Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[clig76]

Just curious how many of you fudge the ammo rules.

I'm a not a huge fan of counting rounds.

Thanks,
Curt

[TommyBrownell]

When in doubt, use the ammo level rules for Extras.

I read a suggestion somewhere for using them for Power Points as well.
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Tommy Brownell

[GruffaloCrumble]

I mostly play fantasy games and I dont track ammo at all, if a character has a bow/crossbow, it's safe to assume he's got enough arrows/bolts for a combat. If I was to run a modern setting - particularly a modern/horror setting - where rounds in the chamber became an issue, I'd just give poker chips to the player to reflect bullets (maybe a different colour poker chip to reflect any additional magazines that he can cash in for more bullets as needed) and make him pay up as he uses them - exactly like how a spellcaster would pay up Power Points to use magic.

Or keep track of his remaining ammo on a D20 hidden behind your screen, then when he runs out and tries to keep shooting, you can tell him how the hammer falls on an empty chamber and laugh maniacally as he spends the rest of his turn scampering for cover, lol.

[steelbrok]

This is what I decided to keep things moving faster:

In most modern or near modern scenarios soldiers will be starting out with three or four magazines with twenty to thirty rounds in each, between sixty and one hundred and twenty rounds.

That being so:

Note how many magazines each Wild Card has.

When Wild Cards fire single shots: forget about ammunition use. Treat some of the misses as actually being time spent reloading.

If a Wild Card fires a three round burst or full auto and rolls any ones they are down a magazine at the end of that round of combat.

Not perfect but quick and easy

[HalifaxDM]

I have my players keep track of ammo ... not so much as what they carry but what is loaded in their guns. I trust them and they trust me. I don't really find it a logistical problem.

I do ask them to keep a general tally of how much ammo they carry though for weight purposes.

[Zadmar]

The Savage Armoury approach:

It’s generally assumed that most missile weapons don’t run out of ammunition during the normal course of play. For weapons with the Limited Ammo ability, roll 2d6 after each Shooting roll: if neither roll exceeds the amount of ammunition used then you need to reload as an action. The Very Limited Ammo ability works the same way, except you only roll 1d6.

Works out okay, you can roll the ammo dice with your Shooting and Wild dice so it doesn't slow things down.

[steelbrok]

I like that general approach, what about using the Shooting and Wild die themselves instead of seperate dice? That way a skilled shooter is less likeley to run out of ammo.

Combine this with normal extras ammo rules and make low ammo = Limited Ammo and Out = Very Low Ammo

[Virgobrown72]

I use the ammo rules for extras. FFF all the way!!!
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"Anything smaller is just fiddly, and fiddly is not one of SvgW's three Fs..."

[Noshrok Grimskull]

We usually keep track of our own ammo.
It may not be completely FFF, but since Savage Worlds has so little number-crunching, we don't mind the extra effort.
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"If you think I'm crazy, you should see the people I'm locked up with." - Steamdriven

"This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes 'ding' when there's stuff." - The Doctor (Doctor Who)

[chillburn]

For one game I did the following:

Divide each weapon's ammo by a fixed number (say 10, for now). Each of these is one "unit" of ammo. So a 30-round mag has 3 units, etc. (generally I err'd on the side of benevolence and rounded units up).

After each fight, decide how many "units" of ammo were spent in the fight (1 for a short fight, two for a long fight, three for an epic fight...) and anyone that fired a shot loses that many units of ammo.

Weapons with less capacity than the ammo/unit value track shots individually.

You can tailor the unit size to meet your needs (in a Weird Wars game 10 or more might work, in a HoE setting 5 might be more appropriate).

[The Dread Polack]

I am usually fine with tracking ammo. I'm also okay, in the right genre, if simply assuming characters have enough ammo to finish a combat.

I really don't like the idea that a character will randomly run out of ammo based on a roll:

Player: "How many orcs are there?"

GM: "Six"

Player: "Okay, how many arrows do I have?"

GM: "You don't know until after you shoot and roll to see if you're out"

Player: "No, I look inside my quiver and count my arrows."

GM: "That's not how it works"

Player: "Okay, I'm making a new character. This one will use a battle-axe"

I would riot if my GM did this to me.

There will, of course, be times where a player might not know how many shots he has left, but it shouldn't be a rule. Maybe in a board game, but not in an RPG.

[clig76]

[Redtwin]

One of my questions when examining a given rule is "How does this contribute to the game?" Tracking ammo doesn't usually add a dramatic angle unless they're in a situation where they can't get more ammo, so it doesn't really make sense to worry about it until they're in that situation.

For instance, in my EN game I'm not having the players track crossbow bolts and arrows. They're fairly easy to come by because anybody with proper training can make them. Black powder is a whole different ball game - the dwarves have a closely guarded monopoly on how to make it, to the point that it manufactured in a hidden location the PC dwarves don't know about. Powder is powerful, expensive, and hard to come by, so I'll have the players keep track of how much they have on hand.
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"Anybody else feel like fishing for Rattlers?"
Said while dragging a size 12 giant worm down the highway behind my Hummer at full speed to kill it via road rash.

[Sushi]

I was happy to ignore ammo in my fantasy game. I'm less comfortable doing so in my Firefly-esque setting, where how much ammo a gun can carry is an important part of making weapons unique.

I figure the amount of spare ammo the players have isn't too big of a deal, but how much ammo they've got left before a reload is pretty important.

[The Dread Polack]

[ogbendog]

In 6 seconds, you presumable, parry, block, feint, thrust, swing etc, and get one attack in savage worlds terms. But you probably attack more than once in character

I know from personal experience how fast you can empty an M-16, even on single shot. But in SW, you can shoot, what 6 bullets? 3 rapid attacks double tapping each time?

Even with a bow, in GURPS at least, you can lose one unaimed arrow every 2 seconds, or 3 per SW round. MOre with some of the cinematic rules

In a modern game, you could assume that a person shoots a lot more than 1 bullet per attack. You could also assume that the guy with a d4 shooting is just blazing away, while the guy with d12 it taking slow, measured shots.

In that case, ruling that a 1 is "you shot yourself dry" makes some sense, although it ignores ammo capacity.

in the case of "how many arrows do I have", you could say "A full quiver, but if you make six attacks at 6 orcs, you might be shooting more than one arrow per orc"

[CynicalMisfit]

I use the xtras ammo rule or just unlimited ammo altogether. I play to have fun, not be an ammo accountant.

[ValhallaGH]

[ValhallaGH]

[Maine]

An idea I had reading through this thread, similar to the 2d6 / d6 roll from Savage Armoury:

- Weapons with an ammo capacity of 7 or less (revolvers, breach-loaded shotguns, and single-shot weapons) track every shot.

- Semi-automatic weapons do not track ammo. Instead, rolling a 1 on the Shooting die means that ammo is low, and only one more attack action (of any kind) may be used before it must be reloaded. This represents user error: firing too much, forgetting to reload, not paying attention, etc.

- Automatic weapons follow the rules for Semi-Automatic weapons when making any non Automatic / Suppressive attack action. In addition, the track ammo for Automatic and Suppressive Fire with the following mechanic:

A weapon starts with an Ammo Die equal to the ammo capacity divided by the ROF, round down. For example, a weapon with a capacity of 30 and ROF of 3 gets a d10. The minimum die size is d4, the maximum die size is d12. If the Ammo Die would be greater than d12, then the weapon will not run out of ammo.

After making an Automatic Fire or Suppressive Fire action, roll the die. If it comes up a 1 (Automatic Fire) or 1-2 (Suppressive Fire), the weapon will be out of Ammo after the next Automatic Fire or Suppressive Fire action is performed. After this, reduce the die type by 1 step for an Automatic Fire action, or 2 steps for a Suppressive Fire action. If the Die Type is reduced below d4, the weapon is now out of ammo.

This would allow a ROF 3 weapon with 30 capacity the ability to make at least 2, but no more than 4 Automatic Fire actions. It has a 10% chance of getting only getting 2 Automatic Fire actions, and a 66% chance that it can get 4 actions.

This has a couple advantages.
- It's pretty simple (at least to me)
- Running out of ammo is not a complete surprise, so you know you're getting low.
- Finally, it makes Automatic Fire and Suppressive Fire less predictable in ammo used.

With a small change you can make running out of ammo more of a surprise.

* Option 1: If a 1 is rolled on the Ammo Die, then instead of having 1 Automatic Fire action left, the weapon is now out of ammo. However, do not roll on the first Automatic Fire or Suppressive Fire action performed with since the last Reload (but you still reduce the die type).

* Option 2: Like Option 1, but instead of being out of ammo, the weapon is simply too low to Automatic Fire, and is limited to single shot, double-tap, and 3-round-burst (as allowed by the weapon).

* Option 3: Use the Options 1 and 2 based on the characters Shooting die.
** Untrained and d4 have no fire discipline, and use Option 1 - running out of ammo will come as a surprise.
** d6 and d8 Shooting use Option 2 - they know when they run too low to Automatic Fire.
** d10 and up use the rules as written - they have the best fire discipline and know if they have one last good burst left.