Reload Mechanics

[JesterZero]

Just trying to query the Den hivemind here.

Does anyone have any reload mechanics (as in: reload a firearm) that lands somewhere on the spectrum between "/handwave" and "count individual bullets?"

I'm interested in mechanics that folks actually think are decent, although cautionary tales are always welcome. I'm starting to think that a lot of the systems out there that propose rules to avoid bullet-counting rapidly get into territory where actually counting bullets would be less onerous.

Thanks.

[Ravengm]

Depending on the setting you're talking about, a heat-based restriction could work. If you use the firearm too much in a short amount of time, it overheats and you have to wait a long time for it to be usable again.

[Username17]

I'm fond of the "ammo roll." Roll above your ammo target and you still have ammo, roll below and you've run out. In Necromunda, you only have to roll if you get certain to-hit rolls. In Champions, you have to roll every attack. Either one is fine, and a lot less onerous than counting bullets.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

How does an ammo roll work? For example, after the completion of attack, do you just roll against some TN where each success raises the TN? And if you fail, you have to take a reload/resupply action to use the weapon again and reset the TN?

[silva]

In Apocalypse World you never need to worry about bullet counting. Except when your gun has the "reload" tag, in which case you need to spend an action declaring you're reloading after you fired it. ( Generally this is the case of guns with "Auto" tags).

[Josh_Kablack]

Here's everything I know of. You get to use your own judgement about how good or stupid a lot of them are:

• Individual Bullets (Charges or Clips of Charges in HERO terms)
• Number of attacks made between reloads (only different from individual bullets if attacks have multiple bullets, but can matter a lot for autofire weapons)
• Nobody ever runs out of ammo. (0 end cost in Hero terms)
• Run out of ammo on fumble/critical failure
• Activation roll. Before each attack, roll dice, on [condition] gun is empty this round and attack is wasted to reloading time
• Burnout roll (HERO term) (aka ammo roll in Frank's post, aka reload roll in FS2) After each attack, roll dice, on [condition] gun is empty and must be reloaded before any other attacks can be made with it.
• Hybrids of the prior 3. For example, you might fold some type of ammo roll condition into the attack roll itself instead of requiring a second roll. You could have numbers evenly divisible by 3 on a system with a d20 attack roll mean you need to reload your 6-shooter, or you could have doubles on a 2d6 system mean the same.
• Total Damage Dice (END Reserve in hero terms). In this setup, shooting a gun typically costs N charges out of a large pool, but you can get more damage on any individual shot by spending more than N charges, or you can conserve ammo by spending less than N and accepting reduced damage.
• Ammunition depends on external randomizer common to entire round/scene. Torg actually used something like this, where there was an "event deck" with cards drawn for combat rounds and it contained frequent setbacks where "no firearms work this round". And players could flavor that as reloading, jammed or just no clear shots as they wished.
• Round timer on ammunition. It doesn't matter who shot what, it just matters how late in the fight it is. SO for example, maybe guns always work during the first sequence but always need to be reloaded before firing in any later sequence.
• Round escalation on ammunition. Invert the above, guns bigger than N always empty if used before N turns into the fight, and cannot be reloaded until N turns into the fight.
• Various guns have various versions and combinations of any of the above, depending on game designer notion of balance and/or what powers the character spends point for. This complex mishmash with different characters having radically different guns that work on radically different systems is how HERO actually works.

Those plus "there is no ammo, HAW-HAW" and mother-may-I? are pretty much all of your options.

[OgreBattle]

How does an ammo roll work? For example, after the completion of attack, do you just roll against some TN where each success raises the TN? And if you fail, you have to take a reload/resupply action to use the weapon again and reset the TN?

In Necromunda you make an ammo roll when you roll a 6 to hit (which usually means you've hit a dude). Then you make an ammo roll of 6, 5+, 4+, 3+, 2+, etc. depending on what the weapon is.

So a common weapon with a high ammo capacity like the lasgun has a roll of 2+, while rarer weapons with a lower ammo capacity like the bolter have a roll of 6.

Having the roll only on a 6 to hit means that you only have a chance of running out of ammo after you've shot someone, which means the gun has a chance to be useful before it runs out of ammo.

You can see the Necromunda weapons list here
http://www.gamingcorner.nl/downloads/ne ... onssum.pdf

Here's a fan update of Necromunda rules
http://caiysware.com/necromunda

[Blicero]

Would it be too much bookkeeping for a game with a randomized reloading mechanic to have the probability of running out of ammo increase after every shot you take? And maybe it increases faster if you do full-auto instead of burst fire or whatever.

[Username17]

Would it be too much bookkeeping for a game with a randomized reloading mechanic to have the probability of running out of ammo increase after every shot you take? And maybe it increases faster if you do full-auto instead of burst fire or whatever.

Yes. That would be too much bookkeeping. If you track the number of shots, you can just track the number of shots. You use a randomizer because it's statistically equivalent to giving a fixed number of shots and doesn't require bookkeeping on a round to round basis. Doing both is just fucked.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Would it be too much bookkeeping for a game with a randomized reloading mechanic to have the probability of running out of ammo increase after every shot you take? And maybe it increases faster if you do full-auto instead of burst fire or whatever.

If you have to perform an addition per each shot and then also do anything else, your system is more complicated than a system of counting individual bullets.

[virgil]

I'm unsure as to whether you're at a net positive if you add resolution time by rolling an additional die to see if you run out bullets with every attack.

[RobbyPants]

In Apocalypse World you never need to worry about bullet counting. Except when your gun has the "reload" tag, in which case you need to spend an action declaring you're reloading after you fired it. ( Generally this is the case of guns with "Auto" tags).

But if you ever make the mistake of checking your gun first, you get attacked by bears. Typically one more than the number of bullets you have.

[Zaranthan]

I'm unsure as to whether you're at a net positive if you add resolution time by rolling an additional die to see if you run out bullets with every attack.

It's more table time IF you do the ammo roll after the attack resolves. If you roll it with the attack, much like rolling to-hit and damage together, it's faster. Having the ammo roll a function of the attack roll's peculiarities (like multiples of 3 on a d20 means *click*) is faster still.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

I like the Necromunda system because it's more evocative to say your LMG support gunner shoots "a spray of bullets" than "X bullets", where X is an explicit integer. It makes it feel more like a firefight if, when the adrenaline's pumping, you might squeeze the trigger for longer than you've been trained to.

[virgil]

I'm unsure as to whether you're at a net positive if you add resolution time by rolling an additional die to see if you run out bullets with every attack.

It's more table time IF you do the ammo roll after the attack resolves. If you roll it with the attack, much like rolling to-hit and damage together, it's faster. Having the ammo roll a function of the attack roll's peculiarities (like multiples of 3 on a d20 means *click*) is faster still.

I have lost track of the number of players who refuse to roll attack and damage together, so I think that needs to be addressed. The ammo roll being a function of the attack roll, I feel, is better for this reason.

[GnomeWorks]

I'm fond of the "ammo roll." Roll above your ammo target and you still have ammo, roll below and you've run out. In Necromunda, you only have to roll if you get certain to-hit rolls. In Champions, you have to roll every attack. Either one is fine, and a lot less onerous than counting bullets.

On the one hand, I like this. It's an elegant solution to the issue of players losing track of their ammunition, reduces the amount of numbers players have to track, and gets the concept across sufficiently.

On the other hand, I don't like it. It seems a little too abstract - it's like using a wealth trait, or similar, for tracking cash. It's the kind of thing you want an exact count on, because handling things like getting more ammo does... what, exactly? How do you describe an amount of ammo in a way that makes sense both in a narrative and mechanical sense?

[Blicero]

If you have to perform an addition per each shot and then also do anything else, your system is more complicated than a system of counting individual bullets.

Not necessarily. The advantage of what I propose is that we abstract individual bullets up to the level of a "burst". Which makes the math more manageable, because you're dealing with smaller numbers. If you assume that the two firing modes are "burst" and "auto", then you'll only ever have to calculate n-1 and n-2.

That caveat aside, I do agree that my suggestion is still probably too much bookkeeping. Which is annoying, because the memoryless nature of Frank's suggestion is kind of annoying. Still, I like it enough that I would probably add it to After Sundown if/when I run that game again.

It's the kind of thing you want an exact count on, because handling things like getting more ammo does... what, exactly?

I have never played an RPG in which the event of finding more ammo was at all exciting or worth mentioning. For genres where that sort of thing matters, is there anything wrong with making the clip/magazine/thingy the basic unit of ammo that you find?

[Dean]

My favorite is "Number of attacks between reloads". So a Pistol might have an Ammo rating of 4, denoting 4 rounds of attacks before reloading, but a Machine Pistol might only have an Ammo rating of 3 despite having much more ammo due to a much higher rate of fire. I think it is better as a general principle to count gun firing as a cloud action rather than treating each attack roll as one bullet fired and one ammo down.

[Scrivener]

Would it be too much bookkeeping for a game with a randomized reloading mechanic to have the probability of running out of ammo increase after every shot you take? And maybe it increases faster if you do full-auto instead of burst fire or whatever.

You could tie your reload roll to your to-hit roll.

Say if a gun has a reload number of 4, if you roll 4 or less on your to hit you need to reload before you shoot again. No haha, you missed because you don't have bullets, just before you shoot again you need more bullets. Going full auto can be multiple attacks, meaning you are more likely to run run out of ammo, or it just increases your reload number along side damage and/or accuracy. It could be a pain if you roll low constantly, but it works for abstraction well (you aren't "out" of bullets, but that last attack was four shots and you have a six shooter, you don't think you can risk a single shot).

Dice pools are a little wonkier, but the reload number could be the number of 1s rolled, in which case a lower reload number would be worse.

No need for a bonus roll, no need to track anything.

Edit- wait with a dice pool system if you are sufficiently unskilled enough with a fire arm you will never run out of ammo. Blind toddlers never need to reload. Looks like it won't work in those systems without more tweaking, which tends to be a bad sign.

[PhoneLobster]

My current one is ammo is a special resource, you spend it only on special attacks/attack upgrades but as long as you have it you can make unlimited standard/unmodified attacks.

Among other things it means you can have a system where people make lots of gun/bow attacks while occasionally tracking meaningful ammo totals that are in the relatively easy to manage range of "1 to 3".

[name_here]

On the other hand, I don't like it. It seems a little too abstract - it's like using a wealth trait, or similar, for tracking cash. It's the kind of thing you want an exact count on, because handling things like getting more ammo does... what, exactly? How do you describe an amount of ammo in a way that makes sense both in a narrative and mechanical sense?

You have <enough> clips containing <some> bullets, and you don't count so good while being shot at.

[JesterZero]

I only expected a handful of responses, so this is terrific. Thank you.

[OgreBattle]

Checking the After Sundown tablet version PDF, there's no rules for ammo rolls in the game right?

[Blicero]

Checking the After Sundown tablet version PDF, there's no rules for ammo rolls in the game right?

Not that I can recall.

Bullets: The amount of bullets fired off in genuine firefights is extremely varied and often frighteningly large. During a 12 second combat round, an assault rifle could easily fire 100 rounds or more (if it even had that many bullets in its magazine or belt-feed). Actually resolving where all of those bullets end up would be far too time consuming to consider doing in most battles. As such, the game doesn't really distinguish between characters squeezing off large numbers of bullets and characters taking hard seconds to line up their targets and fire devastating double-taps into a target's vitals. As such, the game also doesn't bother writing up exactly how many bullets weapons contain. During survival horror segments, ammunition conservation can (and should) be a major concern, but in regular street combat it shouldn't really come up.

It is also important to note that while the game only models those bullets that have a significant chance of hitting their target, every bullet fired eventually hits something. Stray bullets do not individually hit people we care about often enough to have such events generated by any combination of numbers on the dice, relegating that very real possibility to the realm of plot devices. However, in cases where the target is very close to other targets that these other targets are very likely to catch a bullet one way or another. If the target is getting cover from a creature and the target is missed by just the difference caused by the cover, then you can assume that the living cover is hit. Similarly, if the target is in or in front of a dense crowd of people, someone is getting hit. Deciding who is left as a narrative exercise. In such situations, Extras catch stray bullets much more than Luminaries.

[tussock]

TMNT (etc.): There's five bursts in your clip. Ten for a belt feed.

The only important reason to track ammo is the weight of the stuff when trying to be prepared for basilisks. If you're not tracking weight, don't fucking bother. It's not expensive, it's just heavy, even more so in belts, clips, and magazines.

But really, in games with guns that shoot a lot, you drive a car or something even bigger. Which carries your ammo for you. Unless you're three years into the Zombie Apocalypse and the petrol has all turned back to gunk, or you had to parachute in and hold the bridge for five days, we can probably just assume you have enough ammo both for this fight and all the following fights, somewhere.

Just say you can only use fully automatic options if you have a good supply, and burst options only if you have a moderate supply, and with a poor supply you have to single-shot everything.


Taking a crossbow into a dungeon is more like survival horror. But you can just pick the things back up and twenty bolts will probably never run out. If you're 16th level with a repeating crossbow of speed, get as automated magic ammo spell for it already, or at least use a magical weightless quiver.