Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 8:52 am

kzt wrote:And no, they are not cheaper. You can buy a crappy sword shaped piece of sharpened pot metal fairly cheaply, but a sword forged out one of the correct steels, with proper heat treatment and properly sharpened is not cheaper then a used Glock. Or, for that matter, cheaper than a new Glock.

Not if futuretech makes swordsmithing more efficient than gunsmithing. I don't see any reason currently why it would do that, but a reason could be created.

Likewise, a bullet gives you more sympathy and material to analyze than a microscopic amount of metal from the blade. Sure, you could argue the other way, but it's not a matter of analyzing the physics in some alternate world, but instead writing a fictional world so that people in that world want to use blades. Making guns more traceable aids that.

Grek wrote:reasons

Related to stealth or effectiveness: a blade won't penetrate things accidentally or hit bystanders, as a rule. This is often useful.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:15 am

Highlander had some nice "accidentally hitting objects and leaving traces" scenes.

I'd not make swords a valid choice for anyone but people heavly juiced or modded or magicked up for sword use.

For anyone sane, swords should not be a smart or sane choice.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:20 am

You can easily link the bullet to the brass case, if it wasn't caseless. The bullet that killed the guy isn't a part of the gun, so it's a whole lot harder to link. It just passed through the barrel for about 5 milliseconds. It's going to be easier to magically link murder victim to the blade user than a bullet to a gun. The owner has a much closer relationship to the sword or knife than a bullet to the gun. And everyone with an IQ above room temp dumps guns used in shootings anyway.

And no, people running around with swords is stupid. Have you ever tried to sneak a meter long sword past a cop? Unless you can hide it in a bag of golf clubs it's pretty hard, and there just are not that many places that golf clubs fit in. You can carry a full auto AK-74U around much more easily as it's less then half as long. You can fit the AK into a bookbag or gymbag. And then you can shoot the guy carrying the bag of golf clubs who is following you into the the bar at 11 pm.

Knives make sense, but swords are silly. There is a reason why they went out of fashion for the well armed man over a hundred years ago.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:41 am

*shrugs*
Long Coat.
Make a sword-sized hole into one of the inner pockets.
Place sword through hole into coat. As long as you do not bend over or sit down so the coat can't propperly hanf, it's pretty hard to tell that the sword is there. I did this and it works. I get much less hassle when moving my sword about than i did before . .

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:48 am

Swords are going to be a viable weapon in H:AT, I don't really see any arguing that when it's so pervasive in genre. The only question is how. Given that, why on earth would we structure our magic system so that swords are more easily tracked than guns? It's magic, we can do whatever we want with it.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:23 am

Making silly choices just so a silly weapon is less insane is not a good way to make a game.

What's wrong with making swords only viable for those stupid freaks who minmax so they can use it effectively?

What's so wrong with just using knives instead?

Also, if swords are in, would knives be out? If swords are viable, will knives be less viable?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:33 am

Given as the sword is one piece, cleaning the aura of the sword could be pretty easy - just scrape the aura of the blade and you're good to go. The gun leaves a cloud of particles all over the place and sends the bullet far away, so cleaning the aura is harder. If it becomes desirable for people to be able to get away with sword murder more easily than gun murder, options like that are totally available.

-Username17

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:43 am

Fuchs wrote:Making silly choices just so a silly weapon is less insane is not a good way to make a game.

How is making magic stick less to the tiny molecules of a sword as opposed to the significantly larger bullet more silly than the reverse? If we wanted fidelity to reality instead of genre conventions, why would we have magic at all?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 11:31 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Given as the sword is one piece, cleaning the aura of the sword could be pretty easy - just scrape the aura of the blade and you're good to go. The gun leaves a cloud of particles all over the place and sends the bullet far away, so cleaning the aura is harder. If it becomes desirable for people to be able to get away with sword murder more easily than gun murder, options like that are totally available.

-Username17

On the other hand any melee fighting increases the chance of leaving other traces - from contact with the victim. If the victim can defend itself to some degree it's almsot certain there'll be traces.

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 12:51 pm

kzt wrote:You can easily link the bullet to the brass case, if it wasn't caseless. The bullet that killed the guy isn't a part of the gun, so it's a whole lot harder to link. It just passed through the barrel for about 5 milliseconds.

And you can just as easily argue that it's easier to get a sympathetic link to a bullet that was fired out of a gun than with a microscopic amounts of metal to anything, either because size matters or because there just isn't enough metal left behind to do anything. Also, bullets in magazines tend to spend a lot of time touching that magazine, which in turn is part of the gun, so whatever. It's magic, you can write the rules to do whatever the fuck you want.

As for science, you totally can link bullets to guns, now, in the real world, based on the particular deformation or marks left on the bullet from when it was fired (assuming the bullet is more or less intact). In the real world, trying to establish something similar from a blade wound mostly just lets you know what size and shape the blade was, so there's no particular verisimilitude problem with not being able to do more than that with futuretech.

And no, people running around with swords is stupid.

Setting aside the (surmountable) problems with concealment, if you don't think there should be swords, make this argument. Verisimilitude can be fixed, this can't.

What's wrong with making swords only viable for those stupid freaks who minmax so they can use it effectively?

Well, if weapon skills were sufficiently abstract, being knifeguy could also make you swordguy in situations where subtlety is not part of the plan, in the same way that autofire guy goes from a silenced SMG to a SAW when stealth and subtlety are out the window.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 2:35 pm

Knife guy is almost the same as sword guy anyway. Guns should be easier to use and better in almost any situation, leaving melee specialists as niche fighters.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:40 pm

Swords would probably be more effective than guns against certain types of spirits that lack vital organs or blood. Cutting something to pieces with a silenced pistol isn't exactly easy.

Hieronymous Rex · Post by **Hieronymous Rex** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:12 pm

If there was magic that buffed melee weapons (i.e. the magic flows from your body into the weapon, and is not sustained in a projectile), swords (an also perhaps whips, interestingly) could be a viable choice for Fantasy characters, although it still wouldn't justify vat grown ninja using them.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 5:44 pm

If knives have a stealth advantage, and there are selectable character options that boost melee, then ideally a knife specialist would be more effective with a sword than with a gun. At that point, as long as knives are valuable for stealth, swords will see play as the weapon of choice for knife users in situations where openly using force are acceptable, like hunting monsters in the woods.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 11:19 pm

or, if you want to backstab somebody, why not use something that hurts a bit more than a dagger?
like a sword. or, if you wanna be silly, a ballista siege weapon ^^

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 11:25 pm

This argument is counterproductive; it's focusing on low level design before high level design. Decide first whether you want sword guys. If you do, fabricating a reason for them is trivial (traceability works fine). If not, be upfront about it, and point out that melee is for suckers.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:34 am

How about renaming "fragile test" to "threat test?" It passes the re-write test pretty well, I'd say:

Threat Tests: Pushing Your Luck
“I don't think I want any more.”

Another type of test is the “threat test”. Threat tests are done when there is a specific disaster that characters are attempting to avoid while going about their business. A threat test differs from a basic test in that the faults (actual literal faults, not net faults) are added to a running tally – a “fault pool”. The specific disaster that threatens will have a fault threshold, and if the total faults in the fault pool ever equal or exceed the fault threshold, then disaster strikes. When that happens, the threat test is considered to have “busted”. Yes, like in Blackjack.

kzt · Post by **kzt** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:35 am

name_here wrote:Swords would probably be more effective than guns against certain types of spirits that lack vital organs or blood. Cutting something to pieces with a silenced pistol isn't exactly easy.

Don't get me wrong. A guy with a sword (or axe or any medieval type melee weapon) who knows how to use it is fucking lethal if he can close. Axes or slashing type swords can remove limbs or disembowel you with a single hit, maces or other smashing weapons will pulverize bones, like skulls, etc.

The reason they are stupid is that they are big obvious weapons, take a lot of time to learn to use effectively (particularity against people trying to kill you with another melee weapon), are fairly expensive to make, and have a range of about 2 meters. It's not because they won't kill you dead.

They are far more deadly than a pistol per hit, but if sword guy gets shot 6 times before he gets to the range to attack pistol guy I suspect that sword guy is going to at best draw the fight with a mutual kill.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:52 am

As it turns out, a guy charging a man with a pistol can cross 15 meters in the time it takes for the shooter to get off 1 shot. Add in magic axes from Thule, body armour and the enhanced stealthiness of melee weapons vs. magic and you have a perfectly valid tactic for some opponents.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:53 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Disposable knives are probably easier to fabricate though. No ammo to worry about, no moving parts, just a big blade. Stab a fool with it, and dump the blade into a recycling tank.

I can't see a lot of reason to have an heirloom katana, but for killing people and getting away with it, it's hard to beat a sword made out of recycled parts that is subsequently recycled again.

-Username17

What, seriously?

In a game world containing actual magic, an heirloom katana just screams 'magic item'. And even if it isn't actually magical yet, you can just bet that whoever it is you inherited that particular heirloom from is floating around as an ancestral spirit somewhere, and can probably be easily bargained with to put a blessing of some sort on the blade.

Of course, this is far more traceable then a fabber sword made of cheap recyclable materials, but one would imagine that, just as with an assault rifle as opposed to a back-alley special, the added power can make up for the added traceability, if the target in question demands the firepower.

Vebyast · Post by **Vebyast** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:05 am

Actually, there's part of your answer. Body armor to stop bullets is easy to build; all you need is a bunch of strong fiber and some ceramic over critical bits. Body armor to stop a cyborg-powered sword means plate.

As for hiding a sword, recall that some of your characters are carrying around two-foot pieces of metal where their arms used to be. There's reason enough to have a sword in the first place - why not?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:14 am

There's a reason no one but idiots uses swords today. It's that firearms beat swords in all aspects that matter. Firearms are even better at penetrating armor than swords. And sorry to say - but with cyborgs in play, the gunwielding cyborg will be even better than the sword wielder since the gun wielder can use heavier firearms when stealth is no concern, fire faster, and more precise.

You won't get far in a charge against a chipped shooter.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:06 am

How does the ability to slice bullets in half mid-air factor in?

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 1:22 pm

@Fuchs: Yes, you would be retarded to use a sword in real life. Nobody is disputing that. However, it has been decided that we want swords to be something that sees use by the cyber ninjas of our cyberpunk fantasy heartbreaker setting. And that means that being a ninja two wields a sword and not a gun is not doing something retarded in making that choice. So, presumably there is some new innovation, tactical consideration or other benefit that makes swords viable again in the year 2070. Saying that those benefits don't exist and therefore swords can't happen isn't valid, as we've already accepted "swords will be used" as a premise and anything that conflicts with that is the thing that gets rejected.

RiotGearEpsilon · Post by **RiotGearEpsilon** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 1:59 pm

Fuchs wrote:You won't get far in a charge against a chipped shooter.

Clearly, high-end swordfighters don't charge. They teleport short distances.