Was browsing the blogs and came across this at Motor City Gamewerks. And had a somewhat strange reaction. I'm a gun nut. I should agree, but for some reason I really don't.
For one thing, I'm having a hard time recalling a game that mixed up semi-automatic, automatic and auto-cannon. The first two sure, but not with the third. And confusing machinegun with assault rifles? Sure, that's stuff the major news media does. But not gaming systems as far as I know.
Perhaps he's speaking about indie games, or supplements, or something I haven't seen. So I'll grant that such games may exist. I just never bought them. Perhaps there was a reason :)
However I just don't care that there are people who think that cops are carrying .38 revolvers. I'm more concerned with people thinking .38s do more damage than .45s. One is knowledge of current events, the other is misrepresenting physical law.
Actually, even that doesn't upset me- unless the author is claiming his game is well researched and a good simulation of reality (like say GURPS which made that very error in the last edition I looked at- which was some time back I'd have to say).
And clips and mags, I must shrug.
I guess I'm all for people running their games the way the wish, as long as that's all they're claiming to be doing.
So do I agree with the suggestion that gamers should read more books on firearms and head out to the range? I have to say it depends.
It interests a person, sure. It's a lot of fun.
But it won't make them an expert. One has to learn enough and verify enough to be able to split the lies from the truth. And there are a lot of lies in the firearm world. All in all, it would take a great deal of work to understand even the basics. Not a book or two and a trip to the range.
So in the end, be as unrealistic as you want as long as you admit it. Go as deep as you like as well if you wish, but don't make claims unless you go very very deep indeed.
But mostly, have fun.
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2 comments:
I agree with you. I won't say I'm an expert on guns, in fact I'm fairly certain that any shooting I might happen to do would be beyond atrocious due to muscle tremors and a very annoying dominant left eye making me only able to wink my right... but that's neither here nor there... because I've had firearms physics and translated and converted and then exhaustively reserched through various medical sources to establish their damage... so as far as converting firearm performance to game stats is concerned I'd say I'm pretty knowledgeable, but I didn't get that knowledge from reading a gun book and squeezing off a few rounds. I did it by exhaustively researching the cause and effect of gun performance on all sorts of materials as well as what factors bear on accuracy... and I had a mentor. And while I think several games - White Wolf comes to mind - generally just go by what they think a gun does and throw up some stats that are more for game "balance" than what the performance numbers would say... but they're not as bad as this guy makes them out to be.
I understand where he's coming from. Horses are common in games and books, and as an equestrian myself I can almost always tell which author's bio is going to say "owns two horses" and which won't. (The fact that Piers Anthony has horses worries me, though.)
It's just something that's a big deal to me, that's fairly important in a lot of games, and that a lot of people screw up. I don't know how long it takes around guns to get it right, but a half a dozen riding lessons should set most people straight on horses. The one character in our Iron Heroes game who has a horse got a lot more attached to and realistic about his mount after a couple of weeks of riding lessons.
Then again, there are a lot of things like that in games, and not a lot of people who know that much about horses or guns. I understand that authors/designers can't learn even a little about everything they put in their work.
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