What are your favorite rules for Shotguns?

[DentArthurDent]

I have a player who is very familiar with firearms but likes to bend the rules. A lot.

So, I’m looking for rules that simulate shotguns in a way that is familiar to him, including different gauges and loads, but don’t ignore the short-comings of spreading lead pellets over a potentially large area.

I searched this forum and found Duke Bushido’s discussion and recommendations for websites on a Steampunk thread. These were very helpful for me, but before I started creating rules from scratch I decided to see what was already out there.

 

I figured the most detailed rules would be in the original Twilight2000 book. But there are no rules for pellet spread.

Eventually, I found the rules for Damage Ranges in the Justice, Inc rules. But there is no consideration of pellet size.

We talked about using an Aces&Eights type of silhouette template. But that would mean making different templates for each gauge, pellet size, choke, and distance.

What are your favorite rules for shotguns? Any system. Any genre. 

 

 

Edited June 19 by DentArthurDent

[Stanley Teriaca]

Reduce Penetration on Killing Attacks, Damage Reduced by Range. Area of Effect Cone.

[GDShore]

A couple of things for you. 1. - a shotgun is accurate out to about 30 meters. (Regardles of shot) 2. - the shorter the barrel the faster the spread and shorter the range. 3. - you can repack the shell to increase range and decrease spread. (open shell, pour in a liquid binder, wait untill binder has solidified then close shell, personally I prefer bacon grease but have heard of people using lard, and even parrafin wax. range should increase on a 12 gauge to about 100 meters and spread will be about 10 centimeters) 4. - finally you can get solid shot (or could when I was in my 20's) for most gauge of shotgun, turns the shotgun into a breech loading smoothbore musket, with about the same range and accuracy. (although the reload is lots faster than a muzzle loading musket)

[GDShore]

addendum -- I went and checked my gun charts, officially (dependent on choke) spread of a shotgun fire is approx. 2.5 c per meter, thus at 30 meter would be approx. 75 c. 

[Chris Goodwin]

Danger International pages 54-55 has some rules for shotguns.  I know next to nothing about shotguns so I have no idea how true to life they are.

[Duke Bushido]

In HERO, I tend to build them reduce range and a plus 1 to hit (technically a minus one on the roll, I suppose,but "plus one to hit" is more ingrained in my lexicon than is "plus on OCV to the attacker") _after_ 20" (pre-6e hexes).

 

For birdshot or cut-downs, I often make that reduced range and reduced penetration with a plus 1 after 15" and an addition plus 1 after 25".

 

For any other game, I tend to just use the rules in those games.

 

Movies- and _massively_, video games- seem to have filled the subconscious with the idea that a shotgun is some sort of super-weapon, capable of doing things that it just isn't.  Doom and even Tomb Raider were _huge_ contributors to this, but really, any entertainment where a guy with a machine can't drop the attacker and the hero swoops in with a shot gun that then remove's C'Thulhu's forehead contributes to this, as does any western where a cut-down drops three men with one shot from across a fifteen-foot room.

 

Honestly, if you want game-mechanic accurate stats- as much as scientifically possible given the limita of the game systems, check out Guns! Guns! Guns!, 3g3^2 ("More Guns! Guns! Guns!") or the Armory.  While the systems they represent are way, way out of date, the HERO stats are current all the way through 5e, with the only changes you must now make being doubling the range in hexea.

 

 

[DentArthurDent]

The Danger International rules are the best I’ve found so far. I’ve added Point Blank Range as described in The Armoury. And added rules for how many pellets hit, and possible pellet spread if the attack misses.

 

“Success” and “Successes” are abbreviations for degree of success, 6E1 57.

 

Weapon: pump-action 12 ga. shotgun, 20” open bore barrel, firing 2-3/4” 00 buckshot

— 9 pellets are packed into each round

— The following game stats are only for this particular weapon.

Game Stats: Damage Range is 20 meters. Spread is 0.5 meters.

— The range to the target alters the chance to hit, the possible number of pellets that hit (never to exceed 9), the damage from each pellet, and possible extra Stun damage.

— If the target is beyond 20 m and the attack misses, determine where the shot hit, using 6E2 40, and roll for a possible hit by spreading pellets.

 

+1 OCV to hit and -1/18 m range, just like any comparable rifle

 

0 - 5 m          all pellets hit the same location, doing 3d6-3 RKA and an extra 3d6 Stun

5 - 20 m        2 pellets hit per Success            Each hit does 1d3 RKA and 1d6 Stun           direct line

20 - 40 m      1 pellet hits per Success            Each hit does 1d3 RKA                                  0.5 m spread

     Miss: 1 hit per 2 Successes

40 - 80 m      2 pellets hit per 2 Successes     Each hit does 1d2 RKA                                 1.0 m spread

     Miss: 2 hits per 4 Successes

80 - 160 m    1 pellet hits per 2 Successes      Each hit does 1 point RKA                            2.0 m spread

     Miss: 1 hit per 4 Successes

 

 

At point blank range, all pellets and wadding will hit the same location. The pellets tend to maintain a cylindrical pattern with only about 1/3 of the pellets creating unique penetration paths into the target. If the attacker misses, there is no chance of pellets spreading out and hitting the target.

 

Up to the Damage Range, the pellets hit the same location. Few Successes indicate a grazing hit and not all pellets will hit the target. If not all pellets hit the intended target, roll to hit any other person or object in a direct line with the target. No more than 9 pellets hits are possible. If the attacker misses, there is no chance of pellets spreading out and hitting the target.

 

Up to 2x Damage Range, the pellets have spread out and may hit different locations. If not all pellets hit the intended target, roll to hit any other person or object within 0.5 m of the target. If the attacker misses, roll another attack roll and 1 pellet hits the intended target for every 2 Successes, up to a maximum of 4 pellets.

 

Up to 4x Damage Range, the pellets have spread out and may hit different locations. For every 2 Successes, 2 pellets will hit the intended target (round up). If not all pellets hit the intended target, roll to hit any other person or object within 1.0 m of the target. If the attacker misses, roll another attack roll and 2 pellets hit the intended target for every 4 Successes (round up), up to a maximum of 3 pellets.

 

Up to 8x Danage Range, the pellets have spread out and may hit different locations. For every 2 Successes, 1 pellet will hit the intended target (round up). If not all pellets hit the intended target, roll to hit any other person or object within 2.0 m of the target. If the attacker misses, roll another attack roll and 1 pellet hits the intended target for every 4 Successes (round up), up to a maximum of 2 pellets.

 

 

The next step is to consider different chokes and different barrel lengths. Different chokes and barrel lengths will alter the Damage Range and the pellet spread.

 

Eventually, I will try to pare this down a bit. But right now I’m keeping as much realism as possible.

 

[dmjalund]

I assume point cost will be affected by Damage Range

[DentArthurDent]

I don’t see any point costs in Justice Inc., Espionage, or Danger International. 
 

Danger International uses MPs (Money Points) to buy things but there are no costs, neither dollars nor MPs, listed for weapons.

[Chris Goodwin]

There aren't any.  They're third edition standalone games.  You didn't pay points for firearms; they were "normal equipment" that it was assumed everyone would have reasonable access to.

 

 

My thinking in suggesting them was that someone could look at the rules and more or less eyeball needed Modifiers to build them in modern editions.

[Chris Goodwin]

For Money Point costs, I think it was intended to be 1 MP per Damage Class for weapons, and 1 MP per kilogram of mass for armor.  That doesn't seem to be stated in Danger International anywhere, so it's possible that that was an on-the-fly translation my group at the time made using the similar section from that era's standalone Fantasy Hero game.  (That game had 1 silver piece per DC or kg, and the same point cost for money chart was used in there, with 1 MP = 1 sp and 10 sp to 1 gp.)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I used that FH pricing for years, and then upon studying different armor types, the difficulty of construction and materials, and the cultural pressures, I realized that there's a sliding scale on armor costs and even weapons.  Plate armor weighs more, certainly, but also costs IMMENSELY more than, say, cloth armor.

[GDShore]

Uh, yeah, what we did was to go online and look up prices for various weapons. One of the groups father was a gun nut (the father's desciptor not ours) and had gun mag's and flyer's going back to the late 20's (his father had also been a gun nut and a pack rat) so we had prices for some incredible stuff. What we did was convert cp to money at a rate of 1cp = $1000.00 cad. Made it easy to buy new equipage or replace lost or damaged stuff. Started that with Justice Inc. and continued with Danger International.

[Chris Goodwin]

16 hours ago, GDShore said:

Uh, yeah, what we did was to go online and look up prices for various weapons. One of the groups father was a gun nut (the father's desciptor not ours) and had gun mag's and flyer's going back to the late 20's (his father had also been a gun nut and a pack rat) so we had prices for some incredible stuff. What we did was convert cp to money at a rate of 1cp = $1000.00 cad. Made it easy to buy new equipage or replace lost or damaged stuff. Started that with Justice Inc. and continued with Danger International.

 

I think this was pretty much the expectation back in the day.  When money costs were important in modern day games we used dollars rather than money points, or else we were part of an agency or military and whatever equipment we needed was issued to us.