Re: Re: Hw rules for modern firearms

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Thu Sep 16 11:42:17 2010

Benedict Adamson:
> The HW approach is to deliberately abstract EVERYTHING to a target
> number and APs.

Apart from the things that aren't. ;-)

I think it's not so much a Gordian Knot as an unravelly jumper. There's no clear "point of no return" beyond which you ruin HW as a game of ideologically pure conceptual design -- or if there is, published HW is already "beyond" it. For me it seems reasonable enough if you're playing a modern day game with much emphasis on firefights to have some special rules for those, just as "standard" HW, with its emphasis on Iron Age (give or take an aeon either way) magic and religion has special rules for those. It does seem a decent rule of thumb not to make it much _more_ elaborate and "mechanic-y" than those, mind you.

About the first thing you should ask yourself for any "strange" situation, I'd suggest, is "is this simply a sit-mod"? And about the second would be, "is it a non-standard set of contest consequences?". For example, for automatic weapons fire, it's entirely reasonable to for example apply a bonus if you're shooting at a large amorphous target with little discrimation; it might also make sense to interpret a defeat (or a narrow victory, perhaps) not as "oops, missed" as "uh-oh, shot the wrong thing". (More so that is than in some similar situation with less ad hoc gun-play.) If you find yourself in the same types of situation often, it's almost inevitable you're going to have an "idiom" for dealing with them, whether you dignify them with the description "rules" or not. And maybe it's best not to, as it'll get you flamed on this list, and picked apart by your players. ;-)

What ought to be the method of last resort, though, would be introducing entirely different "systems", or creating undue "exceptions" to the existing ones. I think it's over-egging things to say "never do this" (since frankly HW does it to itself, as regards what one might regard as the "core" system), but to do so sparingly and with due reflection as to _why_ you're doing them, and why it's not as well (or better) done by a "standard" system, would seem worthwhile.

Cheers,
Alex.

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