The Standard, Non-Standard Ammo Options

There are some games where it is a core mechanic to track ammo. In Battletech, Star Frontiers and D&D, tracking ammo is important. In these games, ammo is a consumable core to the player's ability to play by the rules. How many missiles, gyrojet or arrows can one person pack around? It is tied to believe-ability. 

However, in other games it is in the rules but somehow violates the spirit of the game. Star Trek and Star Wars come to mind. How many characters on TV or in the movies run out of ammo? Only when the plot calls for it. 

Most games will fall someplace between the two extremes, such as any d20 game. Where the amount of ammo does not seem relevant, I prefer to use a different mechanic. In a modern setting with characters carrying normal firearms, I assume that all characters and NPCs are spending a bit of their time reloading as the opportunity presents. This means they almost always have bullets available. 

To add some tension, if the character fails their attack roll by rolling the worst possible number (say, a 1 in 20) then they are out of ammo and need to spend time to reload right now. If the rules have a mechanic for a jammed gun occurring on a one, the first time they roll a one they are out of ammo and if it happens again on the very next roll, the gun has jammed. 

Some games have weapons that simply don't work like a machine gun or semi-auto pistol. A blaster in Star Wars or Phaser in Star Trek are very unlike modern firearms. In the movies, they never run out of ammo unless the plot calls for it. As before, if a character rolls a 1, their weapon has malfunctioned. It makes a noise and nothing happens. To get the weapon working, the player needs to make a successful to hit roll to make it start working again. That seems like an oxymoron rule and maybe it is. The tension comes from the fact that the enemy knows there is something wrong and the hero can't shoot. They are drawing attention to themselves. Having the weapon suddenly go off in the enemy's face is just like Star Wars. And in Trek, fiddling with the controls almost always works. 

On the off chance these advanced weapons experience two back to back failures, then they are out of action until a repair is made, usually outside of combat. 

For most games where ammo tracking is important, I make sure the story provides ample reloads or parts where shooting is not required. My D&D players love "defending the castle walls" because by their nature, defenses have plenty of ways to get more ammo to the defenders. 

Session 001 Setup - Automatic (Detention) for the People

This next session needs some modification. 7 battle droids, starting at a distance were no threat to the players. Also, the event description from Invasion of Theed won't make sense. 

The players will still be doing a prison break as per the boxed set events, but I am changing the scenario up in true Star Wars fashion. The characters have two land speeders they stole in Session 0, plus 7 blasters from the droids they fought. They are properly gunned up, but have no other equipment. 

The theoretical bad guy Bergel, is a former member of the Trade Federation and a Neimoidian. The boxed set describes a jail with two Neimoidians out front, watching droids take captives. I am changing this. Bergel has sent two representative Neimoidians to get the rioters out of prison. "For the People," they say. The droids can't process the thought and call for instructions. 

Vidda, a city representative shows up to also represent "the People". Vidda is being followed by a rioter, Manro who is also claiming represent "the People". Since all four of these people are unarmed and acting rationally, the droids want to hand over the rioters, but can't figure out who should get them. 

The droids are baffled. Vidda should have control of the droids as a representative of the Republic, but Manro and the Neimoidians actions have confused them. These citizens are unarmed, so the droids have broken into two groups, a pair with holstered weapons arguing with the sentients and four battle ready droids guarding the parameter. The droids are trying to figure out who is really in charge and who needs to be arrested, which is flummoxing every living being. The droids plan on arresting two or more people then hand all of the detained people over to the last sentient. 

That illogical path is par for the course when it comes to battle droids. 

The characters will roll in on this mess directly from their last encounter and tip the scale from confusion to gunfire, in typical Star Wars fashion. 

Here is the starting map. 

On the far side of the map are the party's two speeders. On the near side of the map are the droids and sentients. The four droids on the perimeter have cover from 3 columns, while the other two droids are in contact (arguing) with sentients. 

I have left the prisoner tokens off the map as the players can't see them. There is supposed to be weapons cache inside the prison, but I am swapping it out with supplies the party needs. All weapons inside have been taken from the rioters and should be returned to them once they are free. Off board are reinforcements for the droids, plus the cache and supplies have a few surprises for the players if they get inside. 

Obviously, the characters shouldn't come in guns blazing. We'll have to wait and see how they react to this scenario. 

End of Session 0 - Combat

Set up

Session 0 ended in a shootout. The party was ejected from the bar and into a riot on the streets. All sentient and sensible citizens fled when the heavily armed party arrived leaving only droids. Invasion of Theed comes with a great map and tokens. 

The adventure book is broken down into sections describing each encounter, complete with a mini-map to describe how the real map should be configured. In this encounter, droids are advancing and firing on the players. Each square is 2 meters and blasters have a range of 10 squares. Normally, ranges are straight meters.This is the one difference between the Star Wars core book and this boxed set. It's ok. 

Initial party formation.

The characters start off in a boxed in area, at the limits of blaster range. Since the party knows about the riot, they come out the door weapons drawn. They are able to see two speeders and 4 of five droids. Invasion of Theed has wonderful character sheets and rule recaps to assist the new player in running the game. While simplistic, the rule cover everything from movement to cover. The columns and walls block fire and allow a defensive bonus if one hides behind them. 

Lidda starts off on point with her huge blaster rifle. Nonin and Talhana have blaster pistols while Dex and Malta have lighter weapons. The main difference is range. 

In watching the movies and TV shows, the Droids have a rifle like weapon, but they have the same stats as a pistol. Make sense considering their size.  

Round 1 movement

In these basic rules, characters can move 10 SQUARES, not meters and shoot. If a character stays in place or takes a 2 meter step, they can use that move action to shoot twice.  

Because I allowed the players to generate their own characters and select their own equipment, they have some issues with the basic rules. Lidda has a rifle with a range of 40 units. Malta and Dex have a range of 4 and 8, while Talhana, Nonin and the droids have a range of 10. If you are counting squares, know that we goofed up the ranges by using squares for meters. 

Lidda, Nonin and Talhana get the first shots:

Round 2

The party downs two droids and damaged a third. Malta and Dex realize they are out of range, in either meters or squares. Oops. So they don't get to shoot, even though they were planning on it. 

In round two, Dex and Malta freeze. They have cover from Lidda, but Lidda is the droids primary target as she takes a knee and rips off two shots a round. 

More droids fall as the characters chew them up. The droids have a +2 to hit, but don't hit anyone. Again.

The event calls for 2 droids to remain hidden until the characters reach the speeder, but I decide that they investigate the gun fire in round three. Dex and Malta take cover by moving to the column in the middle of the map while everyone else stays in place. 

Round 3

 In round four, everyone gets a shot to devastating effect. 

The adventure book suggested a running battle, but because we weren't careful with ranges, the characters wiped the floor with the droids. Very often, it came down to having 2 shots per round and no movement vs. move then shoot. 

I will keep this in mind for the next encounter and change the event accordingly. 

This whole event was supposed to be in session 1, but it was over in just about 10 minutes, which is far shorter than it took to write this post. I will streamline my photos in the next post. For this first post on combat and movement, I think the maps and tokens were the star of the recap. I won't be posting a round by round synopsis in the future. 

Star Wars Session 0 - A Comedy of Characters

This session was a rehash of the Battle of Theed boxed set. The individual scenarios will stay the same, but the background, leading stories and locations have been changed to a different planet. We'll see how that works. 

The Party is a classic five man band, held together by camaraderie as opposed to being thrown together in typical Star Wars fashion. Their friendships started by a mistake. A young Rodian scoundrel, Malta had a passion for history and drive to be a Jedi Knight, like her storybooks. An oddball, to be sure, but she rapidly became friends with a human Fringer name Dex and his force adept associate Nonin. Nonin is an insightful Devarnian, who tends to blend intelligence with his force powers. He uses these abilities to keep his best friend, Corporal Lidda out of trouble, or at least jail. He also is able to score good day jobs through his charm and Dex's contacts at the bar. Corporal Lidda is a Twi'lek soldier of dubious wisdom. She is a hot head and tends to take offence at anything and everything, which explains her severance from the military. The team does their best to keep her out of trouble. 

The final character has just met the group within the last year or so. Talhana, a Zabrak force adept, has suffered the same misconception that outsiders have with the group. She believed Malta was a powerful force adept leading a band of force users, rather than scoundrel storyteller. In fact, she has only recently discovered that Nonin has any ability to use the force. 

Talhana

The gang is boarding in the apartments over the bar. Exactly how many apartments they have is unclear as Lidda and Dex are co-supervisors and caretakers of the upper floors. They seem to have between 2 or 4 rooms and access to every empty apartment, but often share space to save money or stay out of trouble. Nonin and Talhana take day jobs whenever they can, leaving Malta as the only character without a job. She does have money and the gang believes that she is an accomplished pickpocket but has yet to catch her doing it. As a group, they tend to pool their resources to keep Malta out of their pockets. Malta is often the primary contributor to the gangs fund pool, much to everyone's chagrin. 

Despite all of confusion, the team generally gets along just fine with each other. It's other people, with that same misconception that give the gang trouble. As a result of session zero, they've been fired and kicked out of the bar and apartments. 

As far as equipment goes, no one has armor and everyone has a blaster. Dex has a sporting pistol, Malta has a holdout pistol, while Talhana and Nonin have regular pistols. Lidda, the fiery one, has a blaster rifle and a heavy blaster pistol. The gang is not all about melee weapons but has a variety of axes, knives and clubs or prybars. Lidda has one of each, because why wouldn't she? 

Session 0 - Young Bargel Plays It Safe (SW - WotC)

The setting of this adventure is the planet Tankeren, a far flung planet slightly more popular and populous than Tatooine. It is a temperate world where no sentient life evolved. The citizens of the planet are a wide ranging collection of species that arrived in waves. The planet has been inhabited for thousands of years by this motley crew. Tankern is an agrarian world and IS fairly tribal in nature. Most communities are like Mos Pelgo on Tatoonine, except on a larger scale. 

Tankern was a member of the Republic, but they often forgot that fact due to their local-looking, tribal nature. When the Viceroy Bargel of the Trade Federation arrived, not much changed. 

Viceroy Bargel was directed to take the planet then set up a base for the Separatist forces. The Tankerns didn't care. After "conquering the planet", which involved watching his droids enter every city to little or no notice, Bargel's Base was built. No one complained when he actually named it "Bargel's Base" and declared the surrounding city "Bargel Prime". 

Then everything went wrong. He was ordered to stand his army down as the Clone Wars ended. Ever the diplomat, Bargel declare a holiday: "Separatist Day" while ordering his droid army back to base. Over the next decade or so, the Viceroy hatched a plan to take over the planet's economy for his own purposes. 

It is now 5 years before the Battle of Yavin. 

A local republic has sprung up on Tankeren and Bargel's droid army has been largely shifted his Lucrehulk-class battleship in orbit. The machines have been replaced with flesh and blood assets, mostly from the skilled trades and business community. Bargel has nary a warrior in his outfit, save a small group of thugs, a modest security network and bodyguards. 

The Republic of Tankeren has control of a good many of the Trade Federation's droids as a police force. They hardly do anything at all. Tankeren is not without conflict but the conflicts are limited to tribal skirmishes which rarely end in bloodshed. Such things are beyond the ken of the droid army and few arrests are made. Most of the citizens are farmers, well armed farmers, but still farmers. They escaped the fall of the Republic, the Clone Wars and only heard vague stories of Jedi and Order 66. There is some disquiet at the rise of the Empire, but they have yet to encounter any Imperial Forces. 

The former Viceroy, has been converting his Lucrehulk-class battleship back into a trade vessel. It is a hub of global trade for the planet, specializing trading in the gobi fruit, a nutritious staple of the Tankeren diet. He hopes that it will find it's way to other systems as an exotic good. Bargel has almost entirely divested himself of his army and his relationships with the Trade Federation. His former warship is a sitting duck for Imperial Forces or anyone else who means to take the planet. Bargel has cultivated this situation, building several space and ground stations to take it's place. He hopes that the sacrificial offering of his ship will appease anyone who drops in to bomb the planet. 

Empire, Rebels, Tankerians, whoever, can have the planet. He just wants to be their grocer, middle man and wholesaler. That's much safer than taking a stand against anyone. 

In the introductory session in this campaign, the players are in The Capital city of Tankeren. The planetary Republic has just voted on changing the name of the base and capital from Bargel Prime and Bargel's Base to something else. They just can't decide on what. For now, it is just The Capital. Since Bargel plans to retire safely, he has been lining the pockets of electors to push them into making his name disappear. Not completely, he doesn't want a mystery to attract attention. Just low key would be nice. Bargel Prime and Bargel's Base were fine in his youth, but now is the time for a new name so he can slip into his planned role as a historical footnote as a little known fruit seller in a galactic empire.  

Unfortunately, the vote didn't end well. Conflicting proposals over a new name sparked city wide riots and general strike in The Capital. Bargel is dismayed to find his droids being deployed to the surface by the city's leadership. He isn't sure what caused it, fires, looting or the strike, but all world wide communications are down. He cursed the day he set up the network with the Capital as the data hub. 

Bargel is in the dark, as much as the characters are. 

After an egregious faux pas suggesting the name "Danker" for The Capital, the barkeep has kicked party out on the street. The rioters were mixing it up with the droid's police action. While Jedi are legendary creatures on Tankeren, force adepts are not. Two of the party's members are recognized as being One with The Force, so the rioters have faded back so these two and their friends can use their witchy ways on the droids. 

All the party needs to do is steal a speeder or ship and get out of this mess...