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Madeiner
2012-03-23, 01:46 PM
Hi there

I am currently organizing a game of All flesh must be eaten. I don't like the standard character sheet so i am making one of my own.

I'd like my players to keep track of ammunition, numbers of magazines left, etc.

I'm looking for some way to represent different guns capacity.
Ideally i would like a "revolver" style image to mark ammo in a revolver, and 15/30 round boxes for other types of weapons.

I can't find anything like this on google, and i'm not sure i can design my own.

Can anyone help me out on this?

Gnoman
2012-03-23, 03:37 PM
Go to a local library an look through some encyclopedias or gun books. There will generally be schematics of magazines and revolver cylinders that you could photocopy.

Jlerpy
2012-03-23, 08:44 PM
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/554422/554422,1276264697,7/stock-photo-revolver-cylinder-54989374.jpg for a revolver.

I must admit, I'm not finding automatic magazine's easy to find cut-aways for, which is what you'd want. It shouldn't be too hard to draw something appropriate though, they're pretty regular shapes.

I think it's a very cool idea. :)

Kuma Kode
2012-03-24, 05:16 AM
You're going to need a lot of pictures, unless you're willing to use one picture to cover multiple maximum capacities. For instance, there are revolvers with more than 6 shots (8 and even 10 exist), and magazines can hold varying amounts depending on their design.

All of that can be solved by simply sticking to what's in the book, but if you have a gun-nut in your group like me, you're going to think of these things.

Also, what if you have more than one revolver? How would that work with the images? Are you going to have each weapon slot on the sheet have a different set of images?

EDIT: Note that I have not actually played AFMBE, but I have done sheet design, and it sucks when you realize something fundamental is missing partway through someone trying to make a character with it.

Madeiner
2012-03-24, 11:33 AM
Thanks for the revolver image! That's probably the hardest one to design.


You're going to need a lot of pictures, unless you're willing to use one picture to cover multiple maximum capacities. For instance, there are revolvers with more than 6 shots (8 and even 10 exist), and magazines can hold varying amounts depending on their design.

All of that can be solved by simply sticking to what's in the book, but if you have a gun-nut in your group like me, you're going to think of these things.

Also, what if you have more than one revolver? How would that work with the images? Are you going to have each weapon slot on the sheet have a different set of images?

EDIT: Note that I have not actually played AFMBE, but I have done sheet design, and it sucks when you realize something fundamental is missing partway through someone trying to make a character with it.

Yeah i thought of this too.

About different ammo capacity, i thought that i could simplify everything and just have all revolvers be 6-shooters.

Pistols are easier. I could make a 10 and 16 bullets mag image; when you get a gun, you delete the bullets over your gun's max capacity and then use and refill the rest.
I would totally remove the ability to have 1 bullet in the chamber, to simplify things.

I think i would prepare a sheet with a revolver or two, two-three pistols, an AR, a shotgun and an hunting rifle, plus a box or two of "general" magazines able to hold as many as 50 bullets.

I don't think any character will ever carry more than those guns, especially being a survival adventure and not being able to buy more.

Darkomn
2012-03-24, 05:25 PM
Unless you're going to be laminating your sheets I would just us dice one for the number of clips/reloads left and one or two for the number of bullets currently in your gun. That why you don't have to worry about constantly erasing and rewriting your sheet.

Tengu_temp
2012-03-24, 07:01 PM
A piece of paper with numbers written on two edges - one of them for bullets in your current clip, another for your number of spare clips. Use paper clips to mark your current ammo status. A third clip can be used to mark the number of bullets in a single clip.

"Clip" doesn't sound like a word anymore.

Siosilvar
2012-03-24, 10:14 PM
A piece of paper with numbers written on two edges - one of them for bullets in your current clip, another for your number of spare clips. Use paper clips to mark your current ammo status. A third clip can be used to mark the number of bullets in a single clip.

"Clip" doesn't sound like a word anymore.

"Magazine" helps avoids confusion with the paper clips and also conveniently avoids RAWR MAGAZINES ARE NOT CLIPS pedantry.1OP, I think you're going to need to strictly limit magazine size. So all bolt-actions will have an 8-round magazine, all revolvers are 6-shot, every pistol has a 12-round mag, and there's no such thing as an extended magazine. I haven't played any AFMBE, so I'm not sure if that works well with the ruleset and detail level.

As for the images, it should be easy enough to find a profile of whatever round you want to represent that weapon class, trace it in the image program of your choice, and duplicate that X times. Note that rifle magazines are probably going to be double-stacked, which would be a problem to represent accurately and clearly. The easiest two solutions are to draw the magazine end-on instead of side-on (so you'd have 30 little circles in a box) or to ignore the double-stack and have really long mags on the sheet.

Jlerpy
2012-03-24, 11:29 PM
I'd say err on the side of standardised guns: all revolvers are 6-shooters, all automatics are 15 (or 17, or whatever, but have either only one option or only a very small number of), all automatic rifles are 30, etc.
Keep the pool of available magazines small so you only need a small variety of sheets. Print up a bunch of copies of each and when someone finds a magazine, hand them a copy of that magazine. When they empty it, tear and toss the copy. Yes, it's a teeny bit eco-irresponsible, but it's quick, it's handy and it gives a real sense that you've used up a resource you may well not get back when you do it.

1 in the chamber is almost certainly too much to worry about.

Autolykos
2012-03-25, 04:42 AM
Our Shadowrun sheets just had a long empty space next to each weapon's stats to place tally marks in for every shot fired. If your group routinely changes magazines before they're empty, doing it on a separate piece of paper and drawing a box around the half-empty magazine might be the better solution (saves room on the character sheet). Should be easier and faster to handle than dice-based solutions or writing down numbers.
I strongly advise against writing on pictographs you printed out (especially if they're in color and/or have ink in the spots you're supposed to write in), unless you laminate the sheets first. Otherwise you'll have to print lots of new sheets which will get expensive very quickly.

EDIT: Another solution would be taking a 30cm ruler (don't know about your place, but that's the standard size in Germany) and a paper clip to represent your magazine. Once you chamber the first round, place the paper clip at the first space between the markings and move it down when you shoot. Marking off your magazine capacity with a second (differently colored) paper clip is also an option. If you're in the US, I don't know how easy it is to find rulers with metric markings. A 30" ruler might be a little unwieldy.
For nicer optics, you could just print out a bunch of bullets in 1cm spacings and wrap/glue it around your ruler.

nedz
2012-03-25, 05:26 AM
Well the standard ruler in the UK has 12 inches on one edge and 30 cm on the other.

Sticking with the printed sheet concept - just use a counter of some kind to move it along a scale. For a revolver you would need to number the chambers or something, or perhaps have a counter for each shell. Bluetack can be used to stop the counters being knocked.

The gold plated solution would be to write an android app. You could probably do this fairly easily with a spreadsheet. This is possibly more work than you are looking for however.

Kuma Kode
2012-03-25, 05:26 AM
I've personally always used a scratch sheet of paper for HP, ammo, Sanity, whatever. Just easier to tally or scratch-out my previous HP and write my new HP. Sheets get mangled too quickly if you encourage erasing.

You could just do a sheet with a bunch of boxes so the player can just section them off into whatever they desire. That could help them if they have multiple magazines for their gun (which they should, no one hand-loads a Glock in the middle of combat), and fits pretty much any capacity. Group them by fives for easy counting but leave enough space in-between to group them with a box.

If that helps at all.