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

Right. Like ammunition, fuel, energy shields, etc. that tend to fail at dramatically opportune moments.

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

While this is just Shawn being Shawn, it does bring up a good point:

I use encumbrance rules and tracking food in some games I run, and not others.

In my LotFP game (B/X D&D)? Yes. The game was built with this in mind, and in my view better served by bringing it into play.

If I'm running King Arthur Pendragon? No. It's assumed the knight has his "knight stuff" and his squire has more "knight stuff" and as they adventure, they'll have what they need, because tracking food ain't a knight thing.

If I'm running Burning Wheel, if it looks like food might be an issue, then we make a Resource test and fight out if this is going to be an issue. If it isn't, it isn't; and if it is, it is -- and that becomes a new problem for the PCs to deal with as other issues are raining down on them.

Different RPGs are different (which is good!) and provided different play experiences. My answer to the OP on previous page was in the context of the LotFP game I am currently running. But not all RPGs in general.

Quote from: CRKrueger;935258That's one way to look at things...I however, like roleplaying.

So if the character has to logically make a choice whether to carry this or that, then the rules need to cover weights and encumbrance somehow.  If the character has to logically figure out how they are going to survive crossing Death Valley on foot, because that's not easy, the rules should be able to accomodate that somehow.  It doesn't have to be "isolated minigame or GTFO" that's the silliness that created Torchbearer and the world is a worse place for it.  

Just because we are agreeing it doesn't make sense that you have unlimited arrows until you or I narratively decide you don't, and we're keeping track of them, doesn't mean we need a Bowyer/Fletcher minigame.

My 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?

Last weekend, playing pendragon, an NPC squire holding a mace told his PC knight boss "sir, if you insist on carrying anymore weapons I am going to have to ask you to bend over.  There is no place else to put it."  That's about the extent of my use of encumbrance rules - be reasonable, and I won't make you track it or penalize you for it.

I will bring up encumbrance under certain common sense situations, swimming in armor, or trying to jump a chasm carrying 100 lbs of gold.

I prefer very generous rules for food and encumbrance (food is cheap and lightweight, horses eat grass, you can carry a lot of stuff etc), however I do expect players to keep track of it.
Every now and then I grab a character sheet and check  encumbrance.  If above the characters limit, then obviously he have dropped stuff so I pick some things and erase it.
Perhaps  I should encourage them by giving a bonus (Xp, heropoint) when they´ve kept the limit?
Bloggers challenge: "The overload consquence chart" - like: 1: Dropped 1d6 objects; 2:Pack breaks, everything falls on the floor...

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

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

That's one option for "fumble" rolls in my game. You've run out of ammo and reloads or your weapon jammed (terminology: "jam" means you need an armorer to make it work, a "stoppage" can be fixed during combat) so you need something else until combat is done.

I love Oregon Trail D&D but often am lazy about tracking stuff in actual play.

Am planning to making food matter more by making it a very Bad Idea to eat food in most adventuring locations. See Persephone in Hades.

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

Survival horror in the wilderness. Nature as the enemy. Bad weather, starvation, dehydration, not enough arrows and lack of proper supplies in the wild can lead to interesting outcomes... like being unable to forage for meat, and having to resort to eating your enemies.

Oregon Trail: Grim & Perilous!

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

Except for the ones that do.

Quote from: Omega;935290Except for the ones that do.

If it is tracked in movies and books, then that is what the movie or book is about. Is that what your campaign is about? Sounds like you ran out of talent as a GM to even be asking about tracking food/ammo and encumbrance.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;935292If it is tracked in movies and books, then that is what the movie or book is about. Is that what your campaign is about?

Poor attempt at analogy. But to play along with your troll: ammo or supplies in books or movies isn't "what the movie or book is about". We call those "sub-plots", "complications" or "conflicts". They make life more challenging for the protagonist. Y'know, the character(s) that the book or movie is about.

But games aren't books or movies. If they were, they'd be books or movies, not books or movies about games.

QuoteSounds like you ran out of talent as a GM to even be asking about tracking food/ammo and encumbrance.

Troll better next time.

Quote from: Omega;935177Anyone else track rations? How much? How long before you phase it into the background? How well did it go in use?

I do. I use a simpler encumbrance system; "stone weight" compared to < 1/2 STR, > 1/2 STR, < 2x STR. You can carry a little bit of stuff and be agile, a moderate amount and soldier along, or a crap-ton and stagger like a drunk tortoise.

A week of preserved food is one stone. A week of fresh food is 3. The better your food and rest the faster you heal up and resist disease or poison. I figure that if I'm going to make you keep track of food, there had better be something in it for you beyond a tic-box.

It'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'

Quote from: darthfozzywig;935294But games aren't books or movies.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;935294But games aren't books or movies.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;935294But games aren't books or movies.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;935294But games aren't books or movies.

Moving on . . .

Have 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.

If the PCs are leaving civilization, I expect them to be prepared, but I deal with it in abstract. Moreover, I am most interested in how the heavy, bulky food and water for X days is going to be carted about, especially when we head into danger.

In my OD&D game and most of my others, I assume competency in survival skills among non-nobles. Thus, unless you're a Noble, you know shit about hunting, skinning, cooking, and all the necessary outdoor skills that wanderers in the Dark Ages knew. Nobles know more important shit, like being born noble and having a name worth repeating.