goblinoidgames.com

Now I am not trying to let to much of reality intrude upon my sci-fi game goodness but I have to wonder if the inclusion of an illumination setting something you really would want on a weapon. Now this is not to say that the hand beam or beam pistol should not have a light device or component on it. But to actually include it as a setting seems impractical at best and dangerous at worst. I.E. your using your hand beam as a light in a dark chasm then when suddenly attacked you have change setting to a combat setting for the character to protect themselves. Or Worse, you character forgets to announce that after battle with the awful purple robots of deepwell they change the setting of their beamer from kill to illuminate. When it gets dark the Ensign decides to shed some light on the darkened landscape and accidently disintegrates a redshirt that was in the way of his flash light / death ray. I think that maybe that maybe the light should be a separate button or device and not a setting on the weapon. What do you think?

The potential for mishap is there, if you want to be nasty about it.

The actuality is that it has rarely come up in any games that I have run. Most players have preferred to take a dedicated lantern rather than rely on their beam pistols for lighting. Personally, I'd treat it like one of those gun/flashlight combinations that have been "popular" since they first appeared on a Man From UNCLE episode: separate triggers for separate functions, positioned in such a way that a trained individual is very unlikely to get them mixed up.