Muskets

[InFerrumVeritas]

Fantastic roll allows you to reload and fire in the same exchange.
Great roll allows you to reload and take a supplemental action this exchange.
Fair roll allows you to reload this exchange as a full round action.
Less than Fair means that the gun has the aspect "Improperly Loaded."

Speed powers provide their Athletic Ability bonus to the roll.

I would make pistols Weapon 3 (the calibre on many pistols from this period is absurd), but give them a range of 1 zone.  I would make muskets and other long guns Weapon 4 (they are the equivalent of "Battlefield Weaponry" as far as difficulty to get in this time period).  Holdout guns would be Weapon 2.

This would compare to daggers/knives at Weapon 1, Sabers and Rapiers at Weapon 2, Halbards and Warhammers at Weapon 3. 

Make firearms very effective and potent, but difficult to use consistently.  That accurately reflects how they were in this time period, in my opinion.

[Mr. Death]

It breaks suspension of disbelief for you, but my players are arguing for having it only cost a supplemental.  So, it obviously isn't a problem for them.  It is for me, though, and I must find a middle ground.  Granted, I should have hammered out rules for muskets BEFORE players made their characters, but I didn't and now I'm looking for a solution that is a compromise and is balanced.

I don't know your players, so I might be off base on this, but honestly, this seems to me as the player in question being less concerned about believability and more concerned about getting to use his preferred skill and most powerful available weapon as often as he can manage.

I mean, if someone comes at him with a sword or something, chances are he's going to be defending it with the musket. How he's going to manage that and a seven-step reloading process at the same time just boggles the mind. (Maybe if he had a shapeshifting power and gave himself a couple extra arms...hey, it worked for the T-1000.)

Lastly, this is a game and their characters are supposed to be exceptional and I want the players to have fun.  Most of them are first-time RPGers, much less Dresden players.  If I go all rules-lawyer on them and tell them "no" for everything, they won't want to play anymore.

I'm not saying you should say no to everything. Just to the things that don't make sense.

And he can still use guns as a primary weapon--a brace of pistols can be as nebulous a number as the amount of bullets in a clip, and in my experience combat rarely lasts more than 5 or 6 rounds, so it would be completely believable that he has enough pre-loaded pistols to last him through a scene of melee combat.

And even if he runs out of that, a musket is still five feet of solid wood (potentially with a pointy bit at one end), meaning he's still got a Weapon:2 or 3 to fall back on. To me, that's where the speed power would come in handy--not reloading (which is more precision and finesse than speed), but in fighting hand-to-hand.

It's actually the experienced player who's arguing for the quick re-loads, actually.

I'm sure he is, but I have to ask, is he an experienced gamer or an experienced roleplayer? And while I'm sure he's experienced in gaming, is he familiar with muskets?

[Taran]

I mean, if someone comes at him with a sword or something, chances are he's going to be defending it with the musket. How he's going to manage that and a seven-step reloading process at the same time just boggles the mind.

He has high Althletics.  I'm not going to let him parry with his Guns skill

And he can still use guns as a primary weapon--a brace of pistols can be as nebulous a number as the amount of bullets in a clip, and in my experience combat rarely lasts more than 5 or 6 rounds, so it would be completely believable that he has enough pre-loaded pistols to last him through a scene of melee combat.
And even if he runs out of that, a musket is still five feet of solid wood (potentially with a pointy bit at one end), meaning he's still got a Weapon:2 or 3 to fall back on. To me, that's where the speed power would come in handy--not reloading (which is more precision and finesse than speed), but in fighting hand-to-hand.

I've recommended this and that he take a guns stunt to let him use that skill for bayonettes.

I'm sure he is, but I have to ask, is he an experienced gamer or an experienced roleplayer? And while I'm sure he's experienced in gaming, is he familiar with muskets?

That sounds a bit accusatory...but if you must know:

He is both an experienced gamer AND role-player.  He's not the one who has the gun-toting character, but he is advocating for the one who is.  The gun-toting one also happens to be completely new at the game.
He's probably as knowledable of muskets as most gamers who aren't historians and have never fired a muzzle-loader - which, I assume, is around 80% of gamers. He's done his homework, though.
The point he's trying to make is he doesn't want to bog the game down too much.  We were originally going to do this setting with d20 modern and muskets had sooo many extra rules.  He just figured with the nature of Exchanges in FATE, it wasn't a big deal.

@InFerrumVeritas:  I don't like the idea of loading and shooting in the same round.  I do like the "improperly loaded" aspect.

[Mr. Death]

He has high Althletics.  I'm not going to let him parry with his Guns skill

Fair enough. Though still, dodging athletically makes it no easier to reload a musket than parrying with it.

That sounds a bit accusatory...but if you must know:

He is both an experienced gamer AND role-player.  He's not the one who has the gun-toting character, but he is advocating for the one who is.  The gun-toting one also happens to be completely new at the game.
He's probably as knowledable of muskets as most gamers who aren't historians and have never fired a muzzle-loader - which, I assume, is around 80% of gamers. He's done his homework, though.
The point he's trying to make is he doesn't want to bog the game down too much.  We were originally going to do this setting with d20 modern and muskets had sooo many extra rules.  He just figured with the nature of Exchanges in FATE, it wasn't a big deal.

Fair enough. As I said, I don't know your players, so I admitted off the bat that I may have been way off base. I didn't mean it to be accusatory, it's just been my experience that some gamers will argue for things that give them some sort of advantage at the expense of making in-universe sense, and that other players argue for things without practical knowledge on the subject.

In fact, I've been that second type before. I've been in games where I tried to do something and the GM (or another player) has pointed out something I was unaware of that would put what I was trying to do somewhere on the spectrum between "foolish" and "spectacularly impossible so put that down before you hurt yourself."

[Mrmdubois]

Personally I find the option of firing once and then switching to a brace of pistols all getting fired once per pistol to be pretty badass.

Out of curiosity though, where is your game taking place?  Because it's pretty unlikely that you can just go waltzing around firing muskets "willy-nilly" over most of Europe.  Or with a musket out at all.

[Taran]

Personally I find the option of firing once and then switching to a brace of pistols all getting fired once per pistol to be pretty badass.

Out of curiosity though, where is your game taking place?  Because it's pretty unlikely that you can just go waltzing around firing muskets "willy-nilly" over most of Europe.  Or with a musket out at all.

This is frontier country, my friend!  Waltz away!  Don't get too brash about shooting people or they'll send a posse after you.   Some places have strict rules about weapons - most do not.  The setting is Rokugan...with a spin....

[Mrmdubois]

Gotcha, yeah probably no gun laws then.  Awesome!

I just finished reading the Baroque cycle which happens in the late 16th early 17th centuries and happened to forget about anything that wasn't Europe at the time.

[admiralducksauce]

Reloading muskets sucked, which is why you ended up with


and

and


So just keep in mind even if you enforce more stringent reloading rules, your dudes can always just carry more barrels.

Also, consider how badass that duck-foot pistol would be for a monster hunter. One barrel loaded with silver, one loaded with iron, one loaded with blessed shot. It's got the Catch for what ails ya!

[Taran]

Oh yeah, that's awesome!  I'll be emailing those pics to my players.  Thanks.

I told them they could make double-barrelled version with a craft check. 

[Mrmdubois]

Mind you the top two pictures are of guns that discharged all their barrels simultaneously.

That Nock Navy Rifle in the middle had a recoil powerful enough to break your shoulder.

[Richard_Chilton]

So I went looking on youtube and found that someone put up the Sharpe movies.  And those movie used cinematic reloading at times.  Ignore the lack of magic and Sharpe's Chosen Men could be a party of PCs, spending FATE chips as needed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOAWSU5_4t4
Around the 3:58 minute mark, there's a typical "I have a musket, you don't" exchange between Sharpe (the man with a musket) and three horsemen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SIFhkCgbHY&feature=relmfu
There's a battle scene at 5:55 shows how well unprepared muskets do against a cavalry charge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbjPQNm7sAM&feature=relmfu
At 5:18 there's the start of a "I have a musket, but there's more of them" scene, one where reloading makes a different.  As a result of the need for speed, at 7:30 there's a lecture about going off at half cocked.

The page at http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Sharpe%27s_Company lists the weapons used in the movies - including the nock gun (http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Nock_Gun)


Richard

[noclue]

@MrD: I'm basically with you in the reload while dodging melee weapons issue. Though, I'd probably use compels in most cases. If they're willing to buy off the compel, then I guess they are able find a quiet moment in the storm to reload that musket. Works for me.