Reload Mechanics

[Axebird]

Ammo rolls are nice from a strictly gameplay perspective, but they're a seriously dissociated mechanic. The first time someone loads up their revolver and discovers that it's empty after taking a single shot things get weird. I suppose you could include a passage about it also including things like your gun jamming, but then you've got wacky weapons that seem weirdly unreliable, which could play against the theme of the game.

[Omegonthesane]

Ammo rolls are nice from a strictly gameplay perspective, but they're a seriously dissociated mechanic. The first time someone loads up their revolver and discovers that it's empty after taking a single shot things get weird. I suppose you could include a passage about it also including things like your gun jamming, but then you've got wacky weapons that seem weirdly unreliable, which could play against the theme of the game.

Maybe if the ammo roll was set to "auto-pass" in the first round slash if you just reloaded, either as an explicit special case or as an implementation feature? Tracking "-2 to next ammo roll" or whatever seems less horrendous than tracking number of bullets, but "never fail the first ammo roll of the combat or the first ammo roll after you reload" would seem fine.

Then you could have an "Unreliable" tag for shit like 3D printed pistols or anything that jams on a noticeable basis.

Assuming of course that "You reload. You fire. Miss! Miss! Miss! Miss! Miss! Miss! And that's the round of firing!" isn't too insulting - this being an integrated solution to "failed an ammo roll" if ammo rolls are somehow tied to attack rolls.

[Stubbazubba]

Just give it a certain number of free shots with no chance of running out. Like 1 or 2. Then you start rolling every round. It's not as convenient as just rolling every round, but it avoids the worst of the disassociation without reverting to too much bookkeeping.

Edit: ninja'd

[Axebird]

Yeah, good points. If it happens after a couple rounds it's not really a big deal. It's less likely to be noticed, and can easily be handwaved as firing more shots than you made attack rolls, the other shots just didn't matter.

[Chamomile]

Make the ammo roll something that benefits from a bonus that soldiers get a lot of and non-soldiers, not so much (BAB would work). You can also make the DC vary by gun and firing mode, where larger magazines give you a lower DC, burst fire gives you maybe -2, and full-auto -5, and you can also add something like spray-and-pray which has something ridiculous like a -10 but also comes with the effect of forcing all opponents to take cover or eat the damage.

The associative mechanic here is that people with little combat experience fire a whole lot of bullets to hit the same number of targets. People who are well-trained and experienced are more likely to fire only as many bullets as are necessary. Thus, your odds of succeeding on the roll increase as experience does. A natural 1 is always a failure, so even very skilled shooters will eventually run dry. If counting magazines is something you want (and I could see an argument for counting the magazines you can bring on a run even though you probably want the number of magazines in your stockpile to be infinite), you can also require people to reload at the end of an encounter, with possibly an option to take a stacking -2 to ammo rolls going forward if you don't.

[Username17]

Alternately: why are we declaring that "attacks" are necessarily one bullet? I mean honestly, how many people fire one bullet in a fire fight? Even Oswald shot like three times.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

I mean honestly, how many people fire one bullet in a fire fight?

Depends what genre we're talking about. A veteran having to reload an automatic rifle or revolver to take out two mooks is unremarkable for a historical war game or a zombie apocalypse story, but really weird if we're talking about Gunsmith Cats.

[Username17]

You think it would be weird for Rally Vincent to put two holes in the door and two slugs in the chest of each mook and then have to reload a six shooter? Really?

Is this the part where I start looking for manga pages to post?

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

I just think it's weird if that's the default interaction of a gun regardless of story circumstances. It has the same explanatory challenge as the whole 'you're trying to sneak past with mundane stealth down a well-lit, featureless hallway with a guard looking down it' trope we like to use.

ED: Not to say that I think that this is a bad or even not the best idea. It resolves quickly and adds tension. I'm just fishing for a good narrative explanation, but I'll gladly accept 'it's a gameplay-story tradeoff, go fuck yourself' as an explanation. I mean, you are talking to a guy who likes randomized treasure drops and WoF after all.

[OgreBattle]

Is this the part where I start looking for manga pages to post?
-Username17

Yes, yes it is.

[Stahlseele]

Is this the part where I start looking for manga pages to post?
-Username17

Yes, yes it is.

I second the motion.

[OgreBattle]

A persistant image gallery with labels for tabletop RPG reference would be handy, like imgur or www.pinterest.com

[Dean]

I agree that ammo roll feels right for characters of low to moderate skill levels especially in post apocalyptic environments. The further away from that you get the less appropriate it feels. Adding multiple rounds after reload until you start making ammo rolls is a bad idea. At the point that you are counting every round you make an attack you might as well just use that without adding the ammo roll. That's its own ammo mechanic.

[Josh_Kablack]

Is this the part where I start looking for manga pages to post?-Username17

Nah. It's a pretty trivial google search to get

Rally Vincent, three shots from the gun, but clearly a single panel / action / attack.

[Blade]

To me ammo rolls should only be used if you abstract the numbers of bullets used by each attack. And in that case, you'd better handle it in the same roll as the attack roll, to avoid rolling twice each and every time the characters needs to shoot.

But as others have pointed out, this won't work in all kinds of game. Normal cops will tend to shoot their whole clips when they have to use their guns, so that's valid, but SWAT members will do double-taps and tactical reloads (reloading even if you still have bullets).
So as soon as you start having elite shooters, ammo rolls won't make sense. But when you have elite shooters you rarely have to count bullets anyway. Most of the time, the combat will be over before they need to reload.

[Lago PARANOIA]

On the other hand, elite vs. elite fights do have ammo reloads. Heck, ammunition issues are often a key turning point in the fight. If you were going to model this for an action-adventure TTRPG, people would be encouraged to do shit like dive for cover or reach for a secondary weapon or kick over scaffolding or whatever the fuck during or instead of reloading. I think it'd be a shame not to have this mechanic in a game that posits gunfights as a regular thing.

[Username17]

I don't have a problem with characters getting bonuses to their ammo checks for being more skilled. In fact, I think that's exactly what should happen.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

What's the most amount of complexity you can add to an ammo roll without it being too much of a pain to use? For example, I think it'd be nice to have an ammo roll that distinguished between 'you're out of bullets right now' and 'you're out of bullets the next time you use this weapon'. And then you rolled against a fixed TN to see if you exceeded these results. Skilled weapon users would be represented by rolling larger die and/or getting an optional reroll at a penalty, taking the larger result.

So the system would work like this. 1-2, you're out of ammunition. 3-4, you're out of ammo the next time you attack. Revolvers roll 1d6, semi-automatic pistols roll 1d8, etc. Veterans get a free reroll at a -2 penalty, elite commandos no penalty, ultra-awesome dudes get two free rerolls, one at a -2 penalty, etc.

[Blade]

The problem is that even with bonuses, skilled characters can still fail their rolls. And you can still have the case of a character with a 30 rounds magazine who explicitly reloaded before entering a room, shot two three-rounds burst and suddenly needs to reload. And this will piss off the player.

You can make the system more complex to handle this, but then you get to a point where the bookkeeping for the system is worse than just keeping track of each bullet.

[Lago PARANOIA]

And you can still have the case of a character with a 30 rounds magazine who explicitly reloaded before entering a room, shot two three-rounds burst and suddenly needs to reload. And this will piss off the player.

Why should players be allowed to declare that they shot two three-round bursts instead of declaring that they're shooting their gun at so-and-so? I mean, that sounds reasonable but would you let players in 3E D&D declare that they're spinning their spear around to hit all enemies in their reach without Whirlwind or enough extra attacks? Would you let a STR 30 player with a quarterstaff allow themselves to use said staff as a piercing weapon by thrusting into enemies with it?

[Blade]

I mean, that sounds reasonable but would you let players in 3E D&D declare that they're spinning their spear around to hit all enemies in their reach without Whirlwind or enough extra attacks? Would you let a STR 30 player with a quarterstaff allow themselves to use said staff as a piercing weapon by thrusting into enemies with it?

Yes.
Actually that's one of the reason why I don't like D&D. And one of the reasons why I'd have a problem with a system that would tell the PC how they shoot their guns, even when the characters are skilled enough to be in total control of the way they do it.

I wouldn't have a problem if the game system was very abstract, like a system where you roll only once for clearing a room and then handle everything narratively. In that case, I wouldn't mind getting told that my gun is empty, because I had to lay down suppressive fire on some area or because I had to take many shots at one enemy before hitting him. But I'm not sure such an abstract system needs a subsystem to handle ammunition. Reloading concerns would just be possible explanations to some rolls.

[Omegonthesane]

I mean, that sounds reasonable but would you let players in 3E D&D declare that they're spinning their spear around to hit all enemies in their reach without Whirlwind or enough extra attacks? Would you let a STR 30 player with a quarterstaff allow themselves to use said staff as a piercing weapon by thrusting into enemies with it?

Yes.
Actually that's one of the reason why I don't like D&D. And one of the reasons why I'd have a problem with a system that would tell the PC how they shoot their guns, even when the characters are skilled enough to be in total control of the way they do it.

I wouldn't have a problem if the game system was very abstract, like a system where you roll only once for clearing a room and then handle everything narratively. In that case, I wouldn't mind getting told that my gun is empty, because I had to lay down suppressive fire on some area or because I had to take many shots at one enemy before hitting him. But I'm not sure such an abstract system needs a subsystem to handle ammunition. Reloading concerns would just be possible explanations to some rolls.

If it's not on the character sheet, then why would you assume the character has the ability? Whirlwind Attacking is extremely hard to pull off properly, an amateur trying it would likely faceplant. Likewise an amateur character might go in intending to use short controlled bursts and reload after every room, only to get sloppy and/or get spooked as required to justify failing ammo rolls because they haven't spent character resources on "is good with a gun".

Though, under such a system "Tactical Reload" could just be a standard or full-round action that you take to rig your next ammo roll, which it is assumed serious professionals will take after every victorious encounter. Similarly, there could just come a point where a single-class soldier is so hardcore that they can never fail their first ammo roll of a combat.

If players are going to whine about failing their second ammo roll of a combat, then fuck 'em.

[Chamomile]

Fundamentally you're making the argument that a character in a life-threatening situation with a handful of seconds at best to make decisions is going to have exactly the same thought process as the character's player, sitting around a table with 2+ minutes to make the same decision just by waiting for other people to go around the table, not counting however long the group will give him if he stops to think on his own action. That's ridiculous. Having a die roll to represent squeezing off three bursts in a mild panic when only one would've been ideal is perfectly reasonable.

[mean_liar]

Ammo rolls are nice from a strictly gameplay perspective, but they're a seriously dissociated mechanic. The first time someone loads up their revolver and discovers that it's empty after taking a single shot things get weird. I suppose you could include a passage about it also including things like your gun jamming, but then you've got wacky weapons that seem weirdly unreliable, which could play against the theme of the game.

I figure that if you make the issue rare enough such that it's a fumble, it can cover jams, misfires, and running out of ammo, depending on what feels right in the combat. Reloading could then be handwaved as typically a free action such that if the bad roll comes up early in combat, that's a jam. If it comes up late, that's needing to actually spend an action to reload just because maybe you fumbled the magazine.

As a corollary, ammo then becomes measurable just in per-combat rather than explicit bullets or magazines, with a single post-combat depletion roll that is penalized for each battle (failing it means you're now out of ammo).

Features of a class might include fire discipline, allowing a bonus to that post-combat roll but still keeping the possibilities of misfire and jams.

[Blade]

If it's not on the character sheet, then why would you assume the character has the ability? Whirlwind Attacking is extremely hard to pull off properly, an amateur trying it would likely faceplant. Likewise an amateur character might go in intending to use short controlled bursts and reload after every room, only to get sloppy and/or get spooked as required to justify failing ammo rolls because they haven't spent character resources on "is good with a gun".

I'm a Shadowrun player, not a D&D player.
If a player wants his character to slide down the stair's railing while shooting everyone, I don't need him to have the "slide shoot" feat, I have him roll Gymnastic to check if he can slide correctly, and then roll his Pistol skill with a negative modifier that represents the fact that it's extremely hard to hit anything while sliding down a railing.

So if we apply the same mechanism to the ammo roll, it would mean rolling the "combat discipline" skill, with modifiers for the stress, the situation and a threshold that depends on the size of the clip/magazine and using the result to say if there are bullets left or not.

That could be acceptable, but would require an additional dice roll for each shoot action, which would slow down a game that already has too many dice rolls.