How does using Throwing Daggers interact with the Ammo system?
The throwing dagger does not have the "ammo" tag. However, it is still thrown using Volley, which has a risk of expending additional ammo.
Volley covers the entire act of drawing, aiming, and firing a ranged weapon or throwing a thrown weapon. The advantage to using a ranged weapon over melee is that the attacker is less likely to be attacked back. Of course they do have to worry about ammunition and getting a clear shot though.
Expending additional ammo is one of the main possible disadvantages of making a ranged attack using Volley, and it is one of the choices on a partial success.
- You have to take several shots, reducing your ammo by one.
How does using such a dagger interact with the partial success option of expending additional ammo? Can this option simply not be selected? Does it result in the dagger being permanently (or semi-permanently) lost?
Are daggers counted as single weapons, like a sword or axe, or as ammo, like a quiver of arrows? Daggers are typically a very versatile weapon in most RPGs (as they are in real life), and often are used in both possible ways: some people carry around a single dagger, throw it while needed, and then retrieve it after the battle, while others might carry a huge bandolier full of a dozen daggers and treat them as expendable ammunition (and perhaps still try to retrieve them later).
The intention of the ammo system in DW seems designed to cover post-battle ammo retrieval, at the cost of being somewhat abstract, by never revealing exactly how much ammo you have left (until you're completely out) and assuming that retrieval is automatic and "behind the scenes". On the other hand, it feels a bit more awkward to be unsure of exactly how many daggers you have compared to arrows – perhaps because they can also function as melee weapons, which tend to be kept track of individually. If someone buys a throwing dagger, do you tell them that they "actually bought somewhere between one and infinity daggers"? A throwing dagger seems to be in that awkward space between being a melee weapon and being an expendable ranged weapon.
Best Answer
Actually, throwable weapons are dealt with using their own tag : Thrown.
(from the Equipment chapter, under Weapon Tags)
So, technically, unless the weapon has the Thrown tag, it cannot be thrown; your GM may rule it has the tag if it simply makes sense (eg. a well-balanced knife) or add a cost to it ("Wanna throw your bastard sword? Hmmm sure, but if you miss the blade might break after hitting the stone wall - or even hurt one of your buddies. What do you do?"), in the spirit of "Offer an opportunity, with or without cost" move.
See @BlackVegetable's answer about a related class move.