Cool. Glad to know the outcome was never in doubt...
Which is my objection to trash fights. If the only question about the fight is "how many resources will I consume while winning it", I might as well replace it with a wandering damage roll.
1) PC's are not the player and players are not the PC's: GM should provide some input on what players should do based on the PC's backgrounds. If the player decides not to do something it is the players duty to work with the issue in question. Note: players are people and people make mistakes so in general go easy on them but having said that I have played with and talked to others in which a player simply takes advantage of this good will to the detriment of the rest of the group.,
2) Gaming Styles IMHO play a huge part of peoples play experience.
3) GM's need to know how things work in the basic game world and be prepared for mistakes: Quite simply most 12 year old GM's if running a modern game are not quantum physicist, Special Operators, renowned business people, pilots or pro sports athletes; so mistakes will be made when the GM is playing those parts and when he advises the players on playing those parts. So cut the GM some slack and the GM should also cut the players some slack when they rp their PC (note this is one area I think is different in acting type of RPGing vs casual rpging as acting rpging to me says you are required to learn what your character would know and behave accordingly all of the time).
4) I want to provide a situation where players use X% of resources: Random dice rolls are hard to predict thus makes this hard to do, also if you know how much resources the PC's have going into an encounter an experienced GM may have the skill to predict how much their group would use (Note groups differ) and plan better (Note this makes authors and writers jobs often harder).
A side note: one of the most memorable games for me was a game in which a NPC killed more enemies then the PC's did by fumbling the first 5 rounds and the PC's purposefully left him for last as he was essentially on their side of the battle (note different game system). IMHO this situation in which the GM rolls poorly can happen at any time and dramatically shift how the encounter player as well as the opposites in which the enemies or the player roll very well and shift how the encounter plays.
At the end of the day, it's a game. It's about what makes it fun. That's literally everything about it.
Sometimes, tracking consumables can be fun. Well, not directly, but the effects it produces. I'm running a campaign in Icewind Dale. The environment is such a factor that you could almost consider it a co-BBEG. The party has to decide whether they want to break into their rations (which they may need later, or at the very least cost more) or risk being seen by a passing hostile creature or ten. They have meaningful decisions to make brought on by tracking food, etc. It matters how they travel across the tundra and the glacier, because some routes will have more food to sustain them...but also more predators hoping to use that food as bait. The atmosphere that brings is worth the hassle.
Other times, it's just a drag. When food is plentiful, when resources are easy to obtain...tracking is pointless drudgery. "Oh, right we don't have to hunt tonight because we rolled so high on foraging yesterday, we still have a feast!" or "Phew, lucky we rolled a success, because for the first time on our month long journey, we might have had to actually eat a ration tonight!" or "Hmmm I used quite a few arrows this time, I only 14 left". You're rolling, keeping track of things...for the sake of it.
If it suits the setting and the atmosphere I want, I'll track them. That involves a lot of effort in other areas, juggling sources, pushing them along certain routes that maintain the difficulty at the right level etc. Or I'll just have them track during certain periods when appropriate - when they're no longer in a plentiful area, I'll announce it and then have them track supplies. Otherwise, there's no point. I'd rather that energy be directed towards the meat of the game. No one is going to starve to death while surrounded by lush forests with plentiful game and forage and farms full of goods.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Sometimes, tracking consumables can be fun. Well, not directly, but the effects it produces. (Snip)
Other times, it's just a drag. When food is plentiful, when resources are easy to obtain...tracking is pointless drudgery. "Oh, right we don't have to hunt tonight because we rolled so high on foraging yesterday, we still have a feast!" or "Phew, lucky we rolled a success, because for the first time on our month long journey, we might have had to actually eat a ration tonight!" or "Hmmm I used quite a few arrows this time, I only 14 left". You're rolling, keeping track of things...for the sake of it.
If it suits the setting and the atmosphere I want, I'll track them. That involves a lot of effort in other areas, juggling sources, pushing them along certain routes that maintain the difficulty at the right level etc. Or I'll just have them track during certain periods when appropriate - when they're no longer in a plentiful area, I'll announce it and then have them track supplies. Otherwise, there's no point. I'd rather that energy be directed towards the meat of the game. No one is going to starve to death while surrounded by lush forests with plentiful game and forage and farms full of goods.
Lots of well expressed thoughts in this thread. This one captures how I feel. The way the books suggest you play, doesn't usually lend itself to the tracking being useful or interesting. (Edit: survival is super easy, nothing weighs anything or costs anything, weather is never a real problem, and half the races in the game don't even eat or sleep anymore.) So people skip it. If you're playing in a different way, you might want to use it. I want to use it. But so many players have been conditioned to see it as tedious on its own merits, that I'm basically the only person I know who feels that way. To the point where we're about to launch a stone age campaign, and I expect there to be zero resource scarcity whatsoever.
"We're heroes; we should have everything we need to be heroic."
Says who?
I hate when the world treats me like a Destined Hero everyone admires and respects and expects to Save The Day. The only reason the world should treat you like a hero is if you've already proven yourself to be one. I don't even like when the DM treats the party like Destined Heroes. Destined Heroes are boring. Nothing robs a story of impact, meaning, and satisfaction like someone saying "your victory was inevitable, for it was foretold a thousand years ago by the Prophets of Weal".
Cool. Glad to know the outcome was never in doubt and nothing I did mattered for spit because it was my Destiny to be a Hero. Heroism is something the PCs should have to exert themselves to the utmost to earn, not a default assumption from the start. Destined Heroes can get away with always having exactly what they need to do whatever they like; those of us in the muck and dirt handling the work Destined Heroes are too important to deal with are gonna stock up and make sure we have what we need to do what we can. Because we can't just produce a climber's kit or a block and tackle or a bag of bearings or whatever else we need out of HeroSpace, whether we ever actually obtained it or not. That's one of those things that will just kill a game outright for me.
I agree with a lot here.
While I am in the camp that believes the PC's are heroes and exceptional and are the whole point of the game, that doesn't mean things are handed out on a silver platter to win either. The struggle however, can and should vary a bit. But if there isn't some kind of challenge, we don't need the game or dice. The nature of the challenge is the important part, and in some ways be fun. If the only challenge is ammo tracking or rations that's a problem, because that's not really a challenge in my opinion in most games.
The concept you wrote "your victory was inevitable, for it was foretold a thousand years ago by the Prophets of Weal" is indeed unsatisfying. I prefer it more in the Draconic Prophecy style of "The Prophets of Weal say you are the only ones that might be able to secure victory. Do nothing or fail, and the world passes unto darkness." The narrative is setup, now play. What? you don't have what you need? Then go get it.
And sometimes...failure can lead to interesting things too. Phoenix's rising from the ashes with even more challenges due to setbacks can be fun too.
"We're heroes; we should have everything we need to be heroic."
Says who?
You, apparently? I don't see anyone actually arguing for that. The question is not whether it's possible to be without your resources, the question is when it's worth bothering to track.
If you're not going to bother tracking consumables or supplies, why bother tracking inventory at all? Inventory is just a more highly abstracted version of supply, after all. If someone is going to assume that the characters never suffer from supply shortages of any sort, why wouldn't they also assume the characters would acquire whatever supplies they need without bothering to track or check it? Why bother asking the characters how they intend to carry a dozen tons of dragon hoard back to town? That's not Heroic at all, so why bother with it?
Why bother with anything except armor, weapon, and any applicable magic items? Heck, why bother with those? Just calculate the most effective damage die a character could reasonably bring to bear and let them call it whatever they want. Same with AC - figure out the best AC a character could reasonably have and just let them have it. Don't bother with magic items, either - just rig up custom feats for various loot instead and ignore inventory/items/equipment altogether. Would sure save a lot of time, hm? Would let people turn 'Signature Items' into character powers instead, and prevent the DM from taking away their cool thing. The paladin's fiery sword isn't an item that can be lost or stolen - or loaned to an ally - it's a special power the paladin alone has, just like his smites or his auras.
Go ahead and ask your players who hate tracking supply and logistics whether they'd be down for that style of game. I'm betting the answer would be an eager, unreserved "absolutely!" That line is not nearly so blind-idiot obvious as a lot of people think it is.
Go ahead and ask your players who hate tracking supply and logistics whether they'd be down for that style of game. I'm betting the answer would be an eager, unreserved "absolutely!" That line is not nearly so blind-idiot obvious as a lot of people think it is.
How much are you going to put down? I've got two players who don't want to track things like rations, and this will be a really nice earner for me, all I gotta do is ask the question. I already know the answer that they'll give.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
If you're not going to bother tracking consumables or supplies, why bother tracking inventory at all?
Much of the time I don't? It really depends on where the PCs are. In general I'm going to assume "Your PCs have some level of competence, so I'm going to assume they have the stuff implied by their competence", possibly with something like a Survival check for edge cases. On the other hand, if it's weird, they don't have it unless they actually went to the effort. For example, suppose you want to have a chest with a lock. If you're at home in a city, you probably either have one or can find one for cost, so meh. If you're on the road, you probably don't.
Yurei's right - part of why 5e has been so successful is that it appeals not only to simulationists and folks who want to truly immerse themselves in the mundane problems as well as the fantastical ones, but also to board game enthusiasts and fans of imaginative spectacle. 4e was too narrowly directed at the latter group, earlier editions arguably were too narrowly directed at the former. What we have here is a functional middle ground on which everyone can enjoy parts of it, and most people aren't so put off by the parts they dislike that they quit. That's good.
It's not perfect, but what is? Tamper at your own risk, as ever. But homebrew is fun and encouraged. That's basically the ethos of the game: the only way to find out is to roll those dice.
I have my opinions but I don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm in the majority or in the middle. Sometimes I do make that mistake politically. Echo chambers are real and significant. They're not just for politics though. Most gamers don't post. Most gamers don't even lurk.
If you're not going to bother tracking consumables or supplies, why bother tracking inventory at all? Inventory is just a more highly abstracted version of supply, after all. If someone is going to assume that the characters never suffer from supply shortages of any sort, why wouldn't they also assume the characters would acquire whatever supplies they need without bothering to track or check it? Why bother asking the characters how they intend to carry a dozen tons of dragon hoard back to town? That's not Heroic at all, so why bother with it?
Why bother with anything except armor, weapon, and any applicable magic items? Heck, why bother with those? Just calculate the most effective damage die a character could reasonably bring to bear and let them call it whatever they want. Same with AC - figure out the best AC a character could reasonably have and just let them have it. Don't bother with magic items, either - just rig up custom feats for various loot instead and ignore inventory/items/equipment altogether. Would sure save a lot of time, hm? Would let people turn 'Signature Items' into character powers instead, and prevent the DM from taking away their cool thing. The paladin's fiery sword isn't an item that can be lost or stolen - or loaned to an ally - it's a special power the paladin alone has, just like his smites or his auras.
Go ahead and ask your players who hate tracking supply and logistics whether they'd be down for that style of game. I'm betting the answer would be an eager, unreserved "absolutely!" That line is not nearly so blind-idiot obvious as a lot of people think it is.
I am glad I packed some crampons in my adventurer’s kit, because that is one slippery slope.
Your every post is repeating the same nonsensical argument - that the only proper way to play is to track everything, even the stuff that is not going to be relevant (or fun) to track 99.99% of the time. The idea that a DM might decide some things are worth tracking (crampons) while others are not (arrows) inexplicably eludes you. At this point, I honestly cannot tell if your obstinance is from a desire to create drama where there does not need to be any or if you legitimately cannot understand that not all items are created equal, and that, like most things in D&D, there is a middle ground between “track everything” and “track nothing.”
Surely you can see there is a substantive difference between “track something that you might run out of in .01% of cases, but have to track dozens upon dozens of times per session” and “track something that you might run into in 10% of cases, and can write on your character sheet and not need to do anything to until you actually use it”?
Of course I can. I can also see the hypocrisy inherent in the idea "You're a total bleeding idiot if you bother tracking things like arrows/bullets/rations/potions, and a total bleeding idiot if you don't bother tracking anything else." Is one tracking their equipment or is one not?
My artificer has a special rifle. She needs to hand-craft ammunition for it; each round costs between two to five gold pieces to create. Not only do I track exactly how much ammunition I have for that rifle, I track where that ammunition is. The gun keeps bulk ammo storage in a dimensional pocket in its stock because it's a very fancy rifle, but I can only fire from the breach or the five shell loops on the side of the stock. Once I've fired those six rounds, it takes my action to retrieve five fresh rounds and restock those belt loops. I know exactly how many pistol rounds Star has (currently zero) and exactly how many rounds she has for the blunderbus a pirate captain chucked at her head (currently twenty-six). Got twenty-three rounds left for that rifle, honestly gonna need to secure a heap more before the team sets out. I currently have ten different customized containers on her sheet, over and above the five default categories - her Bag of Holding, her defender's backpack, her four assorted personal pouches, her battle belt, her Belt Locker, the riflestock loops on her gun, and a chestful of stuff she owns but has currently left back home.
If someone were to ask me what the hell was wrong with me and how many hours of my life I'd wasted on all that? If they asked me how many hours of game time I wasted every fight tracking how much shot I've got left? The answer would be "not a waste at all, it was splendid fun and super helpful" and "zero". I knock a shot off my sheet whenever I fire a weapon while the DM is describing the impact (or lack thereof) of the shot, it's just something I do myself as an ordinary part of resolving an attack. The DM doesn't have to tell me to do it; I know full bloody well I ain't fishing the half-slagged chunk of metal out of whatever it hits and stuffing it back in the chamber. And when the DM needs to know where my shit's at because Something Happened and he needs to adjudicate it, I can answer confidently in seconds instead of spending fifteen minutes trying to retroactively figure it out.
Am I, generally, a more advanced player than The Aggregate Average New Guy? Of course. But it's also not that blurdy hard. Knock off ammo when you shoot it. Buy more the next time you can, and/or have a plan for when your count hits zero. Knock off rations whenever you finish a long rest, unless somebody has a way to settle the matter another way. There. Done. Consumables tracked. No real hassle at all.
I want my player to use 60%-80% of abilities and consumables on encounter X, question: How programed is you group? How are you the GM going to force your players to use abilities and consumables? IMHO a GM saying they want a group to use XX% of something and saying how do I force them to use XX% of something is essentially the same if not a very narrow line between the two. If you say that having a unique key to open something means you have to use it to get somewhere is different to me then saying at the end of the adventuring day I want the group to have used the following skills, abilities, spells and consumables followed by a list for the group, class and each player. I also can see why someone would say the group used XX% of things thus the encounter was hard but in general that does not mean every group would use that amount or even a fraction of that amount.
I have seen variations of the original question on various forum boards since around 2008 and in a couple of games in alpha/beta development. The issue I have is often with the premise of said games being the player acting a part vs a player having free will to do what they want when they want. In simple terms a acting game might have 3 options presented every round to what a player can/would do vs in a free form game the player does what they think the PC would do.
Tracking Consumables in games I have played in often adds more then it subtracts but I agree that is not for everyone just like every game and or module is for everyone or every group. And the level of tracking can vastly vary from group to group and even, from game night to game night or from adventure to adventure.
The issue isn't "I want Player Y to use X power and 15% of Z consumable in this fight". That level of micromanagement is stifling and also impossible. What I'm trying to foster is the idea that challenge extends beyond just the one immediate fight.
Pantagruel has stated there's no reason to engage in irrelevant fights with a fixed outcome, i.e. trash encounters the party's effectively guaranteed to win. Okay. Cool. Here's the thing - how many of those encounters is the party willing to chew through before getting to 'Plot Relevant' stuff? Are they going to loudly blunder their way through enemy territory and attract every do-nothing minion in a five-mile radius, get hit with ten or fifteen "trash" encounters before getting to the BBEG? Are they going to get bled nearly dry blowing resources heedlessly on chumps and have nothing left for the Big Stuff? Or are they going to try and make smarter decisions, cover their tracks, move quietly and with purpose? Avoid fights they don't need to fight, and fight the ones they can't get clear of tight and efficient without expending resources?
Are they going to be completely spent before they catch a whiff of the BBEG and have to retreat, tails between their legs, to try and be less dumb/unlucky next time? Or are they gonna have enough left in the tank to take their shot?
Wouldn't it be nice if the answer to that question was uncertain? That sure sounds like a more engaging game than "You walk up to the haunted woods in the castle and pound on the Evil Princess' door, demanding she come out and accept your challenge to single combat with all seven of you at once".
Am I, generally, a more advanced player than The Aggregate Average New Guy? Of course. But it's also not that blurdy hard. Knock off ammo when you shoot it. Buy more the next time you can, and/or have a plan for when your count hits zero. Knock off rations whenever you finish a long rest, unless somebody has a way to settle the matter another way. There. Done. Consumables tracked. No real hassle at all.
[REDACTED]
So, I will leave with one final thought: No one is saying it is hard to track your inventory--just that the probative value of tracking some things is insufficient to offset how much of a chore players find it to be. That is not hypocritical--it is just choosing to ignore something that does not add to the game. One could justify it fairly easily with a bit of imagination ("I find more arrows laying about than I shoot off, so my quiver is always full; but I don't find crampons just sitting about, so that has to be specifically search for"), so claims that it is "hypocritical" are unimaginative at best, gatekeeping at worst.
Notes: Please take personal debate to Private Message
Of course I can. I can also see the hypocrisy inherent in the idea "You're a total bleeding idiot if you bother tracking things like arrows/bullets/rations/potions, and a total bleeding idiot if you don't bother tracking anything else." Is one tracking their equipment or is one not?
There's nothing like putting up straw men to make a bad argument look better. I have nothing against players who want to track every last bit of gear and every copper piece, I'm just not one of them, nor as far as I can tell is anyone else in my gaming group. I'll track gear when it seems important.
If you're not going to bother tracking consumables or supplies, why bother tracking inventory at all? Inventory is just a more highly abstracted version of supply, after all. If someone is going to assume that the characters never suffer from supply shortages of any sort, why wouldn't they also assume the characters would acquire whatever supplies they need without bothering to track or check it? Why bother asking the characters how they intend to carry a dozen tons of dragon hoard back to town? That's not Heroic at all, so why bother with it?
Why bother with anything except armor, weapon, and any applicable magic items? Heck, why bother with those? Just calculate the most effective damage die a character could reasonably bring to bear and let them call it whatever they want. Same with AC - figure out the best AC a character could reasonably have and just let them have it. Don't bother with magic items, either - just rig up custom feats for various loot instead and ignore inventory/items/equipment altogether. Would sure save a lot of time, hm? Would let people turn 'Signature Items' into character powers instead, and prevent the DM from taking away their cool thing. The paladin's fiery sword isn't an item that can be lost or stolen - or loaned to an ally - it's a special power the paladin alone has, just like his smites or his auras.
Go ahead and ask your players who hate tracking supply and logistics whether they'd be down for that style of game. I'm betting the answer would be an eager, unreserved "absolutely!" That line is not nearly so blind-idiot obvious as a lot of people think it is.
I've played games that do that exactly and they're great fun. D&D could work like that, I suppose, but a little bit of itemization is actually fun for me in D&D. I do rather like keeping track of my magical gear and finding creative ways to use it. I used to track stuff like ball bearings and caltrops, but after level, I dunno, 5 or so, those items became pretty irrelevant. This is a sliding scale and one's preferences can be anywhere along the scale without needing to go all the way to one end or another.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Pantagruel has stated there's no reason to engage in irrelevant fights with a fixed outcome, i.e. trash encounters the party's effectively guaranteed to win. Okay. Cool. Here's the thing - how many of those encounters is the party willing to chew through before getting to 'Plot Relevant' stuff? Are they going to loudly blunder their way through enemy territory and attract every do-nothing minion in a five-mile radius, get hit with ten or fifteen "trash" encounters before getting to the BBEG?
(a) those aren't plot-irrelevant fights (if you're trying to sneak through enemy territory and mess up, I'll absolutely bleed the party of resources, though depending on the situation I might just have a couple rolls and people can mark off spells and hit points), and (b) if they do that they aren't going to get a large number of small encounters, the bad guys are going to wait for reinforcements and they'll get hit by one overwhelming encounter.
That was not the intent of my statement, though I see how it can be taken that way. The intent was simply for me to acknowledge that I am not The New Player. I've been gaming my entire life, I understand the tropes and language of gaming. I have a stronger grasp of gamist mechanics and systems and I can keep more rules in my head than many newer people who have never gamed before and are having trouble understanding the language of gaming. Does that make me "better" than anyone else? No. It does make me more mechanically proficient and that a level of cognitive load other players find unpleasant and stressful, I often don't even feel. The specific anecdote was intended to serve as a demonstration that no, tracking ammunition and other consumables is not always, 100%, an Absolutely Terrible Idea Forever and a guaranteed way to turn one's players off of one's game.
Many people have never bothered tracking consumables. They hear from the Internet that only neckbeard basement dwellers with no partner and who've never touched grass pull that sweaty minutiae junk, and they just assume it's a bunch of boring not-game and toss it from the get-go. When faced with challenges that should require preparation and tools, the DM just calls for a random ability check and lets the party get away with murder. That two hundred-foot waterfall cliff from the previous thread? A lot of players would just say "Okay, I climb down" and be surprised, annoyed, or even angry when the DM either assigned an incredibly stiff Athletics DC to free-hand your way down a two hundred foot water-soaked thundering waterfall, or even just say outright that a freehand climb is not possible.
"But I'm proficient in Athletics!" the player snarls.
"Yes, which means you have the training and experience necessary to know that attempting this climb without a single tool or mechanical aid is a great way to end up paste at the bottom" the DM responds.
People don't even try to do anything else, and it frustrates me tremendously. There's so many cool little tales to be told out there if people would just stop trying to blow them off and bumrush the BBEG as fast as humanly possible.
In my experience, a group of players will have fun when they are challenged and emerge on the other side victorious (hopefully!)
There are many ways of creating challenges for a party, and in my opinion, logistics is an essential one. Not so much when they are in the comfortable inn, or a base that is fully stocked and well equipped - but those moments where you are away from those comfort zones, your choice of what to bring will matter.
I am currently going through Tomb of Annihilation with a group, and without logistics, a large part of the adventure would equate to a nice leisurely stroll in the park, when you eventually stumble upon and interesting feature. Well rested, and fully equipped, you blaze through those points of interest with little challenge. Or, - after days of dragging yourself through the dense jungle, fighting bugs, disease, rotting rations (shouldn't have bought those cheap ones), the group emerge exhausted into a clearing to finally look upon the old temple.
Icewind Dale will be a similar environmentally focused module that woudl really struggle to be entertaining if you wiped out logistics from it.
Exhaustion is an incredible powerful tool to challenge characters - but in order for there to be some buy-in to that, challenges needs to be faced, and they would often be linked to a lack of rest, food, or water.
The other part of logistics is the satisfaction a player will get from getting creative with that backpack full of bars of soap, ball bearings, ropes etc. I tend to reward players for that kind of ingenuity, knowing that they planned a bit ahead and are now problem solving with basic items. Of course at some point, they likely end up with a bag of holding or similar that helps fix the encumbrance issues, and enable them to bring much more gear to cover eventualities - but even at this stage, I check their inventory to see what they have to work with. Not every item purchased needs to be RP'ed - simply saying - you spend an afternoon in town restocking supplies at regular list prices for gear allow the players to update their sheets.
So my main points are really:
1) Logistics is an important part of a DM's toolbox to present challenges to a party. By handwaving or removing it, I do believe that DM's are doing themselves a disservice (but the choice is totally yours of course).
2) It has literally NEVER been easier to track inventory than here on ddb. It literally takes seconds to adjust your arrow count, modify the number of rations, or remove an item that has been used. That is not a task that removes anything from the game at all - compared to the general length of combat turns for example (yes you could wrap up your turn and THEN adjust the arrows) You do not need to recalculate your weight of gear for every adjust - it's done for you! You do not need to even type in the name of the common items - they are there in the dropdown! It requires to little effort that if a player in my group would complain about this - I would serious wonder about their engagement with the game as a whole.
3) As a player, I would think twice about insisting logistic elements should not feature in your game or campaign. You might prefer a style where it doesn't feature as heavily, and that's fair enough - a good session zero topic. But by removing it altogether - you are capping your DM's ability to present you with challenges before you have even begun
4) Logistics by themselves are not meant to be particularly existing or boring - they are there are part of your resource management - just like your quite eagerly track your spell slots- you should quite eagerly track whether your character has actually drunk enough water to function effectively - even a hero needs their breakfast :-)
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Which is my objection to trash fights. If the only question about the fight is "how many resources will I consume while winning it", I might as well replace it with a wandering damage roll.
I think I need to condense my thoughts above:
1) PC's are not the player and players are not the PC's: GM should provide some input on what players should do based on the PC's backgrounds. If the player decides not to do something it is the players duty to work with the issue in question. Note: players are people and people make mistakes so in general go easy on them but having said that I have played with and talked to others in which a player simply takes advantage of this good will to the detriment of the rest of the group.,
2) Gaming Styles IMHO play a huge part of peoples play experience.
3) GM's need to know how things work in the basic game world and be prepared for mistakes: Quite simply most 12 year old GM's if running a modern game are not quantum physicist, Special Operators, renowned business people, pilots or pro sports athletes; so mistakes will be made when the GM is playing those parts and when he advises the players on playing those parts. So cut the GM some slack and the GM should also cut the players some slack when they rp their PC (note this is one area I think is different in acting type of RPGing vs casual rpging as acting rpging to me says you are required to learn what your character would know and behave accordingly all of the time).
4) I want to provide a situation where players use X% of resources: Random dice rolls are hard to predict thus makes this hard to do, also if you know how much resources the PC's have going into an encounter an experienced GM may have the skill to predict how much their group would use (Note groups differ) and plan better (Note this makes authors and writers jobs often harder).
A side note: one of the most memorable games for me was a game in which a NPC killed more enemies then the PC's did by fumbling the first 5 rounds and the PC's purposefully left him for last as he was essentially on their side of the battle (note different game system). IMHO this situation in which the GM rolls poorly can happen at any time and dramatically shift how the encounter player as well as the opposites in which the enemies or the player roll very well and shift how the encounter plays.
Good Luck
At the end of the day, it's a game. It's about what makes it fun. That's literally everything about it.
Sometimes, tracking consumables can be fun. Well, not directly, but the effects it produces. I'm running a campaign in Icewind Dale. The environment is such a factor that you could almost consider it a co-BBEG. The party has to decide whether they want to break into their rations (which they may need later, or at the very least cost more) or risk being seen by a passing hostile creature or ten. They have meaningful decisions to make brought on by tracking food, etc. It matters how they travel across the tundra and the glacier, because some routes will have more food to sustain them...but also more predators hoping to use that food as bait. The atmosphere that brings is worth the hassle.
Other times, it's just a drag. When food is plentiful, when resources are easy to obtain...tracking is pointless drudgery. "Oh, right we don't have to hunt tonight because we rolled so high on foraging yesterday, we still have a feast!" or "Phew, lucky we rolled a success, because for the first time on our month long journey, we might have had to actually eat a ration tonight!" or "Hmmm I used quite a few arrows this time, I only 14 left". You're rolling, keeping track of things...for the sake of it.
If it suits the setting and the atmosphere I want, I'll track them. That involves a lot of effort in other areas, juggling sources, pushing them along certain routes that maintain the difficulty at the right level etc. Or I'll just have them track during certain periods when appropriate - when they're no longer in a plentiful area, I'll announce it and then have them track supplies. Otherwise, there's no point. I'd rather that energy be directed towards the meat of the game. No one is going to starve to death while surrounded by lush forests with plentiful game and forage and farms full of goods.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Lots of well expressed thoughts in this thread. This one captures how I feel. The way the books suggest you play, doesn't usually lend itself to the tracking being useful or interesting. (Edit: survival is super easy, nothing weighs anything or costs anything, weather is never a real problem, and half the races in the game don't even eat or sleep anymore.) So people skip it. If you're playing in a different way, you might want to use it. I want to use it. But so many players have been conditioned to see it as tedious on its own merits, that I'm basically the only person I know who feels that way. To the point where we're about to launch a stone age campaign, and I expect there to be zero resource scarcity whatsoever.
I agree with a lot here.
While I am in the camp that believes the PC's are heroes and exceptional and are the whole point of the game, that doesn't mean things are handed out on a silver platter to win either. The struggle however, can and should vary a bit. But if there isn't some kind of challenge, we don't need the game or dice. The nature of the challenge is the important part, and in some ways be fun. If the only challenge is ammo tracking or rations that's a problem, because that's not really a challenge in my opinion in most games.
The concept you wrote "your victory was inevitable, for it was foretold a thousand years ago by the Prophets of Weal" is indeed unsatisfying. I prefer it more in the Draconic Prophecy style of "The Prophets of Weal say you are the only ones that might be able to secure victory. Do nothing or fail, and the world passes unto darkness." The narrative is setup, now play. What? you don't have what you need? Then go get it.
And sometimes...failure can lead to interesting things too. Phoenix's rising from the ashes with even more challenges due to setbacks can be fun too.
You, apparently? I don't see anyone actually arguing for that. The question is not whether it's possible to be without your resources, the question is when it's worth bothering to track.
If you're not going to bother tracking consumables or supplies, why bother tracking inventory at all? Inventory is just a more highly abstracted version of supply, after all. If someone is going to assume that the characters never suffer from supply shortages of any sort, why wouldn't they also assume the characters would acquire whatever supplies they need without bothering to track or check it? Why bother asking the characters how they intend to carry a dozen tons of dragon hoard back to town? That's not Heroic at all, so why bother with it?
Why bother with anything except armor, weapon, and any applicable magic items? Heck, why bother with those? Just calculate the most effective damage die a character could reasonably bring to bear and let them call it whatever they want. Same with AC - figure out the best AC a character could reasonably have and just let them have it. Don't bother with magic items, either - just rig up custom feats for various loot instead and ignore inventory/items/equipment altogether. Would sure save a lot of time, hm? Would let people turn 'Signature Items' into character powers instead, and prevent the DM from taking away their cool thing. The paladin's fiery sword isn't an item that can be lost or stolen - or loaned to an ally - it's a special power the paladin alone has, just like his smites or his auras.
Go ahead and ask your players who hate tracking supply and logistics whether they'd be down for that style of game. I'm betting the answer would be an eager, unreserved "absolutely!" That line is not nearly so blind-idiot obvious as a lot of people think it is.
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How much are you going to put down? I've got two players who don't want to track things like rations, and this will be a really nice earner for me, all I gotta do is ask the question. I already know the answer that they'll give.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Much of the time I don't? It really depends on where the PCs are. In general I'm going to assume "Your PCs have some level of competence, so I'm going to assume they have the stuff implied by their competence", possibly with something like a Survival check for edge cases. On the other hand, if it's weird, they don't have it unless they actually went to the effort. For example, suppose you want to have a chest with a lock. If you're at home in a city, you probably either have one or can find one for cost, so meh. If you're on the road, you probably don't.
Yurei's right - part of why 5e has been so successful is that it appeals not only to simulationists and folks who want to truly immerse themselves in the mundane problems as well as the fantastical ones, but also to board game enthusiasts and fans of imaginative spectacle. 4e was too narrowly directed at the latter group, earlier editions arguably were too narrowly directed at the former. What we have here is a functional middle ground on which everyone can enjoy parts of it, and most people aren't so put off by the parts they dislike that they quit. That's good.
It's not perfect, but what is? Tamper at your own risk, as ever. But homebrew is fun and encouraged. That's basically the ethos of the game: the only way to find out is to roll those dice.
I have my opinions but I don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm in the majority or in the middle. Sometimes I do make that mistake politically. Echo chambers are real and significant. They're not just for politics though. Most gamers don't post. Most gamers don't even lurk.
I am glad I packed some crampons in my adventurer’s kit, because that is one slippery slope.
Your every post is repeating the same nonsensical argument - that the only proper way to play is to track everything, even the stuff that is not going to be relevant (or fun) to track 99.99% of the time. The idea that a DM might decide some things are worth tracking (crampons) while others are not (arrows) inexplicably eludes you. At this point, I honestly cannot tell if your obstinance is from a desire to create drama where there does not need to be any or if you legitimately cannot understand that not all items are created equal, and that, like most things in D&D, there is a middle ground between “track everything” and “track nothing.”
Surely you can see there is a substantive difference between “track something that you might run out of in .01% of cases, but have to track dozens upon dozens of times per session” and “track something that you might run into in 10% of cases, and can write on your character sheet and not need to do anything to until you actually use it”?
Of course I can. I can also see the hypocrisy inherent in the idea "You're a total bleeding idiot if you bother tracking things like arrows/bullets/rations/potions, and a total bleeding idiot if you don't bother tracking anything else." Is one tracking their equipment or is one not?
My artificer has a special rifle. She needs to hand-craft ammunition for it; each round costs between two to five gold pieces to create. Not only do I track exactly how much ammunition I have for that rifle, I track where that ammunition is. The gun keeps bulk ammo storage in a dimensional pocket in its stock because it's a very fancy rifle, but I can only fire from the breach or the five shell loops on the side of the stock. Once I've fired those six rounds, it takes my action to retrieve five fresh rounds and restock those belt loops. I know exactly how many pistol rounds Star has (currently zero) and exactly how many rounds she has for the blunderbus a pirate captain chucked at her head (currently twenty-six). Got twenty-three rounds left for that rifle, honestly gonna need to secure a heap more before the team sets out. I currently have ten different customized containers on her sheet, over and above the five default categories - her Bag of Holding, her defender's backpack, her four assorted personal pouches, her battle belt, her Belt Locker, the riflestock loops on her gun, and a chestful of stuff she owns but has currently left back home.
If someone were to ask me what the hell was wrong with me and how many hours of my life I'd wasted on all that? If they asked me how many hours of game time I wasted every fight tracking how much shot I've got left? The answer would be "not a waste at all, it was splendid fun and super helpful" and "zero". I knock a shot off my sheet whenever I fire a weapon while the DM is describing the impact (or lack thereof) of the shot, it's just something I do myself as an ordinary part of resolving an attack. The DM doesn't have to tell me to do it; I know full bloody well I ain't fishing the half-slagged chunk of metal out of whatever it hits and stuffing it back in the chamber. And when the DM needs to know where my shit's at because Something Happened and he needs to adjudicate it, I can answer confidently in seconds instead of spending fifteen minutes trying to retroactively figure it out.
Am I, generally, a more advanced player than The Aggregate Average New Guy? Of course. But it's also not that blurdy hard. Knock off ammo when you shoot it. Buy more the next time you can, and/or have a plan for when your count hits zero. Knock off rations whenever you finish a long rest, unless somebody has a way to settle the matter another way. There. Done. Consumables tracked. No real hassle at all.
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I want my player to use 60%-80% of abilities and consumables on encounter X, question: How programed is you group? How are you the GM going to force your players to use abilities and consumables? IMHO a GM saying they want a group to use XX% of something and saying how do I force them to use XX% of something is essentially the same if not a very narrow line between the two. If you say that having a unique key to open something means you have to use it to get somewhere is different to me then saying at the end of the adventuring day I want the group to have used the following skills, abilities, spells and consumables followed by a list for the group, class and each player. I also can see why someone would say the group used XX% of things thus the encounter was hard but in general that does not mean every group would use that amount or even a fraction of that amount.
I have seen variations of the original question on various forum boards since around 2008 and in a couple of games in alpha/beta development. The issue I have is often with the premise of said games being the player acting a part vs a player having free will to do what they want when they want. In simple terms a acting game might have 3 options presented every round to what a player can/would do vs in a free form game the player does what they think the PC would do.
Tracking Consumables in games I have played in often adds more then it subtracts but I agree that is not for everyone just like every game and or module is for everyone or every group. And the level of tracking can vastly vary from group to group and even, from game night to game night or from adventure to adventure.
Good Luck
The issue isn't "I want Player Y to use X power and 15% of Z consumable in this fight". That level of micromanagement is stifling and also impossible. What I'm trying to foster is the idea that challenge extends beyond just the one immediate fight.
Pantagruel has stated there's no reason to engage in irrelevant fights with a fixed outcome, i.e. trash encounters the party's effectively guaranteed to win. Okay. Cool. Here's the thing - how many of those encounters is the party willing to chew through before getting to 'Plot Relevant' stuff? Are they going to loudly blunder their way through enemy territory and attract every do-nothing minion in a five-mile radius, get hit with ten or fifteen "trash" encounters before getting to the BBEG? Are they going to get bled nearly dry blowing resources heedlessly on chumps and have nothing left for the Big Stuff? Or are they going to try and make smarter decisions, cover their tracks, move quietly and with purpose? Avoid fights they don't need to fight, and fight the ones they can't get clear of tight and efficient without expending resources?
Are they going to be completely spent before they catch a whiff of the BBEG and have to retreat, tails between their legs, to try and be less dumb/unlucky next time? Or are they gonna have enough left in the tank to take their shot?
Wouldn't it be nice if the answer to that question was uncertain? That sure sounds like a more engaging game than "You walk up to the haunted woods in the castle and pound on the Evil Princess' door, demanding she come out and accept your challenge to single combat with all seven of you at once".
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So, I will leave with one final thought: No one is saying it is hard to track your inventory--just that the probative value of tracking some things is insufficient to offset how much of a chore players find it to be. That is not hypocritical--it is just choosing to ignore something that does not add to the game. One could justify it fairly easily with a bit of imagination ("I find more arrows laying about than I shoot off, so my quiver is always full; but I don't find crampons just sitting about, so that has to be specifically search for"), so claims that it is "hypocritical" are unimaginative at best, gatekeeping at worst.
There's nothing like putting up straw men to make a bad argument look better. I have nothing against players who want to track every last bit of gear and every copper piece, I'm just not one of them, nor as far as I can tell is anyone else in my gaming group. I'll track gear when it seems important.
I've played games that do that exactly and they're great fun. D&D could work like that, I suppose, but a little bit of itemization is actually fun for me in D&D. I do rather like keeping track of my magical gear and finding creative ways to use it. I used to track stuff like ball bearings and caltrops, but after level, I dunno, 5 or so, those items became pretty irrelevant. This is a sliding scale and one's preferences can be anywhere along the scale without needing to go all the way to one end or another.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
(a) those aren't plot-irrelevant fights (if you're trying to sneak through enemy territory and mess up, I'll absolutely bleed the party of resources, though depending on the situation I might just have a couple rolls and people can mark off spells and hit points), and (b) if they do that they aren't going to get a large number of small encounters, the bad guys are going to wait for reinforcements and they'll get hit by one overwhelming encounter.
That was not the intent of my statement, though I see how it can be taken that way. The intent was simply for me to acknowledge that I am not The New Player. I've been gaming my entire life, I understand the tropes and language of gaming. I have a stronger grasp of gamist mechanics and systems and I can keep more rules in my head than many newer people who have never gamed before and are having trouble understanding the language of gaming. Does that make me "better" than anyone else? No. It does make me more mechanically proficient and that a level of cognitive load other players find unpleasant and stressful, I often don't even feel. The specific anecdote was intended to serve as a demonstration that no, tracking ammunition and other consumables is not always, 100%, an Absolutely Terrible Idea Forever and a guaranteed way to turn one's players off of one's game.
Many people have never bothered tracking consumables. They hear from the Internet that only neckbeard basement dwellers with no partner and who've never touched grass pull that sweaty minutiae junk, and they just assume it's a bunch of boring not-game and toss it from the get-go. When faced with challenges that should require preparation and tools, the DM just calls for a random ability check and lets the party get away with murder. That two hundred-foot waterfall cliff from the previous thread? A lot of players would just say "Okay, I climb down" and be surprised, annoyed, or even angry when the DM either assigned an incredibly stiff Athletics DC to free-hand your way down a two hundred foot water-soaked thundering waterfall, or even just say outright that a freehand climb is not possible.
"But I'm proficient in Athletics!" the player snarls.
"Yes, which means you have the training and experience necessary to know that attempting this climb without a single tool or mechanical aid is a great way to end up paste at the bottom" the DM responds.
People don't even try to do anything else, and it frustrates me tremendously. There's so many cool little tales to be told out there if people would just stop trying to blow them off and bumrush the BBEG as fast as humanly possible.
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In my experience, a group of players will have fun when they are challenged and emerge on the other side victorious (hopefully!)
There are many ways of creating challenges for a party, and in my opinion, logistics is an essential one. Not so much when they are in the comfortable inn, or a base that is fully stocked and well equipped - but those moments where you are away from those comfort zones, your choice of what to bring will matter.
I am currently going through Tomb of Annihilation with a group, and without logistics, a large part of the adventure would equate to a nice leisurely stroll in the park, when you eventually stumble upon and interesting feature. Well rested, and fully equipped, you blaze through those points of interest with little challenge. Or, - after days of dragging yourself through the dense jungle, fighting bugs, disease, rotting rations (shouldn't have bought those cheap ones), the group emerge exhausted into a clearing to finally look upon the old temple.
Icewind Dale will be a similar environmentally focused module that woudl really struggle to be entertaining if you wiped out logistics from it.
Exhaustion is an incredible powerful tool to challenge characters - but in order for there to be some buy-in to that, challenges needs to be faced, and they would often be linked to a lack of rest, food, or water.
The other part of logistics is the satisfaction a player will get from getting creative with that backpack full of bars of soap, ball bearings, ropes etc. I tend to reward players for that kind of ingenuity, knowing that they planned a bit ahead and are now problem solving with basic items.
Of course at some point, they likely end up with a bag of holding or similar that helps fix the encumbrance issues, and enable them to bring much more gear to cover eventualities - but even at this stage, I check their inventory to see what they have to work with. Not every item purchased needs to be RP'ed - simply saying - you spend an afternoon in town restocking supplies at regular list prices for gear allow the players to update their sheets.
So my main points are really:
1) Logistics is an important part of a DM's toolbox to present challenges to a party. By handwaving or removing it, I do believe that DM's are doing themselves a disservice (but the choice is totally yours of course).
2) It has literally NEVER been easier to track inventory than here on ddb. It literally takes seconds to adjust your arrow count, modify the number of rations, or remove an item that has been used. That is not a task that removes anything from the game at all - compared to the general length of combat turns for example (yes you could wrap up your turn and THEN adjust the arrows) You do not need to recalculate your weight of gear for every adjust - it's done for you! You do not need to even type in the name of the common items - they are there in the dropdown! It requires to little effort that if a player in my group would complain about this - I would serious wonder about their engagement with the game as a whole.
3) As a player, I would think twice about insisting logistic elements should not feature in your game or campaign. You might prefer a style where it doesn't feature as heavily, and that's fair enough - a good session zero topic. But by removing it altogether - you are capping your DM's ability to present you with challenges before you have even begun
4) Logistics by themselves are not meant to be particularly existing or boring - they are there are part of your resource management - just like your quite eagerly track your spell slots- you should quite eagerly track whether your character has actually drunk enough water to function effectively - even a hero needs their breakfast :-)