Quote from: CRKrueger;935337But, 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.

Agreed.

The thing is, there is bookkeeping and attention that needs to be paid for these things to pay off. Some people don't think that attention is worth the payoff. I have seen that while it does take time and focus on occasion, it often leads to terrific pay off in unexpected way outside of the resource manage tracking and how that resource management affects the decisions of the PCs and the plight. For me, the time put into tracking this stuff pays off, creating dramatic moments and heightening dramatic moments.

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

That's not all that the book needs to be about, just because it tracks it.

For example, Tolkien gets into what the travelers (hobbits, dwarves, orcs) have to eat sometimes in quite a bit of detail, as I recall, as well as its effects on their physical and mental state and what they decide to do about it. Seems to me there were some other topics covered.

Though if I take your "it" as "the game situation in its various details and how they logically interrelate" then yes, I track that and that's what my game is largely about. It's not generally about fantasizing that you don't have to eat or that you have infinite ammo or that you can carry twelve full-size weapons at once.

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.

See the olde Gamelords generic (Traveler) supplement The Mountain Environment.

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.

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.

Exactly. Also try hiking around off trail in various terrain. It can be very non-trivial, and multiply the difficulty of carrying stuff. Wagons have trouble on sand, mud, rocks, steep slopes, underbrush, rocky fords, foot bridges...

Quote from: Daztur;935366I 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

Great post! I use exposure rules for the same reason, they are even better than food in that aspect - "it is too cold, let us hide into a cave until the storm gets better"!

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;935288Survival 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!

Your M4A3E8 has only 4 HVAP shells and you won't be able to resupply for two days.

Wargames pretty much are ALL 'survival games'.

Quote from: Skarg;935461Huh? In books and movies about situations where it matters, it is either tracked, or the story is lazy, forced, fake and/or lame.

Games aren't books and movies, either, and somebody should have pointed that out to Laughing Boy earlier.

It depends on the game. Older D&D is partially about resource management and doing this stuff is part of the fun

when I  run   Urban Fantasy, Angel and Buffy typically , no need to bother as the PC's can just swing by Double Meat Palace for a bite to eat and I don't have enough firefights to merit tracking ammo in depth

In newer (3 and up) D&D create water is a cantrip so no need to track that  and so is purify food and water  and after 5th level or so, no need to track food either if there is a cleric in the party or a druid of nearly any level as Goodberry average 5 magic berries per casting

Right. In an urban setting the PCs (probably) dont have to worry about food. But they will still have to manage what they carry.

As for spells and such. Spells may fail and clerics in particular may be subject to the whims of the gods. Especially if they have been overusing those spells. And of course interference from other gods either direct or indirect. Or the spell it simply not in the setting.

From what I was told by TSR staff near the end was that the shift of supply spells to earlier levels was some sort of push away from having to rely on retainers and rations. You really see that by 3rd ed all the way to 5e. Though 5th has at least returned retainers as an option. Supply spells are still way too common. This was one of my playtest complaints along with the overpower of combat spells.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935494Games aren't books and movies, either, and somebody should have pointed that out to Laughing Boy earlier.

:confused:

Quote from: Black Vulmea;935321

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.

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

Quote from: Skarg;935461Huh? In books and movies about situations where it matters, it is either tracked, or the story is lazy, forced, fake and/or lame.

Q.E.D., BV.  Weren't referring to you.

But yeah, it HAD been pointed it out, apparently just ignored.

How the fuck did I miss that first time through?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935524How the fuck did I miss that first time through?

I'm just too subtle for my own good, I guess.

I track both, but it generally doesn't get to be too difficult as my players usually come from a background and know what's reasonable to carry an what is not, and the importance of food and water.  It only becomes and issue when you get someone who has never really had to carry a pack full of stuff for any distance, or has never really gone without water or food, especially under physical exertion.   Water is foremost, food, well if you run out you can always eat the monsters (well at least some of them)

One thing I've never seen is how being real hungry can make you mean, I think you should get a bonus to saves against fear and the like when your real hungry.

It goes well, Encumbrance especially when players start trying to figure how to get all the treasure out.  I've never seen players more creative.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;935187I do. I'm running LotFP, which has a lovely, abstracted encumbrance system.

Each item takes up a slot; every five slots after the first add +1 point of encumbrance.

0–1 Unencumbered
2 Lightly Encumbered
3 Heavily Encumbered
4 Severely Encumbered
5+ Over Encumbered

A day's rations count for one person take upon one slot.

I like all the decision making it creates, the panic it can cause -- both in planning the trip and while on the road.

I also assume retainers, pack animals and the such are required by the PCs to fulfill their desires.

Strangely, the Players have been slowly to acquire retainers in the game. I think this is a habit born from player several decades of, or starting only with (some of them are relatively young), games that are very PC focused, where the idea that you'd have an entourage and employees be part of the story is a novel idea -- and even strange.

I use something similar: Every STR point equals the number of items carried; OR when the STR score is multiplied by 10, the maximum weight that can be carried while still moving and functioning (heavier loads are allowed for short distances, like using a fireman's carry on a fallen comrade). Rations and water for one day equal 10# (or one item). Regular food and drink are up to twice as heavy, and will spoil quickly but are cheaper and usually easier to obtain in one form or another.

Now, for the typical adventure where the PCs are only a few days away from home base, I don't bother to keep up with tracking rations. But lengthy expeditions -especially ones at sea or in the barren wilderness- do require keeping track of food and drink. One reason I started using this stripped-down method is that as a player and DM in games where keeping tabs on food, drink and other supplies was mandatory, the PCs made it a point to pillage every scrap of food, every drop of water/wine/beer, everything that could burn and every piece of material that could be used to make improvised gunny sacks. They turned sacking and looting into an art form and it started taking up more time during the sessions than I wanted.