[TW 2013] Body armor and Trama plates

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Do you think trama plates are too effective for beginning characters in TW2013?

I'm a bit confused by the question. Isn't the fact that trauma plates are effective the whole point? Why should being a "starting character" preclude a character from having trauma plates in their armour if having them is standard for that armour type/role of character?

[stg58fal]

I think its called a tactical vest in T2013.

Trauma plates are the ONLY reason one of my PCs lived. Multiple hits from an RPK-74, NONE of which penetrated the plates. If they had, he'd have died.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Targan

I'm a bit confused by the question. Isn't the fact that trauma plates are effective the whole point? Why should being a "starting character" preclude a character from having trauma plates in their armour if having them is standard for that armour type/role of character?

I think this is an artifact of other game systems having an artificially-regulated power curve in which gaining combat effectiveness is a key component (sometimes the only component) of character advancement. And by "other game systems," I'm referring mainly to those which run on class/level scales.

It's worth noting that those systems usually are paired with settings with radically different economies. You're looking at medieval or renaissance craft-guilds rather than mass production, which means only older and more experienced combatants have the prestige or personal wealth to afford those rare "superior" weapons and armor. And the all-handcrafted nature of magical items only extends that scale to higher and higher levels of "technology," ensuring only ridiculously wealthy adventurers can afford those things. By contrast, Twilight 2000 and 2013 assume prolific modern tools, as well as the opportunity to acquire equipment from the 50-90% of the prewar population that's now dead and no longer needs it.

- C.

[Michael Lewis]

Yes, your right. Mainly for game balance. You don't want your players starting with tanks or plate armor.

Secondly, I've not played TW2013, just mainly read it. That's why the question.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Yes, your right. Mainly for game balance. You don't want your players starting with tanks or plate armor.

That's not the way T2K (or T2013) works. You start with the gear that is appropriate to start with. In fact in my experience T2K campaigns tend to ebb and flow in terms of equipment and often your PC's equipment gets crappier and crappier, not better and better. And in T2K it's entirely possible for a PC group to start with a tank. It's not like D&D where your stuff pretty much automatically gets gets better and better, the tank will get harder and harder to find fuel for, it's ammo will slowly be depleted and in the end in all likelihood the PCs will end up trading it or abandoning it. That's the T2K vibe.

[NanbanJim]

Targan and the others have said it quite well, but I couldn't help put my 2 cents in.

Michael, there is a way to make the campaign more "advancement" style: Make it what we called in Shadowrun a "gutter campaign," where the PCs start with nothing and you carefully mete out slightly improved gear to them by ensuring their opposition would only likely have limited gear.

A good way to do this may be with the PCs as refugees stuck in a pogrom (work camp) in a para-rural area of a higher gun-control state, say, the western bulge of Illinois (a quick Googling of "Illinois map population" told me that). In a twist of irony, the clan in the "Big House" have all caught something airborne and rather terminal (the vector for this can be a campaign element), and so while they have the bullwhips, the beating sticks, due to local law and personal need they never were all that well armed to begin with--just lucky. A couple pistols a rifle and shotgun or two would be the "big guns."

That setting is ready for the PCs to make their break from their weakened guards... and the disease could also keep the PCs from getting that far.

Add in some personal motivations, eg the PCs families were all sold to similar local pogroms (hobby farms/ranches, maybe a gravel pit and/or peat mine). Perhaps all of these were seized by the lackeys of Chicago "philanthropists" who, after the end of real central control, "stepped in" and offered to help those city dwellers starving and stranded a way to get 2 meals a day and a roof... in what turned out to be slave labour (or indentured servitude with no effective law enforcement to ensure the release after term).

This removes urban PD from the equation. National Guard may patrol on occasion, but would generally want to GTFO by this point in time as fast as possible... and potentially trigger-happy, since there's nothing worth them protecting out here (these pogroms would barely dent the governor's needs), but handfuls of people (the Philanthropist Network) very interested in keeping prying eyes away.

After freeing a half-dozen pogroms, they'll be lucky to have any longarms with even assault-rifle ergonomics, much less select-fire capabilities. Explosives would be Molotovs, improvised explosives (eg fireworks, dangerous enough in their own right), and perhaps some dynamite from the mines. You control whether or not they get better gear (and if it's available, remember they have to pry it off from someone already using it). And yet even if you don't provide better gear, it's believable enough.

If you want to "upgrade," you'll have to deal with bandit/slavers by lead or trade, assault the NG patrols (which should probably be a moral quandry, especially if they capture an NG survivor who can explain that, "hey, it's not personal, we just learned to shoot first or die for not doing so, I got a wife and wait, aren't you Uncle Denny from Becky's side of the family??"), or...

Well, the list goes on, but that's months of campaigning down the road.

That's one way to merge classic tabletopping with a modern availability curve.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by NanbanJim

A good way to do this may be with the PCs as refugees stuck in a pogrom (work camp) in a para-rural area of a higher gun-control state, say, the western bulge of Illinois (a quick Googling of "Illinois map population" told me that).

I don't disagree at all with your suggestion but I'm curious about your usage of the word "pogrom".

Webster's gives the definition of pogrom as, "the organized killing of many helpless people usually because of their race or religion". I believe that it is primarily used to describe the organized killings of Jews, but may also be applied to other ethnic/religious victim groups.

Am I missing something?

[NanbanJim]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I don't disagree at all with your suggestion but I'm curious about your usage of the word "pogrom".

I think I learned the use of the word wrong. :P My memory says I picked it up from earlier versions of T2k which seemed to use the term to mean some form of relocation camp with mandatory labour work; anything from the benign "Civilian Conservation Corps" to the infamous Nazi labour camps like Buchenwald.

My 1st and 2nd Ed books are boxed up still, so I may even be wrong on where I began misinterpreting it. TL;DR my bad!

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by NanbanJim

Explosives would be Molotovs, improvised explosives (eg fireworks, dangerous enough in their own right), and perhaps some dynamite from the mines.

Lets not forget comerical grade explosives like those used for building demo

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by NanbanJim

Targan and the others have said it quite well, but I couldn't help put my 2 cents in.

Michael, there is a way to make the campaign more "advancement" style: Make it what we called in Shadowrun a "gutter campaign," where the PCs start with nothing and you carefully mete out slightly improved gear to them by ensuring their opposition would only likely have limited gear.

A good way to do this may be with the PCs as refugees stuck in a pogrom (work camp) in a para-rural area of a higher gun-control state, say, the western bulge of Illinois (a quick Googling of "Illinois map population" told me that). In a twist of irony, the clan in the "Big House" have all caught something airborne and rather terminal (the vector for this can be a campaign element), and so while they have the bullwhips, the beating sticks, due to local law and personal need they never were all that well armed to begin with--just lucky. A couple pistols a rifle and shotgun or two would be the "big guns."

That setting is ready for the PCs to make their break from their weakened guards... and the disease could also keep the PCs from getting that far.

Add in some personal motivations, eg the PCs families were all sold to similar local pogroms (hobby farms/ranches, maybe a gravel pit and/or peat mine). Perhaps all of these were seized by the lackeys of Chicago "philanthropists" who, after the end of real central control, "stepped in" and offered to help those city dwellers starving and stranded a way to get 2 meals a day and a roof... in what turned out to be slave labour (or indentured servitude with no effective law enforcement to ensure the release after term).

This removes urban PD from the equation. National Guard may patrol on occasion, but would generally want to GTFO by this point in time as fast as possible... and potentially trigger-happy, since there's nothing worth them protecting out here (these pogroms would barely dent the governor's needs), but handfuls of people (the Philanthropist Network) very interested in keeping prying eyes away.

After freeing a half-dozen pogroms, they'll be lucky to have any longarms with even assault-rifle ergonomics, much less select-fire capabilities. Explosives would be Molotovs, improvised explosives (eg fireworks, dangerous enough in their own right), and perhaps some dynamite from the mines. You control whether or not they get better gear (and if it's available, remember they have to pry it off from someone already using it). And yet even if you don't provide better gear, it's believable enough.

If you want to "upgrade," you'll have to deal with bandit/slavers by lead or trade, assault the NG patrols (which should probably be a moral quandry, especially if they capture an NG survivor who can explain that, "hey, it's not personal, we just learned to shoot first or die for not doing so, I got a wife and wait, aren't you Uncle Denny from Becky's side of the family??"), or...

Well, the list goes on, but that's months of campaigning down the road.

That's one way to merge classic tabletopping with a modern availability curve.

Also in the U.S. and Canada civvies have access to semiauto variants of military weapons. These, civvy explosives and planning can make an entertaining group.

[Degrath]

When I deployed in 2011 with the US Army. I was issued as part of my basic kit an IOTV (Improved outer Tactical Vest) with 4 SAPI plates (front, back, 2 sides). The IOTV had removable front and rear ballistic throat protection, groin, lower back/ kidney and shoulder guards called DAPs. Without the plates it was the equivalent to a flak jacket.

After about 2 months in country I had removed all the optional components from the IOTV to lighten it up. After about another month or 2 I got rid of it all together and wore only a Plate carrier with my 4 sapi plates in it.

I saw many people take multiple 7.62 hits on the plates and they were almost never fatal. Though in nearly every case they lost consciousness and or had minor to severe internal injuries from the impact.

We were told a single plate could stop 3 rounds near point blank, though after one hit the plates would need to be replaced.
I would think for game play mechanics each hit should reduce the armor value of a plate and anything over 3-4 hits would negate it completely.