Poll: Realism Modules in Your Game

[Umbran]

Counterpoint- sometimes, tracking inventory can be super fun and dramatic!!!!

Sure. But there's a cost vs benefit analysis here. Is the rare case of it being fun and dramatic worth all the other times where it is time-wasting busywork? Usually not.

In several other games I play, there are mechanics which allow us to insert the same drama, without having to bother tracking inventory - any "success with consequences" mechanic can yield running out of ammunition, for example.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sure. But there's a cost vs benefit analysis here.

Exactly!

Tracking inventory? Cost/benefit analysis? You're warming the cockles of many an actuaries' heart. Spleen? Some sort of organ.

The game of math & legalistic rules- Actuaries & Associates. I'm getting a little misty-eyed just thinking about it.

 

[J.Quondam]

Do spleens even have cockles?

 

[J.Quondam]

Of the options listed, I've most used wounds and stamina; mental health tracks (sanity, stress, etc); and exposure/hunger type survival rules. But not all in the same game, that I can recall.
It's very, very dependent on the game itself.

 

[Umbran]

Tracking inventory? Cost/benefit analysis? You're warming the cockles of many an actuaries' heart. Spleen? Some sort of organ.

Well, of course, if you are playing Papers & Paychecks, this is all quite appropriate. Your 7th level Insurance Adjuster can still have his day with a calculator.

 

[Umbran]

Do spleens even have cockles?

Technically, the cockles of the heart are the ventricles. In normal Terran life forms, the spleen does not have ventricles.

Run a supers game where superheroes get their powers from their mutant splenic ventricles, though, and you're all set.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Technically, the cockles of the heart are the ventricles. In normal Terran life forms, the spleen does not have ventricles.

Run a supers game where superheroes get their powers from their mutant splenic ventricles, though, and you're all set.

…. SPLEENTICLES!!!

 

[uzirath]

I'd love to know how many people back in the "hardcore" days of OD&D/BECMI/1e were tracking this, or just wrote, "2 wks. iron rations, 20 arrows" and never changed that.

That certainly happened often enough for us, but I also recall erasing through the little boxes on my character sheet where I tracked arrows and rations. In general, I found that these things were only fun if the character sheets supported it and the GM had a clear, consistent system with reminders in play ("Mark off your rations for the day... you can refill your water from the stream..."). If the GM just expected everyone to handle it, then only a small number of players really kept track. The rest of us just made it up when asked. ("Oh, yeah, I've got, uh, seven arrows left. Yep.") With an organized GM, however, it was sometimes fun to track the minutiae.

 

[CleverNickName]

A friend of mine (and fellow DM) has a unique house-rule for tracking ammo. You always have enough ammo for your bow, crossbow, blowgun, or whatever...
...until you roll a nat-1. That means you missed your target, and you also realized you now have only one arrow (or whatever) left...use it wisely.

I'm glossing over it quite a bit, but that's the gist of it anyway. Consequently, there are a lot more trips to the weapon shop between adventures, and archers carry a variety of ranged weapons. And there are a lot more halflings in the party.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I think you forgot "None of the Above"...