I didn't want to put all this in one post since it was already getting too long, and there where different ideas involved.
I am in a homebrew campaign that uses pathfinder rules, but takes aspects from d20 modern, such as guns. Our characters have little to no ammo in this post apocalyptic campaign. This isn't just non magic, this is non magic almost nothing campaign. Think fallout, Madmax, Roadwarrior, Fist of the Northstar, borderlands, the bombs had fallen and fell along time ago, and there is only scape left.
However, the enemies have unlimited ammo. So they are free to do nice feats like rapid shot, burst fire, auto fire, auto fire rapid shot. Which if we did would waste so much ammo. When we loot them, they mysteriously have 1-3 bullets left. If we ever get the chance to loot then. Some how We never are given enough time. One example was after rescuing a few captives from raiders, we literally had no time to run away from the base while reinforcements came for them. An army of them no less, the DM gave the alternative of, staying here meant dealing with raiders in the 100s with starving "among other things" captives.
So ammunition is so limited to us that, until last campaign, non of us has a full clip of ammo. I remember taking 4 shots on a random human scavenger "who said I had a real pretty mouth" and missing on 3 of them. All the rolls where above an 11. so I was getting around 16-19, defender always wins.......
He wanted us to feel the scarcity of the waste lands. So food is constantly a problem, as well as having no way of getting new or better times. You can pick up random junk in the waste land, and try to trade it. Unfortunately, none of the npcs we try to trade with ever have anything useful to trade for a kitchknife, a tireiron, except for maybe food. EXCEPT NOT EVEN THAT WHEN THE DM THINKS WE MIGHT GET TOO MUCH FOOD. Bullets? it wasn't until last campaign I was able to trade a sub-machine gun for 7 bullets. The store owner "DM" then said its kind of redundant to trade bullets for a gun, but then he would have no bullets.......
Basically the most useful thing we trade for is drugs. Drugs give damage reduction and stat increases, with the only negative of becoming addictive, which he rolls a chance dice to see if we become addictive. Which means we have to buy more drugs.... At least that's consistent.
While I love the concept it doesn't sound like it's being executed in a way that I would be able to play.
Consistency and logic are too important to me for the GM to be fudging so much.
If a game isn't fun, don't play. This doesn't sound like that much fun. A little bit to illustrate the daily struggle for life, sure...but what you are describing sounds too much like a PITA to stick around.
That is something we are considering. I talked that over with the other players. We might switch out DMs.
I think that the problem in this case is that the PCs and NPCs are not using the same rules. If the DM is restricting ammunition so the players can "feel the scarcity", then he should also restrict ammunition for the NPCs. You're not "feeling the scarcity" if you're getting 100s of bullets shot AT you, unless of course you're taking on the U.S. Army for some reason.
Sounds like the GM is trying to get you into a "feel the grittiness of the wasteland" mood and taking it 3 steps too far. Like others have said, it sounds like a cool concept being overseen poorly. I think people put into the position of your characters would be more apt to just hang out and keep their heads down rather than grabbing their kitchen knives and going against enemies with machine guns.
I should probably mention that in the last campaign, he did the same setting, its even the same place different characters. The problem with out last characters, is that we where running around with 200 bullets each, and he was pretty mad about that.
The funny thing is, we had "still non magic, but ki technically doesn't count." We had a Monk, a rogue specialist, who was a specialist in sniping "or knife you at close range" so if he did shoot you, it was probably going to hurt a lot. The tech specialist, he min maxed craft out with skill focus, and abused his custom class, so he actually nerfed it. So he never actually needed a gun, and abused the feat frightful presence, it was actually hilarious. A robot gun slinger, and me, who at the time, was the Monk-Psionic-fighter. Lets call it Jedi, its not really a Jedi, but that party called it Jedi :p . That was fun.
So basically, out of the entire party, only 2 people actually consistently used guns. One needed only a handful of bullets, seeing how sniper rifles and sneak attack works so well, and the party made sure to give all the ammo to the machine gun wielding robot. This was also the same time the DM would actually give us full clips and minus the amount they used.
This time around, we all thought we should use guns, that was a mistake.
Although it got the fatuous when last campaign, we finally looted an untouched abandoned military base armory, and found 7 rifles, and 7 beretta. Each gun was loaded with half a clip..... Who the hell loads guns to half a clip.
In addition, we technically needed to give some of the guns to the former captives as well. Is it just me, or do I sense a boss fight coming? Also, NPCs on our sides, may or may not get unlimited ammo.