[Joush]

Normally no clips are involved in reloading. The ammunition comes in a box of loose rounds that are fed by hand into a detachable magazine. You can carry enough magazines to hold the ammunition you need and swap them out as you need.

Only rare weapons with an internal magazines are fed by clips normally, or you can use a clip to reload a detachable magazine.

[Mäx]

Hmm...so if the bullets are in the clip and the clip loads the magazine which is in the gun

Magazine isn't in the gun, unless it's an internal magazine.
And if you need to ask for someone else to give you more ammo, i hope your gun is a one that uses detachable magazines, as the other options take way to long to load for my comfort.

[CanRay]

There's a reason it's rare for a military weapon to use anything except a detachable box/drum magazine or a belt-feed.

[Crash_00]

Ok, if you work with clips and magazines then you need to know the difference.

If you play a table top rpg a few hours a week to escape reality and have fun, you don't really need to know the difference.

The game uses clips because most people use that term for detachable box magazines and use magazine for what you buy to read while visiting the toilet. If you ask the average gamer in character for a magazine he's going to blank stare you or ask playboy or sports.

Does it bother me? No. I know what exactly what they mean, so why should it. I've worked in IT and in Automotive departments. There is sheer stupidity in this world and calling a magazine a clip doesn't come close to raising my rage levels after some of the things I've seen.

On a related note, next time someone goes all technical in a missions game with me and asks for a mag afterward, my troll will rip the tube off their shotgun and toss it to them. "Oh I'm sorry, you meant a detachable box magazine, how was I supposed to know?" There is no need to try an force technical terms or information on people that are just trying to relax and have fun during their little down time.

[kirk]

I could have sworn this exact discussion happened last week.

[Phylos Fett]

On a related note, next time someone goes all technical in a missions game with me and asks for a mag afterward, my troll will rip the tube off their shotgun and toss it to them. "Oh I'm sorry, you meant a detachable box magazine, how was I supposed to know?" There is no need to try an force technical terms or information on people that are just trying to relax and have fun during their little down time.

He could give them a clip around the back of the head with a rolled up magazine, too.

[Joush]

I agree that most players don't need to know the difference, I just wish the books would acknowledge it. At this point there is honest confusion as the RAW  seems to suggest that almost all weapons feed from stripper clips or en bloc clips, an idea that while amusing seems a bit silly. Another problem, I guess, is that these are proper nouns with real definitions and the book doesn't redefine them.  It's also odd that I can't remember the last time a movie or video game made that mistake.

That said, it makes no real difference in the game. Even if you are dropping en block clips into your Aries Predator, it still just cost a simple action.

[Mason]

I see. I will bear this in mind for my current SR project.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Crash_00]

Acknowledging it in the books would just lead to confusion with the people that don't know or care about technical terms. Honestly, they simplify every bit of the computer tech and vehicle tech in the game, and no one ever complains or get huffy about it, but every other week someone is bent out of shape about clip being used instead of detachable box magazine.

Technically, it being SR, we could just as easily assume that their is a patented anti-gravity chambering system that pulls the rounds up and into the chamber eliminating the need for the traditional spring system and allowing box clips to be used instead of magazines. Or that 2072 bullets come with grooves that allow the weapon to have an internal magazine system that draws the bullets up one at a time (similar to a belt link). Or any number of other higher tech solutions. RAW doesn't imply stripper clips or en-bloc clips anymore than these solutions. You just take the RAW, knowing full well why its the RAW, and decide to make it absurd.

And seriously, I think I've seen clip used instead of magazine at least once in every recent action movie or TV show that uses guns. Hell, I've even seen guys with military training on Top Shot use clip instead of mag. In makes no difference even in real life as long as you aren't in a technical situation where you need to be specific. We're at a point these days that everyone knows what people mean by clip for a modern non-revolver gun.

[Joush]

I'm hurt by the implication that I'm pointing out that the RAW is silly to.. wait, how am I making it absurd? I'm just asking if anyone else is bothered by them using what is objectively the wrong word to describe a physical object in play? How would anyone be hurt by a tiny vocabulary lesson? "All but exotic weapons in the 6th word are fed by detectable magazines that hold ammunition ready to fire, called "clips" by most cummers, just like they are in these rules."

The problem is, a device that simply holds ammunition securely in a box without a feeding system or with an electromagnetic, antigravity or, in shadowrun, outright magical feeding system.. would still be properly called a magazine, not a clip.

It's like calling the flywheel on a car a clutch.. something really likely to only bother a few people, but to drive them crazy.

On the bright side, it dose allow us to imagine that this is how all weapons are loaded in 2070

[CanRay]

Bleh.  Steel cases.  Well, if it works it works.

[Critias]

Magazines have been called clips for over twenty years in Shadowrun books.  Gear tables going back to the core SR1 book, and reloading rules back just as far, have used clip, magazine, and cylinder.  It's wrong in real life, but it's right in game, as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe arguments just like this one (and the one that happened last week) happened in-universe around the same time, until eventually everyone arguing for magazine instead of clip in corp-produced gun-rags just threw up their arms and quit, after getting too many threads locked.  In fact, that's what actually caused the Crash of '29.  Server overloads, too many moderators on too many Matrix message boards, all cried out in terror and then were suddenly silenced.

Echo Mirage did its thing, and when the dust settled and the world kept turning, clip had beaten magazine, officially.  Programs were loosed that "corrected" every electronic publication, ever, early AIs and agents were sent off into the darkest corners of the Matrix to take care of this global editing, corporate black ops teams in stealth-painted choppers descended to silence the last few holdouts face to face, and within a matter of years the genocide was complete.

The term "magazine" was quietly shuffled off to refer to internal magazines only, the victorious word "clip" (initially trademarked, and with tremendous profits made due to it winning the Great Term Wars of '29) emerged triumphant, and that's that.

So "clip" is right in-universe, and all the Shadowrun writers for the last twenty years have been doing us a favor, helping with immersion, by purposefully using the "wrong" term in order to help us all stay in character.

[Crash_00]

wait, how am I making it absurd

By saying that RAW must mean stripper clips and en-bloc clips (outdated today and definitely so in 2072) when clip has been edging into the meaning of detachable box magazine since WWII. The only way to make it more absurd would be to assume that all SR clip fed weapons actually have giant cylinders fed by moon-clips (and only moon-clips).

The problem is, a device that simply holds ammunition securely in a box without a feeding system or with an electromagnetic, antigravity or, in shadowrun, outright magical feeding system.. would still be properly called a magazine, not a clip.

A Clip is a frame or container that stores ammunition.
A Magazine is a frame or container that stores and feeds ammunition.

If the container has no way of feeding the rounds, how is it properly a magazine?

corporate black ops teams in stealth-painted choppers descended to silence the last few holdouts face to face, and within a matter of years the genocide was complete.

And now I have next weeks run planned. 

[Phylos Fett]

Critias, did Pepsi beat Coke in the Cola Wars, too? 

Wait, don't tell me - there are somethings I just don't want to know about the future...

[Crash_00]

They were locked in an eternal struggle, then SoyFizz came out with all seven hundred and eighty soyriffic flavors and nailed the coffin shut with both of them in it. Now, you have SoyFizz and its two luxury brands PepSoy and Soyke.

Now I'm thirsty, Time for some Dr. SoyFizz.