Scarcity - Ammo?

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Adje

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Scarcity - Ammo?
« on: November 11, 2011, 06:10:55 AM »
How have people dealt with the issue of ammo in their games?

I can see "You're out of bullets" as a good "take away their stuff" MC move, for example, as an alternative to keeping track of shots fired. But the fact that this means I decide to use it rather than it being a resource they can track / manage might be seen as unfair. Cue lots of "Well, if I'd known I was low on ammunition then I'd have..."

Re: Scarcity - Ammo?
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2011, 06:36:49 AM »
1) bullets in a pistol/smg you can just don't care as long as they are near supply - you can make them Reload at some point, but nothing too much. If there's some ridiculous amounts of shooting, then you can make them roll +reloads_you_made and on 10+ you're out, on 7-9 you have a clip or two, but that won't last you for long.
Good cause to the "why I SUDDENLY see no bullets?" is "you actually have some. But you've just discovered that they're fake/duds/your gun jammed on them pretty hard". Scarcity makes most of the "common" weapons hand-made or fixed-through-eternity. Which doesn't make them very reliable. Same story with ammo.
2) Most of time you can make rolls like this to check how bad they were with ammo, and on fail make them buy.
3) With precious things like high-powered sniper rifle bullets or with machine gun ammo drums you can just have arbitrary amount of things, and try to keep it.

Re: Scarcity - Ammo?
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2011, 06:51:22 AM »
However, the Golden Age Past did leave us two things: enough gasoline,
enough bullets.


You're not taking their stuff, you're activating their stuff's downside. Relevant tags are :

Quote from: Apocalypse World pp. 239 and 240
Autofire (mechanical, cue, constraint): at the character’s option,
the weapon makes an area attack (cf), but must imediately
reload (cf).


Reload (constraint): using it means the character has to take
specific action to reload or reset it before she can use it again.

If their gun has [autofire], they decide if they use it or not. They manage their ammo by themselves. They should know.

If the gun has [reload], they should know that sooner or later they'll have to reload and of course that'll be at the worst moment ever, 'cause that's how a shotout play in popular fiction.

I find counting bullets difficult because of how AW violence works. You're not counting by 5-seconds increments or doing discrete actions like "I fire three bullets at that guy".

In my games, a player seizing by force usually looks like "fuck it! I'll draw my big-ass magnum and go for the child, bam bam bam! I'll down everyone of them motherfuckers if I have to!" How much bullet did they fire? 4? 9? Who know ? A lot ! All I know is that I'm making a  little note in my head : "mmh, don't forget to activate their gun's reload tag."

Remember, always choose a move that follows from the fiction. You're not gonna activate the gun's downside if he didn't fire a single shot ! That's not what honnesty demands. But they have a beretta and pulled the trigger like crazy ? Hell yeah go make that move. Make is as hard as you like ! Like "Okay Keeler, roll +hard to seize by force (miss) ooh boy. You rise from your hide both guns blazing but when you open fire all you ear is "click click click". Seems to me you weren't conservative enough with your ammo. Wasn't it your last clip ? You can feel their barrels looking straight at you. What d'you do ?"

You can, of course, make a custom move to manage that, and make it as minute as you want. There's even one in the rulebook, p. 270.

Quote
After you go into battle with your vehicles, guns, and gear,
roll+sharp. On a 10+, you conserved your resources. Good job.
On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You’re running dangerously low on fuel
• You’re running dangerously low on ammo
• Your gear needs maintenance and repair
On a miss, the MC makes a hard move as usual (or says it’s all
three, or says you’re flat out of one thing).

But even this is abstract.

Dunno, counting bullets looks like a hassle to me, and I don't see where the fun is, neither for me the MC nor the players. But if that's how you and your players roll, custom-move the shit out of it ! Like :

Quote
Cue lots of "Well, if I'd known I was low on ammunition then I'd have..."

Make them a custom PC move that says something like, dunno,

"Trigger discipline :when you enter a battle, roll +sharp. On a 10+, if your guns have the [reload] tag, treat them as if the don't. On a 7-9 hold 1 : you can spend this hold whenever the MC goes "your gun's empty" to fire one last shot. On a 6- nothing special except your enemies know you're such a gun nut and might (will) take you as their prime target."

or something.

Re: Scarcity - Ammo?
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2011, 07:35:13 AM »
Quote
"Trigger discipline :when you enter a battle, roll +sharp. On a 10+, if your guns have the [reload] tag, treat them as if the don't. On a 7-9 hold 1 : you can spend this hold whenever the MC goes "your gun's empty" to fire one last shot. On a 6- nothing special except your enemies know you're such a gun nut and might (will) take you as their prime target."
before battle? Hmm.. nice.

But still, I think, for people like sniper(who fires like what, 2, 3, 5 times through the entire battle, probably - and each shot is cool, and it matters) it's not such strange idea to count bullets. And some people think it's fun when you can make this "you have no bullets left... but I have one!" moment.

Re: Scarcity - Ammo?
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2011, 07:37:57 AM »
Oh! And you can always tell the consequences and ask, like

"I'm gonna go for it. I'll run to the child, grab him and take him away, shooting them all the while.
-Cool ! You're pretty low on ammo though. If you get him both guns blazing you probably won't have any bullet left after that. What do you do ?"


That way you're setting up for a harder move, and telling them "though shit, you're out of ammo" later won't feel like it came from nowhere.

Re: Scarcity - Ammo?
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2011, 07:43:32 AM »
before battle? Hmm.. nice.

I'm tinkering with a Feng Shui hack and I'm toying a lot with these "roll before and hold" moves for my martial art styles. Must be spilling. ;)

But still, I think, for people like sniper(who fires like what, 2, 3, 5 times through the entire battle, probably - and each shot is cool, and it matters) it's not such strange idea to count bullets. And some people think it's fun when you can make this "you have no bullets left... but I have one!" moment.

True that. Though playing moves by the book can replicate that, and I'm a by-the-book kind of guy. But yeah, counting special ammos can really up the scarcity feel and it cooler.

That reminds me : I'm totally trying to fit in a scene where two guys are trying to kill each other and are surrounded by guns, but all of them but a few are empty, like in Desperado, next time we play (tomorrow, that is).