Tracking Ammo

What are good systems to keep track of ammo? It always seems like a pain in the ass to keep track on how many bullets/arrows every player and npc has during combat.

If you're going to track ammo, the only real way to do it is just to do it manually or not at all. There is no system that makes it easier afaik

Basic arithmetic on a sheet of paper tends to do the job

Tokens. Let the players track it.

Give them dummy bullets as tokens for fun.

Put them in a campaign that has only black powder rifles and maket them track both shots and gunpowder

1. Pen
2. Paper
3. Not being a lazy sack of shit with a milennial's zip-zip attention span.


Alternatively there are rules-lite pleb systems for people like you where you don't bother to track ammo at all, and in some there are even rules whereby players can bullshit up ammo (and whole weapons too) by fiat.

>Dropping mags right on the ground

Here's how.
>Write Quiver (20/20) on your character sheet in the item/equipment section.
While you're in combat if you shoot two arrows out of the bow then adjust it to
>Quiver (18/20)

I always do action movie ammo, where you run out of ammo at a dramatically appropriate time, considering it makes some kind of sense

If you don't want to track it

Then don't.

>good systems to keep track of ammo?

Take your current total of ammo. Put it to the right of a wide set of brackets. Put tallies in the brackets as you use ammo. Periodically clear the tallies and update the ammo count accordingly.

Like this:
( ) 36

I've used this system for years, for spells, ammunition, and limited use things of all types. It's always served me well.

>millennial
>why don't you just use an abacus instead of a calculator you bum

>3. Not being a lazy sack of shit with a milennial's zip-zip attention span.
>Not caring about ammo = lazy sack of shit

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

Oh god this.

I do this shit with health all the time.

If you roll lower than the number of times you have fired since your last reload, you're caught without bullets and need to reload.

Think Resident Evil, where you can reload from the menu as a "free action" but losing count of bullets means you end up reloading manually.

I meant to put spaces between those brackets, but Veeky Forums does not seem to like this idea.

Here's how I do tallies. Draw dots until you have a square with four dots. Then connect those dots with lines to form a square, this is eight. Then draw a / and a \ in the square, this is nine and ten.

Looks nicer than five bar gates

I'm really surprised that no one sells wood or metal or plastic arrows that you can give a player a stack, and they give them to the GM as they use them.

You could probably just snap toothpicks in half and glue them to gravel

Seriously kids: fuck off. If you just want to play some rules-lite powerwank then you're in the wrong place. Go make a Dungeon World general and fap yourselves to sleep.

>you're in the wrong place
>I am the sole arbitrator of what is and isn't discussed on Veeky Forums

I have no idea where you came from but can you please go back?

Micromanaging ammo is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game. What do you do with things that are chores that add nothing to the game? You change them.

I predict this post will garner many assblasted replies. The truth always does.

Don't be a troll, dude.

I can think of at least one thing it adds to the game, desperation.

If you are dependant on ammo, and on a long delve into a cave you reach for an arrow to realize it's your last, suddenly you are washed with stress (irl, not in character)

I've seen two "abstract" ways of doing it, which are pretty similar:

1. Savage Worlds - Allies ammo is tracked by "levels", starting at "Very High". After each fight that the ally used the ammo, the ammo level drops a level (High, then Low, then Out). If the allies are dealt a Two during initiative (Savage Worlds uses card decks for initiative), the ammo immediately drops another level after this round of combat.

The Black Hack: You have what's called a "usage die" for expendable items (torches, ammo, food, etc). Usually the usage die starts out as a d8 or d10. You roll the usage die every time you use the item (in this case after every fight you used the ammo). If you roll a 1 or 2, the usage die drops a type (d10 to a d8, d8 to a d6, etc). Once you're at a d4, if you roll a 1 or 2, you're empty.

This.

Counting ammo isn't always necessary but to say it adds nothing is disingenuous.

Honestly if keeping a small set of numbers in order is this big an issue then this kinda stuff might not be right for you.

>abstract tracking of items

I wanted to like this, but it just gets on me when I'm not certain how many bullets my dude has in his inventory.

It gives me the impression my character is some irresponsible halfwit who plans a whole important thing with his life on the line, yet no matter how dire things become, he can never be bothered to count the number of bullets he has left for his gun. Like he just keeps picking them out of a bag as if they're candies until he looks down one day and realizes there are none left.

Oh yeah, I don't use either system -- I've just played in both games and saw them in use. It's pretty silly to have a player say "I look in my pouch and count how many bullets I have left" and all the GM can say is "d8 usage die".

Granted, the Savage World's solution is for allies - NPCs, "extras", etc. It's assumed the players would track their actual ammo, though the games of SW I've played in, the GM didn't require ammo tracking.

it just comes down to people being lazy. Can't be fucking bothered to remember to write down anything, and get pissy when the gm or players calls them out on it, then come here to preach about it like it'll change anything, like a lot of the bitchy threads here, if they are even telling the truth and not another shitpost.

Seriously if your to fucking lazy to keep track of, what more likely than not a two too three digit number then you should seriously consider a new hobby, because God help me it gets sickening hearing about how you forgot how many this or that's you had and waiting for you get your shit together.

Now if the system is built like that, then ok that's fine.

I liked paranoia because it actually rewarded players for reloading.

Those little shits always forget their ammo count but not after having incentive.

But....
MUH IMMERSION. MUH STORY. MUH NARRATIVE.

>and adds nothing to the game

Actually it does - it adds a resource that you have to manage, which discourages "LOL I KILL EVERYONE XDDDDDDDDDD" murderhobo bullshit. Also what said.

You're probably just a shit player who doesn't know how to manage a resource, as well as a lazy fuck who can't be bothered to do a bit of extra record keeping.

Time to kill yourself, user.

>Don't be a troll, dude.

Well, looks like the normalfags are in tonight.

I honestly can not tell if your insulting me or not.

Wasn't trying to offend you. I was just impersonating annoying ass players who want to hand wave ammo counting in favor of story telling bullshit.

>and get pissy when the gm or players calls them out on it

What the flying fuck is this projection?

>hyperbolic arguments
>pointless name callng
>kill yourself

/v/ plz leave

I don't know what board you are from but can you please go back?

Playing Deadlands (Savage Worlds) we kept track of each bullet but decided as a group that keeping track of the weight is too much work.
Because we're decent human beings nobody abused that.

user it's called being stuck with fellow players who can't help but not pay attention half the time.

Oh ok

I like The Black Hack's method. Each type of ammo/restricted item you have has a Usage Die rating, starting at d4 up to d20. Every time you use the item, you roll the relevant die type; on a 1 or a 2, you downgrade to the next lower die value. At d4, if you fail, you're out of ammo/items.

Not the most tight-pants-tighter-groupings method, but it's cool for somewhat lighter systems.

I don't get why Savage Worlds gets the "storytelling" game label. Encumbrance is incorporated in the core character sheet. There are wound penalties -- hell most d20 systems don't have that. Yet, every time I play in a SW group, they hand-wave so much of the core game crunch in favor of storyteller bullshit. I'd play it more if every game I was in wasn't like that. Guess I need to take up the GM mantle myself and run it closer to the core rules?

Oh, really?

The only thing we waved was the maths for figuring out how much ammo we had.
A short encounter would end in each character firing maybe three bullets.
A box of 50 rounds lasted me most of the campaign.

>reading threads before you post in them

You're as annoying as my GM who keeps insisting I read character creation before bugging him about how to make a character.

Yeah but to lash out at fucking a whole concept of "not counting ammo"? How big of a baby can you be?

Thread got long enough and bitchy enough that I can see people skimming

>>Not caring about ammo = lazy sack of shit
>Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
Actually thats the entire point of not counting ammo.

Nice job, personal insults are good are evoking a good cascade of (you)s

And it's not just ammo, it happens a lot with other things such as spell components in certain systems prof just fine details in general, it gets grateing when a player forgets ex-detail or the number of "supplies" they have, again.

Not that I'm expecting a civil response, but I can hope, as little as that means here.

I made a Not-Fallout system for my players years ago using the rules for some old Wild West game Games Workshop used to make.
Players got ammo counters, and every time they used Burst/supression/etc, they used an ammo token.
After every encounter an ammo counter was used to reload each gun that was used.
Also allowed for different ammo types to be used on the fly.
Seemed to be just enough management and risk/reward for the players and myself as the DM.
Never got any complaints

learned this as a good way of counting trees actually and haven't looked back since.

my favorite ammo tracking system is this, from 4th edition gamma world:
in any given encounter, if you fire a ranged weapon only once, you are being careful with your ammo and will have ammo in the next scene.
if you fire your weapon more than once, you may as well shoot every turn, because you are not being careful with your ammo and as a result, you will be out of ammunition in the next scene. ammo is binary. you have it or you don't. thematically works better with automatic weapons, etc. i love it because it's fun, easy to understand, and cinematic.

How difficult is it to track ammo?

Magazine has 30 rounds. NPC fires 10. He still has 20 in one mag. Wow! So difficult.

Micromanaging health points is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging wounds is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging mana is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging sanity points is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging money is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging equipment is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
Micromanaging relations is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.

>Micromanaging health points is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
>Micromanaging wounds is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
>Micromanaging mana is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
>Micromanaging sanity points is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
>Micromanaging relations is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.

These are all already simplified abstractions. You don't count every scratch, wound, and every single broken bone, you have an average health level and that's it.

>Micromanaging money is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.
>Micromanaging equipment is not fun, it's a chore, and adds nothing to the game.

These tend to not be. Many systems do make you count ever single copper you have, as well as every single piece of ammo.

I just do it the same way Unknown Armies handles health:

As the GM I keep track of all of my players ammo. The players are in charge of figuring out how many shots they've fired unless the character that a player is playing as has specifically invested points into something that would make that character automatically know how many shots they have left.

we use the same system for VP , MP , exhaustion points and all items that are often used.

give them a piece of paper and always the them write down their current amount of whatever they have.

Reverse count. Write on a notecard your ammo count. Either 5 gate or 10 count box as you use it up. When the count equals the header number, you're out. When you buy more ammo just scratch out the existing tallies and add that number to the current header number to make a new header number.

If you have to manage clips, make the header number how many rounds are in a clip / how many clips you have. and make a bracket for each clip. Place a slash beside the clip in the gun and a tally mark in the bracket as each shot is fired. When you remove a clip from the gun whether it has shots remaining or not use a reverse slash to complete the X and put a new slash beside the clip that goes in. When you replenish your ammo mark off all the used clips and replace them with new empty brackets.

This all sounds really complicated, but it's not. Once you get the hang of it you're basically just making a mark or two per round and re-setting when you go shopping. I run a book-keeping heavy campaign and I use this system for basically everything, including exhaustion levels and HP.

this. unless you have some kind of automated program that does it for you.

>What are good systems to keep track of ammo
By keeping track of it, you moron. What kind of question is that?!

This

If anything, story players are MUCH better at keeping track of all their gear, because if they forgot about something, it cease to fucking exists.
So nice failed argument.

>Micromanaging
>Carrying 5 mags full of ammo and keeping track of them is micromanagement
I guess you should look for new hobby if remebering 5 times 30 is too much for you and keep roughtly track of your ammo up to tens.

Oh man, I just bought a 1911 on Monday! I'm super excited to take it home, just waiting on the background check.
Making me super impatient with that picture.

No its not and it's extremely important in a gunfight or a long mission.

Pen and paper is king. Given that everyone's taking turns, it's quite easy to do.

Alternatively, Gamma World 7e had a very interesting way of tracking ammo.
First off: you either have ammo or you don't. The specific amount is immaterial except for perhaps RP purposes depending on the sort of gun it is.

You can fire your weapon once in a combat encounter, and that counts as you being conservative with your ammo. You are considered to still have ammo afterwards.

If you fire your weapon more than once in a single combat encounter, you will be considered to be out of ammo afterwards. So if you're going to do it, let 'er rip. Like you're hosing them down. Maybe decide to suppress enemies if you can.

If you're out of ammo, you have to find more. Given that it's a post-apocalyptic game, you can scrounge for it somewhat reliably--but not absolutely reliably. There's never certainty about it when you'll find your next cache of ammo, which is right on the money for a post-apocalyptic game.

I know you're being ironic to take the piss out of someone, but there are actually games which have a more abstract version of each of those so you deal with them in broader strokes.

You have two dice with the same number of sides. One you roll, the other you leave on the table with 1 facing up initially. Every time you attack move the non-rolling dice up one. When you roll under the number showing, you're out of ammo.

Minimal micromanagement, push your luck risk-reward mechanic, fun fun fun.

Every group needs an autist who can take care of bookkeeping for the entire party. As a bonus you get an accurate measure of time spent traveling and cost/benefit analyses for equipment purchases.

>implying thats not how actual professionals do it.

Seriously in the military we're taught to let the mag fall, cause securing the mag takes away precious time. You can pick em up when the fightings over. Assuming you win,if not it doesn't matter much

Yes, those games are ruel-light systems for narrative-based gameplay.

Guess what - those games won't make tracking ammo easier either, as they don't provide mechanics for that.

>Seriously in the military we're taught to let the mag fall
Let me guess - you army is also using single-issue plastic mags that don't really refill, and are made from paper-thin coating, because this way they "decrease the weight of loaded weapon and make for more accurate shots"?
Not everyone is under NATO bullshit about small arms, you know? Not even all NATO nations follow this stupid American idea that recoil and weapon weight are main reasons why people can't shoot straight.

Unless you are in some grave-shit danger, you always take your time with reload. And if you run out of bullets in grave-shit danger, you are dead anyway, no matter how you are planning to reload, because you are in the open and not shooting.

"Military grade" is also a hilariously misused.

Lowest bidder generally isn't making mags of a high enough quality to make anyone care if they don't come back now and again.

>Yes, those games are ruel-light systems for narrative-based gameplay.

>HP
>not abstract version of your general health.

Man, D&D is such a story game narrative teaparty bullshit

Go play stuff like Numenera. Then get back here and tell me with straight face it compares with games like GURPS or even simplified DnD in terms of mechanics going.
Or outright play narratives, like De Profundis

>Then get back here and tell me with straight face it compares with games like GURPS or even simplified DnD in terms of mechanics going.

I for fact know it compares with "simplified D&D" pretty evenly, because it IS simplified D&D with a new coat of paint.

>Still missing the point so badly
>Still arguing about shit that's not even related to the subject
How is your autism doing lately?

What in the fuck? Id get donkey punched for that dumb shit.
Sounds pretty gross imo. Haven't heard of that being implimented yet, though I'm USMC and we get the shit end hand-me-downs.

Hey, you told me to do X, I did. Why are you upset?

>get super unlucky with rolls
>"lol I guess your dumb ass only brought like 3 arrows into the dungeon"

>decide to bring extra arrows next time
>"no user you can't do that"

>try to count how many arrows I have left so I can pace myself
>"could be one, could be twenty. Isn't it more FUN this way?"

Fuck that. Micromanagement is way better than the "roll to see if you unexpectedly get fucked xD" variety of narrative game.

>decide to bring extra arrows next time
>"no user you can't do that"

I haven't seen a system where this is true, short of extremely narrative ones. Even in DW, you can still carry extra quivers, if you want.

I'm pretty sure DW stole that from AW actually, so a single attack is more of a machinegun of arrows than a single shot, which makes other two complaints somewhat moot as well.

Twilight 2000 had a nice ammo counter thing.

>Not dropping your mags
If they're empty, there's really no practical reason to keep them on you as opposed to letting them fall during a firefight, aside from the apparent fact that the world's most well funded military force can't possibly handle someone losing an extremely easily manufactured chunk of metal.

I was taught to just drop them as well when reloading. Just get them after the firefight, shave off time reloading. Probably not gonna refill them anyway during combat.
- Finnish conscript, combat medic

well yeah cause all of that funding goes into shit like the F-35

Accounting is shit.
If you have to do tracking ammo, the best way is rolling for it.
Introduce "ammo per encounter" value. Before each encounter, roll a die and substract the result from the "ammo per encounter" value. If it dips below zero - whoops, you've run out of ammo!

Hey, gotta have that air superiority, because that also brings naval superiority.

We all know that the 20th century made infantry the least effective unit in combat.

t. Leopard-II Crewman

At the end of combat, roll a d8, if it's a 1 then at the end of next combat you roll a d6, if it's a 1 then at the end of the next combat you roll a d4, if it's a 1 then you next time you need to roll a 1d3, if it's a 1 then you need to buy more ammo

>fire one arrow
>next encounter, roll poorly and have no more arrows
>people will defend this

>I only used gun at shooting range

>fire one arrow
Citation needed.
Because you rolled poorly, you fired a bunch of arrows before you hit even once.

You might as well just have infinite ammo at that point, because unless you're under some hard attrition, everyone is going to stock up on ammo whenever they get a chance.

Also, just use tally marks you lazy bum. It's hardly any slower than rolling a die at the start of any encounter, and you can easily track ammo.

Or hell, a sheet like works just fine as well.

>le 1 game attack action = 1 physical attack action meme

Really you should just make it a skill check then, because Robin Hood ain't missing that much.

> everyone is going to stock up on ammo
Yeah, I mean, it's not like you can limit the amount of shops. It's also not like they need to buy food and shit. It's not like they want to buy something else too instead of waiting their money solely on ammo.

>Keeping track of food
Sounds real ruleslite there, ace.

Also, spending money on ammo is never a waste. Never once have I been in an RPG where any PC allowed their ammo to run below 5 spare magazines. Again, the only thing that's going to allow it to drop below safe levels is some hard attrition.

>not keeping track of food
Rules-lite != forgiving.
Rules-lite = devoid of unnecessary math.

If you're playing in post-apocalyptic setting or any other situation where food/ammo/etc. are hard to come by, fuck yeah, I'm gonna make you keep track of it.
The trick is not to not keep track of it, but to keep track of it roughly instead of penny-pinching.