The meaning of "fair" in DnD

Actually, I personally like tracking food and ammo!

To paraphrase ApplePaladin, "one person (or in this case several people) not liking something does not mean everyone dislikes it"

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"Just because a GM wants resource tracking doesn't automatically make them a terrible GM. "

Goodberry makes food tracking go away at level 1.

A bag of holding makes encumbrance and weight tracking pointless by level 2.  

Spell slots? Sure. Class features like rage or wildshape? Sure. Track em.

But how is a level 10 campaign made better by asking players, who have Goodberry, Create Food and Water, and other spells, how is that game made better by asking them what they ate that day?

People play dnd because they want to be the hero, slay the dragon, become rich and famous.  Nobody is playing dnd to count calories or balance a checkbook.

 

 Again, stop making universal assumptions about other people's play preferences based on your individual play preferences. It sounds like you only want to play in games where you don't have to track resource usage, and that's fine. Just be sure to communicate your preferences during session zero with any potential DMs you're considering playing with so they can tell you whether you're a good fit for their table or not.

Also: Those spells don't obviate the need for tracking food and water resources if no one in the party can (or wants to) cast them, and a bag of holding has limited capacity with regards to both weight and volume. And I would argue strongly that the game is made better by the role play opportunities created by exploring what the party ate, when, where, and with whom. "Everybody ate a goodberry and drank conjured water, start the dungeon already" is certainly a valid way to play. But so is a social encounter session in which the party gets food and drink at a tavern while talking with a key NPC and using Insight and other skills to learn more about the NPC, the mission, and the world in general.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

 Cool. If you like tracking rations, do it for your pc. No one is suggesting you cant do that.

But if youre a dm, and have convinced yourself that ooohhh, im going to enforce strct rationing to make it "gritty", if you do enforce it with zero fudging, youre going to kill the party by random rolls and let them starve to death? Really? Thats good dm'ing to you? 

Pcs can go 5 days without eating with zero negative consequences. How did you even put them into that predicament?   And how did no one get the Goodberry spell?  How was no one able to get a bag of holding and fill it with hundreds of rations?  The only answer to that is that you, as dm, created that situation for the players.

Tell players they are potentially going to face starvation and every player will figure out a way to access goodberry. And if every player has access to goodberry, why are you as dm tracking rations?  Did you BAN goodberry?  The problem of starvation goes away if you WARN your players and play with STANDARD RULES AND SPELLS.

The only way a dm would need to track rations is if they homebrew a bunch of stuff to make Goodberry much harder to access, or they didnt warn their players in the "hey im looking for a game to join" phase.

So, as a player, track your rations to your hearts content. Im not stopping you. But if youre a DM, youre going to have to explain to me how you warned your players that counting rations is a thing you will do and how come everyone didnt take goodberry.

 Dude, some people want to play games where the PCs, especially at low levels, are resource constrained. It's a thing people can like, especially if they want to engage with the exploration part of the game.

And yes, if you want to be resource constrained, that includes nuking goodberry and a few other spells. It's not exactly a big deal. This is all the sort of thing one discusses in session zero, when you're figuring out what kind of game you want to play. (It is in fact something I'm considering doing for the next couple of games I'm thinking of running.)

One can even do it, for real, without putting the party at any risk of being "killed by random rolls". It's not hard.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from oreosandcat >>

Actually, I personally like tracking food and ammo!

To paraphrase ApplePaladin, "one person (or in this case several people) not liking something does not mean everyone dislikes it"

 

Cool. If you like tracking rations, do it for your pc. No one is suggesting you cant do that.

But if youre a dm, and have convinced yourself that ooohhh, im going to enforce strct rationing to make it "gritty", if you do enforce it with zero fudging, youre going to kill the party by random rolls and let them starve to death? Really? Thats good dm'ing to you? 

Pcs can go 5 days without eating with zero negative consequences. How did you even put them into that predicament?   And how did no one get the Goodberry spell?  How was no one able to get a bag of holding and fill it with hundreds of rations?  The only answer to that is that you, as dm, created that situation for the players.

Tell players they are potentially going to face starvation and every player will figure out a way to access goodberry. And if every player has access to goodberry, why are you as dm tracking rations?  Did you BAN goodberry?  The problem of starvation goes away if you WARN your players and play with STANDARD RULES AND SPELLS.

The only way a dm would need to track rations is if they homebrew a bunch of stuff to make Goodberry much harder to access, or they didnt warn their players in the "hey im looking for a game to join" phase.

So, as a player, track your rations to your hearts content. Im not stopping you. But if youre a DM, youre going to have to explain to me how you warned your players that counting rations is a thing you will do and how come everyone didnt take goodberry.

 Firstly: Please relax. 

Secondly: I don't track rations and ammo to make the game more "gritty" and "realistic" I track rations because it makes sense to me to do. I don't track rations to make the party starve, I tell them in session 0 and ask if they would rather I not. Then, if they say yes, we keep playing the game, and remember to buy rations and arrows. I don't do it to "try and kill them" I do it to "give the party something common to spend some silver on". I legitimately don't care if they take Goodberry, it's a basic spell and would honestly make sense for any adventurer to take, unless the party themselves decides "nah, let's do more resource constrainment!" and say they want to ban Gooderry, CFAD, and others. I would like to stress: If the party agrees they would rather not track ammo and food, I say "Alrighty!" And then we don't track them.

You seem to have the misconception that I track ammo and rations because I want to starve the party, and honestly, I'm not sure where you got that from. ApplePaladin and jl8e make good points on this topic as well.

Thirdly: We are having a pleasant discussion about a hobby, there is no need to be so aggressive.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from ApplePaladin>>

Quote from James_Bard>>

Bad DMs fetishize killing characters, forcing TPKs, and stifling player agency. Limiting choices, classes, multiclassing, races, magic items, and overall creativity goes against the very spirit of the game.

 

 Now I'm not going to yum your yuck and tell you you're wrong for not liking a grindfest game,

 

No one likes a grindfest campaign except a power tripping dm. 

The original grindfest, Tomb of Horrors, was used in tournament play. I.e. one-shot competitions between parties. 

But a long term campaign? Why bother? Just do oneshots every session. If youre going to die on a regular basis, then there is little reason to establish relationships with npc's, little reason to worry about what your character is doing during downtime, little reason to chart out progress towards your charavters goals. 

Meat grinders like ToH would kill almost every player in a session. If thats how its going to play out, play a wargaming game instead. 

I would also point out that meatgrinder campaigns arent considered "typical".

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/creating-adventures#CombatEncounterDifficulty

Moderate encounters have a slim chance that 1 or.more characters will die.

Even a high-difficulty encounter only says that it "could be lethal for one or more characters. To survive it, the characters will need smart tactics, quick thinking, and maybe even a little luck."

Thats still not pointing to everyone is probably going to die before the session is over.

Or put another way,  meatgrinder encounters have to be designed by dms who specifically ignore the DMG recommendations for encounter balance, and instead homebrew something much, much deadlier.

 

 

 That right there feels like a red flag to me. You say that nobody likes a grindfest campaign. Because you don't like it. Some people enjoy that kind of play. Maybe not many, but blatantly saying up front that people don't like playing in a certain way without any form of definitive evidence, only speculation, is the kind of inflexible that can cause problems, especially in roleplaying games.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"Just because a GM wants resource tracking doesn't automatically make them a terrible GM. "

Goodberry makes food tracking go away at level 1.

A bag of holding makes encumbrance and weight tracking pointless by level 2.  

Spell slots? Sure. Class features like rage or wildshape? Sure. Track em.

But how is a level 10 campaign made better by asking players, who have Goodberry, Create Food and Water, and other spells, how is that game made better by asking them what they ate that day?

People play dnd because they want to be the hero, slay the dragon, become rich and famous.  Nobody is playing dnd to count calories or balance a checkbook.

 

 Again, another assumption. You can't just say that nobody enjoys tracking these things. Yes, features make those things go away. If you have those features. It's also ridiculous to assume that every table has a bag of holding, btw. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

Quote from oreosandcat >>

Actually, I personally like tracking food and ammo!

To paraphrase ApplePaladin, "one person (or in this case several people) not liking something does not mean everyone dislikes it"

 

Cool. If you like tracking rations, do it for your pc. No one is suggesting you cant do that.

But if youre a dm, and have convinced yourself that ooohhh, im going to enforce strct rationing to make it "gritty", if you do enforce it with zero fudging, youre going to kill the party by random rolls and let them starve to death? Really? Thats good dm'ing to you? 

Pcs can go 5 days without eating with zero negative consequences. How did you even put them into that predicament?   And how did no one get the Goodberry spell?  How was no one able to get a bag of holding and fill it with hundreds of rations?  The only answer to that is that you, as dm, created that situation for the players.

Tell players they are potentially going to face starvation and every player will figure out a way to access goodberry. And if every player has access to goodberry, why are you as dm tracking rations?  Did you BAN goodberry?  The problem of starvation goes away if you WARN your players and play with STANDARD RULES AND SPELLS.

The only way a dm would need to track rations is if they homebrew a bunch of stuff to make Goodberry much harder to access, or they didnt warn their players in the "hey im looking for a game to join" phase.

So, as a player, track your rations to your hearts content. Im not stopping you. But if youre a DM, youre going to have to explain to me how you warned your players that counting rations is a thing you will do and how come everyone didnt take goodberry. What the heck is this supposed to mean? You're saying the DM is at fault for INFORMING their players now?

 

 

 And what you're saying has been brought up on all four pages of this thread. The mark of a "good" DM is their ability to communicate. If they don't tell their players that the campaign is going to be gritty and then crush them "unfairly", then yes, I agree that's not cool. But if the DM says that they are going to track rations, and players agree, and then they somehow limit Goodberry to healing or whatever to prevent the players from subverting the extra layer, and the players agree, how can they possibly be at fault?

Quote from WolfeCriedPup >>

 That right there feels like a red flag to me. You say that nobody likes a grindfest campaign. Because you don't like it. Some people enjoy that kind of play. Maybe not many, but blatantly saying up front that people don't like playing in a certain way without any form of definitive evidence, only speculation, is the kind of inflexible that can cause problems, especially in roleplaying games.

 The OP isn't saying that exactly. They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

People play dnd because they want to be the hero, slay the dragon, become rich and famous.  Nobody is playing dnd to count calories or balance a checkbook.

 Not exactly. Many people enjoy the role playing part of the game. A lot of players just like to hang out with their friends and have a good time. I'm in a campaign where the party at level 6 has a sum total of 1000 gp, and 1 magic item a piece, and everybody is having a great time.

And true, few PCs track calories because they don't know of the concept. On the flip side I did quite enjoy roleplaying skinning a giant snake, cutting up the meat, scrounging for herbs and something to cook it in. Tracking rations had nothing to do with wanting to cook a meal for the party.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM."

If players want to track rations, they can track their own rations.

 Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter.

I don't believe that a majority or even a large minority of D&D players actually likes tracking minutia such as rations, I've certainly never encountered players who did, but it's a gross overreach to say that there's nobody who enjoys that kind of game.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM."

If players want to track rations, they can track their own rations. And if thats the game experience they want, i will promise them that i will never share any of my magically generated food or shelter with them. I will be in my mordenkainens magnificient mansion eating a feast with 100 of my friends, and my fellow partt member who want to live off the land, i will let him eat bark and sleep under a leanto.

But a dm that forces ration tracking isnt fixing anything in the game.  And if they force it to the point of banning food and shelter spells, then yeah, they suck as a dm.

 

 This all very neatly falls under "different strokes for different folks." A DM isn't bad just because they don't cater to exactly how you want them to DM. Not every DM is going to run their table in a way that caters to your preferences as a player. And that's fine. That doesn't make them a bad DM. It doesn't mean they're being unfair. It just means you're not a good fit for that table. As I've said a few times already, you're confusing "I don't like this thing" with "this thing is bad and no one should like it."

Ginny Di posted a new video a few days ago on different types of Dungeon Masters and the salient point to this discussion is that they're all valid DM styles. You've made it abundantly clear that you don't like tracking resources and you don't like meatgrinder campaigns. But you not liking them doesn't make them bad. It certainly doesn't mean no one else likes them.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"As I've said a few times already, you're confusing "I don't like this thing" with "this thing is bad and no one should like it."

No. Its a bad thing.

See the same 5 questions i just asked Pantegruel. answer all of them directly and then we can discuss.

 And now we come to the heart of the issue: Everyone else simply... disagrees. You say that "this thing you do not like" is actually "This is objectively bad and DMs doing it are bad DMs". Meanwhile, everyone else is saying "Some DMs want to do things differently, and as long as the players agree, it's perfectly fine."

Some people certainly WOULD like to play an entire campaign like Tomb of Horrors. I wouldn't but, I know several people who enjoy that sort of thing. You not thinking that is fun does not make it objectively bad.

 Honestly, you positively radiate red flags XD

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter"

Look, if you are a player and want your hard tack calorie.counting spreadsheet to "matter" ask your DM to enforce.charavter death on you if you fail to show the reciepts for suffient caloric intake for enough days in a row to kill a pc.

But that isnt my point. you keep making it about you the player, on a thread i repeatedly have told you is about dms. So lets try something more direct:

1) You are a dm for a long (20 level) campaign  I assume you would gladly enforce ration counting? Yes? 

2) if no, then you have comepletely missed the point, since, again, this is about DMs.

3) if yes, then one of your players tells you they are going to take the Guide Background to get access to the Goodberry spell. And then they tell you their intention to feed everyone in the party using goodberry, specifically so no one has to worry about food.  Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

4) they then indicate their plan to play a bard, which has access to tiny hut, mordenkainens magnificicient mansion, and they intend to provide food and shelter to all the members of the party? Question: do you allow them to do that? Yes or no?

5) do you do anything to nerf existing spells or features that allows players to easily deal with or ignore your enforcement of counting rations? Yes or no?

Thats the point. What do you as a dm do about a campaign where you want ration counting and the players all create builds that magically solve all food scarcity issues?

 

 1) If the players AGREE, then yes!

3) Yes, because I, personally, do not want to disallow a valid method of avoiding rations. However, if all the other players say they would like him to not feed everyone, then I'll say he can only feed himself with Goodberry. Goodberry solutions: Anti magic field, anti magic device, thieves, etc.

4) Yes. See above.

5) No, I will not nerf or delete them UNLESS the party would like me to, or some players want me to and the others do not care

6) I don't do anything, because A. some people simply do not want to play casters, and therefore will not have access and B. I think the spells are perfectly valid. And almost all of them are higher-level spells. If they are fine with ration tracking, cool! If they want to make builds to make that a non-issue, ok! That is perfectly fine, and also means they have less spells to kill people with. If they do not, on the other hand, make builds to eliminate the issue and actually buy rations and stuff, wonderful! This is what they and I, as the people playing a fictional game as fictional people doing fictional things and eating fictional food because we think this is a fun hobby have decided will make the game fun for everyone at the party. 

And if you think that's wrong and stupid, okay! that's your opinion, and completely irrelevant to my games and life, since I will never see you or play D&D with you <3

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM."

If players want to track rations, they can track their own rations.

 Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter.

I don't believe that a majority or even a large minority of D&D players actually likes tracking minutia such as rations, I've certainly never encountered players who did, but it's a gross overreach to say that there's nobody who enjoys that kind of game.

 It totally depends on the game. Here's a story arc I played in at a table where tracking rations and tracking ammunition was enforced:

Premise: The party starts off on the road to Hillburg, an isolated lumber post deep in the Wildwood. As they approach the post, the sun sets and two wolf-human hybrids (werewolves) leap out of the undergrowth and attack. Lacking silver weapons, the party barely survives and is forced to run as fast as they can to the walled post with howls following them. Inside they are told the werewolf activity started a few days ago and is getting more and more common as the fullmoon approaches - which is due to arrive 3 nights from today.

Campaign structure: The town has a two dozen able bodied men, but only a handful of mundane weapons. So has no chance right now to fend off the growing numbers of werewolves. They are also too far from the nearest town to reasonably get help from them. However, in the surroundings there is an ancient cemetery, an abandoned mine, a farm house & surrounding farmland and a hunting camp that the loggers haven't heard from in a few days, there is also sometimes travelling merchants along the main road and a retired adventurer in a little cottage up in a tree house in an ancient Sequoia. These locations are 2-4 hours walk from the camp and several hours walk from each other so it's not possible to visit all of them within the 3 days. There are also some crafts people in town that might be willing to help.

The whole point of the campaign is to figure out which locations it is / isn't worth visiting and how much time to invest into exploring each one. Rations and ammo are required to be tracked because purchasing more reduces the resources available to the party to buy things from the travelling merchant, or to use to pay / bribe the local craftsmen to help. 

Day 1 we went to the hunting camp, where we found a couple of bears and found a stash of weapons the townsfolk could use. We spent the rest of the day tacking down the hunters and convincing them to come back to town and help defend it.

 Day 2 we explored the cemetery hoping to find some silver items that could be used to silver the weapons we had collected the day before, we fought some undead, and cracked open some tombs finding a magical sword and some silverware and silver jewelry. We looked for the entrance to the mine on the way back, one of us discovered an entrance by accident when the ground collapsed under them revealing an old mine tunnel. However, we did very badly trying to free them, and time was running out before sunset so we chose not to try to explore the mine further.

Day 3 we convinced the local smith to melt down the loot to silver the weapons then went out to the main road to look for the travelling merchant, to trade the various gemstones and non-silver loot we had acquired from the cemetery. However the random encounter table had us instead come across a cleric on a pilgrimage whom we also convinced to come back and help the loggers. We also had time to go get the retired adventurer and convinced them with their help the loggers could win thanks to all that we had already gathered.

The last session was the werewolf assault on the loggers where we positioned the units and heroes we were able to gather, and had a couple combat scenes patching up the defences when the werewolves started to break through. It was good fun, despite being a low-level resource scarce campaign where we really had to make every spellslot and every ability go as far as it could, and we had to track every resource. I was really impressed how different D&D plays when the player characters don't have unlimited time & resources to do whatever they want, where you hesitate to cast a spell in one combat because it means you won't have it for the next one. Where preventing damage is valuable because you are afraid of running out of hit dice. I highly recommend playing a low-level resource scarce campaign rather than the standard "the players are untouchable, unkillable, and can use their resources willy nilly."  

Also, again: Please relax. D&D is not real life. We are talking about a fictional game about fictional people doing fitional things we think are fun.

Quote from Agilemind >>

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

"They are saying that any GM who runs that kind of game is bad and unfair. But I argue that there are people that want that kind of game and a GM that refuses to run it would be a bad and unfair GM."

If players want to track rations, they can track their own rations.

 Way to miss the point. Yes, there are people who like tracking that kind of thing -- but they still want doing so to matter.

I don't believe that a majority or even a large minority of D&D players actually likes tracking minutia such as rations, I've certainly never encountered players who did, but it's a gross overreach to say that there's nobody who enjoys that kind of game.

 It totally depends on the game. Here's a story arc I played in at a table where tracking rations and tracking ammunition was enforced:

Premise: The party starts off on the road to Hillburg, an isolated lumber post deep in the Wildwood. As they approach the post, the sun sets and two wolf-human hybrids (werewolves) leap out of the undergrowth and attack. Lacking silver weapons, the party barely survives and is forced to run as fast as they can to the walled post with howls following them. Inside they are told the werewolf activity started a few days ago and is getting more and more common as the fullmoon approaches - which is due to arrive 3 nights from today.

Campaign structure: The town has a two dozen able bodied men, but only a handful of mundane weapons. So has no chance right now to fend off the growing numbers of werewolves. They are also too far from the nearest town to reasonably get help from them. However, in the surroundings there is an ancient cemetery, an abandoned mine, a farm house & surrounding farmland and a hunting camp that the loggers haven't heard from in a few days, there is also sometimes travelling merchants along the main road and a retired adventurer in a little cottage up in a tree house in an ancient Sequoia. These locations are 2-4 hours walk from the camp and several hours walk from each other so it's not possible to visit all of them within the 3 days. There are also some crafts people in town that might be willing to help.

The whole point of the campaign is to figure out which locations it is / isn't worth visiting and how much time to invest into exploring each one. Rations and ammo are required to be tracked because purchasing more reduces the resources available to the party to buy things from the travelling merchant, or to use to pay / bribe the local craftsmen to help. 

Day 1 we went to the hunting camp, where we found a couple of bears and found a stash of weapons the townsfolk could use. We spent the rest of the day tacking down the hunters and convincing them to come back to town and help defend it.

 Day 2 we explored the cemetery hoping to find some silver items that could be used to silver the weapons we had collected the day before, we fought some undead, and cracked open some tombs finding a magical sword and some silverware and silver jewelry. We looked for the entrance to the mine on the way back, one of us discovered an entrance by accident when the ground collapsed under them revealing an old mine tunnel. However, we did very badly trying to free them, and time was running out before sunset so we chose not to try to explore the mine further.

Day 3 we convinced the local smith to melt down the loot to silver the weapons then went out to the main road to look for the travelling merchant, to trade the various gemstones and non-silver loot we had acquired from the cemetery. However the random encounter table had us instead come across a cleric on a pilgrimage whom we also convinced to come back and help the loggers. We also had time to go get the retired adventurer and convinced them with their help the loggers could win thanks to all that we had already gathered.

The last session was the werewolf assault on the loggers where we positioned the units and heroes we were able to gather, and had a couple combat scenes patching up the defences when the werewolves started to break through. It was good fun, despite being a low-level resource scarce campaign where we really had to make every spellslot and every ability go as far as it could, and we had to track every resource. 

 That actually sounds really cool, do you mind if I steal the idea?