Is Resource Management “Fun?”

[reelo]

There's people who play computer games like Thief, Splinter Cell, or Far Cry and immediately turn on Infinite Ammo, All Guns, and Invulnerability and then complain when they've played through the game in a couple of hours.
I don't understand those people. Where's the challenge? Where's the fun?
They'll never experience the thrill of, say, Thief, when you're down to your last water- or moss-arrow, and a well-guarded hallway comes up.

People who handwave all ressource management in D&D are the same to me. Limitation breeds creativity. Breeds opportunity for more story, more RP!

 

[Jd Smith1]

The rules are not written for realism or as a simulation, but are abstract and designed to emulate the movies the game is based on by creating tension with the introduction of a little uncertainty. In Aliens, you're not going to use your welder once and suddenly run out of power, but the more you use it, especially as the game progresses and your character gains Stress points, the more likely it is you expend Energy. Ammunition is handled in a similar manner in that you really don't keep track of it. If you just fire off a round you won't run out of ammo, but do so in a stressful situation and you might empty the entire magazine to bag your bad guy.

I'm familiar with the system. Like I said, seems pretty silly to me. After all, that's why you carry a dozen-plus spare mags. Or spare batteries for your welder.

With good encumbrance rules, the players make choices, and live or die by them. Depth to a campaign is vital, IMO.

But I get that people do enjoy fluff campaigns. I just don't see the point.

 

[kenada]

One of the things I find myself frequently going back to these days is the oft-quoted that “A session of D&D is 30 minutes of fun stretched out to fill 3 hours.”

And while I don’t entirely agree with the ratio, the simple fact is that both D&D and all other tabletop RPGs definitely have slow moments where the game can start to feel like a slog. I know that there are rules-light RPGs that “fix” that by relying entirely on improv and storytelling, and while I know that works great for some groups, I don’t want a character’s effectiveness to hinge on their player’s ability to improv or justify their actions. That doesn’t work at every table.

In the early days, Dungeon Delves relied a lot on resource management as the key to the game. And while that kind of accounting may be “fun” to some players, to some of us, it’s a bit too close to what we do for a living. And I wonder if resource management and “attrition-based play” is what plays into that.

When you’re starting with people who got into the hobby from a tactical wargame, that approach makes sense. These are the people for whom strategy, tactics, and logistics are fun, and something they want to do in their spare time.

I can’t help but wonder if leaning on that last piece is the source of the “15-minute day” problem and the “30 minutes of fun in 3 hours” comments. All games benefit from strategy, and that’s a big part of why people play them, but not everyone who likes strategy and tactics also enjoys logistics.

Thoughts?

RPGs should include what they need to create the kinds of experiences they intend to have. Blades in the Dark uses stress and load management to increase the pressure over the course of an adventure, and deciding how to engage with those things involves making interesting choices. Managing inventory in “modern” games is rarely compelling because it’s tedious (adding up all those pounds, coins, or even bulk) and has very limited effect on the game. It’s there because it’s traditional — preceding editions have those things, so subsequent ones must have them too; but the effect usually is you go a bit slower (and the rules are often rigged so that only happens in extreme cases). It also doesn’t help that the assumptions made regarding the “adventuring day” are poor at best.

Pathfinder 2e does a bit better job of this than 5e, though its implementation still kind of stinks. I really like what Kevin Crawford does in his games (Stars Without Number, Worlds Without Number, etc) with System Strain. You can (and are assumed to) be at full HP going into a fight, but you still have to be careful with your System Strain. I also like how Torchbearer visually manages inventory. There’s no math. If you have an item in your pack, you right it on the line under your pack. If you move it to the pouch on your belt, you erase it and write it in the pouch on your belt. If you had little tokens for items or cards, you could handle that visually (e.g., allocating and managing your dice in Roll for the Galaxy or the cards comprising your inventory in Middara). These games have been a big influence on the attrition model I use in my homebrew system (items, inventory, stress, HP, and MP).

Obviously, for some games, that kind of resource loop doesn’t make sense, and they shouldn’t have one even if its presence is traditional. Consider the style of curated, story-driven campaign that’s popular. The resource loops they have should be focused and aligned with how people are actually engaging in those campaigns. Instead of having rules for inventory or spell resources people ignore (because they’re feeble or don’t matter in practice due to encounter nova-ing, etc), orient them towards the actual unit of play. Perhaps have they could have session-based or adventure-level resources that need to be managed, or they could provide ways to recharge resources that involve making trade-offs during the adventure (sort of like what PF2 tries to do with focus spells and out-of-combat healing, but the time cost would have to be an actual cost in practice).

 

[Irlo]

I can enjoy a game in which supplies of ammunition, food and water, and general gear plays a role. I don't mind tracking the depletion of resources. It can be fun to find a stash of otherwise low-value goods that can be collected to replenish needed gear or to face the consequences of running of of arrows.

I absolutely hate the acquisition of supplies in-game. I have no interest in balancing exenditures vs. available cash and the weight of gear against encumbrance limits, especially when working with a group. That's a grueling, unrewarding task. I'll do it in real life when I go backpacking, but that's because I love backpacking, not because I love shopping and packing. I manage logistics at work. I don't want to play a game in which I have to decide to replace my bootlaces in town or risk the consequences of inadequate footwear in the dungeon.

In balance, it's not worth it for me to engage in the logisitcs game.

I would prefer an abstract system to handle that over handwaving resource-management altogether.

 

[payn]

There's people who play computer games like Thief, Splinter Cell, or Far Cry and immediately turn on Infinite Ammo, All Guns, and Invulnerability and then complain when they've played through the game in a couple of hours.
I don't understand those people. Where's the challenge? Where's the fun?
They'll never experience the thrill of, say, Thief, when you're down to your last water- or moss-arrow, and a well-guarded hallway comes up.

People who handwave all ressource management in D&D are the same to me. Limitation breeds creativity. Breeds opportunity for more story, more RP!

I understand this viewpoint, but also find it to be rather specific. There is nothing wrong with folks wanting to play a TTRPG like Mass Effect video game series. ME is a very narrative driven action game that limits the resource management because its immaterial to the experience. The challenge arises from the action and the choices the player must make to move the game forward. I dont think its fair to criticize this preference as "challenge averse cheat coders." It's simply a different way to experience the challenge of an RPG.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think the feeling of how great it is in D&D to find a Bag of Holding or a Heward’s Handy Haversack or a Quiver of Elhonna tells us all we need to know.

No one’s ever gotten one of those items and said “aw man, now we don’t have to track as much stuff!”

 

[Warpiglet-7]

There was a time I loved the fiddly-bits of logistics. Not so much any more. I note that I enjoyed it back when I was a teen, and played 6+ hours at a go, possibly multiple times per week. Time and to spare to pour into every aspect of a game.

These days, sessions are 2-3 hours, every other week, so game time is more precious.

In the end, I think that the logistics can be interesting, but I don't know if it was ever "fun" in the same way that action in the game can be fun.



Why not? Two reasons - Overall time budget bang for the buck, and separation in time between action and payoff.

Proper, fully done logistics chews up a lot of time for the players, and introduces compliance issues during play - someone has to accurately track resources used. For all that effort, if you've properly done it, there is no "wow" moment. Logistics only becomes clearly visible in the failure, not the success. And, that failure or success is some long time after the logistical choices are made - perhaps weeks of game-time, months of real time. Very long time separation between choice and results may be "grounding", but it lacks punch in game design.

This contrasted to spell management, in which the choices you made last encounter, or even last round, can impact the current situation in play.

Appreciate the thoughts but disagree on a couple of points.

You can have resource management that is quick but when things with resources happen, mistakes or bad luck, exciting adventure and danger can result.

Over the years we have found a middle ground that acknowledges resource management without be bogged down.

Everyone is different of course. For me, making a hash mark for a shot arrow is a negligible time commitment.

Calculating perfect and strict encumbrance….is more tedium than fun. Close enough for me is good enough there.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I think the feeling of how great it is in D&D to find a Bag of Holding or a Heward’s Handy Haversack or a Quiver of Elhonna tells us all we need to know.

No one’s ever gotten one of those items and said “aw man, now we don’t have to track as much stuff!”

No. But the limitation is what makes these items a reward.

“We can haul more treasure” is a nice thing but only in the face of some limitation.

 

[Pedantic]

While I understand this was mostly about carrying capacity, food, light sources and non-combat logistics, I'm enjoying the thought experiment of designing a TTRPG that doesn't have any resource management component at all.

I don't play many games that involve no resource management. In a TTRPG that probably would amount to allocating a fixed resource each turn to a set of different choices? You'd also need to abstract time somehow, because that's nearly always the most common expense for any action, so you're probably doing some kind of situation/scene level resolution. As long as conditions are unbounded or transient (you can't have 3 condition slots to manage, unless they also disappear after 1 turn of gameplay) you could use them as consequences, but you obviously can't have a depleting health or sanity or whatever pool.

I'm imagining maybe you use several dice that affect different scene parameters to determine the outcome of each turn, influenced in some way by allocating your points between them and any conditions you currently have?

 

[Deset Gled]

Yes, resource management is lots of fun! Seriously. It's something I enjoy about TTRPGs. What really bothers me is when media pays no attention to resources. The action hero who never reloads his gun. The travelers who never think about food. The medic that always has a first aid kit with the right supplies.

That's why I don't just sit around telling stories with my friends. We play a game instead. A game that forces us to keep track of such things. It's boring for the heroes to have exactly the tools the plot demands. It's a challenge to know what you'll need, and be under pressure when you don't have it.

That being said, I understand that finding the Goldilocks amount of resource management can be challenging. IMNSO, that's one of the reasons for different classes; some are much more resource management heavy that others. Wizards, who cast spells like a science, should require much more resource management than Warlocks. Sword and board fighters don't need to track ammo like an archer. If you want to change the amount of resource management you deal with in a game, you should be prepared to make character sacrifices to support that desire.