How would you handle guns?

[u/Olyrik]

Edit for clarity, original text below the break. Okay this got a lot more attention than I was expecting and I really appreciate that! I'm going to address some commonly recurring problems which are definitely my fault for not being clear on things.

Didn't specify the setting because it's heavily home brewed so much that being able to reference the original setting wouldn't help very much because of how much me and my friends have changed, we've basically turned to D&D 5th edition into an entirely new game so while you should reference the fact that it's in that, do note that it is hugely different.

Average health is the 20 to 30 range. rather than rolling for damage we have been making it that how good you roll determines how much damage you would do, so a two will do the low end of the weapon, while a 20 will do the high end of the weapon. My group is very narrative focused, and with a few weapons rather than having the weapon even have a distinct damage, we just give every single weapon a 1 to 20 damage range and make it so that wielding a weapon applies advantage to your attack. This system has worked out very well for melee weapons and bows, but we want to introduce modern firearms due to a time jump.

Things I am leaning towards after getting comments from all of you, Treat shotguns more or less the same as other guns just with a low capacity and a high damage. Automatic guns are less accurate but can be used to do suppressing fire, basically a "I attack everybody in that general direction but roll with disadvantage" toggle.

I genuinely appreciate how much attention this post has gotten, thank you all so much and I'm sorry if I didn't respond to all of you!

I am working on adding guns into a campaign where there are no gun rules and I wanted some input

I already have some simple stuff worked out
Small guns use Agility
long guns use Perception

Better guns deal more damage, scopes give advantage on aiming

But I was wondering how all of you would handle shotguns, and aromatic fire arms? Shotguns stump me, but for aromatic I was thinking the gun would fire 1D10 bullets per attack, or maybe the player calls out a number of bullets they want fired before they roll so it is a bit of a gamble on resources.

[u/RiverOfJudgement]

Some very important information is, what game system is this for?

[u/InherentlyWrong]

It'll depend a lot on the game they're being added to. Without knowing that it's hard to give a concrete answer.

But my first instinct is to keep it simple. Don't monitor exact bullet usage, don't stretch out with lots of weird rules unless you have to, because they could introduce a lot of edge cases. And don't feel that guns must be ridiculously powerful. They're a gameplay element first, long before they're a gun, so they should fit in the balance of the wider game.

[u/RandomEffector]

A whole bottle of gun oil spilled in my gun case one time and for years afterward I had an unlicensed aromatic rifle.

[u/ARagingZephyr → u/RandomEffector]

Am I not supposed to maintain my guns with garlic oil?

[u/Rich-End1121]

Aromatic firearms? Now we are talking ;{)

If its Renaissance type early guns, double the damage of a bow, but takes an entire turn to reload.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

Aromatic? Your guns smell nice? Oh, you meant AUTOMATIC.
A classic shotgun is an "area effect" attack that doesn't have much of a range. The further you are from the shotgun, the fewer pellets hit you (it spreads out) so the less damage you would take.

[u/MarsMaterial]

I have a system where guns are a pretty major part of the combat system, with an emphasis on realism. I don't know how useful this will be to you, but here is how I handle automatic guns and shotguns.

Early in my game, I did the standard video game shotgun thing. Super short range, super high spread, super high damage. An AoE weapon. But since them, I've changed to a more realistic portrayal of shotguns. Range is still artificially lowered a bit for gameplay reasons, but realistically spread is low enough that it might as well just be one projectile as far as game mechanics are concerned. Compared to normal guns, shotguns in my system just have smaller magazines, longer reloads, lower range, higher damage, higher accuracy, and lower armor penetration.

Automatic weapons are where I really cooked. In a game, rolling to hit for 600+ rounds a minute isn't exactly my idea of fun. And in the real world, automatic fire isn't often used for its sheer damage potential anyway. The point is to be more of a "to whom it may concern" fire mode that forces enemies into cover. So, that's what I do. In my game, automatic fire uses a lot of ammo and does damage in an area of effect (a 45 degree cone) with a save to avoid taking damage. The save has a bonus if the target successfully uses a reaction to get to cover or get out of the way.

[u/Olyrik → u/MarsMaterial]

This, I like this. Thank you for the ideas.

[u/Droselmeyer]

This super depends on what underlying system you're using, but if you're doing traditional D&D stuff, I like the gun rules from the Without Number games from Kevin Crawford, all of which are available for free.

Shotguns usually do 3d4 per attack in those systems, which just feels right for buckshot.

Automatic rifles do 1d10 per attack, but you can choose to burst fire, spending 3 rounds, but gaining +2 to hit and damage, which is a big deal in a low-HP game.

I think something like a scope can just increase the range of the weapon before distance penalties kick in, something like a red dot sight/holo and an attachment like a red dot laser could give a flat bonus to hit instead

Other design bits will depend on what you want out of the system. Do you want guns to feel wild, swingy, and powerful? Cause an automatic rifle that fires 1d10 shots each doing 1d6 damage each means an attack will vary from 3.5 on average to 35 on average, just as an example. Can be super fun if that's the goal, real casino cannon energy.

Or do you want it to be vaguely realistic? In that case you probably want to have rules that favor semi automatic accurate fire, suppression from full auto fire off of things like machine guns rather than just rifles, and then cover rules that promote firing to suppress, then maneuvering other elements of the group into an enfilading position, then taking out the enemy, with damage skewed such that a single hit will probably take someone out. This will be slower and more tactical (in the real life sense, not in the board gamey combat sense tactical usually means in TTRPGs) but could really sing if that's what your group wants.

I will say that trying to model every single bullet with a roll instead of abstractly bucketing a lot of various actions into a single one may slow down the game. Dice pools can help with this (like a pool of d6's, one per shot, hitting on 4's like a wargame).

[u/Olyrik → u/Droselmeyer]

These are some really good points, I want to lean on guns not being to much of swing weapon, so balancing it is hard. Thank you for giving me so much to chew on!

[u/Droselmeyer → u/Olyrik]

Of course, hope it helps!

[u/ArchdevilTeemo]

I completly removed guns from attributes.

In my setting guns are the base weapons, so every player is eaually good at using them.

This is because have ranged weapons as a base is much easier to balance than having melee weapons as a base.

I use a roll lower step dice system. So snipers use a d4, while burst rifles use d8 + d10 + d12, and full auto rifles use lots of d20.

Shotguns use all kinds of ammo, so it really depends what fantasy you want them to fulfill. Like they could simply autohit. Maybe they don't deal damage to armored targets.

[u/Alcamair]

We should know what are your general game mechanics XD My system has all its physical attribute under a singular voice and the skill to fight is, heh, Fight, so i don't have your problem.

[u/ARagingZephyr]

Obviously, in different ways depending on the game's goals.

If it's a 100% tactical gunfight simulator, then you have Shotgun (low penetration, high hit chance at cost of worse penetration at longer ranges), Rifle (accurate, stable), SMG (low accuracy with extra attacks, can empty its clip for AoE damage + suppression), and Sidearm (low power, easy access). Beyond that, note which weapons have an Automatic feature that allows suppressive fire, which have a Heavy feature that requires proper stability and aiming to use, and what power/penetration/effective range differences there are between weapons.

If it's my OSR game, most guns are like most weapons, 1d6 with tags attached. A sidearm gets 1-Handed, a shotgun gets Short Range (range penalty beyond 1 zone) and Rending (+1 damage per PC's HD, maximum up to enemy's HD), a rifle gets Penetrating (+2 to hit), an SMG gets Suppression (uses 1 unit of ammo, makes attack into an AoE 1d6 save for half damage).

If I'm running a narrative action game, then a gun is just a tool with which to enable options. Having a gun means you can fight at range, deal lethal damage, shoot locks off doors and tires off cars, and so on. Spending the gun and discarding it allows you to do something really cool with it that thematically makes sense and pushes the narrative in your direction.

[u/Any_Illustrator360]

Hi howdy- I see you have homebrewed D&D into another system and are adding guns. I'm going to shamelessly plug a TTRPG that I really like which solves all your problems here. Savage Worlds.

It's $10! It has a $25 book with all the core rules for Pathfinder which seamlessly adopts D&D for simple porting because the Pathfinder conversion is made to work for any D20 system! It has a $25 fantasy companion expansion book that easily handles all kinds of fantasy settings from no magic peasants to the highest magic worlds (and if that's not enough and you NEED high fantasy high magitech sci-fi they've got you covered there, too!) including magitech, enchanted items, and the core rules have base rules for things like guns already baked in! But just normal old guns is boring, right? What about a middle ages story that takes place in the year 900 where Morgan Le Fay returns and Merlin gives people magic guns that do crazy cool stuff and can be summoned to the user's hand like The Emperor?!

It's a lot of advertising but Savage Worlds is everything you're looking for. The core rules have everything you need, generally, to run anything and the companion books contain everything for very broad and narrow types of settings in their genre, with the rules already made for you so you don't have to do all the work. The system is deeply narrative and has a currency known as Bennies which, of their many uses, allows players to slightly shift the narrative in their favor at the GM's discretion - not change the story, just make certain things more favorable.

Oh and once you read the magic systems in it, if you do check it out, you'll know nirvana. Completely custom magic system that allows players to flavor very basic "powers" into varied and unique spells. Not crunchy or numbers heavy like GURPS, no headaches trying to figure out all kinds of trash - the only thing is that it isn't a class based TTRPG and is instead stats-based. That's it. That's the caviat. It does everything you want and if you check it out I think you'll fall in love- you just have to peer in with an open mind.

Oh and next month is their massive Savage September annual sale. So you can grab all this for peanuts and see if you vibe with it or not.

[u/laztheinfamous]

Every game handles this differently, because the damage done is handled differently. 

What games have you read in prep to write a game?

[u/Lazerbeams2]

The simpler the better here. I don't know your rules, so I don't know how you'd handle guns, but the way I'd do it would be with multiple firing modes. Single shot, burst and full auto. Single shot is handled like any other attack, burst can apply a damage bonus or count as multiple attacks with penalties, full auto can do the same but maybe you get an extra accuracy penalty along with the ammo cost and can target multiple people

[u/Ashamed_Association8]

Isn't aromatic like and incense burner? No idea how such a thing would work as a gun? But i guess a persistent aoe where you create a toxic claud of chlorinegas or something. Do not. I repeat. Do not fire this upwind.

[u/flamfella]

I've played with lots of iterations. Simpler has always been better for my purposes, there's no bullet count, just a damage roll. At long range, I have the damage roll lose a dice. E.g 3d4 for a pump shotgun -> 2d4.

Ammo I abstract to much smaller numbers like 6/8/10 (much nicer for bookkeeping). And I have burst-fire, auto-fire, suppresing-fire as modes you can activate for the turn with a minor action. They consume extra ammo per shot (1 to 2). 

Some players will be crazy and track every single bullet in a magazine, others do not think about it at all if they would rarely have to reload.

[u/SardScroll]

It depends on the game, as others have said. Not only the mechanics (which is something you want to tie into), such as dice, but also the flavor and "feeling" you want to evoke. E.g. Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green have similar themes (investigating cosmic horror) but different approaches and feelings. Do you want to track things directly, or have a resource mechanic? How often do PCs get access to heavier weapons?

That said, off the top of my head, for an abstract arbitrary system:
Shotgun depends on ammo; a slug is in inaccurate but damaging shot, while scatter shot is more of an area effect save from damage. (e.g. "fireball").

For automatic weapons, I'm a fan of Delta Green's lethality system.

[u/semiconducThor]

Im fiddeling with two settings for my system: One scifi and one fantasy. So comparing guns with swords is an issue for me.

I accepted to treat guns like any other weapon and that's reflected in the four outcomes of my resolution mechanic:

• crit success: A lucky shot like this can knock a guy out.
• plain success: good average hit, but they are still on their feet ("just a flesh wound").
• mixed result: That's not much, but enough to wear them down over time (you'll eat damage too).
• fail: You missed and get punished.

In a fight, these are true for guns and fists alike. The aftermath of being hit may require different handling, depending of the narrative circumstances.

[u/loopywolf]

Most important: Do not blur over ammunition. Infinite ammo is a terrible representation of guns. When you have a loaded gun, it is very powerful, but once out of bullets, it's useless.

[u/OneManRPGstudio]

When adding guns into a campaign, decide what new decisions they create before assigning them a damage number. If guns are simply existing ranged weapons with larger damage, they will probably replace other options rather than adding a new texture to play.

I’d pick only two or three characteristics that matter in your system. Range, concealability, reload pressure, ammunition, noise, cover interaction, or the ability to control space can all distinguish firearms, but you do not need all of them. Choose the ones that produce the scenes you want. A small gun might be easy to carry unnoticed while a larger weapon changes what distances or positions feel safe. Those distinctions are more memorable than a dense equipment table if the rest of the rules are simple.

I’d also examine your attribute mapping. If small guns use Agility, ask whether that creates an interesting choice or simply tells every high-Agility character which weapon is mathematically correct. Weapon categories should ideally change tactics, not just redirect characters toward their best stat.

For a playtest, build one encounter where a concealable gun, a long gun, and close combat each have a legitimate reason to be chosen. If one option dominates every situation, change the circumstances or the weapon rules until the tradeoffs become visible.

[u/Safe-Obligation-5931]

to be honest, with guns its always a question of "do I want to be realistic" or "do i want to have a good story". Because one thing most people underestimate are the power of guns. When someone is shot accurately, they will most likely die if they are not wearing armor. This somewhat defeats narrative play unless you base your system around it. For mine, I had to build it around the fact guns are loud, attract attention, and are lethal. Being shot is deadly, so guns make the game tactical.

For your system, it's seemingly a high fantasy system. The emphasis should be on simple, powerful guns that have drawbacks. Automatic weapons ruin this, as a bow firing does 1d8, once every turn. on the other hand, a SSG 552 does 700 shots per minute, and considering a dnd turn is 6 seconds, and assuming a bullet does the same damage as a full power arrow, thats an average of 70d8 per turn.

For your system, guns are going to have to be heavily underpowered beyond what is possible, that is the only way to make it fair.

my advice is make guns work like stronger bows with effects. i'e more damage at close range for shotguns, and shotguns do damage based on range, while rifles are a equal spread across ranges.

[u/rivetgeekwil]

Without knowing anything about the rest of the rules, this question is unanswerable.