GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Universal conscription (which is modeled well by some editions, but not all) can account for the occasional medium LL world, but expect it to have side effects and implications about that world.
MT Only: Why gun combat 0?
- Thread starter Dagrill
- Start date
Good observation.
As to another issue, I would assume that a character with Gun Cmbt-0 could point, switch off the safety eventually, and shoot; but would find reloading, clearing jams, adjusting sights, etc. to be slow (or impossible) processes. I've owned a rifle and fired others decades ago, was quite accurate, and might place myself in that category. If I picked a weapon off the floor of a crowded bar during a brawl I don't doubt I could use it...but if it jammed I might be better off using it as a club than clearing it.
Do you, should we, take that into account when a character has no Gun Cmbt skill or Gun Cmbt-0; or is the skill exclusively applied to the roll to hit?
On the other hand they probably have a large para-military type law enforcement (maybe not at this high tech).
I know we aren't that high law level, but I found out that Bedfordshire County Rifle and Pistol Club has 200 members.
Regards
David
I was watching an episode of the Ghost in the Shell' Anime... the leader The Major was firing her pistol. The entire cartridge, with the bullet still in it, was being ejected from the pistol each time she fired, dents were being made in the metal from the bullets. So, either there were two bullets in each cartridge, or the Anime folks got it wrong. So someone watching that is going to get the wrong impression of gun fire from that.
[m;]I'm afraid this cannot be discussed out of the Pit[/m;]
I have my doubts about this giving true familiarity enough as to fire the weapon without penalti. Things like sound or recoil can affect your aim, and noe of them can be really epresented by what you tell (at least at our present RW TL).
Also things like avoiding the expended cartidges (they burn), the same recoil if not properly held, etc can damage the firer, and they can neither be properly learned without practice.
But no one is discussing Law Enforcement careers should have Gun Combat-0, just careers as Doctor, Burocrate, etc...
Personally, I come (I guess) from the medical career (not having commisioned, as I'm nurse), and I guess I don't have Gun Combat-0, even while I fired a CETME (quite similar to the Belgian FN FAL or the German G3) in my compulsory (conscript) military training (IIRC I fired 6 shoots out of the 20 planned, jammed the weapon thrice and broken to pieces 2 magazines while trying to clear the jams)
Out of many inhabitants?
Interesting that happened, I didn't realise the chance of jamming was so high.
My brother in law fired a gun in his RAF basic training, but broke a leg and didn't finish.
About 600,000, but at least half are around Luton/Dunstable, who have their own gun club.
Regards
David
I guess the weapons given to the recruits were not the best ones in the Spanish Army... In any case, I guess I qualify as "untrained penalty", regardless conscription...
So the civilian people with some familiarity with weapons could be said to be under 1/1000...
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Part of Traveller's gun skills in most editions is also the knowledge to keep a gun in good working order. Whether you use the skill itself to clear jams or use it as an enabler for (for example) Mechanical to do so is a matter of House Preference, but jams happen often enough that most real world gun owners learn to maintain a gun between uses. As maintenance falls off the chance of jams goes way up unless a particular model has been engineered to be extremely fault tolerant. This design choice (probably seen only in the Survival Rifle in the Survival Kit in Traveller) usually comes at a cost of accuracy, firing signature, and/or service life of the weapon.
Balkanized High Pops are a special case in Traveller. Someone has that high rolled LL, but you may see LLs for other polities rolled based on their local Pop, not on the world Pop as a whole.
Thank you, that's a useful bit of information I had not understood before, although I've heard the AK -47 was very user friendly, unlike similar western types. (That might have been from Rambo, or similar).
Kind Regards
David
Oh, nice justification of the "chargen is biased towards PCs" metagame effect!!! ;-) ;-)
No, MT was given over to DGP. Who did a pretty good job, BTW, at a time when GDW wasn't really supporting Traveller.
Given we're talking firearms, shouldn't that be Drive-By-Shooting-0?? <g, d & r>
Only the Travellers among them.
I think all level-0 give you is that you know which is the dangerous end, and recognise a firearm as a weapon - which a barbarian may not. "Why man hold up strange talisman? Is man warding off evil spirits?" (a la Rincewind on a jet airliner, _Colour of Magic_ style). All it does is stop you using it at one higher difficulty level.
I'm sure there's noting to stop you, as a DM, from telling your players that the default Gun Combat-0 doesn't apply in your TU. Just make sure you let them know before chargen, so they can try picking up firearm skills if they want them. (Telling them *after* may cause a riot!) ;-)
Another thing to discuss is to which weapons should this gun combat 0 apply (remember in MT cascade skills don't give you 0 level to all of them).
Personally, I only gave them to the wepons they were likely to have been trained in. So, while an ex-Marine will hve it in most weapons, an ex-Navy mostly in handgun and zero g weapons, an ex-policeman only in a few (handgun, maybe SMG, shotgun, but unileky to have it in ACR of FGMP...), and an ex doctor at most in handgun or one civilian weapon (if at all).
As for barbarians, they may well know about firearms (see that early ones are in Archaic Weapons cascade, not in Gun Combat). I never had one in my group, but when they appeared as NPCs I gave them as default both Melee and Arcaich Weapons 0.
Personally, I only gave them to the wepons they were likely to have been trained in. So, while an ex-Marine will hve it in most weapons, an ex-Navy mostly in handgun and zero g weapons, an ex-policeman only in a few (handgun, maybe SMG, shotgun, but unileky to have it in ACR of FGMP...), and an ex doctor at most in handgun or one civilian weapon (if at all).
As for barbarians, they may well know about firearms (see that early ones are in Archaic Weapons cascade, not in Gun Combat). I never had one in my group, but when they appeared as NPCs I gave them as default both Melee and Arcaich Weapons 0.
The AK line and the SK line are both very easy to field strip. By comparison to the M16, considerably so.
But there are easier weapons still to field strip. Revolver rifles, for one.
The AK and SK have generous tolerances - this reduces their power, but increases the reliability.
More importantly, the AK-47 was designed to be made with simple processes. They can be hand crafted (and often are) to within specification.
I've always viewed Gun Cbt 0 as weapons familiarization. Familiarization with a fire arm can be done in an afternoon - or for some of us, less than 10 minutes.
When I was an instructor at Ft. Benning, we'd take OCS candidates out to the range for weapons familiarization, 20 minutes of instruction and they were rocking with Ma Deuce.
This is not the same as BRM.
When I was an instructor at Ft. Benning, we'd take OCS candidates out to the range for weapons familiarization, 20 minutes of instruction and they were rocking with Ma Deuce.
This is not the same as BRM.
Theophilus
SOC-13
Reminds me of the Firefly episode when they board the station to recover Mal, Simon and Kaylee get guns, point and shoot, Gun combat-0.
Just so PC's will not have an unskilled attack roll, regardless of career except barbarians. Guess what Barbarians want to learn first?
Occurs to me that most folk in the U.S. have some knowledge of firearms from watching TV and movies, at least enough to know such basics as to look for a safety if the thing does not fire, to try pulling back on the slide of an automatic to chamber a round, and that empty chambers on a revolver mean it has no bullets in it. These are things that might not occur to a barbarian.
No, they don't.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Are you disagreeing with the opening statement, or agreeing with the closing statement?
The American fixation with firearms, and the related "exposure" in entertainment media, does not add up to a cultural default skill-0, IMO. There is really no replacement for handling a working firearm, firing it under controlled conditions, and checking the (often quite different) indicators to verify that you have an empty gun.
The OTU *might* simplify that last point, what with Vilani tendencies toward technology, but might not, since there are also plenty of aliens, artisan armaments, and antiques involved.
The technical definition of "barbarian" in Traveller is pretty open. MT limits the Barbarian career to "pre-industrial", which is essentially TL3-. There were certainly primitive firearms in that range on Earth, but guns were far from standardized or reliable, or anything resembling later safety features.
Singleshot firearms are TL4. A TL3 society with singleshot firearms is advanced in firearms technology.
Hans
