Coincidentally or not, I have written two single, separate pages to insert in B/X (my plan is to write 64+, but it might take a while); one deals with food (and water, hazards, etc) and other with encumbrance and movement.

This one-page thing is the most I'm willing to read to deal with encumbrance and food; The Wilderness Survival Guide is just too much for my tastes.

Quote from: Larsdangly;935273My guess is you play games that have detailed combat rules, with turns and actions and movement rates and all that crap. Why do you bother with that? Don't they mess with your roleplaying freedumz?

Aw how cute.  Why not just sit in a circle and diddle each other's happy bits if all you care about is FUNZ without any actual relation to the setting the characters are inhabiting.  Go live in Japan, I hear suckshops are $20some bucks for two cumshots.

Or, we can actually talk...

Quote from: Larsdangly;935296It's actually sort of lame that there are hardly any games worth mentioning that seriously consider how you will play out something like climbing to the top of the world's greatest mountain, or crossing the fire-blast swamps or whatever. What do they really provide? An encounter table and a number of hexes per day you can move?. The D&D 1E Wilderness guide takes a stab at this stuff, but is surprisingly unplayable - it reads like a bunch of crap someone got paid to write but that even the author never bothered to play. To re-iterate, the only way to approach this in a way that gets you somewhere is to ask, what would it look like if I made a game about summiting a mountain, that is actually fun and challenging, and that can be resolved in ~15 minutes of play? And then just prod the rules a bit so they use the stats and mechanics of whatever core system you are running.

Real original OD&D understood this. It's why they recommended you go get a board game about traveling through the wilderness as part of your play equipment. Actually, OD&D had an interesting approach to this whole idea of 'sub games': they said, go get Chainmail to deal with fights (plus some add-ons we'll provide here); go get a board game (something sort of like Wilderness, except I can't remember the name) to play out overland travel, and D&D's job is to stitch these sub-games together with a broader context and more detailed treatment of characters.

And the first person to say 'oh, I just make that stuff up on the spot, like any sane person would' can douse him or herself in gasoline and light a match. That is why our games are such rubbish when it comes to this sort of play.

Edit: The old game was 'Outdoor Survival'

Eh, you kind of have a point with minigames.  Aces and Eights has a bunch of minigames...  
Cattle Drive - minigame.  
Mining or Panning - minigame.
Barfight - minigame.
Horse Chase - minigame.
Jury Trial - minigame.
...and they're awesome.

But, encumbrance, rations, ammunition have meaning outside of an "Overland Travel" minigame.  The alarm gets raised and the PCs have to bag out the window of the palace with the strongest carrying the Sultan's latest slave (who is the daughter of the priest who hired the PCs) over his shoulder...how much loot can the rest carry?  It's simple physics and math, there's no need for a "3 seconds to loot" minigame.  How many hand crossbow bolts can a thief carry and hide, and still have full mobility?  That matters when the Thief gets into a running rooftop fight, or gets cornered in an alley without a "Running Rooftop Fight" minigame or "Death Alley Archer" minigame.

I'll give you that entertaining minigames can work.  That they are necessarily the best way to deal with simple questions like "how many times can I fire my bow" or "how many coins can I carry" or "how many days before I starve" is silly.

Quote from: CRKrueger;935337Aw how cute.  Why not just sit in a circle and diddle each other's happy bits if all you care about is FUNZ without any actual relation to the setting the characters are inhabiting.  Go live in Japan, I hear suckshops are $20some bucks for two cumshots.

Or, we can actually talk...


...

You are a useless sack of shit.

Quote from: finarvyn;935185I don't bother to track either unless there is a specific situation which would lead to the importance of rations or encumbrance. For example, if the group has to go through a desert I might warn them that it's coming up and encourage them to supply with food and water prior to the trip. If they find a huge treasure I might tell them they have to count encumbrance so that they have to choose what they bring and what gets left behind. That kind of thing.

I'm the same. Dont think I've ever tracked food, esp with Create Food & Water spells available. Plus bags of holding/portable holes = dont worry about encumbrance. On the other hand, I am (these days) much more interested in low magic games - and I think that's where rations/encumbrance could get meaningful again

Quote from: CRKrueger;935337Why not just sit in a circle and diddle each other's happy bits if all you care about is FUNZ

That sounds way more fun than tracking encumbrance!!

Quote from: Spinachcat;935362That sounds way more fun than tracking encumbrance!!

Gives a new meaning to "mini" game.

Quote from: Spinachcat;935322Have any of you gone camping?

Or a picnic?

Food and water is heavy. Bulky as fuck. Requires containers. Goes bad easy.

And you die without it.

People who don't camp/haven't had to haul their own water have no idea how heavy and what a pain in the ass it is.

The trade-off between water and other stuff you need is real, let alone stuff you want (boom box, favorite book, Jewels of Gwahlur, etc) and is compounded when you have to worry about fighting or running away at any moment.

I always liked this blog post when it came to tracking food and water in D&D: http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7632/roleplaying-games/the-subtle-shifts-in-play

Quote from: Larsdangly;935273My guess is you play games that have detailed combat rules, with turns and actions and movement rates and all that crap. Why do you bother with that? Don't they mess with your roleplaying freedumz?

Dishes it out...

Quote from: Larsdangly;935353You are a useless sack of shit.

...can't take it. Unsurprising.

Quote from: Spinachcat;935362That sounds way more fun than tracking encumbrance!!

In Dragon Storm each characters carrying capacity is listed right on the card and each item has its weight listed.
So the bog standard Human has a CAP of 7. +3 when in dragon form. A javelin is listed as CAP -1. A Helmet or some robes is CAP -1 if not worn. In 10 years of heavy convention play no one ever had trouble with tracking food, water or encumbrance.

Much the same in say BX. Long as you know your limit and the weights its usually just some simple math at the start of an adventure and then usually some more at the end as you try to figure out the logistics of getting all this gold coin or other sellables back.

The only time I'd track food is in a bleak setting where supplies might be scarce or tainted. Like, post-apocalyptic. I was considering running Sine Nomine's Other Dust at one point, and would definitely leverage its mechanics for food supplies, food deprivation, and tainted food.

I'm also a fan of a "prickless" encumbrance system. Nothing too detailed - abstract, mutually-agreed upon by the group.

I track them.

I expect the party to treat exploration with forethought and real danger. It makes things more strategic. Especially in the more extreme weather locales, as more 'forgotten' treasure would linger there unmolested from incapable tomb raider teams. It's a challenge and a real world coherent logic as to why some fallen empire stuff hasn't been looted and rediscovered wholesale, down to the flagstones.

Now, if they want to travel without thinking about them, I have a lot of caravans that need guarding. Fuck up in your job too much and watch your caravan master "be cruel" and either shrink rations, shorten rests, or dump gear and people in an effort to survive a nasty leg. Fight them on such decisions and face ostracism to the wilds, and then press your luck about the "uselessness" of bean counting.

Hey, if you wanna be smart and hire a cart and some hirelings, maybe even a caravan master, I will gladly "abstract" your bean counting work to my side of the GM Screen, (for a percentage bump to your team hirelings,)!

Keep your travel legs small and hug the slices of civilization and you'll rarely have to worry about it. Delegate it to others for a fee, and the authority to manage it right, same, no worries. Go in half-cocked and expect no consequences? Not my table. After you are done whinging and crying, please leave and thank you.

Quote from: Ashakyre;935264Under what circumstances is tracking rations fun? How can you shape mechanics to give PC's the most intechoices to make?

For me, games are fun when they are about a subject that interests me (which does include managing travel and logistical details, sometimes) , and when the rules reflect logical cause & effect in those situations, so that players can experience the same types of choices that would actually occur in a situation.

So it's fun for me any time there are choices to make that matter, and it's fun for me when there are ways to invest & organize so that those details are often not a problem, and it's especially fun for me when there are interesting potential effects to deal with in logical ways when other events cause complications. Like when the group gets separated, and suddenly it matters who is carrying what. Or when someone suddenly has to climb or swim or fight, and suddenly it matters where they are carrying things and what they're wearing. Or when something messes with their logistical solution, or circumstances dramatically change, and suddenly there is a new situation and problem that naturally flows from a combination of what the situation is, their choices before and after some new developments, and the rules that provide logical systems for how stuff works. I find it fun to have rules and track stuff so that situations can naturally develop from events, and so players realize they are responsible for anticipating and being prepared and making smart choices or they may suffer logical consequences because it's part of the game system (as opposed to the GM just deciding it would be cool if some supply situation happens and just makes that up and how it affects stuff or what choices it brings up that he just invented as an intentionally designed story situation).

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;935265It's not tracked in books or movies. So no.

Huh? In books and movies about situations where it matters, it is either tracked, or the story is lazy, forced, fake and/or lame.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;935269Right. Like ammunition, fuel, energy shields, etc. that tend to fail at dramatically opportune moments.

Which tends to be pretty transparently forced, lame and annoying, and causes me to lose interest and feel the authors are lazy and/or lame.