The Paperwork of Bullets

[Eric Provost]

Ok.  So after brainstorming with my most regular player I think we've come up with something to playtest.

The mechanic we've put together is inspired by several of the posts you've given us.  Andrew's concept of abstract ammo counting along with Ron's input about random ammo tracking adding drama to the game are the core here.  Incorporating the rewards system of the game managed to polish out the rough spots.

Thanks to everyone who assisted.

Now, in the interests of satisfying anyone who's interested in what conclusion we came to, the following is a quick breakdown of the new mechanic, along with the bits of mechanic we'd already settled on that you'll need to know to understand the new mechanic.

Player rolls a number of 10-sided dice equal to their skill.  A dice-pool system is in effect.
If the character is using a weapon in Burst Fire mode, they get 2 extra dice to roll in the attack.  If the character is using a weapon in Full Auto mode, they get 5 extra dice to roll in the attack.
Instead of listing exactly how many rounds each weapon has, each weapon will include a statistic called "Magazine Points".  This will be rated on a 1-5 scale.
Whenever a character is firing a weapon, between one and three of the skill dice being rolled should be of a different color and designated as 'ammo dice'.  The number of 'ammo dice' is determined by the mode of fire.  Single shot mode means one ammo die, burst fire means two ammo dice, and full automatic means three ammo dice.  After tallying successes and resolving the attack the player should note if any of the ammo dice rolled came up as a 1 or a 10.  If this is the case, then a single Magazine Point is removed from the weapon.  If the weapon no longer has any Magazine Points, then it must be reloaded.
In addition, when a Magazine point is lost, the player may spend a single Cinema Point (part of the rewards system) in order to stem the loss.

We're looking forward to playtesting this mechanic to see if it produces what we want it to.  If anyone has any further input, we'll be happy to hear it.

Thanks again for everyone's assistance.

-Eric

[Overdrive]

May I suggest that the number of ammo dice in a roll somehow correlates with the firing mode? My take would be something like single aimed shot, no extra dice; a few rounds with semiauto, one die; short burst, two dice; full auto, three dice. Less bookkeeping (eh, dice-keeping?). This would be especially cool if the dice can be split agains multiple opponents or otherwise give more boost for the shooting. The guy with MP5 can be really tempted to snatch more of those extra dice, at the expense of risking running out of ammo.

By the way, have you checked Godlike's system? It also has dice pools, and gives bonus dice for full-auto / burst firing.

[Tim C Koppang]

I thought I'd post a late addition to this thread before it fades into nonexistence.  Much of what I'm about to suggest has already been discussed, piecemeal, in one way or another.  Consider this yet another method of putting all the pieces together.

The pretty html version of this is posted to my web site.  I wrote it a couple of years back for Fudge, but you could apply the concept to any number of game systems, either by importing Fudge dice or making a couple of slight adjustments.  In short, each gun is assigned an "ammo skill," that also serves to abstractly track the number of rounds remaining.  When you fire the gun, you roll a skill check for the gun.  Success, and the ammo level remains the same.  Failure, and you reduce the gun's ammo skill.

Here's a reprint of the original.  Please excuse the introductory verbiage.

Fudging Ammo
A simple and cinematic mechanic for handling ammunition in Fudge and other RPGs.

Do you hate subtracting and calculating the number of bullets spent during any given combat?
You're damn right you do.

Instead of listing the number of bullets a clip holds, or the number of clips your character has on his person at any given time, use the fudge rating scale to track your shots. Granted, this method takes a certain sort of mentality - if you are into reality simulation stop right now. The system creates the same feeling many action movies aspire to.

The sound of semi-automatic gunfire filled the empty warehouse. Grant pulled his Desert Eagle out of his shoulder holster and slid the clip out.

   "Full - let's go to work baby," he whispered as he gave the silver barrel a kiss.

   Grant ran 'round the side of the crate he was hiding behind and clicked the ammunition back into place. With the fury of hate in his eyes he ploughed through agents like a mad man out of prison.

Unless the player declares specifically that his weapon has run out of ammo the luck of the dice alone will determine the rounds in the clip. To begin, rate each weapon before the game gets underway with one of the seven fudge ratings, from terrible to superb. A sniper rifle or holdout pistol will usually only carry a poor to moderate store of ammo. The average handgun will have anywhere from fair to good capacity. A submachine gun should have good or great capacity; your average full sized machine gun will top off the scale at superb.

Grant winced as the blue agent's gun went off. In slow motion he saw the smoke trailing from the pistol as Mr. Blue lowered his arm. And then in a quickening pace the bullet tore through Grant's suit and his upper shoulder.

   "Damn," he shouted as he groped for support. "Where'd my gun go to?"

   He had dropped it when the bullet made him bleed. No matter, Grant had spotted the tripod five seconds prior. He threw the cloth cover off the military grade machine gun and stared momentarily at the belt of bullets already fed into the weapon's barrel.

   "Superb," he smiled.

Any time a character fires his weapon he must make an ammunition check so as to determine the number of rounds left in the firearm. The player rolls four fudge dice and totals the result. If the dice add to zero or greater the gun's ammo rating remains the same, but when the dice are a negative value subtract the roll from the gun's current status. So for example if a character fires his pistol with fair capacity he then rolls 4dF. The player rolls a -1 and so the rating drops to mediocre. If on the other hand he had rolled a 2, the ammunition level would have remained at fair.

The sound of a jackhammer echoed through the warehouse. Mr. Blue whirled around in a quick panic, looking for the source of the sound. He spotted Grant's face in the repeating light of chain gunfire half a second before his own body was grounded under an unstoppable force of lead.

   The agents all dove for cover behind boxes, crates, and machinery. They were pinned down as the continual patter of Grant's one-man artillery bounced off every wall.

   Grant fashioned a wicked smile; he had yet to release the trigger from his iron grip and yet the pile of ammunition lying next to him looked as high as when his fury had begun.

If at anytime a gun's ammo rating drops below terrible the gun has hit empty. Before his weapon will function at maximum capacity again the player must remove the old and insert a full reload. Notice that guns assigned a rating of fair or lower may empty after only one shot - an intended effect. However the chance of rolling a -4 at any time is poor. As an alternative you may instead rate individual clips, or even keep ammo ratings a secret - the players may never know the number of rounds left in the gun they picked off the dead guard.

"Shit!" Grant yelled.

   One second the bullets were flowing like water, and the next they were... well they still were. The only problem was that Grant wasn't the one firing them. That's the way firefights go sometimes. When you have the bullets and the big gun no one even bothers to peak their pretty little heads out. The next thing you know your ammunition dump ceases to exist and you shout out profanity.

   Grant immediately ducked. When the agents paused to reload, Grant reconsidered his options. There was a glass window to the north and a decommissioned airplane to the east - gas tanks to his left...

[Hereward The Wake]

I have used a system where the players have to buy the dice they are going to roll by exchanging chips or cards with a picture of a magazine etc on it. So they take a magasine card from their equipment 'hand' they exchange it for the appropriate number of dice. In my system I roll the dice for the players, so as they fire they give me a certain number of dice to roll.
I have to say it would be nice to cobine this with the tube system mentioned, dark tubes for most magasines where you can see the rounds and have to keep count, clear ones for more modern mags.

All the best

Jonathan

[Mike Holmes]

I think that the key is to make the character's skill roll part of the "reload" roll for a more abstract system. That is, each "shot" by a character may be one shot, it may be five - just as in a swordfight, an attack my be one well timed swing, or it may be many. The point is that the amount of ammo that a character needs to hit another is dependent on skill. So, instead of rolling for each bullet, part of the roll is, in theory, how many pulls of the trigger did it take to get the effect that the resolution said occured in that time period. Hit this round? Then maybe it took you squeezing off two rounds. Missed? Maybe you panick fired a dozen rounds pointlessly.

This is very realisitic - it means that characters don't often hit with one shot, they have to take many, essentially, to get even one chance to hit. When you make the reload roll, it merely represents how crazy you went with the trigger in the previous rounds of firing. Have to reload after three rounds with a nine mill berretta with a 15 mag? Then you've been firing about 5 rounds on average per round to get your results. Want to go through ammo less quickly? Become more skilled.

Realistic, and cinematic. The effects of this are really neat. Loads of bullets are flying all over, the characters are constantly reloading, yet the same amount of action is occuring in the same amount of time. And you can narrate anything you like. Run out of ammo with in the attack that took out the bad guy? Then narrate that you only had one bullet left, and made it count. Or that you emptied most of the clip into him. Whatever's coolest at the moment.

Mike

[Tim C Koppang]

Have to reload after three rounds with a nine mill berretta with a 15 mag? Then you've been firing about 5 rounds on average per round to get your results.

The above makes it sound like you wouldn't find out how many bullets your character had been popping off until a few combat actions later, when he finally runs out of ammo.  I'm not sure if that's what you intended to say, but if so then I'd argue that it would be more cinematic to know the number of bullets your character is wasting after each of his "shots."

But I love the idea.  I keep thinking of the movie, "Dogma," when Jay picks up the sub-machine gun and just starts blasting away.  He doesn't know what the hell he's doing.  He just wants to hit something.

[Mike Holmes]

The above makes it sound like you wouldn't find out how many bullets your character had been popping off until a few combat actions later, when he finally runs out of ammo.  I'm not sure if that's what you intended to say, but if so then I'd argue that it would be more cinematic to know the number of bullets your character is wasting after each of his "shots.".

Well, given that you know your score in the ability in question, and how the mechanic works, you'll have a general idea of how many bullets you're tending to throw out there on average. Like I said, if you find yourself reloading your berretta about every three or four rounds, that means that you tend to chuck out about four or five bullets per round on average.

Doesn't really matter, however, you just narrate, "A hail of bullets" or "several well aimed shots" or whatever each round.

OTOH, there's another school of thought which says that in these movies that you always chuck hails of bullets each "round". From that POV, I'd just require reloading every three round or something easy to keep track of. Again, this leads to "Matrix" play where the PCs will just have arsenals of weapons on them. Which is great fun. Remember when you used to pooh-poo players for doing that kind of "munchkining?" Well, empower it, but make it "balanced" at the same time using something like this.

Mike[/u]

[talysman]

OTOH, there's another school of thought which says that in these movies that you always chuck hails of bullets each "round". From that POV, I'd just require reloading every three round or something easy to keep track of.

I agree that this might be the way to go if you want to stress in-game "realism"/consistency. or, a slight modification of that technique: every gun in a Simmy game has a rate of fire and a maximum number of rounds, which means you can calculate the typical time between reloads. OK, so only keep track of that time, reload when the time runs out. if the player announces using controlled bursts to extend time between reloads, require a skill check.

seems to be a good way to maintain a plausible level of detail without resorting to bean-counting.