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Heroic Knight
 
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Last Login: Monday, July 07, 2008 2:35 PM
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The question, basically explains it's self, but just to clarify a bit.
I would dearly love to run a sci-fi game, with all that lovely shooting stuff, but how does anyone here go about repping it and how have people found it works out in play?
I am aware of the 3 main ways of doing it, non working guns, with calls. paint/bb guns and safety restrictions, and lazertag with the harnesses.
The game I would like to get underway would be scaleable to a large player base 100+ (hopefully  )
Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. - Editorial in the Boston Post (1865)
PD - Dog - Gward'ogan Miradomas - Son of Set
RL - One of the Chris'
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Wag
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| Personally, I think it comes down to your own preferences. Each has merits and flaws which suit particular styles of game so you select based on this. You mention size but not style in your description. Point and click is cheap and cheerful and my personal favourite. Suits a game where combat is generally up close and personal due to restrictions on range brought about by how far you can shout. However, range can be improved with radios etc. BB/Paintball suits a fast and dirty game where you want bullets flying everywhere and a good chance you'll get hit if caught in the middle of it. Tag suits a more hi tech game where the weapons are energy weapons rather than ballistics. Accuracy is more difficult due to the size of the sensors so I think it tends to favour a more careful game - you aim before firing rather than just loose off randomly. So, I'd suggest thinking about what you want a typical combat in your system to look like and then consider the system that suits you. The only real restriction not related to style is cost for you and the players. If using either of the latter options you will almost certainly have to buy BBs/tag harnesses for all the crew if not the players as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Squire
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| I'd advise talking to the Serenity and Stargate people, both use the same basic point and click system and it tends to work, as long as efforts are made to avoid confusion. The key is making sure players and crew stick to the calls system and ID their targets properly. Experience helps greatly, I do Stargate and SINergy and it really showed during an encounter in Serenity last weekend with the number of kills I got. If the players have a big gob, a keen eye and use plenty of detail when calling targets it can prove suitably lethal.
___________________________________________________________ SINergy: Denton Mandell, Captain Drake Alexandrovich Musaveni
SGUK: Maj Richard Calvin (RN)
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Initiate
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| I think I'll have to agree with most of what Balor said, especially with regards your own preference. Personally I'd have to go with airsoft, as I'm not a big fan of ranged combat calls. I much prefer the fact that with airsoft you've got a fairly decent range added to the problems of accidental discharges, shooting the wrong person as they move unexpectedly in front of your carefully lined up shot etc. Also just to counter Balor's comment about it being a fast and dirty type of firefight that all depends on how much ammo people have. When theres only 5 rounds in your mag you'll take that much longer to ensure you use them properly.
-------------------- Nexus: Lavan Chitwold
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Heroic Knight
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| The point and shout system is generally very effective if you take Broz' advice. However in a 100+ player game it may end up falling apart, in situations where there are more than about seven people a side the system strains unless terrain breaks up the fight into smaller skirmishes and when you have a PvP fight the 'benefit of the doubt' which the system often relies can be bitterly contested. Were currently working on a few ideas that allow the system to scale up of which a couple of concepts will be filtering into the next edition of the Serenity rules. If you'd like to discuss some of the things we came up with send me a message as a large scale sci-fi game is a project we've been blue skying for a while. A thought I had on the BB and Paintball approaches is that whilst these games are normally rather safe, in a situation where a player is looking at life or death rather than the relaxed state of a one of scenario things may get a little heated. However I haven't had chance to properly chat to someone who was at Nexus to get an insight into how well it worked. One thing I mean to try and develop when I get the time (probably never) is a system involving the airzooka concept. By combining a resevior with the airzooka funnel concept it may be possible to make perfectly safe 'airguns.' This would allow a wide variety of ranges and rates of fire to be produced in handheld, back mounted and stupidly huge systems as well as making area effect weapons really easy to phys-rep. One day I'll get round to it.
__________________________
"Plan B is we swear fealty to the Dark Lord."
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Initiate
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Jon (8/8/2006)
A thought I had on the BB and Paintball approaches is that whilst these games are normally rather safe, in a situation where a player is looking at life or death rather than the relaxed state of a one of scenario things may get a little heated. However I haven't had chance to properly chat to someone who was at Nexus to get an insight into how well it worked.Er, afraid you've lost me a little with the relaxed state of a one of scenario bit.
-------------------- Nexus: Lavan Chitwold
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Heroic Knight
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When I played at Pheonix the other day it was lots of one off skirmishes, some with respawns. When you died you didn't lose any character acheiviments or development so the combat was far more relaxed than your standard larp fight where your character is at stake. Also some parts of the terrain we were fighting over perfectly safely I wouldn't dream of running a larp fight over.
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"Plan B is we swear fealty to the Dark Lord."
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Initiate
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If you're talking about regular airsoft skirmishes then yes, a lot of one offs or games with respawns are common. Nexus doesn't take that approach, it takes a standard larp approach where your character is at stake if you get into a fight, especially given the rules have been written so that getting shot is relatively deadly and thus mimics the real world. In order to stop characters dropping like flies, and fitting in with the post economic collapse of the game world ammo and large weapons are fairly limited. For most of the characters this, at the moment, means that they're restricted to the weapons available during character creation, pistols, shotguns and single action rifles. More powerful weapons such as SMGs and assault rifles need to be obtained through play. While not rare they are relatively uncommon, quite expensive and even if you can get one you've then got to get enough ammo to make it useful.
Gunfights, when they do break out tend to come in two forms. The first is between combat orientated characters so are more likely to involve bigger weapons but on the other hand these are the characters that are likely to have the skills and armour that makes it easier to survive multiple wounds.
The second form of gun fight involves characters that are not combat orientated and generally turns into a stand off with the opposing sides taking only a few potshots or shots they think are definitely going to hit. Casulties in this sort of situation are therefore much lower. Finally there's a mechanic for reviving dead players but this is very expensive (making it relatively rare) and also has a number of side effects.
--------------------Nexus: Lavan Chitwold
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Heroic Knight
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Can I add to the mix the "guns musty go bang" system that I use.
Personally, I'm more keen on immersion and atmosphere than on hit points... I really hate the "silent gun and shout your call" systems, and find that bbs or firing weapons, though great, really do get in the | | | |