Psi-Wars Gun Fu: the Way of the Rim and Westerly Marksmanship

I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart. --the Gunslinger, Stephen King

Here it is.  The whole reason I started this deep dive into Gun-Fu for Psi-Wars was for the coming update to the Frontier Marshal, and if a Frontier Marshal can't sling his blaster, then what are we even doing here?  Thus, the previous three styles were "practice" for this one.  In principle, I should do Shineido first, but I expect that one will be the most popular of the Psi-Wars Gun Fu styles, but I could be wrong. This one is certainly likely to see more use.

This post isn't about one style, but two closely related styles:

• The Way of the Rim
• Westerly Marksmanship

The Way of the Rim

The Way of the Rim inherits most of its design from the Way of the Galaxy from GURPS Gun Fu, but without realizing it, I also ended up borrowing a lot from Point-Shooting in Tactical Shooting.

I conceived of the core "gimmick" of the Way of the Rim as the aiming technique of Kyudo.  Rather than draw the arrow and sight down it and then loose, they sight and "aim," then draw the arrow to their chest and release all in one smooth motion.  This idea of "aiming with your eye rather than your hand" struck me as perfect for the Westerly gunslinger.  He could focus intently on you while his weapon was drawn and you were threatening him or whatever, and when it came to the draw, not only could he outdraw you, he could outshoot you too, thanks to aiming for 5 turns while you blabbered on.  This gives the Westerly a huge initial advantage in a gunfight, as that first initial shot will be extremely lethal and accurate.  It might seem "overpowered" but "I can aim without using the sights" is frankly the sort of "Well, technically that's not a big deal, but it's cool" trick that perks are for!

When you combine this aiming technique with their penchant for being mounted, you really have strong ties to Kyudo forming, which I found interesting.

What I found even more interesting is that this is actually a thing.  It's more or less the principle of Point Shooting.  If you ever seen those old westerns, as the cowboy prepares to draw on someone, he puts his hand on his revolver, but he also squares his shoulders against the target so his entire body faces where he wants to shoot.  When he draws, he doesn't do what modern gunfighters do: he doesn't lift it up, brace it with a second hand and then shoot.  He doesn't even do what duelists typically do, which is turn side-to and extend the arm as close to the target as possible while sighting with his eye.  Instead, he quickly draws the pistol to his hip or navel and crouches around the gun and fires.  This is very quick and because he centers the gun on his body itself, wherever his body is pointing, that's where the gun is pointing. Tactical Shooting covers this in great detail. So the "point-shooting" of the Way of the Rim, while totally cinematic, is actually grounded in reality (though I will note that I don't include any targeted attacks in the style except for the disarm, because that's a classic move).

Westerly Marksmanship

I needed more than just gun-slinging cowboys.  A lot of your Frontier Marshals are closer to hunters than to gunslingers, as their job is to range over a very broad set of wild territory, which often means they need to fire on people who are quite some distance away.  So I conceived of Westerly Marksmanship as the container for "a cowboy, but with a rifle."  The result ended up combining some elements of Way of the West with Sniper and Sharpshooter, and a generous dash of wilderness combat techniques.  I'm rather proud of "Old Westerly Trick." It has a lot in common with the Way of the Rim, though it's arguably inferior: it has fewer tricks and fewer secrets, but that's because we have more of a mystique around gunslingers than we do around snipers with rifles, even though the latter are probably far more dangerous.

My only real regret here, and the thing I'm most likely to revisit (perhaps for both styles) is the lack of shotgun tricks.  The problem here is that the plasma weapon has largely replaced the shotgun in Psi-Wars, so cool tricks like Scattergun and Fireball Shot either don't apply or are redundant.  Even so, the Westerly often use Redjack weapons, so it would make sense that they, more than anyone else, would know how to kick ass with plasma. If I can think of some "neat plasma tricks," I'll create an update for Westerly Markmanship for them... though perhaps the Way of the Rim should have them too.  After all, while a shotgun pistol is a questionable concept, a plasma pistol definitely isn't, so whatever a plasma "shotgun" can do, a plasma pistol can certainly do.

Because of this close bond and the subtle inferiority of Westerly Marksmanship when compared to the Way of the Rim, I've included a combined version so you can buy both at once.  The only real problem I see with this is the same problem that the Imperial Marksmanship Academy Training has: 20 points is not a lot of room to fit both Beam Weapons (Pistol) and Beam Weapons (Rifle), thus we cap out at DX+4 in both.  This means that a DX 13 Frontier Marshal master, the best you can expect to get, will cap out at skill 17.  Now, when you combine it with all the rest of the tricks they have, that's not so bad.  I mean, outdrawing your opponent by +5 and aiming up to 6 turns before you draw and fire for a massive bonus is a pretty nice trick... but I feel like a "Master" should really be aiming for skill 20 or so in Psi-Wars. And I think it's perfectly reasonable for a character to want just a pistol or just a rifle, but the combined version does have some interesting synergies worth exploring.