Minor Correction: For the Ammunition Dice, you step down the size of the die on a roll of a 1 OR a 2, not just a 1. giffyglyph.com/darkerdungeons/grimoire/4.0.0/en/ammunition_dice.html
My group is going to take a break from our norm and try Blade Runner by Free League, which ignores ammo altogether. I was wondering if you'd played that game and if you felt it impacted play in any way. Depending on the game I'm sure some feel it more than others.
I played Bladerunner with Glass Cannon a couple months ago. The ammo thing wasn't an issue at all. Once we're finished with our Traveller campaign I plan to run my group through the 2 Bladerunner adventures as our palate cleanse before diving into Cthulhu by Gaslight. It's a cool system. Here's Part one of our Bladerunner Fiery Angels game: th-cam.com/video/X7UE0yqxAWQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3VJn_0v0srko6R-C
Enemy archers being your ammo refills is completely normal and expected gameplay. Same with enemy gunners in first person shooters. They ARE your ammo refills!
Really, that's just a transient experience. Once you've experienced it, you can no longer exist there as you are off to The Plane of Roll Another Character.
I found a small glass container (half the size of a salt shaker) at a thrift store for 50 cents. I filled it frilly toothpicks to represent arrows and gave it to the Ranger. Whenever she lost an arrow, she removed a toothpick. Fun, tactile, and practical.
In military and law enforcement IRL, one of the things you train to do is... Count every shot expended. It doesn't always work, especially in a real firefight, and not everyone does it, but just knowing you're near empty can prevent that mortally terrifying soft trigger pull. At the table, I tell my players to track every shot, especially in modern or future settings. Secretly, I keep my own count behind the screen, just incase the counter ever reaches zero and they try to fire again. It hasn't happened yet, but I look forward to the day where they say, "I fire my 9mm!" And I get to just say, "Click."
I can see that and I've done that. If you were doing some Wick, you are not going to have a count of ammo. Same with places where you are covering someone or you've got lots of targets. There is something to 'ammo check' which might be a secondary action (ammo in the mag + ammo ready on your person) or 'mag check' (ammo in the mag) as a free action. I was thinking of using a larger track (at most D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D10, D12, D14, D16, D20). Track start by weapon. If you have a semi-auto or pump, you fail on 1. On bursts, fail on 1-2 and on a 1, you drop two levels. On full auto, you fail on 1-3, where 2 and 3 drop you two levels. (This is my twist and I have to check the maths for sanity) I think that would let you have your M249/Minimi with a belt at D12. If the operator is bursting, 10 out of 12, he doesn't drop a level, but a 1 drops you once and 2 drops you twice. The point of more fire is cover, keeping people's head down, keeping a fire lane dangerous, or trying to put enough shots that there is an effective hit. So something like that needs to be part of the mechanics.
@@Saje3D then just play a wizard. No, they have to keep track of spells. Umh, cleric. No, no, spells, still. Well, you get the idea. Just play something that doesn’t keep track of anything and you can have a ball. Except for Hit Points. You do have to count that shit. Fortunately, milestone advancement means you don’t have to keep track of xp’s, just make sure you find a group that does that.
Mutant: Year Zero adds an extra tweak to tracking ammo becaise bullets also serve as the game currency, so every shot you fire is literally money thrown away.
@@thomasbecker9676 was going to mention that. Funny when the mission only pays 100cred, but your bullets are 17cred each, lol. "Forget AP, switch to melee!" xDD
I mean realistically in most campaigns if you tweak ammo you still buy ammo with money so every arrow fired that breaks or a bullet fired is also money thrown away. The only real difference is that bullets in Mutant are more liquid in terms of value then most ammo.
Yes! unless it's an old hunting rifle or some of the infantry rifles used in the world wars it's going to have a magazine and not a clip. the reason clips were used so often then was cost. it's cheaper to let clips get scattered then something with more metal and parts.
I love that you acknowledge that different strokes for different folks here. I've gotten into big arguments over this exact topic with people who insist that there is only one way to do things.
The different strokes for different folks is a regular battle I find myself in. In my younger years I was far more, "My way is the only correct way and everything else is wrong." But as I've played more RPGs and experienced the different ways various systems or tables handle things, I've became far more loose about what the "correct" way is.
Pedantry is both blessing and curse for nerdom. It grants the ability to discover the building block minutia that make up an experience at the cost of overlooking the experience. And we all have different experiences - often something worth sharing.
So we used a little pile of glass bead things for each player, (but could be anything poker chips , coins whatever) and after each spent round they would toss a bead in a little tin in front of them. When the pile was empty the magazine was empty. Was fun because it was physical and clanged every time 😝
I feel like this needs more elaboration because it sounds interesting. I'm thinking that depending on the ammo I would have a counter let's say you buy 10 chips of ammo. When you miss on a 1, 2 or 3 you throw a chip in the tin. When you want an automatic hit you can throw one in. Any other number doesn't affect your ammo count. You found ammo? Add a chip. That way there's minimal counting, it's a mini game on its own and it will eventually add to the tension when you're running low on ammo/chips.
@@kraigmeatbicycle1636 Exactly. Yep ! However you want to work it. Each chip could be a magazine or whatever depending. We used it for arrows in D&D and then rounds for Shadowrun but put your own spin on it. It is fun watching the beads / chips/ whatever deplete in a physical way. Haha
Was one of the reasons for me to drop FL. I wabt realism, resource dice were just one bridge I did not want to cross. Have fun with your abstracted board games, I like rpgs.
It seems a bit odd to me, since the increasing probability of a 1 each time you downgrade your die narratively means that you’re more likely to blow through a significant amount of ammo and drop down to the next one. I’d prefer giving different weapons die values like in that system, but having a 1 just use up a unit of ammunition. Weapons with a higher rate of fire or smaller capacity have worse ammo dice: a bolt action sniper rifle has a d12, a semi automatic pistol has a d8, a submachine gun has a d4.
@@samurguy9906Maybe it would be better to have checkboxes for ammo supply, "plenty", "moderate", "limited", "1 shot", "out". After each attack, the same range is used to determine if you drop a level. I would also suggest that no more than one level drop per combat is possible. Otherwise you go into every battle potentially having just 4 shots.
I also loved those AD&D character sheets with the tick boxes. We put them into a plastic sleeve and tracked the tick marks using fine tip dry erase markers, because it was so quick to update after you picked up some arrows.
For values that change a lot in a session, I like writing numbers in a column in the margin and sliding a paperclip up and down to "circle" the current value.
I like "Usage Dice" - which are found in games like Forbidden Lands, Black Hack, and Mausritter - since they can also be used for things like tracking ammo, rations, or even torches.
For survival horror scenarios I use coins to represent bullets. It really brings tension up to see your pile of coins going down. Also, throwing your coin into a bowl feels different than marking spent ammo on the sheet. For good and bad, my players tend to hold onto their coins and think twice before shooting.
Me to my players, yesterday: "Guys, I don't know how we could manage ammunition in a faster and more enjoyable way..." Seth, a few hours later: "Hold my beer." Great video and suggestions, we'll definitely give the Ammunition Dice a try!
Honestly, I think I would prefer using physical ammo trackers. Remembering to mark things off on your sheet is one thing, but moving pegs on a cribbage board is nice and quick and simple.
The Savage Worlds character sheet can be used this way. Wounds, Fatigue, and Ammo/Power Points are tracked at the edges of the sheet, so I attach paperclips to the character sheets so the players can slide them up or down as they play.
I think tracking ammunition in some form is an important story part in any game that involves fighting. How many truly dramatic war stories occur precisely because of the logistics of ammunition and soldiers running out in the middle of a battle? Or the countless stories of hunting or being hunted and trying to keep track of shots so the protagonist/s don't run out and get killed? Or all the stories that up the ante and have the protagonists actually run out of ammo? Also, I know people run around with literally hundreds of pounds of ammunition (and guns) in computer games but when playing I've had some really tense moments when I've run out of ammo (hence the desire to carry wagon loads of the stuff). It's only slightly irritating to keep track of it, or the alternative of magazines/reloads, so long as they just do it as they use them. But then again I'm the kind of dork that think logistics can be fun and lead to interesting stories....
Great video Seth. After playing several years now of _Forbidden Lands_ , _Dolmenwood_ , and _Traveller_ , **scarcity** is a fundamental principle to establish the secondary world and establishing players' choices as actually meaningful. Also, that rear bookshelf is looking ever more replete, and the little sneak peek of the Cthulhu by Gaslight book right at the hand...Skorkowskian goodness.
I like how the game "Hong Kong Action Theater" treated ammo. It was unlimited but if your character took an action to dramatically reload their next shot would get a bonus to hit or damage.
I really like how Alien lets the ammo be essentially unlimited, only running out and requiring a reload when it starts to go down and characters are panicking. I’m also about to run FFG Star Wars for my group which has the same idea. Aside from specific weapons, blasters are treated as unlimited but some really bad situations might mean the character needs to change the gas cartridge.
Yeah, Star Wars is definitely one of those settings / game types where tracking ammo actively detracts from the fantasy. Same for spy-thriller stuff - characters almost _never_ run out of ammo in those movies.
Hi Seth, after watching and re-watching your videos I have to say you give the absolute best advice and suggestions in all of them. I'm talking about professional, AAA suggestions to make the adventure, scenario or rules just that much better. You may think nothing of it but it seriously is like watching a professional at their craft. You definitely have a talent for this stuff. A cut above the rest! Thanks for sharing!
I love the ammo dice idea! I'm definitely stealing it. When I have a ranged weapon in a game, I draw ammo boxes in pen on the margin of my sheet, then mark it off in pencil. It's worked well for me. Feng Shui had players track ammo, but as it's the action movie rpg, there was a talent you could pick up where you reload during the other players' / enemy's turn.
One thing we did in my group was representing ammo with tokens. I have a poker set that I was gifted many years ago but never used until I had the idea that the chips could used to represent ammo. It's was very easy and intuitive to use and the only book-keeping we had to do was converting ammo numbers to tokens at the start of the session and tokens to ammo numbers at the end of the session.
Something i've done that has worked remarkably well is to bring the "abstraction level" up a notch: basically instead of counting each single shot, each weapon, or magazine, or quiver holds enough ammo for X number of combat encounters. In a way it's similar to what Giffyglyph does, but without the extra step of the ammunition die.
That's pretty close to how Gamma World 7e did it. You could do one firearm attack per combat without worrying about depleting your ammo, but any more than that you might as well rock n' roll because it would be out of ammo at the end of the encounter.
I have (D&D) 2 methods and give the player the option. 1) Just track misses and you lose those arrows, or... 2) You roll a die in the number of arrows/bolts you shot and rounded down. So, if you fired 7 total shots, you'd roll a D6, and whatever you rolled, that's how many arrows/bolts you were able to recover. People miss a lot, people roll 1s and 2... it's realistic and causes a sense of urgency about your ammunition.
@@michaelwest4325 Lol... Sorry, I thought that was obvious. If they lost the fight... the dead don't need their arrows anymore! Lol! I have had players, during combat, run out of ammo... then, the only way they could fire again is to search for dead bodies in the dungeon. I had them search areas already known and roll a D10. A 1 or a 2 (20% chance) they found 10 or 5 more arrows/bolts. Pretty fun to have a Ranger or somebody running around a dungeon, looking for ammunition, while the other players are fighting for their lives!!! "Doesn't anyone have any missiles?!" (Independence Day)
@@MarkLewis... and I believe that was the way it was played way back to before AD&D! I no longer recall how we played it at the table, and it is implicit in your post but I wanted to say it out loud! Thanks for the spark if ingenuity!
Oh, perfect! This is a great opportunity to share my ammo tracking method for any who might be interested. This one has single load weapons (bows, crossbows, etc) in mind, so your mileage may vary. Simply put: a player character can **only ever expend a maximum of 5 shots** in a combat encounter. It's a soft hybrid of counting ammo and waiving the rest. The player simply counts up to the 5th arrow or bolt fired, and any more afterwards are free; they do not count towards their total carried. This rule was developed in conjunction with the player not being able to carry more than 20 shots in a quiver or case at a time (we had all kinds of equipment carrying rules in place, as it was a survival based D&D experience.) You can adjust this easily by just dividing the number by how many encounters you think PCs should be able to go before needing to restock somewhere.
I like some of these ideas, but for my players 6 shooters, I hope they can know when they have run out of bullets in the cylinder. But keeping track of how many bullets they have in their inventory, I leave that up to them to track. So long as they mention that they are buying ammo, every so often, we are ok. Another fun video! I love the peanut gallery!
@darcyw check out Deadlands classic character sheet, mark bullets down one side of the page for 6 shooters and the other for your rifles, mark how many left with a paper clip you drag down after each shot :) enjoy hombre !
I made up weapons cards for my Cyberpunk games - it had the stats of the weapon plus a picture and a series of boxes equal to the number of rounds it could carry, the idea being players were to mark off each round as they fired it. I printed these to order, so if a player had 3 mags (2 spare), their weapon sheet would have 3 blocks of the ammo boxes. Marking all boxes in one block meant that the player had to declare they were taking an action to change magazine before starting on the next block.
It's true that the last bullet thing is fun, a counting could be a drag. I mostly play homebrew system, and I liked thing like when you missed 3 times, you are out of ammo, it puts tension in the number of ammo and reduce the tracking.
One of the things that blew my mind with Vampire 5th edition was the way they handled ammo. Like, a Glock has 3 for ammo, I believe - it's because in a firefight, you're only going to fire it three times before you need to reload. No one is shooting one bullet at a time.
The ammunition dice is a very cool idea. I have seen something like that in the Black Hack and other games. I loved your suggestion of having the d4 rolling 1 being a one shot left situation, more dramatic that way!
4:20 I remember this is similar to how Warhammer 40: Wrath & Glory does it, where you don't track ammo but rather reloads. You can use one reload to do something like suppressive or burst fire, or you lose them from fumbles. But otherwise you have unlimited ammo, only running out if you need to reload with 0 reloads left.
I tend to run games that are rules-light and instead of counting ammunition will use "you are out of ammunition" as a possible consequence when a player roles a complication or as a barter on a "you can have this bonus if you accept this penalty as well" type thing. I love the ammunition die idea, though. I might need to try that in one of my games some time.
Honestly, I prefer just counting the ammo. Keeps it simple, and it's not very challenging to track for me. But, more systems that work for the ways other folks see things are good things.
For games where the weapons are less of a focus, I’m happy to allow infinite ammo (e.g. White Wolf’s Mage - the Euthantos’ pistol is less a pistol and more a wand of fireballs). For most games we track ammo fairly religiously, and we have various sheets to do so - for AD&D for example we cranked that character sheet feature up to 11, did a full sheet which just included ammo tick boxes, treasure, xp gain and HP and called it an adventure sheet. After the adventure you reflect the stuff you’ve tracked there and grab a new sheet for the next one. Even if a character has practically infinite ammunition (like the archer who carried a barrel of arrows in their bag of holding, there are still trade offs which I think add value. Oh, by the way, we only allow recovery on misses. First that allows the lower level characters a little more leeway, second it is a little bit of compensation for the bad roll :-) We figure that a steel arrowhead against a dungeon wall might be sharpened; but the orc isn’t going to fight with a yard of wood sticking out of their shoulder, they’ll break the shaft off to get it out of the way - or Leonidas them… or fall over and break them…etc.
Got to say, I really like the idea of "Only tracking missed shots or hit a acid/fire monster, as they are destroyed". I think that's how I will handle it later.
Ambush (a solo World War 2 board-wargame in the 1980s from Victory Games) had an ammunition pouch system. The characters, when outfitting, chose how many pouches of small arms ammunition they would have on their belt. When they took a shot they had to do a separate % roll afterward to see if that pouch was used up. The roll varied for the type of weapon. A bolt-action rifle had an easier number to pass, while an SMG or BAR had a tougher number. When I ran RPGs or solo wargames I borrowed this idea.
The very last point is the most important one. If tracking ammunition is in the rules, it is highly likely that it is important for creating the specific type of fantasy the game is about. If I may get away with a videogame example, imagine how much less intensity there would be in games such as Resident Evil (the more horrory ones) or Silent Hill if the player had unlimited bullets. The giffyglyph is super cool, thank you very much, Seth.
My favorite ammo system is in Ghost Ops. It's a modern Special Forces ttrpg. Ammo is tracked by magazines. Each magazine has 5 boxes. If you only ever use standard semi-auto fire, mark off 1 box per fight. Double tapping takes 1 box immediately, and gives a hefty benefit. 3 round burst takes 2 boxes. Full auto takes 3 boxes. It works really well over the course of a lot if gunfights back to back.
@@ComicSams48 it's really fun. It's very tactical but it never turns into a wargame. I've run some of the craziest, CoD style set pieces in my entire life in this game.
There's also the approach Feng Shui 2 introduced back in 2015. Rather than counting bullets (like in the first edition), each firearm is assigned a 'Reload Number' based on the magazine size (and a short table). No-one runs out of bullets in the first sequence (initiative turn) of combat (which with FS2's initiative system may involve up to five attacks ... or more), but after that, they have to roll a d6 with every attack. When the Reload Dice rolls equal or below the Reload Number, the gun goes 'click', and they either have to spend time reloading or swapping weapons (or just switch to cold-cocking their opponent with an empty pistol). If they reload or change guns, then they're safe from Reload Rolls for a full initiative cycle. Some guns (e.g. revolvers and shotguns) take more time to reload, as well as having a more difficult target number for the Reload Roll, while something like a 30-round submachine gun clip only runs dry on a 1 ... unless you use Autofire to increase your potential damage, in which case, that affects the Reload Roll target (and means that whichever sequence you're in, you have to start checking to see if you've emptied your magazine). Like the rest of FS2, it's designed to emulate that Hong Kong action cinema style, where guns can run out of bullets at the most inopportune moments, but some characters can get fourteen attacks from a six-shot revolver. (It's assumed they were topping up the cylinder while 'off-screen'.)
That usage die from giffyglif is popular in a lot of games, I think including some horror games, for tracking things like O2 in an air tank, or rations during travel. I like best how Dungeon World tracks ammo - each quiver or magazine basically gets 3 use boxes, which can be used to turn a hit with consequences into a straight hit, or if you've got some kinda sci-fi weapon like a las gun, you can burn up one of those to say cut through a door. It's a tidy mechanic that give players some flexibility, and has some resource tracking without feeling like a burden. Just wouldn't use it for a Mad Max game in which every shot is precious.
I've used the dice system for tracking ammo with a special "last shot" rule to make it more cinematic, and it was a lot of fun. But honestly, in the long run I prefer my players count shot by shot. We track ammo by using matchsticks, markers and other physical props, and it works really well
I always built an ammo page with graph paper. Hard outline- 20 to a quiver. My DM designed all his arrows too. Orkish, Tendalian, Broad Head, Armor Piercing.... Blood loss, Bonuses to hit, magic arrows.... Fancy ones found use sparingly. Strongly suggest making arrows and bolts made by a specific race or region do different things, apply bonuses to hit, blood loss, electrical, poison, etc etc etc. Have fun!!
I played a gunslinger in Pathfinder. We got stranded in a pocket dimension of the Abyssal plane. I brought in 160 rounds and left with 3. Love tracking ammo, specifically for stuff like that!
My GM for 7th Sea 2nd Edition had a common risk for our gunman being ‘you’re left with only one bullet’ but otherwise keeping it as relatively unlimited in a fight (assuming they get more between fights). He remembered for all but his second to last roll, leaving his final shot of the campaign as his last bullet. Trophy Gold tracks ammo, but you ‘risk’ it, losing the bolts or arrows on a 1-3 on each die in the roll. That works pretty well.
Since we're all listing alternate methods- in Hard Wired Island, ammo is tracked by encounter; a player doesn't have to track ammo or reloads during a fight but afterwards they have to either spend one of their Prep points to 'have more ammo' or else they're out for the rest of the mission.
In modern MilSim, you get one fumble per squad member. Since everyone fires 5.56 and you can share ammo, everyone has ammo until nobody does. With 6 squaddies that would be the 6th time a 1 is rolled by anyone. That gives an approximate ammo load you have without counting every bullet in every mag. Hope it helps. Nice vid Seth :)
That Ammunition Die is a big part of The Black Hack as well. There it is the Usage die and you use it for all kinds of things. Arrows, rations, torches... It's a very clever and easy to use idea.
This video is so prescient, my player just introduced his ranger and asked me about tracking ammunition. The dice mechanic is used in Savage Worlds and I really like that idea.
One easy way to keep count of arrows is using toothpicks. Get a holder and fill it with the right count of arrows you keep and remove them as you expend them. You can even dress it up: make a custom holder out of paper, cardboard or leather, paint the toothpicks with some silver paint or a marker and add a little feathering with a tiny piece of paper.
This feels particularly helpful for 5e. As a DM, I always want to ask players to track ammo since it helps balance ranged combat with melee combat more, but there are just so many other resources to track in that game and it is too easy for characters to carry around large amounts of backup ammo (especially if you don't want to worry about extensively tracking encumbrance and spending a lot of game time on shopping trips) that it usually ends up being impractical.
My favorite way to do ammo tracking is found in FIST, where it’s set at a number on a 1d6. Maximum ammunition is 6, lucky shot on 1; each time you shoot the weapon you roll a 1d6, if you roll below or above the Ammo value, it’s reduced by one, roll the same and it remains the same.
I remember doing some theory crafting with my sci-fi homebrew with high capacity guns (anywhere between 200 and 1000 depending on model and ammo type), and one idea I had was that single shots were unlimited, but you had a limited amount of bursts. Bursts had a damage and accuracy bonus, and you could stack them per turn, but each burst ate up your magazine.
Been meaning to try out the Giffyglyph ammo system. Dig the idea so much and seems way more interesting than just counting ammo down. And waaaaaay more interesting than just ignoring ammo.
I will say that. from a person who play archers or ranged combatant characters often. counting ammunition isnt alot of bookkeeping. just write down how many bullets/arrows/whatever you have loaded or available and count up from 0. when you hit said number your out of arrows or need to reload your guns.
I remember the campaigning season in games a couple decades ago. The kingdom paid a 2 gold bounty on orc heads, so as soon as the crops were in the fields, we rode out with several weeks of food & feed, gear to set up a base camp and several hundred arrows. After about five years of game time, the timber and earth walls we built the first year had a whole village of orc-hunters living in it every summer and we were using it year-round. As for ammunition, we just assumed that we were going to end up breaking all of them over the summer hunting season. That was just a given. We tracked how many we fired and the DM rolled a percentile to see how many were recoverable and we didn’t worry about it past that.
Thanks for the vid, Seth. I really like the ammunition die concept. Especially for sessions or campaigns where supplies are critical, such as when you're dealing themes such as survival (where every item can be the difference between life or death) or when the players are FAR from civilization and resupplies are hard to come by.
I saw something similar in the black sword hack, except it is used more broadly for things such as calling in favors and mundane item usage as well. Great video sir!
An idea I had but haven't had the chance to playtest is an Ammo Dice pool, where a character’s ammunition is measured in a pool of d4s. After an encounter where a character uses any ammo they roll one of those d4s and on a result of 1 they remove it from their total pool. This is a mechanic I mainly intended for fantasy games like D&D, and I've also thought of some mechanics (also not playtested) that expand on it, such as being able to spend ammo dice to gain additional benefits. The Ammo Dice mechanic you mention at the end is also a good substitute for managing rations.
In my OSR game I use missed arrows are lost, for the exact reasons you listed. In my modern setting that's for big action gun fights, characters can reload to recover luck (hit points). This ties the dwindling ammo and dwindling HP into a tactical choice for the player.
When I started the game I'm running we had some hard ammo counting rules that my players were really stoked for, specifically for that last bullet in the chamber sort of tension. As we went on, I noticed they were all forgetting to track the shots, and so I allowed the mechanic to quietly go away. It was pretty clear they were having more fun with a bigger more bombastic style of play and they didn't notice ammo tracking had been gone for about six years ha. The cool part is, every once in a while I put them in scenarios where they DO have to track every bullet and ammo is very scarce so it plays like a survival horror since they're used to spraying lead everywhere without a care.
The thing is, in most systems having unlimited ammo makes ranged attacks just strictly better than melee unless you buff melee to compensate. Something my own play group doesn't particularly care to hear whenever I inform them I will enforce ammo tracking.
In We Deal in Lead, a weird west gunslinger TTRPG inspired by Stephen King's The Dark Tower, bullets are also currency. 1 Lead equals a full reload of your gun and you track remaining shots with a die determined by damage. Start at 6, change the die to 5 after a shot, etc. You've also got special attacks where you can expend all shots at once to hit multiple targets (Fan the Hammer)
Thanks for the ideas and video! FYI, the GiffyGlyph rule is a 1 or 2 on the d20 drops to the next level - not just a 1. If it were a 1, the ammo would be substantially higher (60 shots for a d20 instead of 30, etc). Anyway, an interesting idea to consider.
The ammunition rules are used in Free Leagues Forbidden Lands, which I GM a campaign in actually, and this setup for ammo (and also food, water, torches) is easy and awesome.
CY_BORG has a great system. You roll after combat to see if your mag is empty or not. If it is, you need to reload. Simple, effective, and allows for the drama of "this is my last mag, boys!" without counting actual bullets. Sure, it's chance-based, but so is everything else in the game, so it works perfectly fine :)
Having served in the swiss military (not much, just the mandatory time for a NCO, about 450 days) as a rifleman, I'm used to count each bullet I shoot and always remember ho many are left in my magazine. So I guess I'll stick, as a player, to count them one by ones. As a GM I might use this "ammo dice" thing, sounds pretty fun. Handy tip for shooters here : last bullet is a "normal" one, the 2 before should be tracer bullet, and the rest be "normal ones" too; you see a trace ? reload.
Minor Correction: For the Ammunition Dice, you step down the size of the die on a roll of a 1 OR a 2, not just a 1.
giffyglyph.com/darkerdungeons/grimoire/4.0.0/en/ammunition_dice.html
I like it!! I also like the loads rule, that’s a good compromise for fumble = empty
That sounds just like the usage die from By this Axe and Black Sword Hack
Might have been where GiffyGlyph first got it. Or maybe they got it from the same place the Black Hack did. Either way, it looks pretty neat.
My group is going to take a break from our norm and try Blade Runner by Free League, which ignores ammo altogether. I was wondering if you'd played that game and if you felt it impacted play in any way. Depending on the game I'm sure some feel it more than others.
I played Bladerunner with Glass Cannon a couple months ago. The ammo thing wasn't an issue at all. Once we're finished with our Traveller campaign I plan to run my group through the 2 Bladerunner adventures as our palate cleanse before diving into Cthulhu by Gaslight. It's a cool system.
Here's Part one of our Bladerunner Fiery Angels game: th-cam.com/video/X7UE0yqxAWQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3VJn_0v0srko6R-C
"I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire 500 or 600 shots?' Well, to tell the truth, I kinda lost count myself..."
"you'll have to ask yourself: 'do i feel lucky?' well.. do ya, Azzie?"
If it's arrows, 0 because you don't "fire" an arrow.
😂
@@Zetact_But in movies every arrow is on fire!
In the book Legolas runs out of arrows several times and has to search for new ones from fallen orcs
LOOTING!
That is a great point.
IRL they looted arrows all the time. Cause they are expensive.
@@zubbworks Legolas never missed so not so hard to extract arrows from dead goblins.
Enemy archers being your ammo refills is completely normal and expected gameplay.
Same with enemy gunners in first person shooters. They ARE your ammo refills!
"...a portal to the Elemental Plane of Bullets..."
I now know where I want to go when I die.
I also totally dig the fact that bullets are now an elemental component of the Cosmos.
The only place in the universe with Enough Dakka.
@@Tomyironmane just about
@TH-camIsRunByMarxists Isn't this American heaven?
Really, that's just a transient experience. Once you've experienced it, you can no longer exist there as you are off to The Plane of Roll Another Character.
I found a small glass container (half the size of a salt shaker) at a thrift store for 50 cents.
I filled it frilly toothpicks to represent arrows and gave it to the Ranger.
Whenever she lost an arrow, she removed a toothpick.
Fun, tactile, and practical.
That is a fun idea! I was thinking you were going to stick toothpicks in an olive or something she could eat when out of arrows as consolation.
Unique mechanic! I like it!
@@strawpiglet
Oink! You here too my porcine friend?
Imagine that?
= @ )
@@manfredconnor3194 Oink, Manfred! Yes, great porks think alike.
This is a really cool idea
In military and law enforcement IRL, one of the things you train to do is... Count every shot expended.
It doesn't always work, especially in a real firefight, and not everyone does it, but just knowing you're near empty can prevent that mortally terrifying soft trigger pull.
At the table, I tell my players to track every shot, especially in modern or future settings. Secretly, I keep my own count behind the screen, just incase the counter ever reaches zero and they try to fire again. It hasn't happened yet, but I look forward to the day where they say, "I fire my 9mm!" And I get to just say, "Click."
Similar.
I can see that and I've done that. If you were doing some Wick, you are not going to have a count of ammo. Same with places where you are covering someone or you've got lots of targets.
There is something to 'ammo check' which might be a secondary action (ammo in the mag + ammo ready on your person) or 'mag check' (ammo in the mag) as a free action.
I was thinking of using a larger track (at most D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D10, D12, D14, D16, D20). Track start by weapon. If you have a semi-auto or pump, you fail on 1. On bursts, fail on 1-2 and on a 1, you drop two levels. On full auto, you fail on 1-3, where 2 and 3 drop you two levels.
(This is my twist and I have to check the maths for sanity)
I think that would let you have your M249/Minimi with a belt at D12. If the operator is bursting, 10 out of 12, he doesn't drop a level, but a 1 drops you once and 2 drops you twice.
The point of more fire is cover, keeping people's head down, keeping a fire lane dangerous, or trying to put enough shots that there is an effective hit. So something like that needs to be part of the mechanics.
I wouldn’t play at your table. I’m there to play, not count shit.
@@Saje3D - That's fair. It's hard to find a group who's play styles mesh well.
@@Saje3D then just play a wizard.
No, they have to keep track of spells.
Umh, cleric. No, no, spells, still.
Well, you get the idea.
Just play something that doesn’t keep track of anything and you can have a ball.
Except for Hit Points.
You do have to count that shit.
Fortunately, milestone advancement means you don’t have to keep track of xp’s, just make sure you find a group that does that.
Mutant: Year Zero adds an extra tweak to tracking ammo becaise bullets also serve as the game currency, so every shot you fire is literally money thrown away.
SLA Industries.
@@thomasbecker9676 was going to mention that. Funny when the mission only pays 100cred, but your bullets are 17cred each, lol. "Forget AP, switch to melee!" xDD
Metro did this as well long before.
I mean realistically in most campaigns if you tweak ammo you still buy ammo with money so every arrow fired that breaks or a bullet fired is also money thrown away. The only real difference is that bullets in Mutant are more liquid in terms of value then most ammo.
I think you're confusing M:YZ with the Metro series.
"What you say and what we hear ain't always related"
I feel this so hard
Hearing ‘magazine’ instead of ‘clip’ reinforces why I like Seth’s content so much.
Yes! unless it's an old hunting rifle or some of the infantry rifles used in the world wars it's going to have a magazine and not a clip. the reason clips were used so often then was cost. it's cheaper to let clips get scattered then something with more metal and parts.
That’s the Texas in him
I love that you acknowledge that different strokes for different folks here. I've gotten into big arguments over this exact topic with people who insist that there is only one way to do things.
The different strokes for different folks is a regular battle I find myself in. In my younger years I was far more, "My way is the only correct way and everything else is wrong." But as I've played more RPGs and experienced the different ways various systems or tables handle things, I've became far more loose about what the "correct" way is.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
@@zeehond23 A Sith does, but a Seth doesn't?
Pedantry is both blessing and curse for nerdom. It grants the ability to discover the building block minutia that make up an experience at the cost of overlooking the experience. And we all have different experiences - often something worth sharing.
@@zeehond23 Itself an absolute statement. The Jedi (or Lucas) (or both) are shockingly lacking in self-awareness.
The Black Hack uses the ammo dice concept for all inventory and makes tracking gear/using torches and stuff way more fun
TROGDOR! In all his beefy arm and wing-s-ling majesty!
Must be drawn with consummate Vs.
TROGDOR DOES NOT COUNT HIS BURNINATING!!12122`1
@@originaludditeCONSUMATE
TROGDOR thoroughly consummates all the Vs.
Trogdor was a man,
- I mean - Trogdor was a dragon-man,
- er - just a dragon
So we used a little pile of glass bead things for each player, (but could be anything poker chips , coins whatever) and after each spent round they would toss a bead in a little tin in front of them. When the pile was empty the magazine was empty.
Was fun because it was physical and clanged every time 😝
Okay, that sounds like fun. I might try that.
I feel like this needs more elaboration because it sounds interesting. I'm thinking that depending on the ammo I would have a counter let's say you buy 10 chips of ammo. When you miss on a 1, 2 or 3 you throw a chip in the tin. When you want an automatic hit you can throw one in. Any other number doesn't affect your ammo count. You found ammo? Add a chip. That way there's minimal counting, it's a mini game on its own and it will eventually add to the tension when you're running low on ammo/chips.
@@kraigmeatbicycle1636 Exactly. Yep ! However you want to work it. Each chip could be a magazine or whatever depending. We used it for arrows in D&D and then rounds for Shadowrun but put your own spin on it. It is fun watching the beads / chips/ whatever deplete in a physical way. Haha
The ammo dice is something I’ve seen in Forbidden Lands and it’s something I’ve really wanted to implement at my table.
Was one of the reasons for me to drop FL. I wabt realism, resource dice were just one bridge I did not want to cross. Have fun with your abstracted board games, I like rpgs.
@@BanjoSickwho’s gonna tell him?
@@surprisedchar2458 about his “real” fantasies complete with minutiae accounting?
It seems a bit odd to me, since the increasing probability of a 1 each time you downgrade your die narratively means that you’re more likely to blow through a significant amount of ammo and drop down to the next one. I’d prefer giving different weapons die values like in that system, but having a 1 just use up a unit of ammunition. Weapons with a higher rate of fire or smaller capacity have worse ammo dice: a bolt action sniper rifle has a d12, a semi automatic pistol has a d8, a submachine gun has a d4.
@@samurguy9906Maybe it would be better to have checkboxes for ammo supply, "plenty", "moderate", "limited", "1 shot", "out". After each attack, the same range is used to determine if you drop a level. I would also suggest that no more than one level drop per combat is possible. Otherwise you go into every battle potentially having just 4 shots.
I also loved those AD&D character sheets with the tick boxes. We put them into a plastic sleeve and tracked the tick marks using fine tip dry erase markers, because it was so quick to update after you picked up some arrows.
For values that change a lot in a session, I like writing numbers in a column in the margin and sliding a paperclip up and down to "circle" the current value.
I always track ammo when I play with adults. When I play with kids, I don't worry about it.
I love to track ammo in RPGs. It annoys me when my fellow players don't.
@@stargateproductions that's a *you* problem
@@Michael-bn1oi I realize that :)
@@stargateproductions commenting for solidarity
@@stargateproductions based and crunch pilled
"Honey, wake up! The RPG Man released at the crack of dawn again!"
I like "Usage Dice" - which are found in games like Forbidden Lands, Black Hack, and Mausritter - since they can also be used for things like tracking ammo, rations, or even torches.
For survival horror scenarios I use coins to represent bullets. It really brings tension up to see your pile of coins going down. Also, throwing your coin into a bowl feels different than marking spent ammo on the sheet.
For good and bad, my players tend to hold onto their coins and think twice before shooting.
THE BURNINATOR!!
Seth Skorkowsky tips video drops *grabs pen and notepad, pushes up glasses, sits up straight*
Turns baseball cap all the way around
Grabs and secures the noise cancelling headphones to my skull and takes The Juice of Sapho....
Elemental Plane of Bullets is a uniquely interesting yet terrifying off-the-cuff remark.
I think that's where Orks go when they die. Finally enough dakka.
I'm tempted to include it in my next campaign.
Me to my players, yesterday: "Guys, I don't know how we could manage ammunition in a faster and more enjoyable way..."
Seth, a few hours later: "Hold my beer."
Great video and suggestions, we'll definitely give the Ammunition Dice a try!
0:09 legendary Canadian space captain and fart box holder Leslie Nielsen!
I love the gang coming in with the double entendre. Just like Todd, I too am dice cursed (since 1985). And I LOVE ALL Seth Skorkowsky videos!
Todd DID seem just a little bit too invested in hearing Seth say 'load' that one more time though. 😉😅
Honestly, I think I would prefer using physical ammo trackers. Remembering to mark things off on your sheet is one thing, but moving pegs on a cribbage board is nice and quick and simple.
abacus says hello
The Savage Worlds character sheet can be used this way. Wounds, Fatigue, and Ammo/Power Points are tracked at the edges of the sheet, so I attach paperclips to the character sheets so the players can slide them up or down as they play.
Plus it can be shifted up and down easily
I think tracking ammunition in some form is an important story part in any game that involves fighting. How many truly dramatic war stories occur precisely because of the logistics of ammunition and soldiers running out in the middle of a battle? Or the countless stories of hunting or being hunted and trying to keep track of shots so the protagonist/s don't run out and get killed? Or all the stories that up the ante and have the protagonists actually run out of ammo? Also, I know people run around with literally hundreds of pounds of ammunition (and guns) in computer games but when playing I've had some really tense moments when I've run out of ammo (hence the desire to carry wagon loads of the stuff). It's only slightly irritating to keep track of it, or the alternative of magazines/reloads, so long as they just do it as they use them. But then again I'm the kind of dork that think logistics can be fun and lead to interesting stories....
Great video Seth. After playing several years now of _Forbidden Lands_ , _Dolmenwood_ , and _Traveller_ , **scarcity** is a fundamental principle to establish the secondary world and establishing players' choices as actually meaningful. Also, that rear bookshelf is looking ever more replete, and the little sneak peek of the Cthulhu by Gaslight book right at the hand...Skorkowskian goodness.
I like how the game "Hong Kong Action Theater" treated ammo. It was unlimited but if your character took an action to dramatically reload their next shot would get a bonus to hit or damage.
I really like how Alien lets the ammo be essentially unlimited, only running out and requiring a reload when it starts to go down and characters are panicking. I’m also about to run FFG Star Wars for my group which has the same idea. Aside from specific weapons, blasters are treated as unlimited but some really bad situations might mean the character needs to change the gas cartridge.
I do like that sort of "escalation and uncertainty" it really adds into the tension of the Alien game.
Yeah, Star Wars is definitely one of those settings / game types where tracking ammo actively detracts from the fantasy. Same for spy-thriller stuff - characters almost _never_ run out of ammo in those movies.
Hi Seth, after watching and re-watching your videos I have to say you give the absolute best advice and suggestions in all of them. I'm talking about professional, AAA suggestions to make the adventure, scenario or rules just that much better. You may think nothing of it but it seriously is like watching a professional at their craft. You definitely have a talent for this stuff. A cut above the rest! Thanks for sharing!
I love the ammo dice idea! I'm definitely stealing it. When I have a ranged weapon in a game, I draw ammo boxes in pen on the margin of my sheet, then mark it off in pencil. It's worked well for me.
Feng Shui had players track ammo, but as it's the action movie rpg, there was a talent you could pick up where you reload during the other players' / enemy's turn.
Groups that use this Ammo Die will quickly embrace the dice chain/zocchi dice from DCC.
One thing we did in my group was representing ammo with tokens.
I have a poker set that I was gifted many years ago but never used until I had the idea that the chips could used to represent ammo. It's was very easy and intuitive to use and the only book-keeping we had to do was converting ammo numbers to tokens at the start of the session and tokens to ammo numbers at the end of the session.
The miss counter is such a good idea ! I'll test that in my next party, thanks for the tip !
Something i've done that has worked remarkably well is to bring the "abstraction level" up a notch: basically instead of counting each single shot, each weapon, or magazine, or quiver holds enough ammo for X number of combat encounters. In a way it's similar to what Giffyglyph does, but without the extra step of the ammunition die.
That's pretty close to how Gamma World 7e did it. You could do one firearm attack per combat without worrying about depleting your ammo, but any more than that you might as well rock n' roll because it would be out of ammo at the end of the encounter.
I have (D&D) 2 methods and give the player the option. 1) Just track misses and you lose those arrows, or... 2) You roll a die in the number of arrows/bolts you shot and rounded down. So, if you fired 7 total shots, you'd roll a D6, and whatever you rolled, that's how many arrows/bolts you were able to recover. People miss a lot, people roll 1s and 2... it's realistic and causes a sense of urgency about your ammunition.
A rather nice way to do it! The only tweak might be require they win the fight to recover the "hit" missiles to add some tension.
@@michaelwest4325 Lol... Sorry, I thought that was obvious. If they lost the fight... the dead don't need their arrows anymore! Lol! I have had players, during combat, run out of ammo... then, the only way they could fire again is to search for dead bodies in the dungeon. I had them search areas already known and roll a D10. A 1 or a 2 (20% chance) they found 10 or 5 more arrows/bolts. Pretty fun to have a Ranger or somebody running around a dungeon, looking for ammunition, while the other players are fighting for their lives!!! "Doesn't anyone have any missiles?!" (Independence Day)
@@MarkLewis... and I believe that was the way it was played way back to before AD&D! I no longer recall how we played it at the table, and it is implicit in your post but I wanted to say it out loud! Thanks for the spark if ingenuity!
@@michaelwest4325 You're quite welcome. Any time. I've been playing since '76 or '77... I'm too old and can't remember.
@@MarkLewis... I think 1980 or 81 for me, I have the Blue and Red cover boxed sets, B2 and X1, and I recall just barely the Caves!
Oh, perfect! This is a great opportunity to share my ammo tracking method for any who might be interested. This one has single load weapons (bows, crossbows, etc) in mind, so your mileage may vary.
Simply put: a player character can **only ever expend a maximum of 5 shots** in a combat encounter. It's a soft hybrid of counting ammo and waiving the rest. The player simply counts up to the 5th arrow or bolt fired, and any more afterwards are free; they do not count towards their total carried. This rule was developed in conjunction with the player not being able to carry more than 20 shots in a quiver or case at a time (we had all kinds of equipment carrying rules in place, as it was a survival based D&D experience.)
You can adjust this easily by just dividing the number by how many encounters you think PCs should be able to go before needing to restock somewhere.
I agree with you about counting ammo Seth...we're monsters together sir. Thanks for making such a great video, as always.
I like some of these ideas, but for my players 6 shooters, I hope they can know when they have run out of bullets in the cylinder. But keeping track of how many bullets they have in their inventory, I leave that up to them to track. So long as they mention that they are buying ammo, every so often, we are ok. Another fun video! I love the peanut gallery!
Ah, the "Base camp" rule. The only time I've seen that specifically laid out was for Rogue Trader.
@darcyw check out Deadlands classic character sheet, mark bullets down one side of the page for 6 shooters and the other for your rifles, mark how many left with a paper clip you drag down after each shot :) enjoy hombre !
I just realized that some of these ideas could also be used for spell components: another thing that tends not to get tracked.
I made up weapons cards for my Cyberpunk games - it had the stats of the weapon plus a picture and a series of boxes equal to the number of rounds it could carry, the idea being players were to mark off each round as they fired it. I printed these to order, so if a player had 3 mags (2 spare), their weapon sheet would have 3 blocks of the ammo boxes. Marking all boxes in one block meant that the player had to declare they were taking an action to change magazine before starting on the next block.
It's true that the last bullet thing is fun, a counting could be a drag. I mostly play homebrew system, and I liked thing like when you missed 3 times, you are out of ammo, it puts tension in the number of ammo and reduce the tracking.
One of the things that blew my mind with Vampire 5th edition was the way they handled ammo. Like, a Glock has 3 for ammo, I believe - it's because in a firefight, you're only going to fire it three times before you need to reload. No one is shooting one bullet at a time.
The ammunition dice is a very cool idea. I have seen something like that in the Black Hack and other games. I loved your suggestion of having the d4 rolling 1 being a one shot left situation, more dramatic that way!
4:20 I remember this is similar to how Warhammer 40: Wrath & Glory does it, where you don't track ammo but rather reloads. You can use one reload to do something like suppressive or burst fire, or you lose them from fumbles. But otherwise you have unlimited ammo, only running out if you need to reload with 0 reloads left.
I tend to run games that are rules-light and instead of counting ammunition will use "you are out of ammunition" as a possible consequence when a player roles a complication or as a barter on a "you can have this bonus if you accept this penalty as well" type thing. I love the ammunition die idea, though. I might need to try that in one of my games some time.
That GiffyGlyph's Ammunition Dice Rule will be added to my toolkit Seth. That was a great recommendation for sure!
Honestly, I prefer just counting the ammo. Keeps it simple, and it's not very challenging to track for me. But, more systems that work for the ways other folks see things are good things.
Using physical objects to track ammo (in whatever variant of ammo tracking you use) is helpful too. I use poker chips in my Shadowrun campaigns.
When running CofC, I always verbally keep track of the Investigator's ammo, especially when the ghouls are running at them in the sewers of Vienna...
Great video. Resupply base and ammunition dice are interesting ideas. Not tracking ammo is like not tracking spell slots/points.
For games where the weapons are less of a focus, I’m happy to allow infinite ammo (e.g. White Wolf’s Mage - the Euthantos’ pistol is less a pistol and more a wand of fireballs).
For most games we track ammo fairly religiously, and we have various sheets to do so - for AD&D for example we cranked that character sheet feature up to 11, did a full sheet which just included ammo tick boxes, treasure, xp gain and HP and called it an adventure sheet. After the adventure you reflect the stuff you’ve tracked there and grab a new sheet for the next one.
Even if a character has practically infinite ammunition (like the archer who carried a barrel of arrows in their bag of holding, there are still trade offs which I think add value.
Oh, by the way, we only allow recovery on misses. First that allows the lower level characters a little more leeway, second it is a little bit of compensation for the bad roll :-)
We figure that a steel arrowhead against a dungeon wall might be sharpened; but the orc isn’t going to fight with a yard of wood sticking out of their shoulder, they’ll break the shaft off to get it out of the way - or Leonidas them… or fall over and break them…etc.
Got to say, I really like the idea of "Only tracking missed shots or hit a acid/fire monster, as they are destroyed".
I think that's how I will handle it later.
Ambush (a solo World War 2 board-wargame in the 1980s from Victory Games) had an ammunition pouch system. The characters, when outfitting, chose how many pouches of small arms ammunition they would have on their belt. When they took a shot they had to do a separate % roll afterward to see if that pouch was used up. The roll varied for the type of weapon. A bolt-action rifle had an easier number to pass, while an SMG or BAR had a tougher number. When I ran RPGs or solo wargames I borrowed this idea.
The very last point is the most important one. If tracking ammunition is in the rules, it is highly likely that it is important for creating the specific type of fantasy the game is about. If I may get away with a videogame example, imagine how much less intensity there would be in games such as Resident Evil (the more horrory ones) or Silent Hill if the player had unlimited bullets.
The giffyglyph is super cool, thank you very much, Seth.
My favorite ammo system is in Ghost Ops. It's a modern Special Forces ttrpg. Ammo is tracked by magazines. Each magazine has 5 boxes. If you only ever use standard semi-auto fire, mark off 1 box per fight. Double tapping takes 1 box immediately, and gives a hefty benefit. 3 round burst takes 2 boxes. Full auto takes 3 boxes.
It works really well over the course of a lot if gunfights back to back.
That's a really cool system, and pretty close to something I'm working on in a homebrew skirmish game. How does it feel in play?
@@ComicSams48 it's really fun. It's very tactical but it never turns into a wargame. I've run some of the craziest, CoD style set pieces in my entire life in this game.
It's fun spotting all the new books that have appeared in your collection! Excited to possibly some day hear about Cthulhu by Gaslight.
There's also the approach Feng Shui 2 introduced back in 2015. Rather than counting bullets (like in the first edition), each firearm is assigned a 'Reload Number' based on the magazine size (and a short table). No-one runs out of bullets in the first sequence (initiative turn) of combat (which with FS2's initiative system may involve up to five attacks ... or more), but after that, they have to roll a d6 with every attack. When the Reload Dice rolls equal or below the Reload Number, the gun goes 'click', and they either have to spend time reloading or swapping weapons (or just switch to cold-cocking their opponent with an empty pistol).
If they reload or change guns, then they're safe from Reload Rolls for a full initiative cycle. Some guns (e.g. revolvers and shotguns) take more time to reload, as well as having a more difficult target number for the Reload Roll, while something like a 30-round submachine gun clip only runs dry on a 1 ... unless you use Autofire to increase your potential damage, in which case, that affects the Reload Roll target (and means that whichever sequence you're in, you have to start checking to see if you've emptied your magazine).
Like the rest of FS2, it's designed to emulate that Hong Kong action cinema style, where guns can run out of bullets at the most inopportune moments, but some characters can get fourteen attacks from a six-shot revolver. (It's assumed they were topping up the cylinder while 'off-screen'.)
That usage die from giffyglif is popular in a lot of games, I think including some horror games, for tracking things like O2 in an air tank, or rations during travel. I like best how Dungeon World tracks ammo - each quiver or magazine basically gets 3 use boxes, which can be used to turn a hit with consequences into a straight hit, or if you've got some kinda sci-fi weapon like a las gun, you can burn up one of those to say cut through a door. It's a tidy mechanic that give players some flexibility, and has some resource tracking without feeling like a burden. Just wouldn't use it for a Mad Max game in which every shot is precious.
I've used the dice system for tracking ammo with a special "last shot" rule to make it more cinematic, and it was a lot of fun. But honestly, in the long run I prefer my players count shot by shot. We track ammo by using matchsticks, markers and other physical props, and it works really well
I always built an ammo page with graph paper.
Hard outline- 20 to a quiver.
My DM designed all his arrows too.
Orkish, Tendalian, Broad Head, Armor Piercing....
Blood loss, Bonuses to hit, magic arrows....
Fancy ones found use sparingly.
Strongly suggest making arrows and bolts made by a specific race or region do different things, apply bonuses to hit, blood loss, electrical, poison, etc etc etc.
Have fun!!
I played a gunslinger in Pathfinder. We got stranded in a pocket dimension of the Abyssal plane. I brought in 160 rounds and left with 3. Love tracking ammo, specifically for stuff like that!
My GM for 7th Sea 2nd Edition had a common risk for our gunman being ‘you’re left with only one bullet’ but otherwise keeping it as relatively unlimited in a fight (assuming they get more between fights). He remembered for all but his second to last roll, leaving his final shot of the campaign as his last bullet.
Trophy Gold tracks ammo, but you ‘risk’ it, losing the bolts or arrows on a 1-3 on each die in the roll. That works pretty well.
This is one of the things my players and I love about Edge Studio's Genesys, where running out of non-special ammo is determined by the dice.
The Usage Die mechanic from Black Sword Hack would be ideal for this.
I'm glad that at least the guy at the very end knows how probability works...
Since we're all listing alternate methods- in Hard Wired Island, ammo is tracked by encounter; a player doesn't have to track ammo or reloads during a fight but afterwards they have to either spend one of their Prep points to 'have more ammo' or else they're out for the rest of the mission.
In modern MilSim, you get one fumble per squad member. Since everyone fires 5.56 and you can share ammo, everyone has ammo until nobody does. With 6 squaddies that would be the 6th time a 1 is rolled by anyone. That gives an approximate ammo load you have without counting every bullet in every mag. Hope it helps. Nice vid Seth :)
That Ammunition Die is a big part of The Black Hack as well. There it is the Usage die and you use it for all kinds of things. Arrows, rations, torches... It's a very clever and easy to use idea.
Just had an epiphany. On a critical failure one option is, not being out of ammo, but being on that dramatic lady shot.
All practical advice. Thanks for sharing.
This video is so prescient, my player just introduced his ranger and asked me about tracking ammunition. The dice mechanic is used in Savage Worlds and I really like that idea.
One easy way to keep count of arrows is using toothpicks. Get a holder and fill it with the right count of arrows you keep and remove them as you expend them. You can even dress it up: make a custom holder out of paper, cardboard or leather, paint the toothpicks with some silver paint or a marker and add a little feathering with a tiny piece of paper.
This feels particularly helpful for 5e. As a DM, I always want to ask players to track ammo since it helps balance ranged combat with melee combat more, but there are just so many other resources to track in that game and it is too easy for characters to carry around large amounts of backup ammo (especially if you don't want to worry about extensively tracking encumbrance and spending a lot of game time on shopping trips) that it usually ends up being impractical.
My favorite way to do ammo tracking is found in FIST, where it’s set at a number on a 1d6. Maximum ammunition is 6, lucky shot on 1; each time you shoot the weapon you roll a 1d6, if you roll below or above the Ammo value, it’s reduced by one, roll the same and it remains the same.
I remember doing some theory crafting with my sci-fi homebrew with high capacity guns (anywhere between 200 and 1000 depending on model and ammo type), and one idea I had was that single shots were unlimited, but you had a limited amount of bursts. Bursts had a damage and accuracy bonus, and you could stack them per turn, but each burst ate up your magazine.
Been meaning to try out the Giffyglyph ammo system. Dig the idea so much and seems way more interesting than just counting ammo down. And waaaaaay more interesting than just ignoring ammo.
I will say that. from a person who play archers or ranged combatant characters often. counting ammunition isnt alot of bookkeeping. just write down how many bullets/arrows/whatever you have loaded or available and count up from 0. when you hit said number your out of arrows or need to reload your guns.
I love that rule of using a die to track the ammo and using the d4 as their last shot.
Thank you for combing out a variety of methods and mechanics to deal with this subject, as always useful and entertaining information!
I remember the campaigning season in games a couple decades ago. The kingdom paid a 2 gold bounty on orc heads, so as soon as the crops were in the fields, we rode out with several weeks of food & feed, gear to set up a base camp and several hundred arrows.
After about five years of game time, the timber and earth walls we built the first year had a whole village of orc-hunters living in it every summer and we were using it year-round.
As for ammunition, we just assumed that we were going to end up breaking all of them over the summer hunting season. That was just a given. We tracked how many we fired and the DM rolled a percentile to see how many were recoverable and we didn’t worry about it past that.
Thanks for the vid, Seth. I really like the ammunition die concept. Especially for sessions or campaigns where supplies are critical, such as when you're dealing themes such as survival (where every item can be the difference between life or death) or when the players are FAR from civilization and resupplies are hard to come by.
I saw something similar in the black sword hack, except it is used more broadly for things such as calling in favors and mundane item usage as well. Great video sir!
An idea I had but haven't had the chance to playtest is an Ammo Dice pool, where a character’s ammunition is measured in a pool of d4s. After an encounter where a character uses any ammo they roll one of those d4s and on a result of 1 they remove it from their total pool. This is a mechanic I mainly intended for fantasy games like D&D, and I've also thought of some mechanics (also not playtested) that expand on it, such as being able to spend ammo dice to gain additional benefits.
The Ammo Dice mechanic you mention at the end is also a good substitute for managing rations.
OH gods I'm so happy for your players mentioning LOADS, I was losing it here
you are my absolute favorite youtuber to put on when i'm baked beyond belief
Wow - that green AD&D 2E character sheet just sent me back to High School for a second there.
In my OSR game I use missed arrows are lost, for the exact reasons you listed. In my modern setting that's for big action gun fights, characters can reload to recover luck (hit points). This ties the dwindling ammo and dwindling HP into a tactical choice for the player.
Oooooh, I was just thinking it would be nice to get a new Seth Skorkowsky video! 🎉
Ammunition dice sounds like something that would work well with a modern/sci-fi setting. I might have to try it the next time I run Traveller.
"Elemental plane of bullets" is unironically a great idea.
Came for the ammo tips, stayed for Seth's multi-load splurge.
When I started the game I'm running we had some hard ammo counting rules that my players were really stoked for, specifically for that last bullet in the chamber sort of tension. As we went on, I noticed they were all forgetting to track the shots, and so I allowed the mechanic to quietly go away. It was pretty clear they were having more fun with a bigger more bombastic style of play and they didn't notice ammo tracking had been gone for about six years ha. The cool part is, every once in a while I put them in scenarios where they DO have to track every bullet and ammo is very scarce so it plays like a survival horror since they're used to spraying lead everywhere without a care.
The thing is, in most systems having unlimited ammo makes ranged attacks just strictly better than melee unless you buff melee to compensate. Something my own play group doesn't particularly care to hear whenever I inform them I will enforce ammo tracking.
In We Deal in Lead, a weird west gunslinger TTRPG inspired by Stephen King's The Dark Tower, bullets are also currency. 1 Lead equals a full reload of your gun and you track remaining shots with a die determined by damage. Start at 6, change the die to 5 after a shot, etc. You've also got special attacks where you can expend all shots at once to hit multiple targets (Fan the Hammer)
Thanks for the ideas and video! FYI, the GiffyGlyph rule is a 1 or 2 on the d20 drops to the next level - not just a 1. If it were a 1, the ammo would be substantially higher (60 shots for a d20 instead of 30, etc). Anyway, an interesting idea to consider.
The ammunition rules are used in Free Leagues Forbidden Lands, which I GM a campaign in actually, and this setup for ammo (and also food, water, torches) is easy and awesome.
CY_BORG has a great system. You roll after combat to see if your mag is empty or not. If it is, you need to reload. Simple, effective, and allows for the drama of "this is my last mag, boys!" without counting actual bullets. Sure, it's chance-based, but so is everything else in the game, so it works perfectly fine :)
I was going to comment this, too! And that you have a higher chance of running out of ammo if you use automatic fire.
Having served in the swiss military (not much, just the mandatory time for a NCO, about 450 days) as a rifleman, I'm used to count each bullet I shoot and always remember ho many are left in my magazine. So I guess I'll stick, as a player, to count them one by ones. As a GM I might use this "ammo dice" thing, sounds pretty fun. Handy tip for shooters here : last bullet is a "normal" one, the 2 before should be tracer bullet, and the rest be "normal ones" too; you see a trace ? reload.