idea test: Doom-based d20 campaign

[skyfire]

I got to talking with a friend of mine about the prospect of my running a Doom campaign for either D20 Modern or BESM D20, and I just wanted to see what people think of my idea for a setting.

**

The campaign would start about six months after the end of DOOM II.

Shortly after Doomguy took out the Icon of Sin, the surviving USMC high command noted that there were still signs of human life across the planet; turns out that large swaths of humanity actually survived, but lost the means to directly communicate with those folks who had evacuated into space. As such, the Doomguy - with help from the various survivors he encountered and reinforcements he got from space - went across the world in an effort to both link up with those survivors and suppress as much of the remaining demon forces as he could. The end result was that he cleared enough of a space out for some elements of the space-based population to return to Earth, whereupon people have begun to rebuild and resettle.

The party would be a group of soldiers, either civilians who were press-ganged into joining when the invasion started or actual soldiers who lived long enough to evacuate into space with the civilian populace. They'd split their time between squashing demons, performing survey work, and helping to reunite the scattered bits and piece of humanity that remained on Earth.


World situation:

[1] At present, the United States government, as well as the Navy, are headquartered out of Hawaii, which for the most part didn't fall; having to travel underwater slowed down the land-based monsters just enough for defenses to be established against them.

The Air Force is headquartered out of Hill AFB, the USMC is headquartered out of Guantanamo Bay, and the Army is split between Dugway Proving Grounds and Tooele Army Depot; the area in and around Salt Lake City never fell (if anyone's wondering, this is a nod to the novels), providing ready volunteers to reclaim the state and its three precious military bases.

Furthermore, NORAD managed to escape largely intact due to a series of redundant facilities being buried deep in the mountains where the demons had a hard time penetrating.

Los Angeles has been liberated, with LAX now being a key landing site for space craft returning to Earth.

Parts of the Florida Keys have also been reclaimed, and at present the Navy is mulling whether or not to launch a counter-offensive aimed at retaking Canaveral.

[2] The United Nations has re-headquartered itself in SLC for the time being, as it was the largest world city to survive with enough functional infrastructure intact. The UN is a shell of itself as most of the member-states are unaccounted for due to all the chaos caused by the evacuation, such that NATO (or at least, what's left of it) is now having to do the bulk of the peace-keeping.

[3] Russia's paranoia actually paid off, such that over 40% of its army and air force, as well as 60% of its navy, survived the invasion. Western Russia has since been reclaimed, as has everything around the Black Sea. In fact, Russia may now be the strongest military power in the world.

[4] The United Kingdom has been reduced to its holdings in Gibraltar, the Falklands, and the island of Cyprus; while its military has been decimated, its Cherry Ripe and Lincolnshire Poacher numbers stations - coupled with Russia's UVB-76 - are what's keeping the human resistance in the Middle East and Asia still going. Fortunately, a number of key radio and TV stations survived, and the UN and other groups have been homing in on the sources of the broadcasts in order to go track down the survivors.

[5] The Panama Canal has been retaken, as have the Suez Canal, Istanbul and the Gibralter strait. Owing to their critical importance to naval transit, all four are heavily guarded.

[6] Israel and Switzerland survived perfectly fine, as they were too dug in.

Likewise, the Swiss Guard handily repelled the invasion long enough for a unit to come and relieve Vatican City.

Furthermore, a number of island states like the Phillipines and Kiribati were spared the bulk of the carnage, again due to the land-based monsters being too slow in crossing under the water.

[7] The Republic of Texas has arisen again, due in large part to the Texas National Guard and other such groups forming an ad-hoc alliance in the wake of contact with Washington being severed (the President got the bright idea to try and negotiate with the monsters; the end result was that he got splattered by a Cyber-Demon, who took his necktie as a trophy and fashioned the White House into a lair).

The Republic spans the state and parts of Arkansas, and regards Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, the eastern half of New Mexico, and parts of Northern Mexico as protectorates. The Republic is amiable to the thought of re-entering the United States, but distrusts the surviving politicians as it was their incompetence that hindered the defense of the nation in the first place.

The Republic is also home to the Wolfpack, a unit of irregulars who are second only to Doomguy himself in dropping monsters; they're actually how the Republic keeps itself together.

The Republic's biggest secret, however, is the fact that they've managed to salvage some shuttle craft and are slowly turning the once-abandoned Brooks AFB into a launch facility; if they do deem to remain independent, this will be their trump card owing to just how few facilities survived.

[8] Germany, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Japan, and a few other nations who had cities retaken by the Doomguy as part of his efforts have managed to regain footholds on Earth, and as such are repopulating as fast as their surviving militaries can reclaim terrain. However, the world food supply has been torn asunder by the monster invasion; likewise, much of the world's heavy industry has been destroyed. It's estimated that it'll take at least a good decade to help repair all of the damage.

[9] In the hopes of preventing another invasion from happening, teams of the most elite soldiers to survive the invasion have been sent on rotating tours of Hell in an effort to suppress the surviving monsters and plug any warp portals before they can be opened.

Likewise, teams have been sent to Venus in order to re-establish contact with some secret military and research facilities that were set up; unfortunately, it seems that they got invaded as well.

Additionally, the massive terra-forming effort that was already underway on Mars has been sped up significantly in order to help establish it as a place where the refugees can potentially settle. It's slow going because of all the supplies that were lost on Deimos and Phobos, but it's going.

**

In keeping with the "survival" nature of the game, I'll only allow the characters to start out with basic military gear (such as a uniform and a backpack), a pistol of their choice, 50 rounds of ammo, and a melee weapon of their choice; if they want anything else, they'll have to scavenge or trade / barter for it as they go.

**

Thoughts?

Thanks.

[stormwarden]

I am an old hand at d20 Modern. I suggest treating it like a postapoc campaign, given that the supply lines from space are effectively cut off barring supply drops. You may want to grab d20 Apocalypse (I have a copy), as you may find it helpful for the campaign.

But honestly? I highly doubt the president would be so dense as to try to negotiate with something that is trying to EAT HIM. A little extra common sense would be good. Might as well say goodbye to the standard charts for purchasing items.

I suggest watching "Fist of the North Star" for an example of how barter and trade would be handled.

[skyfire]

Apr 6, 2010 1:37:37 GMT -5 stormwarden said:

I am an old hand at d20 Modern. I suggest treating it like a postapoc campaign, given that the supply lines from space are effectively cut off barring supply drops. You may want to grab d20 Apocalypse (I have a copy), as you may find it helpful for the campaign.

But honestly? I highly doubt the president would be so dense as to try to negotiate with something that is trying to EAT HIM. A little extra common sense would be good. Might as well say goodbye to the standard charts for purchasing items.

I suggest watching "Fist of the North Star" for an example of how barter and trade would be handled.

I picked up a copy of Wolfenstein 3D for the Game Boy Advance and have been trying to track down a reasonably-priced version of either of the Doom games for GBA.

This, coupled with reading the Doom Wiki, has gotten me thinking about how things would have actually gone down during the invasion.

Doom II assumes that the demonic hordes simply steamrolled over humanity; everyone was forced to turn tail and run to whatever starport the Doomguy managed to liberate during the first few stages.

In reality, I doubt it'd be that one-sided.

[1] There are only three types of flying monsters in a legit Doom game: cacodemons, pain elementals, and lost souls. And since there aren't any aquatic monsters, any attempts to invade places like Hawaii, the Philippines, Oceania, or Madagascar would be doomed to failure since the militaries and navies in these locations would have more than enough time to smoke the demons' "air support" before the demons could finish making their way across the bottom of the ocean. Unless the hordes had portals leading directly to those locations, they wouldn't fall so easily. Furthermore, you've got all the ships that would have been at sea at the time helping to fend things off.

[2] Nations like Israel and Switzerland specialize in defensive warfare and know full well how to use the terrain and the populace to their advantage. Add to it the die-hard mentality of the defenders and they'd easily repel multiple waves of demons; even the big nasties like cyber-demons and spider masterminds would have a hard time of it.

[3] Regions wherein private firearm ownership happens to be common, such as Texas and Utah, wouldn't go down as fast as regions where private firearm ownership was heavily restricted or even banned. This is because the civilian populace would be willing and able to make a stand alongside the military and law enforcement.

[4] Russia is paranoid to the point that their dead-hand system was still receiving routine maintenance and upgrades as of 2007, and UVB-76 is still broadcasting even though the Cold War is over. One can reasonably assume that in the event things went all to hell, they'd have plenty of reserves and supplies waiting in the wing for the inevitable counterattack.

As such, I'm thinking that large patches of population would still be around to at least some degree.

[stormwarden]

Well, the problem with relying on militias in the States would be the reality that they lack the training of a military unit, and the cohesion necessary to carry out a prolonged fight. Now, make no mistake, some can maintain it, but if you are a civvie, and you are staring down hundreds of pounds of pure demonic rage? Good luck keeping the crap out of your chaps there.

Settlements are possible. I'd suggest military bases, prisons, and old warehouses amongst possible headquarters. Also, you can do worse than some older libraries. Seriously, I know that a lot of libraries are built like fortresses. The possibility of things like treadmill/placebike generators, ethanol stills, and other things should not be overlooked.

[skyfire]

Here's what I'm thinking for the campaign.

In order to help calm the nerves of the civilian populace and give the impression that things were returning to normal, the UN made the decision to set up shop back on Earth. They eventually chose Salt Lake City as their new (temporary) place of operations, as it was the largest city on Earth to not only have the infrastructure needed but to also have that infrastructure still relatively intact after the fighting.

However, as part of it the UN talked all those nations who still had surviving militaries to send troops to the city as "security" in order to help ensure the safety of UN headquarters. While this might make sense on the surface, in reality it only helped to complicate matters as this pulled troops away from the reclamation efforts elsewhere. Furthermore, there are now more soldiers in town than what the few remaining officers can actually effectively manage and keep track of and what the supplies in and around the city can truly support. To this end, most of the excess soldiers are constantly rotated in and out on patrols and scouting missions, some of them long-range, with the understanding that they'll scavenge what they need to survive but leave the rest for the next people to come through.

This is where the party comes in. They'll be a team of multi-national soldiers randomly thrown together from the forces sent to the city. Their commander will be 2Lt. Enrique Alvarez, formerly of the Montana Air National Guard; although a highly skilled fighter pilot, Alvarez is largely helpless behind a desk and so doesn't really know what to do with the party. To this end, he keeps sending the party off on scouting missions or trying to pawn them off on another officer so that he can have an excuse to get back in the air; he doesn't mean the party any harm, he just can't lead.

The party's first mission will be to scout out and possibly secure a high-end restaurant & club located in the foothills a few miles outside of town; officially it will be to see if there are any food stores left, but in reality the UN brass want a place where they can wine & dine away from the town. The above-ground section - the restaurant, ball room, and outdoor maze - will be based on level 4-1 of Wolfenstein 3D, while the below-ground section - the employee lounge, offices, and a nasty surprise - will be based on level 2-7 of Wolfenstein 3D. It turns out that when the demons captured the facility in the invasion, they began to expand the underground area; in doing so, they bored right straight into a deactivated National Guard depot that had largely been forgotten. This gave the demons in the area a base of operations wherein they could regroup and rest up, and as such the place is crawling with monsters. Not only are we talking weak guys like zombies and imps, we're looking at big nasties like a revenant, two arch-viles (which have the ability to revive dead monsters), and a mancubus. Fortunately for the players, there will be plenty of shotguns, two chainguns, and a rocket launcher for them to find if they look hard enough.

In time, as the party proves itself, they will get tasked with more dangerous missions to more remote places, such as Los Angeles (only about 20% of the city is secure), Detroit (site of one of the main invasion portals; firefights are a daily occurrence), and DC (the beach-head there is in perpetual danger of collapse).

If the party proves themselves to be sufficiently badass, they'll be tasked with escorting a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Texas, one of the few surviving nation-states to not recognize the UN's authority; the nation hasn't forgotten how the incompetence of the folks in Washington and the political squabbling in the UN hampered the defensive efforts during the invasion, and so are wary of getting entangled in anything else unless they can be convinced there won't be a repeat.

The Republic has been sending scouting parties into Missouri (where all contact has since been lost) and Northeastern Mexico (the Mexican government collapsed outright, leaving the splintered military garrisons and the different drug cartels to carve out their own fiefdoms) in the hopes of locating more survivors and forming alliances, but doesn't have the manpower to really extend itself beyond what territory it currently holds (Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, the eastern half of New Mexico, a chunk of Colorado, and a few thousand square miles of Mexico).

Owing to the sheer square footage the Republic claims, as well as the highly motivated soldiers they possess, convincing the Republic to put itself under the UN banner would be a major boon to the recovery efforts and would more than double the amount of the United States that is certifiably liberated. As such, the pressure is on for the current Secretary-General to succeed in his mission.

However, what he doesn't realize is that one of his under-secretaries is not exactly patient. He sees any nation that refuses to "get with the program" as a threat to the overall security of the world, and so is looking to bring the Republic to heel. To this end, he arranges for an "accident" to befall everyone while they're joining a scouting mission into Mississippi so that he can take over; unbeknownst to everyone, a spider mastermind within the state has been rallying an army to push back against the Texan forces and the under-secretary intends to let it wipe everyone else out. The party is thus forced to not only survive Invasion 2.0, but to also keep the Secretary-General alive and get him back safely before Texas and the UN go to war with each other.

[skyfire]

Another mission idea, based on level 6 - 1 of Wolfenstein 3D:

One of the naval vessels patrolling off the coast of Oregon gets a weak SOS call which is traced back to a medium-security prison. Although the SOS call appears to be on a loop, the possibility of there being more survivors is too much for the military to ignore. As the Pacific Command cannot spare the soldiers to actually investigate, the party is sent in to check it out; Lt. Alvarez will sortie in his fighter in order to decoy out any demons, especially flying ones, who might cause problems for the party.

When they arrive, the party will find out that the prison has been overrun by zombies and lower-level monsters. In fact, the only survivor is an aging cat burglar who has been living in the crawl spaces and doing what he can to chip away at the infestation. He has, however, manged to put together a number of supply stashes and will gladly help out the party once he realizes that they're not zombies.

Although the individual monsters themselves are weak, the fighting will be close-quarters and as such is going to be abnormally brutal.

If the party succeeds in liberating the prison, then not only will they have secured a place the military can make into a base they'll also gain a valuable NPC.

[Vypernight]

I've been looking for a cheap Doom gba game myself for the past 5 years. Good luck.

As for your campaign, as interesting at it may sound, do you really need an in-depth storyline? Doom isn't about politics and government. It's about shooting the #$&% out of demons! I mean, is your group the type that likes long explations for everything about them and 5 page descriptions of their characters? If so, then that's fine.

Personally, in the RPG's I've run, most adventures (save for a rare few) worked best when I just gave the heroes a problem and said, "You figure it out." This is especially true if you're running an RPG based around nonstop violence, which from what I remember, is the pinacle of Doom.

This is just my view, but I'd just draw a bunch of maps of Hell, drop them in the middle, and say, "Have fun!" I mean you still have plenty of options for stories; defending a space station, closing a portal, rescuing an ally, etc.

As I said though, if your group is the type that enjoys that much in-depth atttention to detail, then knock yourself out. I just remember Doom being about one thing, and that's all it needed for me.

[skyfire]

Apr 8, 2010 17:42:07 GMT -5 Vypernight said:

As I said though, if your group is the type that enjoys that much in-depth atttention to detail, then knock yourself out. I just remember Doom being about one thing, and that's all it needed for me.

From what I understand, DOOM III is 50% plot; the portal opening wasn't an accident, and as part of the whole "kill the demons" bit you've got to figure out who opened the portal and why.

So there is precedent for plot inside of the game series.

[Vypernight]

I haven't played the 3rd game, so I never knew that plot. I was just going by 1 and 2.

[skyfire]

Apr 8, 2010 18:25:55 GMT -5 Vypernight said:

I haven't played the 3rd game, so I never knew that plot. I was just going by 1 and 2.

DOOM III is actually a full-on continuity reboot.

You're a different Marine than the Doomguy, the backstory behind everything is 100% different, the entire weapons arsenal has been changed (for the worst, from what I've heard), most of the monsters are different, and the Cyber-Demon can now only be beaten by a McGuffin you have to pick up along the way (unless you play Nightmare, where they give it to you from the start because of how insanely difficult it'd be otherwise).

From what I understand, a lot of fans hated it for how far it drifted from the original, and so ID was actually forced to alter the source coding for one of the expansion packs in order to make people happy; the biggest change is that they reworked the source coding for the Cyber-Demon so that it's now vulnerable to your firepower despite not actually appearing in the expansions, suggesting that ID is encouraging people to make their own levels again.

Another common complaint is that they replaced the night vision goggles with a flashlight. Problem is, you use the flashlight as a weapon and so you can't have it and your guns up at the same time; if I'm reading the Doom Wiki right, the single biggest number of mods made to the game has been to set it up so that you can use both the flashlight and your guns at the same time. The most famous one is the "duct tape" mod, wherein it's simply strapped to the bottom of whatever gun you're wielding at the time.

[skyfire]

As an aside, I'm looking to add four more weapons to the mix:

[1] Flamethrower -

Pro: does as much damage as the super shotgun and over a comparable area.

Con: the fuel mix is rare outside of the reclaimed areas due to the fact that they were used so extensively during the initial invasion.

[2] Assault Rifle -

Pro: All the power of a super shotgun burst crammed into a single bullet; it'll drop whoever is in front of you and keep going to do damage to the next guy.

Con: Only good if your bad guys are in single-file or you need to drop someone quickly.

[3] Sniper Rifle -

Pro: You can kill almost everyone before they even know you're there, which is handy against the bigger guys. Also uses assault rifle rounds, meaning that ammo is plentiful.

Con: rate of fire is so slow that it's useless if your target is within a certain range.

[4] C4 Block -

Pro: A single charge can stop all but the nastiest of monsters, and the blast radius & concussion can hypothetically knock flying monsters from the sky.

Con: You have to get close enough to place the charge first.

[Oriet]

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

Skyfire, I don't even know where to begin on just how utterly and completely wrong you are on firearms.

If you're planning on having firearms in a d20 game, I highly recommend you get the book Ultramodern Firearms. It has a very wide variety listed in it, and possibly more important in your case, it explains what the different kinds of firearms do and how they work. It even covers different ammunition, as well as which firearms can be suppressed and silenced. I got it when it was first released, and it's likely my most used d20 book because of how incredibly useful it is.

Apr 8, 2010 19:50:31 GMT -5 skyfire said:

[2] Assault Rifle -

Pro: All the power of a super shotgun burst crammed into a single bullet; it'll drop whoever is in front of you and keep going to do damage to the next guy.

Con: Only good if your bad guys are in single-file or you need to drop someone quickly.

First off, what's a "super shotgun?" Secondly, incorrect on all counts.

Assault rifles use a round larger than pistols but smaller than hunting rifles. A good example is that the M16 uses a 5.56x45mm NATO round, which is significantly more powerful than the .45 ACP round used in the M1911 pistol or the Thompson submachine gun (a submachine gun being an automatic carbine that uses pistol rounds), but also definitely less powerful than, say, a .30-06 Springfield rifle round used in many hunting rifles. While each round is also less powerful than a shotgun slug, it has much greater range and maintains it's power over range far better than anything a shotgun can shoot. The reason for using a "mid power" round, as it were, is so that you have definitive stopping power (at least against an un-armoured individual) but minimal recoil, to allow for rapid and more frequent firing (as well as being able to carry more ammo for the same weight).

While many assault rifles will have a fully automatic setting, there are several that only allow for semi-automatic and burst firing. The whole notion of "only being able to hit people in single file" is utter nonsense, as even those trained to use fully automatic weaponry learn how to fire controlled bursts at their target. Using a burst of fire (whether as a setting on the rifle or by shortly releasing the trigger) can not only help ensure you've used enough stopping power against your target, it also helps greatly against an armoured target as body armour cannot withstand continuous fire.

Also, another advantage of an assault rifle over a shotgun is that it's much faster to replace a clip than it is to load the shells individually into the weapon.

[3] Sniper Rifle -

Pro: You can kill almost everyone before they even know you're there, which is handy against the bigger guys. Also uses assault rifle rounds, meaning that ammo is plentiful.

Con: rate of fire is so slow that it's useless if your target is within a certain range.

You'll only get them before they know you're there if you can get the element of surprise.

As for your notion that sniper rifles use assault rifle rounds: Bull. Shit.

While a rifle used by a marksman (a.k.a. sharpshooter) is generally just an assault rifle that has been found to be exceptionally accurate and given a scope, rifles used by snipers are quite different.

Take, for instance, the M40, which is used by the USMC. It uses a 7.62x51mm round, which is not to be confused with the less powerful 7.62x39mm round used by the AK-47. I will grant that the M40, being bolt action, has a somewhat slow rate of fire.

But let's now take a look at other sniper rifles. Take, for instance, the Heckler & Koch PSG-1. It also uses the 7.62x51mm round, but unlike the M40 it is semi-automatic, giving it the firing rate of pistols or assault rifles set on single fire. If extreme range is preferred over firing rate, then you could always go with the AMP Technical Services DSR-1, which, when chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum round, has a listed effective range of 1,400 metres.

Please do note that none of these rounds are used by assault rifles, as the recoil is too great for burst or automatic firing from them.

Oh, and if you want to get a really powerful rifle for against demons, you could throw in the Barrett M82 anti-material rifle that uses .50 BMG ammunition. The round is so powerful, in fact, that not only can it only be effectively fired from a supported position, but it is against the Geneva Convention to use it against people. That's definitely a round that will never be used in an assault rifle.

[Edited to fix formatting tags.]

[Vypernight]

Well, it is the future so the weapons could be 'super' versions of their original. Then again, in the first 2 games, most of the weapons were pretty modern, save for the plasma gun and the BFG.

You Are including the BFG, right? I just can't be Doom without it.

[skyfire]

Apr 8, 2010 23:53:54 GMT -5 Oriet said:

Skyfire, I don't even know where to begin on just how utterly and completely wrong you are on firearms.

I sat down using the stats provided on the Doom Wiki and crunched the numbers accordingly.

As it is, I've already got The Compendium of Contemporary Weapons and a rare firearms gaming manual from '83 in my personal collection. I've also got world.guns.ru and Sniper Central bookmarked. And if all else fails, I've got a truly horrific collection of real-world military manuals that I've acquired second-hand (suffice to say that it was a grave mistake for the GM of that one Shadowrun campaign to let me play a demo guy... ;D ).

First off, what's a "super shotgun?"

This.

It's a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun first introduced during DOOM II.

When fired, the weapon discharges both barrels, effectively filling the air immediately in front of the player with pellets. It can drop most of the weaker monsters in a single barrage (and, in fact, can drop 5 - 6 of the weakest guys at once), and is potent enough to where it can even stagger a Cyber-Demon, the strongest monster in the game.

The trade-off is that your overall range is limited to what's immediately in front of you (the regular shotgun, at least, allows you to clear hallways) and the need to manually break the weapon open and reload after each shot means it's got the second-slowest recycle time in the game.

Secondly, incorrect on all counts.

We're talking game balance here.

I have it that the ARs do the same total damage as a super shotgun blast, but that the force is directed in a straight line rather than a cloud of death.

Thus, it makes the AR the polar opposite of the super shotgun; it's good for mowing down bad guys who are in narrow spaces or quickly dropping big nasties, but you're SOL if you're getting flanked. In that sense, it's similar in function to the SMG from Wolfenstein 3D.

The reason why I've chosen to include them is that the original concept for the game had a regular rifle as one of the weapons (with or without bayonet) and the character model indicates that he's supposed to be carrying a futuristic assault rifle; none of these items actually made it into the finished game (the rifle is in a few betas tho), as the shotgun instead became the default main weapon.

You'll only get them before they know you're there if you can get the element of surprise.

As for your notion that sniper rifles use assault rifle rounds: Bull. Shit.

Most laymen don't know the difference between a sharpshooting rifle and a dedicated sniping rifle. Thus, for gameplay purposes the distinction is a moot point.

Please do note that none of these rounds are used by assault rifles, as the recoil is too great for burst or automatic firing from them.

This goes back to gameplay. I'm the only person in the group who would even care about the different varieties of 7.62mm ammo, let alone know about them.

Oh, and if you want to get a really powerful rifle for against demons, you could throw in the Barrett M82 anti-material rifle that uses .50 BMG ammunition.

I'm not prohibiting anyone from using what's already on the official weapons lists, and as such would allow a person to use one if they can come up with a good reason for having one.

I'm just doing simplified weapons - most of them based on the ones in the video games - for my own sake, as it makes designing missions a whole hell of a lot easier.

[skyfire]

Apr 9, 2010 4:50:25 GMT -5 Vypernight said:

You Are including the BFG, right? I just can't be Doom without it.

Yep.

In this verse, the BFG actually started life as the main gun for the newest generation of NATO-spec MBTs, whereupon Israel and Russia promptly knocked it off for their own MBTs.

The BFG 9000 is a version of the BFG scaled down for use as a platoon-level fire support weapon; they're so rare because so few ever actually made it into the field. And since the original plan called for tanks to be wielding them rather than people, the gun's high power requirements were originally not considered a concern and so no one ever thought to make it more energy-efficient, hence why it sucks down battery juice.