D&D General The nitty gritty

[the Jester]

All of it except encumbrance, which I do informally and off the cuff, and water, which we track if it's relevant. For instance, we recently had some desert adventures, so one of the party members started packing create or destroy water to handwave water requirements away.

 

[Li Shenron]

It depends on the players group, and I am usually not asking them to keep track of something unless they start doing so. If the players don't go telling each other "we should have enough ammunitions before this quest", I am not asking them to keep count, nor I keep count secretly and then all of a sudden tell them they have no arrows left. If it doesn't come up spontaneously, it probably means the group has no interest in that possible aspect of the game, and probably wouldn't have fun if I forced them to. Ammunitions, rations, spell components, encumbrance* and mundane consumables like amount of light sources/recharges fall into this category for me.

I still voted for light sources there because I wasn't sure you whether you meant either keeping track of how many hours worth of torch usage (which I don't) or keeping track of where do the light sources available extend visibility to (which I do).

I do keep track of time and rest, because those are generally a lot more immediately intuitive to players as a resource.

I also keep track of mundane equipment that can make a difference, like ropes and poles, but usually only up to "do you have it or not?", and many useful tools are typically included in adventuring starting packages.

*I don't track encumbrance carefully but I may require some ballpark common sense, should anyway want to carry something big, heavy or unwieldy (like a fallen comrade)

 

[grimmgoose]

Time and rest only.

Past level 5 (honestly past level 3), hardly any of that other stuff matters. Spells solve almost all of those problems.

 

[Charlaquin]

All of the above, except spell components that don’t have a listed cost. Sometimes I’ll also simplify or brush over encumbrance.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I only really care about spell components if they have a significant cost associated with them. I never want to be in a scenario where people have to worry about how many balls of bat guano they have.

Encumbrance I tend to only enforce if someone tries to do something egregious, like take a statue with them, or carry multiple suits of metal armor.

 

[schneeland]

Depends a bit on specific version of D&D - in 3e or 5e, only time, rests, special equipment and major spell components receive attention. In B/X (or similar things like Forbidden Lands), rations, water, torches and encumbrance get tracked, too. However, I do prefer alternative rules with simplified approaches like resource dice and slot-based encumbrance for this purpose to the full book keeping.
I don't think ammunition has ever been tracked in groups that I played in.

 

[R_J_K75]

As others have said, I only worry about any of the things listed if it matters to the success or failure of the adventure, and that's very rare these days. There was a time when we played more often for longer periods of time when we did keep track of things diligently because it was easy to do when you're playing for 8+ hours 4 times a week. Nowadays I don't bother as we find it adds little to the game

 

[Stormonu]

Generally only time.

I stopped tracking ammunition after an archer-type character decided to carry around 5 quivers of ammunition (well within encumbrance limit). Now I generally rule that a nat 1 is "out of ammo" and have considered adopting Forbidden Land's supply tracking mechanic (you "buy" enough of a item to get a die - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. Every time you use the supply, you roll the die. On a 1, you degrade the die size. If you roll a 1 on the d4, you're out)

If I'm using a VTT, I track vision & illumination, otherwise I will not bother.

Food & Water only modestly tracked if there's an overland journey or a situation (such as lost in a desert) is important.

Encumbrance comes into play only if the player is carrying a silly amount of gear, or if someone tries to lift something exceptionally heavy.

What's meant by tracking rests? The type, how many are taken or the time they take up or something else?

 

[Reynard]

What's meant by tracking rests? The type, how many are taken or the time they take up or something else?

I meant the minutiae: safe location, watches, interruptions at night spoiling rest benefits, etc.

 

[tetrasodium]

As a player I track nearly all of those on my sheet and it irks me when players decide that it's fine for them to cheat by duplicating expensive consumables or ignoring them until the rest of the table needs to sit there waiting for them to do something like calculate encumbrance for the first time because the 5e sheet didn't bother to account for it. I checked ammunition rations water encumbrance light sources & other (rope/etc). The other things I left unchecked because they are either stuff like rest that is more of a recovery for other tracked resources than a tracked resource or time that is largely in the DM's hands. I checked light sources because I do use & account for them with grid movement (ie combat) when possible & track their weight on my sheet, but 5e's rules do so much to nullify their ability to impact anything that it's almost a wonder that they even bothered to include rules darkness for or admitted that sometimes the sun is not shining where you are. I did not check "spell components" because it didn't specify "rare" ones, and the fact that the 5e rules for material components as well as focus items are so bad that it's hard not to wonder if some of them are accidentally leftover bits of a more defined system that got deliberately cut at the last minute

As a GM I expect the same of my players & find it irksome how much the 5e character sheet fights that

edit: also there are games that make tracking some of those things (un)important & (un)expected, obviously things change appropriately then