The Gaming Den

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:09 pm**

In WW1, the allies read some very bad translations of Clausewitz, which suggested that massed infantry charges were a good idea. You can look up Littel-Hart's criticism of both that reading and that tactic.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:09 pm**

Stahlseele wrote:Err . . no, Trench-Fighting is basically what happened with the earth-works fortifications just on a larger scale.
Both meant throwing men and material at fucking hardcore positions to try and maybe take them with probably no real chance of holding them for fear of being cut off from support or due to the simple fact that they were built in such a way that they were hard to attack from one side but hard to defend from the other side.

artillery changed the earthworks and palisades to trenches and tunnels because they were harder to hit and easier to build.

and of course the end of WWI was coming with the tanks which simply rolled across the open field and over trenches and barbed wire and right by gun emplacements without caring about fast firing machine guns that would have decimated hundreds if not thousands of men in the same attempt.

I thought this was about the bayonets. Let's go to that wellspring of knowledge, wikipedia!

Wikipedia wrote:A specialised group of fighters called trench sweepers (Nettoyeurs de Tranchées or Zigouilleurs) evolved to fight within the trenches. They cleared surviving enemy personnel from recently overrun trenches and made clandestine raids into enemy trenches to gather intelligence. Volunteers for this dangerous work were often exempted from participation in frontal assaults over open ground and from routine work like filling sandbags, draining trenches, and repairing barbed wire in no-man's land. When allowed to choose their own weapons, many selected grenades, knives and pistols. FN M1900 pistols were highly regarded for this work, but never available in adequate quantities. Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless, Savage Model 1907, Star Bonifacio Echeverria and Ruby pistols were widely used.[32]

According to the semi-biographical War-Novel All Quiet on the Western Front, many soldiers preferred to use a sharpened spade as an improvised melee weapon instead of the bayonet, as the bayonet tended to get "stuck" in stabbed opponents, rendering it useless in heated battle. The shorter length also made them easier to use in the confined quarters of the trenches. These tools could then be used to dig in after they had taken a trench. Since the troops were often not adequately equipped for trench warfare, improvised weapons were common in the first encounters, such as short wooden clubs and metal maces, as well as trench knives and brass knuckles. As the war progressed, better equipment was issued, and improvised arms were discarded.

Used by American soldiers in the Western front, the pump action shotgun was a formidable weapon in short range combat, enough so that Germany lodged a formal protest against their use on 14 September 1918, stating "every prisoner found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life", though this threat was apparently never carried out. The U.S. military began to issue models specially modified for combat, called "trench guns", with shorter barrels, higher capacity magazines, no choke, and often heat shields around the barrel, as well as lugs for the M1917 bayonet. Anzac and some British soldiers were also known to use sawn-off shotguns in trench raids, because of their portability, effectiveness at close range, and ease of use in the confines of a trench. This practice was not officially sanctioned, and the shotguns used were invariably modified sporting guns.

World War 1 saw a surprising amount of close-range fighting. Lots of stabbing ensued.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:12 pm**

@notorious:

That's true re: earthworks, but that's also exactly what you would expect someone who had read Jomini to believe.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:39 pm**

mlangsdorf wrote: A combination of long-range artillery and long-range, rapid, and accurate rifle fire/machine guns made it impossible for even disciplined troops to close with the enemy before they got cut down. It was still possible to pin and flank a position, but once the trenches extended across Europe, that became impossible.

The Germans (and iirc the British) eventually came up tactics to allow attacks to succeed. The Germans created the storm troops, small units using a flexible command structure attacking with extremely intense artillery support, along with infiltration and quite different weapons. But it took until 1918 before they had this really working, and they ran out of time, space and troops and lost the war.

Posted: **Thu Mar 06, 2014 6:16 pm**

The thing with WWI is that for a period on the Western Front, nothing was a good idea. Massed assaults suffered heavy casualties and rarely made significant gains, but smaller sneak attacks just didn't have enough guys. Massed artillery bombardment did make dents in fortifications, but that took more shells than people had and also took long enough the other side could bring in reinforcements by train. Our modern style of combat requires radios in large quantity and they didn't have cheap man-portable radios. Finally, if you did manage to come up with something and overrun a trench line, congratulations, you have advanced a couple hundred yards. Now you have an excellent view of the second trench line created for exactly this contingency. There's also probably a third, and the other side is hurriedly building a new one behind that.

Eventually improvements in artillery accuracy and increased production made it possible to basically flatten a section of the trench and winning became a thing people could do.

World War 1 saw a surprising amount of close-range fighting. Lots of stabbing ensued.

Well, that's because standing back and shooting at people in a trench was an even worse idea than charging into melee with them.

Really, the Civil War was proto-trenchfighting. The guns weren't quite as good as they became but still much better than they had been. I've seen a preserved segment of Richmond's defensive earthworks, and I seriously doubt charging that would have even remotely worked. It was six feet tall with a ditch in front of it and also covered in spikes.

I had to look up the battle for the bloody angle, and it turns out that proves very little. The assault was in a thick mist at night after heavy rain rendered most of the defender's gunpowder unusable and their artillery had been redeployed. The whole thing devolved into a brutally intense fight in close quarters until eventually the confederates withdrew in good order to a new defensive line with favorable casualty ratios.

A few days later, an attempted infantry charge in the same area got torn apart by artillery fire.

Posted: **Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:20 am**

Has anyone properly eviscerated SR5 yet? I mean, I know it's a turd, but I haven't seen a really good shitting-upon-it as of yet.

Posted: **Thu Mar 13, 2014 10:59 am**

Ed wrote:Has anyone properly eviscerated SR5 yet? I mean, I know it's a turd, but I haven't seen a really good shitting-upon-it as of yet.

I know AncientHistory would not be up for it. Going through it is still too painful for him. I might be willing to do a drunk review. But I'd have to be pretty drunk.

SR5 just makes me sad. It's a series of essentially random changes that are poorly thought out and incompletely edited into the book done by a group of scabs and thieves. Doing a full review would be difficult and frustrating.

What we have instead is a whack-a-mole scenario. Various people pop up and ask how something works because it doesn't make any sense - and then people have to sadly inform them that the reason it doesn't seem to make sense is because it actually doesn't make sense. That the design is incomplete and the implications of pronouncements not thought through at all.

-Username17

Posted: **Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:34 pm**

like for example the only one attack per round.
and everything that affects a target is an attack.
yes, ice-sheet under feet counts as an attack.

Posted: **Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:37 pm**

That's really only the tip of the iceberg. Basically you have a perfect storm of design incompetence and nostalgia and people not talking to each other. So yeah, you've got the giant clusterfuck that is the "only one attack" thing that allows you to shoot at two people but not shoot twice at one person (and if you're shooting grenades, I guess you get a divide by zero error, since each opponent would be hit with splash damage from each other target). I think they were trying to solve the "two shot problem" but the hot mess they ended up with can't even be parsed, and what they probably meant is basically fucked. Then you've also got character generation designed by a committee of people who loved 1st edition and people who can't do math and you end up with this bizarre clusterfuck that literally ends up telling you that things cost two karma per point of karma cost. And you've got matrix rules designed by a headcase who was absolutely certain that he could create a "carrot" model that allowed matrix dropout but still gave the hacker worthwhile targets - spoiler alert: he could not. And with the Magic... I just don't even fucking know what they were trying to do there. It looks like a mashup of house rules from various people nerfing and/or buffing magic users sort of dropped together. It doesn't hold together at all. It's like something Heisenberg would write.

-Username17

Posted: **Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:40 am**

FrankTrollman wrote:The best Shadowrun books were Awakenings and Shadowtech
....Shadowtech and Awakenings expanded what the game was about in a way that was eye opening. They were transgressive and transformative - in a good way.

Ancient History wrote:I'll break with Frank on this one; the two best Shadowrun books were Sprawl Sites and Shadowtech.

From Mary Sue double Elf OSSR, I kinda want to read some Shadowrun Material to more get into the Universe.Wondering on any further suggestions that make for good reading material for the setting, I once read a bit of "Elven Fire", and what I did skim, sounded kinda captivating, that older Shadowrun was pretty cool sounding. Are the Seattle books any good at all?, currently the campaign seems to take place there rather especially.

Posted: **Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:00 pm**

Aryxbez wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:The best Shadowrun books were Awakenings and Shadowtech
....Shadowtech and Awakenings expanded what the game was about in a way that was eye opening. They were transgressive and transformative - in a good way.

Ancient History wrote:I'll break with Frank on this one; the two best Shadowrun books were Sprawl Sites and Shadowtech.
From Mary Sue double Elf OSSR, I kinda want to read some Shadowrun Material to more get into the Universe.Wondering on any further suggestions that make for good reading material for the setting, I once read a bit of "Elven Fire", and what I did skim, sounded kinda captivating, that older Shadowrun was pretty cool sounding. Are the Seattle books any good at all?, currently the campaign seems to take place there rather especially.

I rather enjoyed "Emergence" book.

Posted: **Sun Mar 16, 2014 9:21 pm**

Reading through some of my older Shadowrun stuff, I realized that Lone Star (another Findley book) is actually pretty good. Suffers some of the early Shadowrun structural issues, but it's written pretty well.

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2014 4:48 am**

I want to use the EotM (and accompanying houserules to run SR4). I also want to somewhat incentivize melee combat. What breaks if I use the following house rules:

- All close combat skills are folded into Melee.
- Melee defense pools are Reaction + Melee or Athletics (Dodge is folded into Athletics).
- Normal melee attacks are Simple Actions.
- Any action where you make a Melee attack also folds in a Move action.
- With at least +1 IP from any source (Wired Reflexes, Synaptic Boosters, Increased Reflexes, etc.) you can take a Swift Attack. This is essentially BF for melee attacks; increase DR by X, attack X+1 targets at once, or reduce defender dice pools by 2X, and reduce your attacking dice pool by X. X is an amount ranging from 1 to a maximum of your melee combat skill/2 (round up).
- With at least +2 IP from any source, you can make a Lightning Attack. This is the Long/Full Auto Burst equivalent for melee attacks, and requires a Complex Action (you still get a Move folded in, as described above). As above, you may increase DR by Y, attack Y+1 targets at once, or reduce defender pools by 2Y, while reducing your attack pools by Y dice. Y is any amount from 1 to a maximum of your melee combat skill.
- "Recoil Compensation" for melee is Poise. Each point of Poise negates 1 point of penalty from making Swift or Lightning Attacks. You get 1 Poise per 2 points of Agility or Strength (either or). The custom grip mod for melee weapons adds 1 Poise.

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:55 am**

I think one of the concerns I had with allowing Melee to "double tap", was that NPC's would now have an easier time to punk the PC's. Given I suppose they could already do that with a pistol, but now increases the likelihood with more range of enemies being capable of such. In my campaign, I'd simply just not allow non-Prime Runner NPC's to "Double Tap" with Melee, though I can understand how that doesn't make sense to others.

Wasn't Melee Defense already Reaction +Melee, just defensively allowed ye to add it twice?

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2014 8:18 am**

Oh yeah. I keep thinking of Full Defense, where it's Stat + Skill x2, since it's the only defense worth anything in a world of big IPs and people using guns. Derp.

And I just wanted melee weapons to have some parity with firearms. As it is, melee has the quadruple disadvantage of:

- needs you to be in melee range
- is a complex action
- is defended against by a higher defense pool than guns
- can't use damage-enhancing or multiple target attack tricks

I also thought of folding all the combat skills into Ranged, Melee and Athletics, because seriously, fuck skill bloat.

Posted: **Sun Apr 13, 2014 5:41 pm**

Did anyone check out "Run & Gun" yet?

Posted: **Sun Apr 13, 2014 7:23 pm**

Yes. It's frustratingly bad.

Offhand, I'd guess that about 90% of the content (or at least the weaponry), is material from SR2, SR3, and SR4 with damage codes updated to SR5. Seriously...a significant percentage of the guns made their first appearance in Fields of Fire back in 1994. I just find it hard to care about the Savalette Guardian's fourth re-appearance now. Many of those codes don't make any sense because in some cases they were copy / pasted from SR4 (or run through the armor algorithm of "add 4") without regard for changes in the rules. The person who wrote the Armor chapter also does their darndest to shoehorn in a lot of rather dubious wireless bonuses (although they're rather thin on the ground when you get to the weapons chapter).

Highlights include military armor providing more protection than armored vehicles, swords being rarer than combat chainsaws, and an armored suit that gives better bonuses to your social skills than Tailored Pheromones Rating 1...at about 1/15th the price. Also the Ghillie Suit openly mocks the idea that a stealthy character would want or have wireless enabled on their armor...despite the fact that the Chameleon Suit in the corebook has a wireless bonus and tells you with a straight face that this makes you even sneakier.

About the only thing I can say that surprised me (in a good way) is that apparently there was an editing pass done between the release of the preview pages and the release of the pdf (a few rather hilarious typos in the preview pages were fixed). I honestly wasn't expecting that.

tl;dr version: If you love Shadowrun, have fond memories of Shadowrun, and want to continue to have fond memories of Shadowrun...do NOT read this book. It will make you angry and sad.

Posted: **Sun Apr 13, 2014 10:00 pm**

appearantly, the book is also written in a very flippand tone of voice.
egg sample:

Concealed quick-draw holster (accessory): What
more do you want a holster to do?
...................................................................................................
It won’t fire the thing for you, though, so buckle down
and do it yourself. The holster does not take any slots
in your weapon. Please excuse our compulsion to point
out fairly obvious stuff like that.

And yes, even though the all mighty and holy word count still reigns supreme on what actually makes it into a product . . shit like that flies.

Also, the repair system basically says each box of damage taken costs 10% of the list price to fix. and yes, stuff has, of course, more than 10 boxes in some cases, so repairing things can actually be more expensive than fixing them.
it also means that stuff which costs 500k (like the pi-tac which is also utterly bullshit) will break the bank upon taking 1 solitary box of damage.

And there is also this:

Location, Location, Location. 112
Ankle 112
Ear 112
Eye 113
Foot 113
Forearm 113
Genitals 113
Gut 113
Hand 113
Hip 114
Jaw 114
Knee 114
Neck 114
Shin 114
Shoulder/Upper Arm 114
Sternum 114
Thigh 115
Vehicle 115
Ammo Whammy! 115
Bellringer 116
Bulls-Eye Double-Tap/Burst 116
Down the Gullet 116
Extreme Intimidation! 116
Finger Popper 116
Flame On! 116
Flash Blind 116
Here’s Muck in Your Eye! 116
Hit ‘em Where It Counts 116
Light ’em Up 116
More Muck, Better Duck! 117
Nasty Finger Prick 117
On Pins and Needles 117
Ricochet Shot 117
Shake, Rattle, and BOOM! 117
Shake, Rattle, and Pop! 117
Shredded Flesh 117
Spinner 117
Tag! 117
That Hit the Spot! 117
Through and Through … and Into 117
Troll Finger Popper 118
Up the Ante 118
Warning Shot 118
More actions! 119
Aimed Burst 119
Ballestra 119
Brain Blaster 119
Clinch 119
Charge Attack 120
Double-Tap 120
Escape 120
Enhanced Suppression 120
Evade 120
Finishing Move 120
Flechette Suppressive Fire 120
Flying Kick 121
Full Offense 121
Half Sword 121
Haymaker 121
Herding 121
Iaijutsu 122
Interception 122
Kip-Up 122
Playing Possum 122
Pouncing Dragon 122
Pre-emptive Block 122
Pre-emptive Dodge 122
Pre-emptive Parry 122
Push/Shove/Sacrifice Move 123
Reading the Defense 123
Subduing 123
Throw Person 123
Touch-Only Attack 124
Interrupt Actions 124
Block 124
Counterstrike 124
Dive for Cover 124
Dodge 124
Full Defense 124
Parry 124
Reversal 124
Right Back At Ya! 124
Run for Your Life/Dive on the Grenade 125
Sacrifice Throw 125
Riposte 125
Protecting the Principle 125
Shadow Block 125

which is a list of attack options and other combat actions.
The numbers are page numbers actually.

And the PDF costs 25$. And won't even love you long time either.

Posted: **Sun Apr 13, 2014 10:07 pm**

The first thing I noticed was that there is quality "One-trick pony", which costs 7 karma and gives you a Martial Arts advantage thingy without giving you an actual Martial Art style. Martial Arts style costs 7 karma and comes with a free advantage thingy...

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:50 am**

How well would Great Dragons and other big threats of the setting fare against the artilery or a well armed shadowrunner team?

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:00 am**

Longes wrote:How well would Great Dragons and other big threats of the setting fare against the artilery or a well armed shadowrunner team?

Depends somewhat on the edition. In general, the actual stats that Great Dragons and shit have are fairly modest by flying tank standards, and if you brought actual heavy weapons they would be crushed utterly. They specifically have a lot of magic, which means that they are presumably at any given moment invisible flying tanks, but that doesn't actually stop them from turning into meat bits when shot at by missiles or gauss guns in any edition.

Of course, rules be damned, in the fiction Great Dragons routinely use plot immunity to stomp all over weapons systems that would blow them to smithereens. Ghost Walker's rampage is impossible to replicate in any edition of the rules, but there have always been certain members of the author pool who think that kind of shit is awesome and can't stop fapping to it.

-Username17

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:05 am**

Somewhat related question:
What's wrong with the nukes in SR? Is there some reason authors decided to make nukes not work?

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:17 am**

There might have been, I doubt anyone remembers.

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:32 am**

In the first SR Triology Sam Verner did an great Ghostdance and deactivated most nukes (the fissionable material) to stop the Spider Totem from nuking the world.
Or something like this.

Posted: **Thu Apr 17, 2014 8:19 am**

I thought the reason is that nukes (mostly) don't work because of ...reasons.

The Gaming Den

The Shadowrun Situation