Guns & Ammo

[mjbauer]

I'm looking for some examples of systems that do ammo without keeping track of each bullet and each shot.

The game I'm working on is fairly gun-centric but I'm trying to minimize book-keeping. I don't want to ignore bullets entirely (ie: no unlimited ammo). I like the chance that someone could run out of ammo mid-fight and need to reload, that adds some tension to the game and requires a little restraint, I'm just not sure exactly how to accomplish it.

[Luke]

Burning Empires uses an Ammo Check.

At the end of each exchange of fire, you test to determine your fire discipline. Difficulty of the test is determined by how many shooting actions you took.

[rafael]

In The Books of Pandemonium, each weapon has an ammo score, which tells you how many firefights it's good for. A shotgun has an ammo score of 2, so after 2 firefights, you pat your pockets and realize you're out of shells.

The idea of running out of ammo in the middle of combat is a cool idea, though.

[mjbauer]

Maybe a combination of the two is the solution.

- Give guns an ammo score where they have to be reloaded at the end of a certain number of rounds regardless.
- Have a mechanic built into each attack roll (maybe like a critical miss) which means you've run out of ammo mid-fight.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

What's not clear to me is what you mean by "tension." Is it life-or-death tension, in that a character could bloody well die if and when he runs out of ammo? Or is it colorful tension, in that it's fun simply to duck behind a pillar and go klick-klack with a new clip once in a while during the fight? These are totally different things.

Give an example of exactly how you see me (for instance, as a player in your game) having fun with out-of-ammo tension. Then you can rely on some excellent advice heading your way from those who've replied already.

Best, Ron

[scarik]

What kind of realism are we going for here?

If you are simulating something akin to a modern military then 'Fire Discipline' would be a valid skill. After an amount of time dependent on your Weapon's Ammo Score (as an example) you would make a Fire Discipline Test, or it could be a set amount of time where everyone makes the test but the difficulty is based on Weapon.

In a Stat+Skill system this would be (Nerve/Cool/stat used to not lose it) + Fire Discipline.

Ammo rating would be a factor of the weapon's payload and rate of fire. A muzzle loader would clearly always fail once used since it has 1 shot. An AK-47 in the hands of an untrained fighter would also be likely to fail since it can full auto, where as a blot or level action weapon would be easier to conserve ammo with.

[mjbauer]

Hiya,

What's not clear to me is what you mean by "tension." Is it life-or-death tension, in that a character could bloody well die if and when he runs out of ammo? Or is it colorful tension, in that it's fun simply to duck behind a pillar and go klick-klack with a new clip once in a while during the fight? These are totally different things.

Give an example of exactly how you see me (for instance, as a player in your game) having fun with out-of-ammo tension. Then you can rely on some excellent advice heading your way from those who've replied already.

Best, Ron

The game is intended to have detailed close-quarters gun-fu style fight sequences. So the tension (and maybe "tension" is the wrong word) comes in when a player breaks through the window of an office building with four hostiles inside, knowing that he can only take out (at the most) 3 of them with the gun he's using. Then the question becomes: "Do I take out two, take cover and reload and then take out the other two?" or "Do I take out 3 and knife the last one?" or "Do I spray the first two, round-house the third and throw my knife across the room to kill the last one?" So, I suppose it is the life-or-death tension.

Although it is pretty fun to duck behind a pillar and go klick-klack with a new clip. I'm all for that type of color.

[Callan S.]

For the klack-klack: A small amount of tracking - have two tick boxes. On a natural one, either a box gets ticked off, or there is an ammo roll made.

That way you know when your half way through your ammo (which helps with that situation you described and wondering where to put the bullets), but your never quite sure when the last bullets will go.

[Gurnard]

This mightn't be exactly what you're looking for, but something I've done before is have separate "gun cards" with tick/boxes for ammo (and a few clip sections to a page so reloading doesn't mean stopping combat to get your eraser out). Weapons with burst fire you'd treat a burst as one box (3 bullets/burst, 27 bullets/clip = 9 boxes) It does mean keeping track of every shot but in a way that doesn't break the flow of gameplay and you've also got the advantage of having weapon stats handy on the card instead of either writing everything on a character sheet or referring to source material constantly, and I've had players just throw a weapon to another who is out of ammo by simply passing the card across the table.

I think tension is more pronounced when you have a player thinking "shit I only have three bullets left but if I can get into cover over there ..." rather than "shit if I roll a 1 I'm out of ammo even though I haven't fired a shot left"

[whiteknife]

In savage worlds, PCs track ammo bullet by bullet, but NPC allies do it differently. Their weapons have an ammo rating: "very high" "high" "medium" "low" or "very low" and the level decreases after each firefight. However, they also have a chance to lose another level of ammo during the fight if they draw badly on initiative, so it keeps up the tension.

Also, I recall a similar discussion in which someone said there were only three interesting ammo levels "enough ammo that I have to watch how much I use" "one shot left" and "click. (empty)", so you might want to think about that too.

[mjbauer]

This mightn't be exactly what you're looking for, but something I've done before is have separate "gun cards" with tick/boxes for ammo (and a few clip sections to a page so reloading doesn't mean stopping combat to get your eraser out). Weapons with burst fire you'd treat a burst as one box (3 bullets/burst, 27 bullets/clip = 9 boxes) It does mean keeping track of every shot but in a way that doesn't break the flow of gameplay and you've also got the advantage of having weapon stats handy on the card instead of either writing everything on a character sheet or referring to source material constantly, and I've had players just throw a weapon to another who is out of ammo by simply passing the card across the table.

I think tension is more pronounced when you have a player thinking "shit I only have three bullets left but if I can get into cover over there ..." rather than "shit if I roll a 1 I'm out of ammo even though I haven't fired a shot left"

Thanks for the suggestion. You just took everything I was thinking about this subject and turned it upside-down.

Currently I'm using cards rather than a standard character sheet. Making a modular character sheet allows for quick customization depending on the circumstances. It allows for a character to have an inventory of items without having to "carry" everything on them at all times. I was thinking that a character could have one card to represent the items that he was currently carrying and that the character could have various cards (or kits) that he could equip depending on the situation.

EX: Going to the bar? Take the pistol and cellphone kit. Going to a hostage situation? Take the assault rifle, body armor, stun grenade kit.

So, when you suggested having a card for each gun I thought that it seemed a bit much (considering I've been trying to keep all of the character's stats down to a single card), until you mentioned a player tossing a gun card to another player and then it clicked. Even though it might be a bit more book-keeping, that goes perfectly with the feel of the game. I'm going to have to think about that for a bit.

[mjbauer]

In savage worlds, PCs track ammo bullet by bullet, but NPC allies do it differently. Their weapons have an ammo rating: "very high" "high" "medium" "low" or "very low" and the level decreases after each firefight. However, they also have a chance to lose another level of ammo during the fight if they draw badly on initiative, so it keeps up the tension.

Also, I recall a similar discussion in which someone said there were only three interesting ammo levels "enough ammo that I have to watch how much I use" "one shot left" and "click. (empty)", so you might want to think about that too.

I'm thinking that I'm going to go with the card option that Gurnard suggested but use ammo levels to track the number of shots left. I think you are right, there are only three interesting ammo levels so I'm going to use those as my levels: Full > Low > One Shot Left > Empty. The "Low" to "One Shot Left" option avoids the "I hope I don't roll a 1" problem where you go to shoot not knowing if you have ammo until pull the trigger. Each time a player rolls a 1 on a 1d6 they move to the next lower level, except for "One Shot Left" which goes to "Empty" automatically after you use it.

[Lance D. Allen]

So here's another question..

Do you have a limited number of magazines?

In the gun-fu source material, sometimes you're combat-reloading in kick-ass ways that are basically purely cosmetic, and don't actually mean you can't shoot for any meaningful amount of time (think of the final big battle in the textile mill in "Wanted" where there was always a loaded pistol flying through the air when he needed one, or in "Equilibrium" where he tossed out the bottom-weighted magazines and just slapped the guns onto them and kept shooting). Other times, it's click-click I need to duck behind this pillar, exchange some pointed banter with my opposite number, and then come out reloaded and blazing. Finally, there's the "crap, I get one shot, period. Make it count or I'm dead", or perhaps you're completely out, and you're finding another method that doesn't involve shooting to kill them/relying on the gun abandoned out in the kill zone/needing your buddy to throw you a gun or a magazine.

The first example is that long battle where you're never rolling a 1. This can't happen with a limited number of mags, or at least it can't happen for very long.

The second example works either way, limited mags or no.

The third example pretty much requires it. You have to be able to run out of mags to be down to your last bullet.

[mjbauer]

So here's another question..

Do you have a limited number of magazines?

In the gun-fu source material, sometimes you're combat-reloading in kick-ass ways that are basically purely cosmetic, and don't actually mean you can't shoot for any meaningful amount of time (think of the final big battle in the textile mill in "Wanted" where there was always a loaded pistol flying through the air when he needed one, or in "Equilibrium" where he tossed out the bottom-weighted magazines and just slapped the guns onto them and kept shooting). Other times, it's click-click I need to duck behind this pillar, exchange some pointed banter with my opposite number, and then come out reloaded and blazing. Finally, there's the "crap, I get one shot, period. Make it count or I'm dead", or perhaps you're completely out, and you're finding another method that doesn't involve shooting to kill them/relying on the gun abandoned out in the kill zone/needing your buddy to throw you a gun or a magazine.

The first example is that long battle where you're never rolling a 1. This can't happen with a limited number of mags, or at least it can't happen for very long.

The second example works either way, limited mags or no.

The third example pretty much requires it. You have to be able to run out of mags to be down to your last bullet.

Yes, there will still be a need to keep track of magazines.

I'm thinking that there will also need to be some exceptions for guns that carry significantly less ammo (double barreled shotgun) and significantly more (Belt fed Machine gun). So maybe I'll end up doing 3 levels of ammo (Low, Average & High). And maybe there is an simple way to combine loading into the ammo roll. Maybe reloading automatically happens for one dice result (the player just needs to subtract a magazine) and for another result the player runs out and has to use an action to reload.

I don't know, that might be adding too much complexity. It's so hard to keep a game simple and still interesting, real life is full of so many exceptions. 

[mjbauer]

And to add to the complexity, I'm not exactly sure how to limit the number of stats for each weapon.

Name
Type (pistol, rifle, submachine gun)
Size/Weight
Range
Ammo Capacity
Ammo Type
Damage
Cost
Mods/Accessories

I'm thinking of doing this:

Name
Type (Determines size & range of weapon)
Ammo Capacity (Possibly also determined by type)
Damage (Maybe Determined by Ammo Type)
Cost
Mods/Accessories (Maybe you can't attach things to a gun, some come with scopes or grenade launchers and some don't)

I don't know. Swords are so much easier to deal with game-wise.