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Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Feng Shui: Weird Gun Rules

I'm going to preemptively say that yes, I know rules about guns and gunplay in Feng Shui is deliberately unrealistic in favor of wahoo action sequences, and so I try to make the gunnie part of my brain shut up whenever I read it.

(Incidentally, I think "fun gameplay over realism" is the reason why magazine-fed handguns only require 1 shot to reload, but magazine-fed rifles and SMGs take 3 shots: since they have much larger magazines, they run out ammunition less often, and so their reloads take longer. If they all required only 1 shot to reload, then PCs would overwhelmingly choose rifles and SMGs over pistols in complete defiance of Action Movie Logic.)
However, I've noticed some contradictory rules within the game itself, and these need to be addressed.
Switching Weapons, p.110:  Switching from a martial arts weapon to a gun costs
you the number of shots it would to Reload the gun. 
OK, this is all well and fine: It takes you 1 shot to draw a pistol, 3 shots to draw an SMG or Rifle... wait, FIVE shots to draw a revolver?? What the.... nevermind, that's not fine.

Reloading, p.128:
  • Reload your current weapon. This costs you a number of shots depending on the firearm type, as seen in the accompanying table.
  • Drop and draw. Let your current weapon fall to the ground, and draw a new firearm already on your person. Shot cost: 2
  • Switch weapons. Replace your current weapon and draw another already on your person. Shot cost: 3
  • Drop your weapon. Take this option if you intend to do something other than fire a gun as your subsequent action. Shot cost: 1 
From this we can extrapolate a few things:
  1. If dropping a weapon costs 1 shot, and dropping and drawing a new weapon costs 2 shots, then clearly drawing a weapon costs only 1 shot. 
  2. This is bolstered by it taking 3 shots to carefully replace a weapon and draw a new one: 1 shot to holster, 1 shot to drop old gun/grab new one, 1 shot to draw new one. 
  3. Not only is this is in complete disagreement with the rules on page 110, those rules also say that it's faster to switch from a knife to an AK-47 than it is to switch from a knife to a Colt Detective Special. What? This is a game that preferentially gives revolvers to police on account of the fact that Dirty Harry and Rick Grimes carry revolvers. Way to punish three whole archetypes, writers, especially the Karate Cop.
So you know what I've ruled in my game? We ignore p.110 and use the following:
  • Dropping a weapon: 1 shot
  • Sheathing/holstering a weapon: 1 shot
  • Drawing/unslinging a weapon: 1 shot
Boom, done. I don't need to check the reload stats of the gun during combat, and best of all it gives a good reason for PCs to take the Battle Scavenge or Bag Full of Guns schticks

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