Weapon harm/range/other tag details (pedantry warning)

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Zed

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Weapon harm/range/other tag details (pedantry warning)
« on: December 08, 2012, 02:03:05 PM »
Toward making my own Keeper's Reference, I pored through all the playbooks' weapons and found some inconsistencies and oddities. Some of these I'm guessing were deliberate design choices; some I suspect are errors; some I think were cases of things intended to be distinct weapons but described with the same names, in which case I think distinct names would be helpful (so that, say, a reference sheet can list one "hunting rifle" and know its tags without worrying about the Mundane and the Professional meaning different things by it.) (I'll make up my own resolutions for my table, but I thought some of these might be of interest toward corrections for the second printing.)

9mm's (Flake, Initiate, Monstrous, Professional, Spooky, Wronged, Divine, Snoop) and assault rifles (Wronged, Professional, Hard Case) don't have reload. (I'm assuming this is on purpose to reflect large magazines that aren't liable to run out mid-battle.) 

The Snoop's .32 revolver isn't loud.

The Wronged's assault rifle is close; the Professional's is far; the Hard Case's battered assault rifle is close/far. I'd expect close/far to be appropriate for all of them.

The Hard Case's battered assault rifle doesn't have loud.

The Wronged's and Hard Case's hand cannons don't have reload.

The Mundane's hunting rifle has 3-harm and reload, but the Flake's, Professional's, Spooky's and Wronged's are 2-harm and don't have reload. I'd expect all hunting rifles to have reload.

The Wronged's sawn-off shotgun and the Hard Case's automatic shotgun have reload; others' shotguns (Expert, Flake, Wronged, Monstrous, Professional, Spooky, Hard Case) don't.

The Expert's, Flake's, and Wronged's shotguns have loud; the Monstrous', Professional's, Hard Case's, and Spooky's don't.

The Initiate's Sniper rifle has 3-harm; the Professional's has 4-harm; neither have reload. I'd expect a sniper rifle to have reload (though of course one could have a large magazine or just be an assault rifle with a scope.)

The Hard Case's sub-machine gun has 2-harm and reload; the Professional's has 3-harm and doesn't have reload.

The Wronged's huge sword is messy but the Monstrous' isn't.

The Initiate's big axe is slow, while the Wronged's huge axe isn't. The Mundane's fire axe is 3-harm like the big axe and huge axe, but is neither slow nor heavy.

I'd expect the Divine's trident to be hand/close like the Initiate's and Exile's spears are.

The Monstrous' brass knuckles are quiet (which isn't defined in the weapon tags) and small; the Wronged's is stealthy (which isn't defined in the weapon tags); the Flake's is none of the above.

The Wronged's fighting knife is quiet, which isn't defined in the weapon tags, and which none of the other knives are. What does quiet signify?

The Snoop's pocket knife/multitool is hidden (which isn't defined in the weapon tags); the Mundane's is small. Are hidden, stealthy, and small synonymous?

Re: Weapon harm/range/other tag details (pedantry warning)
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2012, 09:37:52 PM »
For the inconsistencies - well, some are oversights and some are intentional.

There's no canonical version of each weapon. Instead, each playbook has the sort of weapons that they would use. The assault rifles are a case there: they aren't intended to be the same.

The weapon tags are indicators, not rigid descriptions (i.e. just because a gun doesn't have loud, that doesn't mean it's quiet. Loud just signifies that it is particularly loud).

That said, if it bothers you feel free to change the tags for your game! It won't break anything.