Do Not Run with a Gun

"You'll put your eye out, kid!"

In most First-Person Shooter and Third-Person Shooter games, as well as certain other genres, the player is the only person in the world who is capable of running/walking and attacking at the same time. Everyone else, friends and allies, need to stop moving if they want to attack.

One specific variant rarely found in newer games also prevents enemies from performing any actions at all while being attacked (because their "flinch" animations interfered with their "firing" animations) or knocked off ledges, which allowed one to run up and wail on them using a melee weapon with impunity.

Another variation is where the enemy will have flinch animations, but continue firing anyway. This is even more jarring than the previous variation, what with soldiers having their guns pointed at the ground and you still taking shot damage.

One area in which this is typically applies to the player character to an extent is with scoped sniper weapons, in which one's aim will go all over the place if you move very much.

Also applies to several 2D games, stopping the player in their tracks when they take a shot (or swing a sword, whatever). The most common way around this is to attack while jumping.

Partly Truth in Television, as in real life, firing while on the move does limit the accuracy with which one can fire, particularly if that motion is faster than a slow walk. And it's indeed quite difficult to attack when you're being hit in the face. However, in reality a well-trained troop or law enforcement professional can maintain reasonable accuracy while moving at a brisk shuffle. And oftentimes; most people aren't trained like that.

Many newer games will simulate this with accuracy factors for weapons, where the shots travel somewhere within a cone that gets wider as the player moves faster (first popularized in Tom Clancy licenses, but now common). This has created a minor genre split between "tactical" shooters where players will slow down, crouch, or even go prone to increase accuracy, and "classic" shooters that concentrate on high mobility and fast aiming. Not really the same as I Just Shot Marvin in the Face

Examples of Do Not Run with a Gun include:

• Due to engine limitations, Halo Zero features this.
• Most (older) FPS games, such as Doom, Half Life, Duke Nukem 3D... it is probably easier to list the exceptions.
  • Doom also featured the part about flinching interrupting firing. This specifically combined with the Arachnotron's high flinch rate (near 50% of bullets fired at it make it stop shooting) to make that enemy almost harmless when on its own if the player attacked it with the chaingun or plasma gun.
  • Similarly, the low firing rates of Marathon's baddies made it possible to take out nearly any enemy by circle-strafing as you knock them to pieces with your fists... at least until you hit the higher difficulty levels.
    • Actually, this was still possible for a lot of the weaker enemies even on Total Carnage. Try it with Enforcers or Troopers though and you're bound to get a nasty surprise.
  • Time Splitters is a pretty notable case because enemies could and would slide, strafe and roll... but could not shoot while doing so.
    • Averted in its spiritual successor, Perfect Dark: The enemies actually seem to be more accurate when they're walking towards you and spraying bullets.
  • For Half-Life 2, Civil Protection, which you fight early in the game, stands still while firing, but the Combine soldiers and especially the Elites will quite often shoot while running to and from cover.
    • Mind you, said running is done in a quick "trotting" manner.
  • Notably, the original Half-Life managed to disguise this pretty well - lots of people never realized the Marines couldn't move and shoot at the same time without it being pointed out.
  • Averted in Unreal, with the Skaarj. They can shoot accurately while moving and dodging. This is also an example of Artificial Brilliance.
• Taken to an extreme in Mirror's Edge: Since you are playing a 1,60m tall woman on the run from the police and SWAT units that chase you over rooftops and through side alleys. You can pick up and fire even Machine Guns, but running while just holding them is impossible. With a Glock in Hand, you can run and jump, but since you don't have any spare ammunition on you it's usually best to just throw them away to get your hands free to climb up drain pipes and jump fences.
• TESIV Oblivion averts this quite nicely by allowing both player character and NPCs to fire arrows or spells while moving in pretty much any direction. All shots go in the exact direction the crosshair was pointing when fired (effects of gravity on arrows aside), but shots are not instantaneous. As such the accuracy problem is that it is not a matter of shooting at where your target is so much as where they will be when the projectile closes the distance... which is less of a problem than it sounds IF you can compensate for gravity.
• The original Tomb Raider. This was fixed by Tomb Raider 2, though.
  • Though somewhat inverted in TRs 2 and 3 with Lara's M16 and MP5 weapons, with which Lara had to stand still while shooting.
• In certain games from the Call of Duty series, the player is expected to drive a tank. The player's only advantage against the enemy tanks is this trope. It is even explicitly stated in the playing guide to the game.
  • Similarly, in Battlefield Vietnam, not only can tanks fire while moving, they can also fire while being airlifted by helicopters, causing the pilot huge frustration as he tries to compensate for the effect of a tank swinging wildly beneath his helicopter.
  • In all Call of Duty games you're not allowed to shoot while you're sprinting, because your character lowers his weapon to do so. You can shoot while moving, but your crosshair gets bigger and bigger the faster you go. It also gets bigger longer you fire without pause. In practical terms, this means your shots have a much looser spread: not very good when you're aiming at an enemy any decent distance away.
    • Although when aiming down the sights, your gun's accuracy is generally perfect for the ranges it is meant for (aside from shotguns), and it's hard to tell if moving affects your accuracy while aiming down the sights, as at ranges where your gun's inaccuracy is notable, you wouldn't be hitting them while not aiming down the sights at that range anyway.
      • The character moves much slower when aiming down the sights, so it is logical that the accuracy is not affected (or not affected as much).
• The Resident Evil games force you to either move or shoot. Somewhat logical, as hitting anything while moving and firing is difficult.
  • Though less logically, you are unable to move with your knife drawn in Resident Evil 5 (or 4, for that matter).
  • The lone exception being Outbreak File #2, though your character can only walk slowly while aiming and firing.
    • This is considered such a groundbreaking development that it is proudly trumpeted on the game's box.
• Ditto for the Silent Hill series, where only the heaviest weapons require your character to stand in place to use.
  • It's really rather weird that Harry, James, Heather, Henry...the entire Silent Hill protagonist group, basically, are able to walk and shoot; while the lead characters of the Resident Evil series - virtually all of whom are highly trained law enforcement officers - cannot. When you're being chased down a hallway by a pack of angry zombies, backpedaling three steps, then shooting, then backpedaling three more, then shooting again, becomes very aggravating, especially against the "molasses in January" zombies of the first three games.
    • Considering that "Highly Trained" in this case is by Raccoon City standards, it makes more sense.
• For the same reason, Counter-Strike and America's Army are FPS games that drastically reduce a weapon's accuracy if the player does not stop and brace himself.
  • Many more recent FPS games do this, especially with semi- or full auto weapons. Generally the higher the firerate, the more this effect happens and the longer it takes to "brace".
  • In Operation Flashpoint, it is possible to fire while running, but it's so terribly inaccurate that hitting anything is akin to winning a lottery. Nevertheless, AI soldiers can sometimes be seen doing it. Firing while walking is somewhat more practical, but only at the closest of ranges.
• Deus Ex has a targeting reticle that widens to indicate you'll shoot less accurately (moving, taking damage) and slowly tightens to indicate drawing a bead (standing still, crouching); your ability to rapidly aim at something increases with weapon proficiency. The same effect is visible in the tactics of NPCs, where common grunts will almost always hold ground while firing at you, and have laughable accuracy when they move and shoot. Humans with 'upgrades' like the player character's, may actually strafe while firing heavy weapons, or run circles around you while firing a small assault rifle one handed (e.g. Gunther Hermann/Walton Simons; Anna Navarre/Paul Denton)
  • Splinter Cell uses this as well, with the added stipulation that sustained fire becomes gradually less accurate. This encouraged players to maintain the 'stealth' aspect of the game by firing in short, controlled bursts.
  • Similar in Mass Effect. There is an armor upgrade that improves accuracy while moving.
  • S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl works the same way, including that enemies can run slowly while shooting, but will probably miss most anything.
  • This is also the case in Killer7 and P.N.03.
• Devil May Cry has weapons that can only be fired while walking(At best) and stopped(At worst). Not that it stops the Mook Chivalry-lacking enemies from running and gunning. The pistols, however, can be fired in midair and used to hover. This makes them probably your best weapons.
• There are several exceptions in F.E.A.R.; the clone troops can fire while running if they're holding a light weapon such as the submachine gun, although this makes them very inaccurate - otherwise they tend to kneel and provide covering fire for their moving comrades. The flying robots can keep firing lasers as they move, and the big stompy robot can fire missiles while it clomps around. The other characters, however, must remain stationary to fire.
• The Grand Theft Auto games, from the third game on, have the convention of letting you run around while firing small or inaccurate weapons, while forcing you to stand still while firing more powerful guns. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, however, ups the ante by letting you move slowly while firing the more powerful weapons, though that's once you reach a certain skill level (and even then, your movement speed when not firing them is still slower if you're holding them out).
  • Grand Theft Auto Vice City decided what weapons you could and couldn't use while running based on whether they were one- or two-handed. Of course, there was a mod that made all the guns in the game single-handed. This removed the hassle of having to choose weapons based on the situation (a positive or negative feature depending on the point of view), but had the side effect of making the protagonist highly ridiculous as he ran around shooting a freaking minigun single-handed.
    • Or better said, over-the-top badass.
  • In Grand Theft Auto IV you can walk quite briskly while aiming and firing. The only exceptions are the sniper rifles. (Yes, you can fire the RPG while running).
• In Gungrave, you could walk but not run while shooting, and could shoot faster while standing still, as holding down the fire button while still activates Burst Mode. In the sequel however, Grave, Juji, and Billy can run full tilt and shoot simultaneously.
• This is optional in Treasure's Gunstar Heroes. At the start of the game, you can choose either "Free Shot" which lets you keep moving while firing, or "Fixed Shot" which makes you stand still while firing, allowing you to shoot at angles more accurately. For some reason, it also affects your hair color.
  • The reason is is that they're different characters - Gunstar Red uses Free Shot by default, while Gunstar Blue uses Fixed Shot. The actual color of the character is determined by player order, though.
  • Gunstar Super Heroes lets you have both flavors at once: B for Free Shot firing and R for Fixed Shot firing. Holding both allows you to move around while keeping your aim direction fixed.
  • Before Gunstar Heroes was Contra III: The Alien Wars,which included the ability to turn Fixed Shot on at the press of a button. Later series revival Shattered Soldier supplemented this with the ability to move with a fixed aim, which, as noted, was later seen in Gunstar Super Heroes.
• Alien Soldier, another game created by Treasure, has the player character able to swap from Free Shot to Fixed Shot at any time.
• Most Real Time Strategy games' ranged units can only move or fire, not both. If there's an Attack-Move order, expect them to move until a target is in range and then stop to fire.
  • In general, units that have to stop to attack effectively give melee units a real chance of getting close to their targets before being shot. Most games that avert the trope don't have melee units. Also, even units capable of moving while firing will usually stop as soon as they enter firing range of the target; they're free to move closer but usually have no special inclination to do so.
  • World in Conflict is another notable exception. Almost all units can fire on the move, but their accuracy suffers from it. Infantry can't fire weapons while sprinting, though.
    • EndWar is similar, in that most units can run and gun, but suffer accuracy penalties. Tanks, however, cannot run and gun: when they spot an enemy, they will stop to shoot it.
  • Certain StarCraft units nearly avert this. Certain units (Terran Siege Tank, Goliaths, Zerg Mutalisks) have such a short firing animation that they can emulate the ability to fire while moving. Mutalisk micro in particular has been raised to a fine art among the professional scene, to the point where a team of Mutalisks can fire as fast as possible while flying in the opposite direction of what they're shooting at.
    • Siege Tanks are deployable, which forces them to be immobile to use their powerful attack.
    • Star Craft 2 keeps this for the most part, with the ability to "micro" unit that can't normally move and shoot being a very important part of high-level play. A special few units, such as the Protoss Phoenix, actually have to ability to move and shoot at once.
  • Dawn of War averts this quite realistically, with some units able to be fired on the move and other, especially heavy weapons, require the units to be standing still and sometimes they even take time to set up their weapon to fire. Even weapons which could fire on the move suffered a penalty which originally reduced their maximum accuracy while firing on the move to 50%. Unfortunately, the Dark Crusade expansion ruined the mechanic by changing the default fire on the move accuracy to 15% for almost all units, making fire on the move almost completely ineffective for most units.
    • Needless to say, there is a strategy called "dancing/kiting" where the objective is to force your opponent to move while shooting, allowing you to gain the advantage.
    • Dawn of War 2, the sequel, utilizes the distinction even more aggressively, with most normal infantry and vehicles being able to move and shoot at the same time, while squads that use heavy weapons like Plasma Cannons or Shuriken Platforms, which can easily obliterate practically anything in their path in a matter of seconds, can't and require set-up before they can actually get down to business.
  • Total Annihilation was subverts this. Units are divided into the mobile platform (legs, wheels, etc.), and a swivel, allowing units to shoot and move independently.
  • In Supreme Commander the same is true, but the effectiveness of a walking unit depends much on the calculations used for their aiming. Cybran units, for instance, are generally more effective at attack-moving because they generally use fast and accurate ammo, like lasers and guided missiles, while the UEF is usually poor at it, because the units have trouble calculating the ballistics of their weapons when they're moving (and even less when the target is also moving). To compensate, both were balanced, so that the Cybran weapons generally cause less damage for their higher accuracy and mobility.
  • Advance Wars played this trope straight for artillery units up until Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict, but only the battleship could move and fire on the same turn.
  • Star Trek Armada gives a director's cut option, which causes ships to dogfight rather than stand-still and attack. In some cases, it deadlocks battles and causes you to turn it off.
  • The original Command & Conquer: Red Alert subverts this for units that shouldn't move while firing, but only for AI players. The civilians that sometimes appear outside a building run around wildly and make a single frame attack while he's running about. Likewise, some of their artillery spends a single frame firing before continuing to move.
    • Although the later games within the Command & Conquer series gives units better weapons when they deploy.
  • Units in Company of Heroes will shoot while moving, possibly in an attempt to lay down suppressing fire. It's also possible for tanks to shoot either it's main cannon or auxiliary guns while moving.
  • All combat units in Outpost 2 can fire and move at the same time. This actually is used in strategy when units of the same class (and hence, move at the same speed) can outrun the enemy's gun range while laying fire.
• Team Fortress 2 has a few weapons that can't be used while running: the minigun, the sniper rifle (when zoomed in), and the Huntsman (with an arrow drawn). Using either one automatically slows the character down significantly. Contrasted by the Scout, which is designed to be attacking while running faster than any other class.
• Equipping a rocket launcher or sniper rifle in Metal Gear Solid 2 forces you into first-person view, which disables your movement controls. To adjust position or dodge, you have to un-equip them. Fortunately, you can tap R2 to quickly un-equip and re-equip weapons.
  • In the first Metal Gear Solid, while Snake could move while equipping weapons, once he started aiming or firing he was locked in place unless the player pressed and held the crouch button. It was awkward to do this while trying to fire, which was apparently on purpose, to stress how difficult it really is to run and fire a gun at the same time. Later games made it progressively easier - 2 moved the "run and gun" button to the other side of the controller, and every game since didn't even need you to hold another button to move while aiming or firing.
    • MGS4 completely changed the combat mechanic, allowing Snake to run and gun. It was incredibly useless, as the fire was inaccurate. The only advantage to it was that it would generally (but not always) make the enemy duck behind cover. Of course, since this is a stealth game, it was generally inadvisable to do this.
      • In 4's online component, while you can technically move while aiming, bringing your gun up will slow you down significantly, and if you fire while moving, it still reduces your accuracy. There are several equippable skills within the game that reduce this effect a little, however.
• Neither you nor your enemies can attack while moving in the Crusader, the exception being the rare mobile turrets.
• Inverted in the shmup Suguri: for most weapons, the titular player character becomes immobile, except when using the relatively weak but high-fire-rate machine gun (or the beefy flamethrower.)
• In a way this trope shows up in most tabletop RPGs, since they are turn-based. For instance in 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons, a simple round of actions tends to involve one attack plus 30' of movement. You can move 30' and then attack; you can attack and then move; but you cannot move partway, attack, and then keep on moving. Only characters with a particular special ability are allowed to do that.
• A strange example of the variant in Rainbow Six. Running into an enemy prevents him from shooting you because he is busy being pushed. So if you suddenly bump into a terrorist while reloading, don't run away from him, run into him.
• Some Mega Man examples:
  • In Mega Man and Bass, one difference between the two playable characters is that Mega Man can run-and-gun and Bass can't. He makes up for this with an ability that Mega Man notoriously lacks: pointing his buster in more than one direction.
  • Mega Man X can run while using his normal weapons, but Easter Eggs (like the Street Fighter moves he gets in a couple of games) are another story.
    • Zero is the one who really takes it on the chin here; in several of the X games, he puts away his Z-Saber after each attack or combo, and you can't move till he does this. (You also can't move till his ponytail finishes falling.) However, in the PS 1 X games, Zero can cancel his basic sword attacks at ANY moment by using a dash (default O button). This removes the recovery time allows you to keep moving or create a chain combo. The PlayStation 2 X games fix this by having him keep the saber out at all times, which looks silly but makes practical sense. In his own series, Zero has a much smoother combat system that never pins him down.
  • This is also done in the Mega Man Battle Network series, as most non-time freezing attacks tend to have an animation-based movement delay when using them. This is perhaps one of the reasons why "Stop Having Fun!" Guys rarely ever suggest using attacks with a throwing animation, as they are easy to see, dodge, and make you a sitting duck for a very noticable period of time when compared to the much shorter animation delays of most other types of attacks.
    • The Battle Network series also makes it possible for attacks to be interrupted due to the flinching animation. However, from the third game onwards, the game rewards you for doing this to your enemies in various ways.
• The villain of Metroid Fusion is the SA-X, an alien wearing a copy of Samus's Power Suit at its best. (Samus, of course, has picked up the Bag of Spilling in the intro.) Its overwhelming power makes you appreciate any little flaw you can find—one of which is that the SA-X can't run and shoot.
• Averted in Ratchet and Clank, where you sometimes grind a rail and shoot simultaneously.
• Castlevania heroes can rarely move while attacking. In games with many weapons available, it depends on which one you're using; certain weapons (such as the Blue Knuckles in Symphony of the Night) are more valuable than they seem because they can be used on the go. Also handy is the backdash move, which will sometimes cancel attack animations early, returning control to the player (and letting you strike again faster than you're "supposed" to). Speed Runners take these factors into account.
  • One factor which makes the Crissaegrim a Game Breaker is the ability to attack without slowing down while using it. Later games in the series keep this ability (and its Japanese name: Valmanwe) but it's balanced by a much lower ATK stat.
  • In Rondo of Blood Maria can throw her birds while walking. Most of her other moves focus on mobility as well.
  • Much of the system can be subverted while jumping: you can move while attacking so long as you're in the air. Especially useful for those slower weapons.
• City of Heroes, an MMORPG but more fast paced and action oriented than others of its kind, features this. Pretty much all attacks, regardless of the user, leave them immobile while they animate, and even travel powers (Super Speed, Flight, Super Jump) will be temporarily slowed down after you attack as part of PvP balance.
• Danmaku Game Don Pachi had two weapons for all aircraft, a standard vulcan and the Wave Motion Gun used as the Charge Attack, when using the big beam gun, your attacks do more damage and can actually put a dent in bigger warships and slows you to a crawl but the standard rapid fire attack takes care of mook aircraft. It is a matter of knowing when to use which type of attack to use when facing them.
• One interesting aspect of the balance between ranged and melee classes in World of Warcraft is that, generally, ranged classes must remain stationary to attack, while melee classes can strike while running. Instant cast spells and Hunter shots can be fired while on the move, but anything with a cast time (And a handful of Hunter shots, such as Multi Shot, have a hidden 0.5s cast time), as well as Shoot (For wands and non-hunter classes) and Auto Shots forces the player to stop still to shoot.
• Lampshaded in the Left 4 Dead intro cinematic. Upon seeing a Tank bearing down on them:

Louis: "Run or shoot? Run or shoot!?!"
Bill: "Both!"

• • Also, subverted during gameplay, where moving will widen the 'target box' crosshairs: This increases the margin of error for the player's shots. Crouching improves your aim, though standing still is almost as good. This effect is negligible when zombies are immediately in front of you, but is much more obvious when attempting to shoot down far-off Infected with an M16, pistols or sniper rifle.
    • And becomes painfully obvious when you have a sniper rifle and are entangled by a smoker. You have a second or so to shoot him before becoming helpless, but he's already dragging you, which counts as moving, which greatly reduces your accuracy. An M16 or shotgun still has a chance of hitting the smoker despite this, the sniper rifle really doesn't.
• Non-shooter example: In Final Fantasy XII, the character you are directly controlling can move around while casting spells or using Technicks. Your allies can't; if they start casting something, they'll be rooted to the spot until the spell is done. Not generally a problem, but it gets annoying when combined with the fact that if a party member is too far away from you, they'll stop casting and run to catch up - until they get to within the range and try it again, only to lag behind again, and so on...
• Averted in GURPS, using a ranged weapon while running is possible but penalizes skill quite a bit without the Gunslinger advantage.
• Even though you can fire while running in Iji, it's not averted since you can't fire while jumping or crouching.
• Notable aversion in flight simulator games as stopping to fire generally means you're gonna stall out and crash into the ground. In fact, being planes, it's impossible to truly stay in one place (unless the plane has landed, in which case shooting people probably isn't the pilot's first priority); the player is expected to fire both guns and other ordnance accurately while moving and turning at fast speeds.
• The popular Ballistic Weapons ^{[dead link]} mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 makes you move slowly when you're merely holding out heavier weapons; therefore, it is more preferable to switch to smaller firearms or melee weapons when merely crossing the maps. In addition, moving at all typically causes accuracy to suffer, especially with the aforementioned heavier weapons - the only guaranteed way to nail a hit is to stand still and aim down the sights.
• Most games in the Battlefield series, but most notably Battlefield 2142, reduce weapon accuracy to the degree of pointlessness while running and outright disable the ability to shoot when sprinting. Standing still, ducking and lying down, on the other hand, increase accuracy significantly, as does switching to single-shot fire modes over full auto. Even more spectacularly, the game's selection of "Support" heavy machine guns actually get MORE accurate the longer you fire them without moving, but lose all sense of accuracy as soon as you take a single step and deteriorate greatly when you so much as stand up.
• In Star Wars Galaxies, it's possible to fire a ranged weapon while moving, but it drastically reduces your accuracy. Conversely, in addition to standing still, kneeling or going prone increases accuracy and damage, at the cost of defense.
• In Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, other characters will usually stand still and shoot. Some can try to run away if you come close, but practically everyone just pulls out a melee weapon. It's not very easy for you either though, unless you have a high Ranged and a stable hand.(Not very easy to run sideways. Backing up and shooting is extremely easy, and is a very good way to kill most stuff if you have the room.)
• In Mount & Blade, it depends on the unit. While guys struggling with crossbows almost as tall as they are usually tend to stand still(unless an enemy comes too close and they have to pull a sword), horse archers with fast bows NEVER EVER STOP. It makes a lot of sense, as most things do. Those with bows or throwing weapons usually lean towards standing still as well though, whereas they could benefit from a little more mobility. Of course there's the fact that even for you shooting while moving around isn't easy...and shooting atop a horse is FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE unless you have good skills and a good bow...and a good horse. And a good hand.
  • It's worth noting that the player can fire pretty much every ranged weapon, moving or not (there is a major accuracy penalty for trying though) but they cannot reload a crossbow unless they are standing still or on horseback.
• The ability to walk while aiming (and shooting) in Dead Space is considered to be one of the biggest differences between itself and the later games in the Resident Evil series, which are otherwise very similar in controls and genre. Interestingly, you're not even penalized for doing so; your shots are just as accurate either way. Technically this trope is played straight though, as you're able to sprint, but you can't aim or shoot while doing so.
• In Mass Effect, your accuracy goes down when you're on the move. That said, enemies usually either charge or shoot, not both.
• In Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 your avatar will actually uncock the hammer on the Tokarev when they sprint. The same goes for other weapons which can be similarly disengaged, otherwise, they'll be put down and be unusable.
  • Also, you can run and gun, but it's not advisable because you do not have crosshairs and the only gun that has any indication of where the bullets are going are the light machine guns because of their tracers.
• Tripwire's other FPS, Killing Floor, however, inverts this in true Unreal fashion - while Specimens with ranged attacks need to stand still to use them, the player can move and even jump while shooting, and the only detriment to their accuracy is the gun's recoil itself (which, with the perks system, can be severely negated). That said, there's still no crosshair, so they player will need to stand still and aim down the sights to reliably hit specimens much further than a few meters away.
• In The Godfather: The Game, your accuracy goes down if you move while firing, as shown by the circle around your crosshairs expanding, and you can't run in Free Aim mode. You still can run with your gun out if you don't use Free Aim, though.
• In Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, you can't move while using the sniper rifle, even though the AI can. There actually is a way to do so, namely, crouching while aiming, but this ability is gone by Jedi Academy.
• No matter how much you want to, you cannot move while priming a Solar Gun to fire. For any reason at all.
• Halo is likely one of the most popular subversions of this trope. The player is free to move, aim, and shoot to their heart's content. Halo3 added heavy weapons, and while movement speed is reduced, jump height and aiming speed are maintained, and Halo: Reach took a leaf out of the more realistic first-person shooters' book and included a sprint function that lowers your weapon.
• In Cosmic Break, your mech cannot move while alpha-striking (attacking with all your mech's primary weapons simultaneously), unless it has the "Moving Burst" upgrade, which allows some mobility. Also, running or flying reduces weapon accuracy.
• A rare RPG case. In Might and Magic VI-IX, while your party can run around while attacking, casting spells, or firing arrows. All enemies have to pause, go through their attack animations, and then continue moving.
• Diablo is a case with both player and monsters suffering from this. But some special move are a combination of move and attack.
• Subverted in Medal of Honor series, while some enemies stop to shoot, others will run-n-gun with no decrease in accuracy. Also, they continue firing at you while flinching/knocked back. Precision aiming (ie iron sights) in Frontline originally prevented you from moving, but the HD remake allows you to move while using the iron sights.
• Averted in World of Warcraft, while this used to be true for hunters, recent patches and the addition of aspect of the fox allows them to stay entirely mobile while attacking, Shaman also have spirit walk, a fifteen second buff which allows them to cast any spell on the run.
• Played straight in Borderlands—crosshairs disappear while moving at run speed, and firing a weapon causes a player character to toggle to walk speed. Can be avoided, as firing is entirely possible while jumping, after which you will continue to run if you were running when you jumped.
• Partly played straight in Resonance of Fate, as normally you have to stand still to shoot, but averted with Hero Actions, which allow you to both run and jump through the air, all the while firing away.
• Tabletop Warhammer 40,000 has varying levels of this trope depending on weapon types. "Rapid Fire" weapons can be fired twice on the move, but with short range. If a unit remains stationary Rapid Fire weapons can fire a single shot up to their maximum range. Heavy weapons cannot be fired at all on the move, while "Assault" weapons and pistols can be fired at full effect while on the move, even leaving the unit able to assault the same turn. Models with the "Relentless" special rule can ignore all of these restrictions due to acting as a stable firing platform.
  • Vehicles similarly have firepower restrictions based on their speed. A stationary vehicle can fire all of its weapons, a vehicle that moves at "combat speed" can fire only a single weapon (plus anti-personnel "defensive weapons"), while a vehicle moving at "cruising speed" cannot fire any weapons at all. As with other units, certain types of vehicles have fewer restrictions.