialization. Not that it matters, because the conquistadors were armed with munitions grade equipment cranked out in high volume. It's not unlikely that one of the 1000 swords that accompanied Cortes would snap under stress when used to parry a heavy club.


Even steel.... what kind of steel are you thinking of where it'll just break from a six pound club? Stainless steel hardened to the point where you can snap it with your bare hands?


I didn't say it would just break, but the conquistadors' swords had a lot of factors against them. They were munitions grade and made from pre-Modern steel. Odds are good that more than 1 or 2 in a 1000 will have flaws that lead to breakage when hit with a heavy club. They saw a lot of heavy use and steel becomes more brittle after repeated impacts. They also spent several months at sea, which is not generally good for the health of a steel blade. I've seen swords start to rust on the surface after just a day or two if not carefully cleaned and oiled or waxed after getting a bit of sweat on them. I looked up your Captain Diaz. He recommended that Spanish soldiers start wearing quilted cotton for extra protection. I'm sure that wasn't because cotton offers better resistance than steel armor. He never recommended that Spanish forces start using macahuitl instead of steel swords. His accounts seem to focus on explaining that the Aztecs were dangerous fighters but the Spanish won because they were better soldiers.


Run the numbers on an atlatl (a real one, not the toys which are as strong "as a common bow or crossbow") and see what you find on its penetration power.

Does it have to be a True Scottish atlatl?


I also recommend you look up the case in the travelogue of Captain Bernal Díaz del Castillo, or ask someone who actually practices with the atlatl instead of relying on five second google searches.


Here's a video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjV7lYP6hRw) This Atlatl Association seems to be fairly well-practiced. They made some good dents.


I'm just going to suggest you see for yourself. I'm not sure where you're working presently, but getting an obsidian blade and some meat shouldn't be too hard, and it'll do you a lot better than my opinion or google.


I've already said repeatedly that obsidian can cut soft tissue and it does it very well. The problem is that it won't cut steel like you say. Remember to lift with your legs and not your back. Those goalposts can be heavy!


Oh, and here's a quick test for your ability as a materials scientist. What might've happened to make it appear to a soldier that a katana cut a machine gun barrel? Anyone who has worked a metal shop should be able to answer this one.


The machine gun barrel was cut ahead of time with a hacksaw and the katana was only used to knock the barrel loose. It was a propaganda film produced by the Japanese military in WWII. That's why you often can't take historical records at face value. History is written by the victors, but there's no glory in totally stomping an inferior foe. Captain Diaz wrote his accounts of the battles against the Aztecs 30 years after they happened and he only did it after he saw that the other accounts didn't give enough credit to the common soldiers.

His account can basically be summarised as "They were furious warriors and their stuff was just as dangerous as our stuff and they even had us completely outnumbered. We won because we were much more professional soldiers and knew how to maintain discipline and morale. Their captains weren't as organized so they couldn't make use of their superior numbers, which is good because they were total badasses who could have killed us if we weren't so awesome."

I don't think his account is entirely accurate because it was written 30 years after the events in question and he wrote it to make the Spanish soldiers look better. I do think he does have a lot of good points though. He kind of touches on it when he talks about morale and organization but I think he misses the main point. The Spanish and Aztec forces were optimized for different types of warfare (not just combat, but warfare). The Spanish were trained and prepared for a war of conquest (hence the name "conquistador") while the Aztecs were focused on making shows of force and taking prisoners. The Spanish were outnumbered but they were fighting a war of conquest and the Aztecs weren't prepared for that and couldn't adapt their strategy in time.

It's very interesting, but it doesn't change the physical properties of glass and steel. Glass can be many times sharper than steel, but it can't exert enough force to actually cut steel. They both work great against flesh and glass works better because it can slip right between cells and push them aside. Steel isn't made up of cells. It's made up of tightly bound atoms. Glass is sharp, but it's not sharp enough to slip between the iron atoms in a piece of steel. That's why steel is "cut" by tools that remove part of the steel to divide it into sections (like hacksaws or cutting wheels) or by very hard and durable cutting edges that can withstand the pressure to push through the steel (like a stamping press used for cutting steel parts out of sheet metal).

Segev
2015-11-16, 12:03 PM
And what weapons are mostly used in close quarter fights ? SWAT use SMG'sYou mean the SMGs that could hole the hull and vent atmosphere? The defenders, at the least, want to avoid that. Presumably, so do the attackers, since as you pointed out if all they wanted was a destroyed and useless vessel, they could use space-borne weaponry.


If acceleration technology (you mean jet-packs ?) is a thing both sides will have it. So the gunslingers can mantain the distance.Okay. You've misunderstood me so thoroughly that I have to correct one misconception and THEN address another you've introduced based on the first.

1) I was thinking of why, given ships approaching, you wouldn't already have your defenders in their armor by the time the enemy ship arrived. Either ships moving very fast and able to accelerate to match speeds quickly, giving no warning, or cloaking devices seemed reasonable.

2) We're on a ship or a station. Jet packs/acceleration tech aren't going to help you kite so much when the environment is that closed. In fact, they'll often be counterproductive, slamming you bodily into the walls rather than actually helping you maneuver.



If cloaking is a thing why don't you shoot while cloaked ?

Oh, so many options!

There's the Star Trek explanation: cloaking devices are disrupted by weapons fire, so you have to decloak to fire.

There's also the possibility that a cloaking device is imperfect; it works only if you are so far away. This would diminish warning-time, but it wouldn't mean you were invisible all the time.

This being sci-fi, the potential explanations are myriad.


Still I don't see an example scenario.
Situations I can forecast:
-you have to kill some targets and you can go next to them (because it's a checkpoint, there is a near corner, you have cloaking ect.). Why use knives ? You can surprise them, so a gun is as helpful as a knife.You want to prevent the stray shots from puncturing the hull. As I've said repeatedly. Whether because you're the attacker (who seems to be the only one whose perspective you're considering, for some reason) and you want an intact ship with live crew prisoners, or because you're the defender (which, again, you seem to ignore as a valid person to make a choice of weapons to wield) and like breathing.

-you have to reach some place, fighting along the way. What the guards will do when the alarm sounds ? They will stand around the corners, ready to shoot. When the intruders come in sight... they will have to cross the space (at least 3 meters) before the guards pull the trigger... not easy as surprising the checkpoint guys.Again, the defenders don't want to hole the hull with stray shots, so they're wielding melee weapons.




First you need a justification for boarding actions. Why would the aggressors board instead of threaten to destroy the target ship ? Yes, they want the ship intact, but if the boarding action fails... they would destroy the ship anyway. So the target ship can choose between:
-surrender immediately and hope
-resist to the boarding: they win, but the pirates destroy the ship for revenge
-resist to the boarding: they lose and they die.

It seems to me that the first choice is the better.Why do you assume the defending vessel lacks weapons of its own? Boarding actions can be performed to try to take a ship that's actively firing back. And if the pirates are of the "surrender or we hole the hull" variety, it's probably best to scuttle the ship to deny it to them.

You seem to be of the opinion that nobody ever has mutual desire to engage in less than total war. This is provably false with but a cursory examination of human history, with raiders and bandits as well as with siegers of cities.

Or do you believe that boarding actions never happened on the high seas, either? Since the pirates could have just said, "Surrender completely or we sink your ship with our cannons!" clearly that's all they did, and they never had to board an aggressively-defended vessel.