What, if any, RPGs have good variation between gun types?

[rusty_shackleford]

Traditionally: assault rifle is the best all around weapon excelling in every area. I consider this to be a fair modeling of the real world in a combat scenario, as other weapons tend to show their strength based upon circumstance rather than ability to pew pew in a firefight.
More recently: assault rifle is gimped just to make room for other weapon types to excel. You'll often see the pistol and SMG excel at closer combat here, shotgun get various perks like pushback or AOE, and sniper rifle excel at 'longer'(for typical video game combat) range.


Do any RPGs do a better job at representation of firearms?

[J1M]

Fallout 1/2 is all that comes to mind.

The Secret World had differentiation with gun skills, but those weapons didn't really feel like guns.

[wndrbr]

RPGs aren't deep enough to simulate the actual difference between types of guns, most of the time even the dedicated shooters don't provide that. For me the "smg shoots fast, rifle has better range, shotgun deals more damage upclose" implementation is good enough.

[WaterMage]

One that comes to my mind is Fallout New Vegas.

The starting 556 bolt action rifle to the carbine to the LMG or marksman mine. All use the same ammo, deal similar damage but RoF, range and other proprieties affect how great it is. FNV also has different ammo types. You can use slugs in your shotgun. You can use dragon breath. If an enemy is distant and has significant armor, buckshot wouldn't be as effective as slugs.

Other example is VtMB. Your starting .38 special revolver is trash. Not against humans but against supernatural foes. When you unlock the .44 Magnum revolver, it becomes very effective against supernatural foes.

In Warsword Conquest mod for M&B, there are different types of firearms, near all firearms are fire and very long reload. But there are some advanced weapons, you can buy an double barrel pistol in altdorf and some rare merchants have repeaters but they are expensive as hell. One game will play toghether with a group is Savage Worlds : Deadlands. I was seeking a OSR group but found a group for it and will play this weekend my first section. The game not only features guns but also has single action revolvers and double action revolvers, as well precursion revolvers who requires powder, precursion caps and very slow reload

It is fantasy wild west. So the focus on guns is much more expected than in a game where it is a novelty. The art is gorgeous.

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Other game that features guns is UnderRail.

Snipers if crits hits like a truck.

Sidearms, are available in all types of cartridges, an .44 handgun is devastating but ammo is expensive and requires too much AP. An lighter gun is the opposite. There is no better gun, just situational gun.

[stormvermin]

It's not an rpg but I think Blood West fits here. Revolvers are good for quickly dispatching smaller enemies up close, lever actions are good at range, shotguns are good at making the thing directly in front of you disappear right now, and the game is spacious enough to facilitate the use of the long guns to methodically pick off exposed targets beyond most enemies' aggro range. Bows and crossbows kind of step on each other's toes and neither of them are a good option. They're silent but bows do less damage than comparable revolvers and at less range while crossbows hit like a truck to the head but are incredibly slow and without the range of a lever gun or hunting rifle. They're good for opening a fight if you plan on finishing with something else but that's about the only use I can think of for crossbows. There is no one size fits all tool and it's hard to carry around every type of gun while also having inventory space to spare. I'm about halfway through a playthrough and I've found that I use the revolver, the shotgun, and the lever action relatively equally and for different purposes. It helps that lever guns and revolvers use the same ammo.

[Tadeusz]

Do any RPGs do a better job at representation of firearms?

What do you say about guns in ATOM RPG? I think the variety was fine there and it even has an OP gun with rare ammo. Trudograd made guns even more varied as they have different upgrades available to them.

[Xenich]

Shadowrun tended to have a nice variation on firearms, though you never saw this translated well to the video games made.

[Kalin]

Obviously gimmick guns like rocket launchers, flamethrowers and such still have a special place due to their unique damage-dealing ways, but aside from such cases there really isn't much reason in most games not to simply pick AR (unless as mentioned already they're being bullied for the sake of "balance" with Styg being the worst offender at this I personally encountered). Games such as Quasimorph have class traits boosting specific gun- and ammo types which makes other gun types more viable, anD then there's also the case of different guns dealing different damage types which could make a seemingly gimped gun great vs. certain types of enemies. Silenced weapons are also nice when stealth mechanics are an actual thing and will typically make me favour them more since I like to snekk around. One thing I appreciated in Hitman 1 which spergfuck *** I know it isn't a CRPG but frankly it sorta is was how extremely fast the Beretta fired. It often made me use it instead of heavier guns simply for that aspect.

[Demonic Fate]

Mobility penalties are underused in RPGs. XCOM doesn't pretend that a SMG is just as effective as an assault rifle, but it's lighter and less bulky so you move 1 square further with it, which is intuitive and plausible.

The other potentially useful stat is recoil, but it's trickier to integrate in RPG stat systems. I think Rogue Trader had a good idea, though IIRC it was tied to character skills over gun stats: most gunners can fire multiple times per round, so the "recoil" was an accumulating penalty on subsequent shots.