The James Bond: 007 Role Playing Game was written back in the early 1980s, and while it remains an excellent engine for espionage roleplaying, some of the mechanics are getting a bit like Roger Moore in A View to a Kill — a bit too long in the tooth.
One thing I’ve noted is that the firearms damage ratings, much like the structure points for electronic do-dads and performance modifiers for modern vehicles, do not take into account well the serious improvements in technology. I thought I would address the first in this post.
There’s one way to correct for this: hit the interwebz and find out what the ammunition the character is using has for muzzle energy. For instance, most modern 9mm is going to be running in the 330-360 ft/lbs. range. Using the Q Manual as a guide, you’ll see that most 9mm firearms of service weapon size (4″ to 5″ barrels) should be throwing lead with a DC of G. The Walther PPK in either .32 or .380 would have an E. Both 10mm and .40S&W run in the H range, etc… +P and other hot loads push this even further, but should lower the S/R by at least one due to recoil, and depending on the weapon, might increase the JAM rating, as the weapon takes a heavier beating than was intended.
For instance, running .32 +P through a Kel-Tec P32 is pretty inadvisable. It might do alright for the occasional firefight, but a steady diet with kill the weapon pretty fast. You might kick the JAM from a 98+ to a 97+ and add a GM Information tag that the weapons suffers a malfunction on 99 and 100, instead of just 100. Another good rule of thumb is that if the pistol has longer than a 3″ barrel, bump the DC up one. This holds pretty true for rifles, as well.
Now if game balance is your thing, you might find a close analogue to a weapon being used in the Q Manual or Black Campbell’s own Q2 Manual (and yeah, you’ll find it pirated on other sites…it’s my work) and riff on that. I’m planning a new gear manual in the future that addresses some of the changes the world has wrought on this venerable game system.
Ari Strange started his life as a philosopher and thinker in the ancient city of Molad, one of the apeman cities arrayed against the Emperor Mot. When the Interior World emerged in 1933, he was deposited in Hong Kong, where his ability to speak and reason earned him study by MI-13, the United Kingdom’s secret science intelligence agency. He was eventually recruited to aid the British with the leftover problems from the emergence of the “ghost world” and has become one of their most skilled, if least secret, agents in the East.
The Black Campbell 