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Does D&D need equipment wear rules?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7085400" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>You could put them in as an optional rule, but mostly the problem here is that tracking equipment decay involves more bookkeeping costs than you'll ever yield in fun. If you port D&D to a computer that could track it all for you, it might make sense, but otherwise it just puts too much of a mental burden on the DM to see to it that the decay is happening and the costs are paid.</p><p></p><p>I tend to simplify it into a 'living expense' rule that is relatively easy to track, and otherwise only worry about damage to equipment when it occurs during dramatic moments (or player's misusing their equipment). Even this can get complicated though, as to keep it 'simple' but also fair that means when, for example, an NPC buys the party lunch or offers the shelter of their roof they effectively get a daily expenditure deduction or a virtual transfer of silver into their pockets to use toward the daily living expense.</p><p></p><p>There are a lot of realistic things that might be fun if the bookkeeping costs were born by someone other than the participants (like a computer). They include realistic coinage, realistic language rules, maintenance and upkeep costs, flavorful quirky magic items, and so forth. I've played with all of them over the years, and ultimately you just can't sustain the interest involved enough to justify the various costs to play. </p><p></p><p>The tolerance for that sort of thing might vary between individual groups. I know some groups find tracking encumbrance and ammunition to be too much of a bookkeeping burden. Who has the light sources, who can see what, and 'what do you have in your hands' even gets to be a difficult problem to keep track of even when you are trying to pay attention to it. </p><p></p><p>There are lot of things I wish I could hand off to a computer and let me focus on creating game play, but unfortunately the cost of doing that is often higher than the returns as well (ask anyone that tried to DM in NWN).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7085400, member: 4937"] You could put them in as an optional rule, but mostly the problem here is that tracking equipment decay involves more bookkeeping costs than you'll ever yield in fun. If you port D&D to a computer that could track it all for you, it might make sense, but otherwise it just puts too much of a mental burden on the DM to see to it that the decay is happening and the costs are paid. I tend to simplify it into a 'living expense' rule that is relatively easy to track, and otherwise only worry about damage to equipment when it occurs during dramatic moments (or player's misusing their equipment). Even this can get complicated though, as to keep it 'simple' but also fair that means when, for example, an NPC buys the party lunch or offers the shelter of their roof they effectively get a daily expenditure deduction or a virtual transfer of silver into their pockets to use toward the daily living expense. There are a lot of realistic things that might be fun if the bookkeeping costs were born by someone other than the participants (like a computer). They include realistic coinage, realistic language rules, maintenance and upkeep costs, flavorful quirky magic items, and so forth. I've played with all of them over the years, and ultimately you just can't sustain the interest involved enough to justify the various costs to play. The tolerance for that sort of thing might vary between individual groups. I know some groups find tracking encumbrance and ammunition to be too much of a bookkeeping burden. Who has the light sources, who can see what, and 'what do you have in your hands' even gets to be a difficult problem to keep track of even when you are trying to pay attention to it. There are lot of things I wish I could hand off to a computer and let me focus on creating game play, but unfortunately the cost of doing that is often higher than the returns as well (ask anyone that tried to DM in NWN). [/QUOTE]
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