How are you guys looking around ammo and automatic fire. How many shots fired and damage as part of a major action in combat.

Arguably you can fire a pistol many times in 10 seconds and also automatic rifles hold a negative dice and + when fired but how many bullets is this? Any thoughts community.

Well, for me, ive spent time in the US Marines, and with semi auyo guns each "engagement" with a target it 2 shots to the chest 1 to the head. So i would count each attack as 3 bullets.

But im going to give my players the option of pulling the trigger 3 more times and recieve +1 -1. Pistols usually only have 10ish to 16 ish bullets. So deciding to spend 6 bullets on a single target means they have to reload sooner, which is going to be an action.action.assault rifles have a capacity for around 30 bullets

With full auto...thats a bit harder. A burst could be anywhere between 5-20 bullets. And its much harder to aim so they would get a definate -1

To keep things simple I just use the following. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, expend a single shot per standard action expending one round of ammunition. Assault Rifles, Smg's fire three round bursts expending 3 rounds of ammo, and heavy machine-guns like a Saw expend 5 rounds. Revolvers hold 6 rounds, Automatic pistols hold 15 rounds, Assault Rifles and SMGs hold 30, Shotguns hold 8, or 2, and A Heavy Machine-gun 100 rounds. I pass out glass beads in two colors as my players find ammo. Red beads for 3 round bursts and blue for single rounds. They toss them back into the cup as they expend ammo.

I don't bother with figuring out full auto, or firing multiple rounds from a single shot weapon as it adds a layer of complexity that isn't all that important. i.e. you would have to adjust not only dmg, but the difficulty of the attack, as well as the difference in ammo consumption.

Keeping things rolling at a steady pace is more important than getting bogged down in the minutia.

Leave it to the narration. Ammo is supposed to be nebulous. Personally I would say something like uncancelled doubles on the negative dice can be used to have a "run out of ammo" action happen instead of/or included with stress. Much like the head shot. Or it could be used to have something else happen that would be approriate, like axe handle breaks or machete gets stuck. A critical failure if you will.

To keep things simple I just use the following. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, expend a single shot per standard action expending one round of ammunition. Assault Rifles, Smg's fire three round bursts expending 3 rounds of ammo, and heavy machine-guns like a Saw expend 5 rounds. Revolvers hold 6 rounds, Automatic pistols hold 15 rounds, Assault Rifles and SMGs hold 30, Shotguns hold 8, or 2, and A Heavy Machine-gun 100 rounds. I pass out glass beads in two colors as my players find ammo. Red beads for 3 round bursts and blue for single rounds. They toss them back into the cup as they expend ammo.

I don't bother with figuring out full auto, or firing multiple rounds from a single shot weapon as it adds a layer of complexity that isn't all that important. i.e. you would have to adjust not only dmg, but the difficulty of the attack, as well as the difference in ammo consumption.

Keeping things rolling at a steady pace is more important than getting bogged down in the minutia.

a SAW is a heavy machine gun? More like an automatic rifle.... it only shoot 5.56mm which is the same as a m16.

Now a .50 cal, thats a heavy machine gun. A medium machine gun would be the M240, that shoots 7.62mm

To keep things simple I just use the following. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, expend a single shot per standard action expending one round of ammunition. Assault Rifles, Smg's fire three round bursts expending 3 rounds of ammo, and heavy machine-guns like a Saw expend 5 rounds. Revolvers hold 6 rounds, Automatic pistols hold 15 rounds, Assault Rifles and SMGs hold 30, Shotguns hold 8, or 2, and A Heavy Machine-gun 100 rounds. I pass out glass beads in two colors as my players find ammo. Red beads for 3 round bursts and blue for single rounds. They toss them back into the cup as they expend ammo.

I don't bother with figuring out full auto, or firing multiple rounds from a single shot weapon as it adds a layer of complexity that isn't all that important. i.e. you would have to adjust not only dmg, but the difficulty of the attack, as well as the difference in ammo consumption.

Keeping things rolling at a steady pace is more important than getting bogged down in the minutia.

a SAW is a heavy machine gun? More like an automatic rifle.... it only shoot 5.56mm which is the same as a m16.

Now a .50 cal, thats a heavy machine gun. A medium machine gun would be the M240, that shoots 7.62mm

I realize the distinction, but when we are talking about a game that is basically lumping guns into broad categories, like "Pistol" "Rifle" "Shotgun" "Assault Rifle" I would not be putting anything with an ammo capacity of 100+ into any of those groups and would put the SAW in with any fully automatic man-portable weapon, call it "Machine Guns" and be done with it. And like I said, getting into Cartridge size, and so forth is just minutia that has no real bearing in a game as abstract as this which is evident when looking at the "Pistol" Category which encompasses 9mm, .45, .357, .44, .38, etc. The abstractness is also evident with the "Assault Rifle" category as the M-16 fires the 5.56, and the Ak-47 fires the 7.62 which are the examples given within that category.

If you really want to be technical and immerse yourself in these kinds of details, Game Designer's Workshop had a game line that took into account the size of the round, what the actual bullet was made from, penetration, the velocity the round was fired, the damage versus accuracy of firing a single round, 3 round, 5 round, or fully automatic burst, etc. Your guns and ammo practically had their own character sheets. I think it was Phoenix Command, and I believe Twilight 2000, and Dark Conspiracy used a scaled down version.

Simple does go with the style of the game. I kinda like the 3 shot burst on assault rifles too as it helps burn a little more ammo and your still getting a stress dice for the kick of an automatic. I still feel there could be a little more complexity mind. AFMBE had single,burst and all out.maybe there could be different stats for each? In regards to 'miss haps' I have taken weapon tables from the video game State of Decay as it incorporated durability of weapons. I'll be tracking damage to weapons everytime a 6 is rolled on the positive dice as It ranges from 1 to 5 in most cases. Repairing with suitable loot such as tape and spare parts I will also incorporate.

<SNIP>

If you really want to be technical and immerse yourself in these kinds of details, Game Designer's Workshop had a game line that took into account the size of the round, what the actual bullet was made from, penetration, the velocity the round was fired, the damage versus accuracy of firing a single round, 3 round, 5 round, or fully automatic burst, etc. Your guns and ammo practically had their own character sheets. I think it was Phoenix Command, and I believe Twilight 2000, and Dark Conspiracy used a scaled down version.

No, Phoenix Command was by someone else. but Twillight:2000 (T2K) by GDW did have Weapons Cards with a fair amount of info on them (not actually physical cards, but the listings in the rules books were designed for photo-copying and pasting onto a 5x7 index card). This was primariy for Version 2.0 and 2.2. Great game.

Now, another that is still out there and easily available is the product titled "Gun, Gun, Gun" by Greg Porter of BTRC, and the second volume "More Gun, Gun, Guns." Both are excellent works that are very usable in many RPGs.

You could also take a look at any of several different GURPS books.

No, Phoenix Command was by someone else. but Twillight:2000 (T2K) by GDW did have Weapons Cards with a fair amount of info on them (not actually physical cards, but the listings in the rules books were designed for photo-copying and pasting onto a 5x7 index card). This was primariy for Version 2.0 and 2.2. Great game.

Now, another that is still out there and easily available is the product titled "Gun, Gun, Gun" by Greg Porter of BTRC, and the second volume "More Gun, Gun, Guns." Both are excellent works that are very usable in many RPGs.

You could also take a look at any of several different GURPS books.

You are totally correct, after getting home and browsing my shelf, Phoenix Command was by Leading Edge Games, I was playing that and Twilight 2000 around the same time.

Talking with a buddy about this last night. I think as a gm this is what i'll do.

Instead of tracking each individual bullet ill give the players the option for sinlge fire, burst, or "oh crap, unload the mag!" As gm after a X number of rounds i'll say that based on how they have been shooting if they have to reload or not. Based on the situation reloading could be a roll.

I'd prefer to track individual rounds just because I wouldn't expect the PCs to be carrying around more than one (or maybe two at a stretch) magazines around. I think it also ads to that survival element if they're actually aware the GM is keeping track of how often they can loose a shot, which in turn makes them do so also. I think a bit of paper with a tally for every round fired is simple enough to justify some extra immersion and if they're totting an armoury around... well, by that point I expect they've got enough ammunition to justify not having to track it so strictly.

I would like to track individual bullets, but it seems like it would take alot of work....It does help magnify the survival element a la Resident Evil 4 style (oh man I love that game, you have to conserve your ammo or you will die)

Your players may only start with one or to mags, but what happens after the first few sessions when they raid a sporting good store and grab hundreds of rounds/mags/guns?

I can see tracking each bullet at the beginning and after a few sessions when they have enough of a stock pile, keep track of "cases" of ammo very loosely...

I would just like a easy system to keep track of it all.

I would leave it all abstract and work with the mechanics. Have 3 levels of ammo, low, enough and lots. If you're low on ammo that's stressful, add a negative dice. If you have a negative dice in your pool higher than your stat, you're out of ammo. If you want to conserve ammo, that's stressful, add another negative dice now you can't run out of ammo. If you're low on ammo but don't want to take the negative dice, then you run out of ammo after that shot.

If you've enough ammo, add a positive dice as you pump lead, you're now low on ammo...

Etc, etc.