Agreed, those things- reaction times, concealibility, etc.would do a good job of balancing them. It’s a shame I haven’t seen an RPG implement that. I like reading your articles, and thanks for the reply.

Pistols are usually the “starter” weapon in most games that you leave behind when you find something better, so liking them can be hard… I do think in the last 10 years there have been games that get pistols right, even at the risk of unbalancing them in the hands of a highly skilled player… Halo and Counterstrike managed to do so with their semi-auto weaponry. Base pistols have become a skill based affair where the player can engage at a short-to-medium range, where their ability to bead in on the target and pull the trigger 3-4 times becomes the core activity.

Magnums also have evolved into medium-range sniper weapons with (again) poor sighting/zoom. These are also a pretty interesting and specialized role.

These things immediately get lost when the game shifts to a numbers-heavy resolution (which games with progression tend to do). To keep a sense of progression, the game becomes more about leveling to be more effective, rather than player skill being the primary driver. If you remove the poor-zoom/steady-hand elements of the above pistols and magnums, pistols just become a poor damage-dealer that you hate.

There are other numbers-driven things that pistols can be better at… reaction times, concealability, player speed, but that all implies a certain type of game that ain’t deathmatch…

First of all, I prefer using handguns, especially revolvers, and I notice this a lot. Secondly, Although I realize this is probably the anti-thesis of This Is Vegas, I prefer to fight honorably in most games, especially RPG’s since I roleplay as a hero, and I hate using dishonorable tactics.

Even when I am being evil or dishonorable, I hate feeling weak, and I hate the feeling that an enemy is so much more powerful than me that I am forced to use cheezy tactics to win.