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This is mostly a repeat. I know I've yapped about this before.
I've mostly never been in the "caliber must start with a 4" camp.
I say that even though .45 ACP was my only pistol cartridge for quite a spell.
The silly reason I never bought into the caliber wars was gaming.
In most games there's not enough difference between 9mm, .40 S&W or .45 ACP damage to bother.
What you often got with 9mm was a lot more shots.
That's why I "bought" a Hi-Power so often. Having 13 shots was better than having 8.
TSR's Top Secret is my first Hi-Power.
The Beretta M9 was my preferred Twilight: 2000 pistol. It would have been a Glock 17 except I got a price break for buying my nation's issue gun. Before I knew what a shit-show the L85A1 was, if I was playing a Brit I was packing an L9 (Hi-Power again).
Even Traveller was using 9mm handguns. The automatic pistol from LBB:1 is obviously a 9x19 wonder-nine.
It's EVERYWHERE!
Then there's GURPS. A full sized 9x19 does 2d+2 pi. A .45 does 2d pi+.
They're mathematically almost identical for damage. 9x19 will average 9 points per shot, .45 will do 10.5. Moving to hollow points shifts that to 13.5 and 14 respectively.
Notice something there?
The bigger is better contingent in the real world goes all the way back to when hollow-points were exotic and unreliable in pistols; both in the gun functioning and in the round expanding. And in ball, the .45 does about 17% more damage.
I am sure you've seen the ballistics gel picture where 9mm and .45 are cutting nearly identical tracks with modern HP ammo... 13.5 and 14 reflect this reality.
The amazing thing is that GURPS predates a lot of this analysis being readily available.
I think they got lucky with the proxies they used to generate damage, but a constant refrain from Mr Jackson himself back when GURPS was fresh and new was that a reality test trumped game balance.
GURPS was kind of revolutionary in using real units for everything at the time.
You could reverse engineer things!
And we did.
And it rapidly boiled back to "if the damage is the same, why not have more shots?"
It also became really obvious that we very rarely used the pistol we had listed on our character sheet.
Most any gamer in modern or future settings intestinally Groks that a pistol is for fighting your way to your rifle or only for use when your rifle isn't available for what ever reason.
I've have more use of a bayonet than a sidearm in gaming.
But I still buy that handgun and list it on the sheet.
Just in case...
Like the real world when I'm carrying.
Just in case...
I give up. I've tried looking up your numbers and I can't figure then out. Can you post a reference or describe what it means? 2d +2pi is 2 6 sided die plus 2 ??? Of ???
ReplyDeleteThe numbers are from GURPS: Basic Set and GURPS: High Tech both published by Steve Jackson Games.
DeleteAll dice in GURPS are the traditional six-sided die.
2d+2 pi is to roll two of those die and add 2 to the results. Rolling a 3 would give you 5 points of damage, for example.
pi means normal piercing damage. No modifier to the damage and some hit locations can be struck which cannot be struck with crushing (cr) or cutting (cut) damage.
pi+ is large piercing, multiply the damage which makes it through the armor of the target by 1.5. pi++ is huge piercing, multiply by 2. pi- is small piercing, multiply by 0.5.
Damage is applied to the character's hit points which start out matching the character's health stat.
An honest six-sided die will roll, on average, 3.5 points. For any honest die you can calculate this by adding the lowest point by the highest and divide by 2. Thus (1+6)/2=3.5. A ten sider would be 5.5 (1+10)/2.
DeleteHollow point ammunition bumps the piercing up one notch. pi- becomes pi, pi becomes pi+, pi+ becomes pi++ and pi++ gets no change.
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