The last time I saw a truly useful, coherent, and comprehensive gamebook about firearms, it was 1984 or thereabouts. It cost something like $18 then and would probably set us back $40 today. Thanks to the wonders of PDF and the internet, Big Bang Volume One will set you back only $5.00 (plus paper and ink) -- and it's almost as complete. (Where are the H&K handguns and the submachine guns so popular in action movies?)
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"Nicely, nicely" is how a Damon Runyon character would describe this book, for even he could comprehend all the data. It really is presented with what we'd call user-friendliness, and a charting system which saves space and makes it simple to find the specific information you want. Happily, author Dana Jorgensen includes photographs (NOT illustrations, which is the failure of too many games sourcebooks) and gives some scale as to the actual size of each weapon. There is enough time spent on ammunition to make it clear to any gamesmaster the type of damage the particular gun with the specific bullet will do.
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Even nicer is the fact that Dana fit a short history of almost each weapon into the book. This causes some empty space, but no wasted pages. Since PDF publication was chosen, he (or she?) tells us they're using as many pages as needed to be comprehensive, and that each weapon gets (when possible) an even number of pages so we can insert pages from future volumes in proper order. (Yes, I do think that it will be nice to have an alphabetical listing of all these weapons.)
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The initial book gives D20 and CyberThriller stats for each weapon. A free supplement gives conversions to Fudge (yay!), Fuzion, Cyberpunk 2020, and Action! in very simple manners. I look forward to future volumes -- especially the addition of the Heckler & Koch line!
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*jeep!
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--Chet
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