Little Black Book TRAVELLER
Traveller is my first game that had guns at all.
In Traveller the "M16" would be an assault rifle from Book 4: Mercenary.
Defenders range modifiers are (semi/auto): Close -4/-4, Short +1/+1, Medium -1/+2, Long -2/0, Very Long -4/-3; Wound Inflicted 3D; Defender's Armor: Nothing +2/+4, Jack +2/+4, Mesh -1/+2, Cloth -3/-1, Reflec +2/+4, Ablat 0/+2, Battle -5/-4.
The skill you use it with is Gun Combat, with a specialization in assault rifle. We're going to go with Gun Combat: Assault Rifle - 2 to be consistent with the skill level 12 in GURPS later on.
The basic roll to hit is an 8 or higher on 2d6. The average roll of 2d6 is 7, so you need some modifiers, like your skill, to actually hit on average.
You get +1 for every level of skill you have.
If your Dext is below 5, you get a -1 to hit. If it's 8 or higher you get a +2.
50 yards meters is "Medium" range. -1 to hit with semi-auto fire (one shot per round), +2 to hit with auto (4 shots per round). The magazine holds 30 shots.
If the target is unarmored, +2 to hit with semi, +4 with auto.
If our Gun Combat: Assault Rifle - 2 character with Dext 8 fires on someone at 50m they need a 3 or more (97.22% chance) with semi-auto fire and 2 or more (100% chance) with automatic fire on 2d6. The average damage applied to any stat will render our target unconscious.
But if we're dead average across the board, our Dext is 7. That means we need a 5 or more (83.33% chance) with semi-auto and 2 or more with autofire.
It'll do 3d6 damage when it hits. Each die is applied, randomly to Strength,
Dexterity or Endurance. When one stat is reduced to zero, the victim is
rendered unconscious; two is seriously wounded and all three is dead. Two dice hitting the same stat can end the fight in a single round.
Notice that firing more rounds increases your chance to hit, not the amount of damage done.
All in all, it's pretty straight-forward and simple. There's an unneeded complication with range bands we never bothered learning or using. I remember we changed armor to absorbing damage rather than making it harder to hit, but I don't remember the specifics.
Top Secret
Top Secret is the first game I owned that had an assault rifle called M16 by name.
The M16 is PWV 79, Range modifiers of: PB +5, S -8, M -50, L -160, WS S, Rate 3, Ammo 20, Cost 325, DECP NC, HWV 14.
I remember TS being convoluted in figuring out combat and I did not misremember.
First you need your "Offense Value" this is the average of your Coordination and Courage. You rolled percentiles to get those and the average percentile roll of 55 gets you a score of 65. (65+65)/2=65, so the average Offense is 65.
How much damage you can take is determined by your "Life Level" which is the average of Physical Strength and Willpower. Same average of 65.
Once again, 50 yards is medium range.
To hit you take your Offense Value, add the weapon's PWV (Projectile Weapon Value) subtract the Range Modifier and subtract the penalty for extra shots.
Semi-auto fire is 1 shot per turn, the M16 can fire up to 3 per turn. The second and third shot get -11 and -22. The Top Secret M16 has a 20 round magazine.
That extra shot penalty adds up until you take a round to recover, it can grow to be very severe. It's actually quite GURPS like!
There are other penalties for movement and position we're skipping for now.
So, at 50 yards with our M16 we have 65 + 79 - 50 = 94 or less on percentiles against a standing opponent for our first shot, 83 or less for the second and 72 or less for the third if we fired automatically. On average, all rounds will hit.
That's more like sniping, ain't it.
If we're firing from rice-paddy prone (-5) at a target who's running and dodging (-20)... That drops our chances to 69, 58 and 47 respectively. On average only the first two hit.
On to damage!
We roll on the General Injury Determination Chart to see where we hit with those two rounds. The average roll of 55 will generally hit the abdomen or lower back.
Then we roll two d10. The first tells us what type of damage from abrasion to internal damage. The second tells us if the wound is serious or light. The average roll of 5 gets a light laceration which applies 5 points against the target's Life Level, down to 60 from 65. At the other end, a 6 and a 10 gets a serious internal injury and does 12 points of damage, down to 48.
It's going to take more shots than I remembered to shoot someone to death. Top Secret trends to the cinematic end of the scale!
There are optional rules in the Top Secret Companion that give the location, type and severity in a single d1000 roll.
Twilight: 2000
Stats are determined by rolling 4d6-4, making the average 10. A favored stat averages 15 and a slighted stat 5.
Hit Capacity varies by hit location. Head is equal to CON, body is STR+CON+STA, other locations are equal to CON+STA. Average person has 10, 30 and 20 respectively.
Everyone starts with the Combat Rifleman (CRM) skill at 20. You can buy that up using skill points. We'll buy it up to 74 to match the Skill 12 in the GURPS 2e example. The skill is modified by range to get a "Base Hit" number which you need to roll, or less, on a d100.
An M16A1 has: ROF 4, Mag 10, Rng 50, Dam 2, and Arm -.
ROF is rate of fire in "shots," Mag is magazine capacity in "shots" which are 3 bullets each. Rng is a range increment in meters. In our example 50m is close range (the "Base Hit" is 60% skill or 44), 100m is medium range (30% skill or 22) and 200m is long range (10% skill or 7) and 400m is extreme range (special to hit rules), Arm is the armor multiplier which makes armor more or less effective against some weapons (no effect here).
Did you hit?
On average, a 74 skill is going to be missing at 50m. If you spend a turn aiming, your first shot of the next round is at double the "base hit", or 88 in our example. The aimed shot will, on average, hit.
Where did you hit?
An aimed shot can hit a specific hit location by halving the base hit number, which was normally doubled by aiming, returning it to it's original value, or 44 in our example. Sniper weapons don't suffer this penalty!
If you didn't aim at a specific hit location, you roll 1d10 on the appropriate hit location chart. Most likely hit the abdomen.
How much damage did you do?
At close range the M16A1 does the 4x the base damage plus 4d6 or 4d6+16; average of 30. That's enough to drop someone's body damage capacity to zero. This is a serious injury and they need to make a CON roll (d100 of CONx5 or less or 50 in our case) or fall unconscious. This is beyond negative head damage capacity (a critical injury), so they'd be automatically unconscious and die in 1d10x10 turns if no medical assistance is rendered.
NPCs are supposed to use a simpler set of rules that gives them less damage capacity, 2d10x2 or 22 on average. We never did use this rule, it doesn't add that much bookkeeping to the game and it made the fights better.
I don't think we adhered to the rules very closely at all.
GURPS 2e
All GURPS skill rolls are 3d6. We're ignoring passive defense.
We don't have an M16, so we'll let the M-26A2 from GURPS: Autoduel 1e stand in.
With a, commonly taken, 12 skill in Guns/TL7 and straight 10 stats.
Our 10 ST is above the minimum of 8, so no penalties from that.
It's Inc. is 20, so there's a -3 for range.
You can fire 2 shots semi-automatically or 3 shots in a burst. We get 30 shots.
If you take turn to aim before firing, you take no penalty to the first semi-auto shot or any of the rounds in the burst.
If you don't take a turn to aim, they are all "snap shots" and have a -4 penalty.
So, chance to hit with an aimed shot is 9 or less (37.50% chance). Snap shots are 5 or less (4.62% chance).
Two aimed, semi, shots are at 9 and 5.
Two snap, semi, shots are at 5 each.
Three aimed, burst, shots are at 9 each.
Three snap, burst, short are at 5 each.
On average you're gonna miss.
But if you aimed, you can pick a body location, and take a penalty to hit. The body is a -0 though. Some locations do more damage and have special effects, like crippling a limb or knocking them unconscious before their HP drops to zero. The head, for example is -5 to hit, has DR 1 for the skull, but gives double damage and damage of HT/3 or more causes them to be stunned and HT/2 or more knocks them unconscious.
The hit location of a snap shot is determined by a 2d6 roll and looking at the table. Coincidentally, the average roll of 7 on 2d for a random location also hits the body!
The M-26A2 does 2+2 dice of crushing damage.
The average damage is 9, and will do 9 points to an unarmored torso; they keep fighting. This same damage roll would do 16 points to the head, this both stuns and knocks the target out; but you'd need a 4 or less to hit with an aimed shot.
We didn't play much Autoduel, so we never really got the warts located.
GURPS 3e.
Update: I forgot the blow-through rules.
The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Lt Auto.
An M16 does 5d crushing damage, SS of 12, Acc 11, 1/2D 500, Max 3,843, Wt 8, RoF 12*, Shots 20, ST 9, Rcl -1, Cost $540, TL 7.
First, the unaimed semi-auto shot: The range of 50 yards is a -9 penalty giving us a net skill of 3. That's below the SS number of 12 so we get an additional -4 to hit for a -1 chance on 3d6. Any roll of 9 or higher is a critical failure, so... maybe don't make this shot.
Aimed, semi-auto shot: -9 for range, +11 for Acc, for a net +2 or 14 or less (90.74% chance) to hit the body, 13 or less (83.79% chance) for a second shot and 12 or less (74.07% chance) for a third. On average, all three hit!
5d crushing does an average of 17 points of damage to the body, but is reduced to 10 because of the blow-through rule on p.B109, which is enough to warrant a "consciousness roll" against HT on 3d6 to stay awake. On average, they make it, but are very penalized by the damage with regards to movement and DX based skills. The second shot drops them to -10 and this adds a "death roll" against HT to keep from dying. The third shot drops them to -20, another consciousness roll and two more death rolls. This is bad. Three death rolls in rapid succession rarely yields happy results.
Aimed, semi-auto shot at the vitals: -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -3 to hit vitals, for a net -1 or 11 or less (62.50% chance) to hit the body, 10 or less (50% chance) for a
second shot and 9 or less (37.5% chance) for a third.
On average two rounds hit.
Vitals do triple damage after subtracting the DR of the target, which is 0 here. So our average roll of 17 damage does 30 points dropping the target to -20 and requiring 4 death rolls. The second shot takes them to -50 and 6 more death rolls.
How about an unaimed blast of full-auto fire? Same chances as before, but with an additional -1 for recoil on the first burst, -2 on the second, -3 on the third, and -4 for the fourth. Spraying and praying doesn't really work.
An aimed blast is 13 or less for the first burst, 12 for the second, 11 for the third and 10 for the fourth. Using our average rolls of 10 we look at the table on p B120 and find: we hit with 3 rounds from the first burst, 3 from the second, and 2 from the third.
8 rounds to the body doing 10 each on average because of blow-through totaling to 80 points of damage which is well past the 60 needed to get auto-death.
The players really liked rolling for each separate round/burst.
GURPS 3eR with High Tech 3e.
The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Lt Auto.
An M16 does 5d crushing damage, SS of 12, Acc 11, 1/2D 500, Max 3,843, Wt 8, RoF 12*, Shots 20, ST 9, Rcl -1, Cost $540, TL 7.
First,
the unaimed semi-auto shot: The range of 50 yards is a -9 penalty, -5
for bullet-shyness, giving us a net skill of -2. That's below the SS
number of 12 so we get an additional -4 to hit for a -6 chance on 3d6.
Any roll of 4 or higher is a critical failure, so... maybe don't make
this shot.
Aimed, semi-auto shot: -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -5
for bullet shyness for a net -3 or 9 or less (37.50% chance) to hit the
body, 8 or less (25.92% chance) for a second shot and 7 or less (16.20%
chance) for a third.
On average, all three miss! But let's assume one does.
5d crushing does an average of 17 points of
damage to the body, which is reduced to 10 because of blow-through, which is enough to warrant a "consciousness roll"
against HT on 3d6 to stay awake. On average, they make it, but are very
penalized by the damage with regards to movement and DX based skills.
Aimed,
semi-auto shot at the vitals: -9 for range, +11 for Acc, -3 to hit
vitals, -5 for bullet shyness for a net 6 or 6 or less (9.25% chance) to
hit the body, 5 or less (4.62% chance) for a
second shot and 4 or less (1.85% chance) for a third.
Even though
we probably missed, vitals do triple damage after subtracting the DR of
the target, which is 0 here. So our average roll of 17 damage does 30 points of damage because of blow-through dropping the target to -20 and requiring 4 death rolls.
How
about an unaimed blast of full-auto fire? Same chances as before, but
with an additional -1 for recoil on the first burst, -2 on the second,
-3 on the third, and -4 for the fourth. Spraying and praying doesn't
really work.
An aimed blast is 8 or less for the first burst, 7
for the second, 6 for the third and 5 for the fourth. Using our average
rolls of 10 we look at the table on p B120 and find: we missed with all
12.
Adding in that bullet shyness penalty, because combat, really pissed the players off.
GURPS 4e
The average person has straight 10 stats and we're sticking to a skill of 12 in Guns/TL7 - Rifle.
The M16A1 is TL7, does 5d pi damage, Acc 5, Range 500/3,200, Weighs 7.2/0.7, RoF 13, Shots 20+1(3), ST 8†, Bulk -5, Rcl 2, Cost $550/$34, LC 2.
Snap shots have been eliminated! So has blow-through for the body.
Skill 12, -8 for range, 4 or less to hit with three rounds of semi-auto fire. Yeah... No.
Aim for a second. Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc. 9 or less. On average, still a miss.
Aim for two seconds. Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc, +1 aiming bonus. 10 or less! On average, one hit.
5d pi to an unarmored ST 10 torso is about the same as before, doing 17 points of damage on average, but without blow-through, all of those points do damage. It takes the victim to -7 points of damage, requiring a HT roll to remain conscious.
13 round blast without aiming?
Skill 12, -8 for range, +3 for volume of fire. 7 or less. Prolly missing with all of those too.
After aiming?
Skill 12, -8 for range, +5 for Acc, +3 for volume of fire. 12 or less. Average roll of 10 with a Rcl of 2 means two rounds hit.
17 damage from the first round gets to -7 and a consciousness roll. 17 from the second round gets to -24, another consciousness roll and a death roll.
4e angered several players because their characters became ineffective with the golden standard of a 12 skill. I'd been looking for a means to simulate the vast expenditure of ammo to a single hit since I started playing GURPS and 4e solves for it nicely.
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