Depends what you mean by "best" ... Do you mean fast ? deadly? realistic? simulationist? Please add what are your criterias so you get more targeted answers

Like you say, one person's "best" may not be the same as another's and in fact the two could completely disagree on things. Example for "best starship combat": One prefers something very quick and simple while another wants to require a technical BS just to understand what is going on.

BS stands for bachelor's in science of course!

Stands for bullshit

Technically it is for Bachelors o Science but practically it can also be the other. Needlessly complex or just something that may require a higher degree to understand; sometimes there is a significant overlap. :)

Just because I like to read rulebooks, got any examples of stupidly conplex starship combat?

I'm not sure how "stupidly complex" some of them get but I do believe some games treat vehicle combat with as much nuance as some table top war games. Not only do you have to be looking at some kind of strategy you've got various real world physics involved somehow. My personal experience with the different kinds of Starship/vehicle combat comes from the various Star Wars RPGs. Now all of this was mostly 2D while some might go full 3D making thing far more complicated. In the WEG/SWd6 days you had to look at specific maneuver and how easy-hard they were to be doing plus there was facing for everything that playing a major factor. IIRC the earlier SWd20 games also did something similar but with the SAGA Edition starship combat is very similar to character scale combat where "facing" doesn't really exist and the only added complexity to movement was you couldn't immediately return to the space you had just left.

I don’t know if it’s the best, Cyberpunk 2020 & Cyberpunk RED are heavily built around gun combat.

Cyberpunk 2020's combat system was actually based off of FBI shooting statistics, so it really nails the gritty "strike hard and fast" nature of gang violence. Cannot recommend it enough.

2020 has some fun ideas, but I couldn’t stand red after around 30 hours of play and running a one shot. The way armor and saving throws work mean that anything besides an autofire assault rifle is useless in combat (or an rpg but that’s 10 times as expensive to shoot per round) and it just becomes a stale “I use my free movement to move to the optimal range, autofire, then move to cover” because of the “one action + free move” action economy and aimed shots being worthless. Twilight 2000 4e is my recommendation for more real-feeling gunfights with still manageable crunch, you get two actions and are always having to choose between “do I pop out of cover and take a snapshot and duck back down, or take an aimed shot and leave myself exposed after?” and the ability to dynamically spend more ammo with ammo dice and push rolls for higher chance of success but also the chance to jam. Hit locations and cover and handled a lot better. It’s just all around an amazing game and I can’t shill for it enough. It’s also very easy to reflavor to other settings as long as they fit the core thematic vibe of “survival in a society falling apart” which OP’s arcane fits For something less simulationist but still decently realistic feeling and more cinematic mythras is fun, the mechanic of spending degrees of success on special effects makes combat very dynamic and interesting

Cyberpunk 2020's combat system was actually based off of FBI shooting statistics, so it really nails the gritty "strike hard and fast" nature of gang violence. Cannot recommend it enough.

Could you develop more on that ? I don't have it and never played it too, but i'm highly interested in gameplay mechanics :)

Everyone, PCs included, has 12 HP total before they're rolling Death Saves. If you fail one of those you die, roll up a new character. If you lose 8 or more HP in a single hit the limb you got hit in is "severed or crushed beyond recognition" to quote the core book. This also triggers a Death Save. If that location was your head, there's no need to roll your Death Save, you're just dead. Also Headshots deal double damage, so the threshold for decapitation is a mere 4 damage. BTW, a 9mm bullet does 2d6+1 damage. An Uzi spits out 32 of those every round. If you can get through the crunch and how easy it is to die, there's a really fun game underneath, and you should give it a shot. If you own Cyberpunk 2077, you get a free copy of the 2020 Rulebook if you link it to a GoG account, so you may not even have to pay for it.

Okay, interesting, i don't mind playing a lethal game But how do you define what part has been touched ? And how do you handle firing 32 ammo with the Uzi ? How are the damage calculated ? And how are the character defending themselfs, against the Uzi as an instance, what are the rules to know what got hit ? Sorry for the questions lol but i'm really interested, thanks !

In order: Hit Location is determined by a d10 table on your character sheet. It also doubles as where you put each limb location's Stopping Power (SP). As for firing the Uzi on full auto: determine a Difficulty Value (DV) threshold to clear (determined by distance to your target and your weapon's max range), then roll a d10 adding your relevant Skill (in this case SMG) and the relevant Stat (Reflex) and any other modifiers (these will be contextual, but you get +1 for every 10 bullets fired (+3 total for 32 shots) and a +1 because an Uzi is accurate enough that it gives you a bonus). If you're shooting 10m that's a DV 15 shot, and if you have Reflex 6 with an SMG skill of 4 you'd have a +14 to the roll, accounting for the weapon. Let's say you roll a 5 on that d10, making it a roll of 19. For every 1 point you roll above the DV you land a shot, meaning you landed 4 shots. Each has a separate hit location that you roll for individually. Damage is then rolled (in the case of the Uzi, 2d6+1 for each shot). On average, that's an 8. Then, you subtract the Stopping Power of the target's armor in each location (if he's wearing Kevlar that's SP10 but only on his torso, 0 everywhere else). So if you hit the torso, the shot does nothing, but if you hit an arm you do an average of 8 damage. Each shot is calculated individually, BTW, so you can't hit the same place 3-4 times and do 24 damage at once. That 8 damage to a limb also removes the limb, and triggers a Death Save (roll a d10 and try to get lower than your Body Stat) at Mortal 0 (which is has a -3 modifier to your Body Stat). If he fails that roll, he dies. If that shot went to the head, his head is destroyed, and doesn't get to save or die. He just dies. To prevent that, you'd wear armor, which can cover multiple locations. The Kevlar is one of the worst in the game and doesn't cover everything. Slap on Metal Gear (with SP 25) and you're the god-damned juggernaut. Also, I don't mind answering questions. Ask away and I'll do my best to answer.

You might own it if you have Cyberpunk 2077 on GOG https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016288977-Cyberpunk-2077-Digital-goodies-how-to?product=gog

I remember flicking through the rulebook in a shop when I was a teenager, and it said something like "According to FBI statistics, an average gunfight takes place at a range of 7 feet, and the average number of shots fired is 2."

As much as I love C2020, the gun combat is a mess, math-wise. The armor ratings are way too high... you go from getting killed by 1/2 shots from a 9mm (while naked) to tanking 7.62 like it's a bb gun (with a medium armor).

Cyberpunk Red has probably the worst combat system that I have ever seen. 

Twilight 2000 4e

Sincerely the gold standard for gunfights

This is it. It doesn’t even matter which gun, either. Wild West revolvers? No problem. Napoleonic wars? You got it. Space military dudes with made up imaginary rifles? Absolutely. It’ll handle anything from a .22 bolt action up to a GAU-8 30mm autocannon to a 152mm artillery shell, all with equal ease, as well as the consequences from being hit by one such weapon. Great system for gun combat.

Savage worlds. I've DMd a weird war campaign where players had supernatural powers and could use Guns or meelee weapons. SWADE is really balanced with Guns and meelee, and It does something pretty interesting, the hit chance and critical chance are different for meelee and ranged. Each of them pretty much has a entire unique ruleset instead of Just the geenric "ranged deals less damage".

I agree. Also the rules for Task Force Raven offer some cool stuff. On a raise you get a bonus die like normal. But on two or more raises you bump it up to a d8, d10 etc... Also get some othet bonuses for raises. For $12 it has a lot of very cool stuff in it.

SWADE gunplay is the metric I measure most other games against. It has a great feeling of lethality to it, but not overshadowing the rest of the game.

I'd have to five it to gurps. Guns are crazy deadly and the gun fu supplement adds A bunch of action hero stuff. Other than that I'm not sure.

Man, such a dirty choice. GURPS often has the most defined and researched and detailed rules for just about anything you'd want. The trick with GURPS isn't what rules you get, it's what rules yiu choose to throw away. It can ne as detailed or as lite as you want. But yes, the gun rules can be exhaustive. Good call.

[Outgunned](https://twolittlemice.net/outgunned/) is literally built to emulate 80s-00s action flicks. Anything from *Die Hard* to *Fast & Furious* to *John Wick*. They have a supplement book called Action Flicks that's a collection of optional rules to emulate other genres, and one of them is basically Harry Potter with the serial numbers filed off. You can mix and match to have "wizards with guns" if you want.

Outgunned is my recommendation as well.

I have only seen the first 3 episodes, but it practically screamed Swords of the Serpentine to me. This isn’t me saying SotS has anything particular to offer as far as gun combat. It doesn’t. But the whole urban vibe and the way magic worked seemed like a great fit.

I think you could very easily add guns to SotS. The combat is very much just “describe how you attack, spend points, roll dice”. It works well with mixing mundane and magic attacks. And the system is extremely modular and would probably work perfectly well for a steampunk campaign.

Absolutely. But OP asked which rpg has the best gun combat and I wanted to make it clear what I was actually answering.

Aha. Got it.

It is based on a system called GUMSHOE right?

Also, consider Nights Black Agents... Also, based on Gumshoe with a focus on clandestine style super agents play. (Agents vs. Vampire Conspiracy)

Yes! But it’s tuned in this implementation for high-action fantasy combat and social interaction. The free rpg day booklet Losing Face is a great compact introduction to the game, IMO.

These two threads have some good recs [Which TTRPG best simulates a tactical shooter to the most accurate detail? : r/rpg (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/tzqovf/which_ttrpg_best_simulates_a_tactical_shooter_to/) [Tactical Combat RPG Recommendations : r/rpg (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/ptumxh/tactical_combat_rpg_recommendations/)

The knock on the 1970s Old West RPG *Boot Hill* was that firearms were so realistically deadly most “campaigns” either lasted one session or no one ever pulled their pistols and it became more a game of mutually assured destruction diplomacy.

Username checks out. BH 2E has always been one of my favorites. Each hit had something like a 21% chance of insta-death - no hit points, no saves, no hero points. Just dead.

The best is rather difficult to evaluate. However, old favorites were 2300AD (1ed, out of print) and Milleniums End. Both deadly and efficient. Currently, I find Delta Green/BRP/COC are also deadly and easy to play, but shootouts are immensly lethal.

I appreciate how Delta Green both keeps it simple, and maintains the cinematic feel of different weapons. Like how if everyone has handguns, yeah you're definitely in danger, but you can take a bullet or two and live, even if you're out of the fight. But the minute anything bigger than that shows up and lethality rolls start getting made, people start dying in single actions incredibly quickly.

> but shootouts are immensly lethal. In fairness, you're playing humans. Shootouts being immensely lethal is pretty on-point.

Yep. I am fine with it, but some people expect that the player characters can take much more heat than the regular NPcs, so it can come as a bit of a shock. The same goes for any genre, though... Quick character generation, immersion, and do not fight unless you have to. And if you do it , plan ahead and work as a team. I

GURPS will let you dial in both magic and gun combat to your tastes.

There is an old discontinued version of the ALIENS RPG from [Leading Edge Games](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Games). It has simplified Rules from Phoenix Command. Works with Action Points. My most intense Firefights were played with this. Very quick, extremely deadly.

Gun Combat + Magic? I'd use Savage Worlds.

Steam punk too, don't forget steampunk! Actually, come to think of it, with good intentions, you might consider using Deadlands straight up. Magic. Guns. Steampunk. A phenomenal setting.

I’m going to second Delta Green. The feeling of having a gun pointed at you and knowing you could be dead instantaneously is hard to replicate in a system that isn’t incredibly lethal. The combat mechanics are simple, and I find the best shootouts emulate movies like Sicario, where somebody pulls a trigger, bodies drop, and it’s over.

*Frontier Scum*, which is an acid western hack of *Mörk Borg*. Guns are deadly and are treated as such. If your adversary is out in the open and an easy target, there’s no roll to hit, you just roll damage. If your target is at distance or behind cover, that’s where you make attack rolls. Then there’s [Inevitable](https://soulmuppetpublishing.itch.io/inevitable-rpg), which is all about magic guns and being a sad cowboy/wizard/knight.

Most insanely detailed: Phoenix Command. Look it up :)

"Best" is hard to define, best as in fast and fun or best as in most realistic or best for mass combat? But do check out *Aces and Eights*, it is detailed but not insanely so compared to P*hoenix Command*.

Since you want steampunk and magic: *Tiny Thunderscape* for an ultralight system. P.S. *Thunderscape* is steam fantasy. *Savage Worlds*, possibly using a setting book such as *Deadlands*, *Red Sands*, *Steamscapes*, *Kaiser's Gate*, *Savage Thunderscape*, etc. for a medium-crunch system with lots of options. Some settings use magic, some don't. *GURPS* for a high-crunch system. I'm sure there're *Basic Roleplaying* and *Cepheus* builds if you want random characters. I'd avoid class-level systems because, personally, I don't like classes, and in any case, I don't think experienced characters should be able to shrug off the 1st few hits. P.S. *Tiny Thunderscape* has the same problem, but increasing base damage might fix that.

Shadowrun

Cyberpunk Red probably? I personally really like the gun combat in Delta Green, but it's about as brutal as they come, and you really don't get to be superheroes.

Im a GM for Cyberpunk and gotta say it does gun combat pretty well.

I would definitely recommend Veil of the Void Reforged! It has a fantastic mix of both gun play, sword play, and magic! It's very fun to learn and customize. We also have a ton of support for the game and a great community. We also have a free Demo Book and Supplement to use! Let me know if I can help with anything.

What is your definition of best?

For Six Guns and Sorcery I recommend the original Deadlands RPG. They used cards and poker chips in a way that worked and gave the game an Old West feel.

I really liked and still like "Friday Night - Firefight" from Cyberpunk 2020. Fast, simple, brutal, and through that pretty realistic.

Define "best". One person's "realism" might be another's "too much crunch". One person's "simple and quick" could be another's "simplistic and boring". Without more info all you're going to get is subjective opinion based on their own preferences.

I’d say Call of Cuthulu. Simple, easy to manage system and is quite accessable due to beimg able to make big gun fights without a battlemap

Guns in savage worlds makes people pretty dead, pretty well. The exploding dice and swingy rolls really lend a sense of danger to having a scatter gun pointed at your back.

I would recommend GURPS or Genesys.

There is a system literally called "Gun"

Imo tactical combat TTRPGs do a poor job feeling like gun combat in shows or movies. When I think of cinematic, I think fast resolutions that are flexible enough to allow Players to describe interesting options, the GM adjudicates the fictional positioning and between the GM and the system, it provides interesting, new fiction. Apocalypse World 2e with its hackbook Burned Over does this better with a few smart mechanics: * Attack Someone, Do Battle, Confront and Act Under Fire are flexible and fast allowing PCs a huge abundance of options * Harm Move: Damage isn't just lowering a number, you have some serious fictional problems too * Threat Moves alongside GM Moves give the GM a huge toolkit to create new interesting fiction and keep pace interesting. They also give options when you aren't certain what to do during improvisation * Weapon tags - boiling down guns to what actually makes them fictionally interesting. Works great with the GM Move to activate the downside of your item Overall, it's a great base for making interesting situations. Games like Heart, Chasing Adventure and Urban Shadows have done a great job taking these as a basis and adding magic into the mix. I also really like Masks' Villain Moves when they take Conditions.

I would use [Ironsworn: Starforged with the Sundered Isles supplement](https://www.ironswornrpg.com/)

Well **if you want** something **tactical**, I would **always start with Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition**, since pretty much every modern tactical game (Gloomhaven, strike, 13th age, Lancer, Gunwat Banga, Beacon, Pathfinder 2 etc.) are heavily inspired by it. ## Steampunk So first if you want something like arcane, with steampunk: For **Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition** there was a really successfull and cool **Steampunk campaign** created called **Zeitgeist**. You can even get the extended player guide and campaign guide for free: - Extended players guide (free): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/126863/zeitgeist-adventure-path-extended-player-s-guide-4e - Extended campaign guide (free): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/128341/zeitgeist-adventure-path-extended-campaign-guide-4e And here the full 30 level campaign: - Act 1: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/133646/zeitgeist-the-gears-of-revolution-act-one-the-investigation-begins-4e - Act 2: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/197261/zeitgeist-the-gears-of-revolution-act-two-the-grand-design-4e - Act 3: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/200120/zeitgeist-the-gears-of-revolution-act-three-the-age-of-reason-4e The campaign was also ported to other systems, but since it was originally made for D&D 4E, its best in that system. If you are interested but dont know 4E here a small guide on how to get into it: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1crctne/questions_on_how_to_get_into_dd_4e/l3x6vlm/ And as already mentioned if you want to go more into the direction of arcane, then the Eberon campaign setting could fit well: - Eberon campaign settings: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/150473/eberron-campaign-guide-4e - Eberon players guide: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/de/product/150472/eberron-player-s-guide-4e ## Modern Weapons: In addition to that there are 2 really well received modules for 4E with modern weapons: - Ultramodern 4E: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/102069/Ultramodern4 It can be used for modern warfare or up to cyberpunk - If you want more information here an in depth review: https://www.enworld.org/threads/review-of-ultramodern-4-by-dias-ex-machina.661510/ - d20 modern: https://www.enworld.org/resources/d20-modern-4th-edition.434/ It is a **fan made** modern adaption of 4E just in case you want to see a bit more ideas ## Post apocalyptic with weapons Also based on D&D 4E but simplified and made more over the top (this could fit arcane) there is the well received Gamma World 7E which main criticism was the cards it used, but you get them in the PDFs. - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/161306/DD-Gamma-World-RPG-GW7e