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Tracking ammo

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Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
Tracking ammo
How do you guys recommend players track ammo in a more narrative sense? I don't want to have my group track every single bullet they fire, unless it's special ammunition or things like rockets, seekers, plasma rifles, etc. At first I thought ammo can be tied to ones skill. If you roll a critical failure than would affect your unmodified weapons skill, you will run out of ammo by the end of the fight, or at least be dangerously low. For example, if someone has a kinetic weapons skill of 60, and they roll a 77, that would be a critical failure only for being low on ammo, regardless of actual modifiers to their roll. But I'm not sure how viable this would be. A second idea would be to take an idea from savage worlds: draw a card from a standard playing deck at the end of every combat. If it's a certain number and/or suite (still trying to figure it out), the group is low on ammo. One more fight and they're out. Incidental firefights (ie shooting down a lone exsurgent) would be ignored. Any thoughts? What have you GMs who prefer narrative tracking of ammon done? Actually as an extension: do you guys mind sharing any houserulings that provide a more narrative, less rules-intensive spin on EP? (Simulationists go home! :P)
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ORCACommander ORCACommander's picture
most of my games we ignore
most of my games we ignore mundane ammo and only track the special kind. however in EP I felt it was kinda needed, not sure why. TBH when i ran the devotees they were so overstocked with ammo by default i left it to the honor system for them to track since they were into really interested in a follow up campaign
SquireNed SquireNed's picture
It depends
I've found that it's rare to have characters even go through a full magazine in combat (unless they're, say, doing FA with a heavy pistol), and for the most part EP doesn't like to put characters in situations with lots of combat. For instance, even with my group's ventures into the TQZ, none of my players fired more than 100 rounds, and that's including automatic rifles and the like. That said, if players are using expensive or rare ammunition, I track it pretty closely.
eaton eaton's picture
Scratchpad...
If they're carrying around any appreciable amount of special ammo, they make a note on their charter. When entering combat-time, I ask them to declare what kind of ammo they're loaded out with. From that point on, we just track shots fired to ensure they remember to reload when necessary, etc. None of them have been using expensive seeker rounds or anything like that, so the entire team has been coasting on a batch of RAP rounds one of the characters manufactured after getting unrestricted access to a fabber for several days. They've barely scratched the surface of it; even in big firefights, things tend to be deadly enough that the entire team uses maybe 100 rounds total.
bblonski bblonski's picture
Some Ideas
I generally assume characters have enough ammo to get them through several fights and they restock every chance they get. The only reasons I would track ammo is if some plot element has reduced their ammo or the characters are cut off from resupplying for long periods. Honestly something like this is better done with something like Fate (which is why I'm excited for the Fate Conversion). Eclipse Phase is fairly specific about how many bullets you fire and when you have to reload. I'd make larger changes so that combat rounds are more abstract on a whole. Don't track individual shots but instead narrate an attack as an exchange of several rounds. Completely ignore the reload action and work it into how you narrate fails or critical fails ("you line him up in your sights and pull the trigger, only to hear the click of your empty magazine"). If the character has been using lots of burst/auto attacks or has been through several extended firefights without resupplying, then warn them on their next failure or critical failure they are on their last magazine and only have a few shots left. I like how Dungeon World does it where one of the "succeed with cost" options is to reduce ammo. You might be able to accomplish something similar. Have a ammo track that you check off anytime they fail or critically fail a ranged attack. Also mark a box when they use burst or full auto unless they get a excellent or critical success. You could probably get away with 10 or so boxes to track ammo. You could make ammo like integrity stress. After every gun fight roll ammo damage (maybe 1d10 base, more for longer fights). Roll additional damage every time you use burst or autofire. Running out of ammo stress causes you to run out of ammo. If the characters are cut off from resupplying you could maybe do it like Call of Cthulhu sanity. Have a Supplies skill that you have to roll after every gunfight or use of major resources. Failures cause the Supplies skill to reduce making it more likely to fail Supply checks in the future. Critical failures mean you ran out of a specific resource. The nice thing about this is you can use it for more than just ammo.
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
I've seriously never seen one
I've seriously never seen one of my players run out of ammo during a fire fight, because they never last long enough for it to be a factor. I only sweat things like big fuck-all seekers, thermobarics, etc. If someone is using smart ammo, I want to know they paid for it when they geared up, but beyond that, I'm not super interested in keeping track of it.
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UnitOmega UnitOmega's picture
How often players need to
How often players need to reload/get more ammo really depends on how they work. Listening to RPPR's Know Evil game, for instance, Ross' character Bartleby needs to reload like, every couple of actions. But this is because he's using a heavy pistol and FA attacks all the time. Players who use more controlled actions or have a weapon which has a large magazine rarely have to worry about this. I know know I've never really paused to think about my Beam Weapon using PCs because they have like a zillion shots, so I would assume they find a generic power outlet and juice up in between. When players buy specific Seekers or Kinetic Ammo types, I have them keep track of it. They paid for it, they need to track the specific damage, etc. Since most people only have one or two guns, this isn't a huge problem for them. They buy a big brick of 100 rounds and break it up until they ditch the weapons or need more. For NPCs, I just don't bother. If they last long enough to run out of bullets, I would assume they carry a few spare magazines around.
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FrivolousVector FrivolousVector's picture
Clarification
FYI, UnitOmega, according to errata all energy weapons have both a standard and a nuclear battery so an EW will gradually recharge itself as long as it's functional. I can find a page number if you like. I very much agree with bblonski. Much of EP is how important but also disposable the gear you have is. If you spent enough CP to buy a billion bullets, you would lose them all with your next egocast. With the exception of the *really expensive* ammo types, there's no good reason to have the players be anal about their ammo count (excepting mag size) unless they are cut off from supplies for a long time. But at the same time, if they know ahead of time they'll just bring along a thousand rounds and be done with it (or just learn how to use a Shredder which has a mag/reserve of "yes").
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