D&D General The nitty gritty

[Shardstone]

Light, Other Equipment, Rest, and Encumbrance (though I use a modified system) are all things I've been able to make fun at the table. The rest, I ignore for the most part.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Bags of holding should be a) fairly rare and more importantly b) hella expensive.

Just five per character and upwards of 20gp each.

I throw these at new players immediately just in case they might possibly expect me to care about what they have beyond not retroactively adding it.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I'm still stymied by all the people tracking time.

Rest, on the other hand, seems to track itself. If you use up all your spell slots then you need to rest to get them back. If you want your hot pants back then you need to rest. It's usually the Players tracking this with comments like "Can we take a short rest?"*

* Don't in their most pitiful Steve Urkel voice.

 

[Reynard]

I'm still stymied by all the people tracking time.

Why? Torches last a set amount of time. Random encounters happen after a set amount of time. Tracking rations or arrows is less important than tracking time in any honest dungeon crawl.

 

[Lanefan]

Why? Torches last a set amount of time. Random encounters happen after a set amount of time. Tracking rations or arrows is less important than tracking time in any honest dungeon crawl.

Not just in dungeon crawling; tracking time is also important in any situation where disparate things may or may not interact - or those interactions might be altered - depending on when they occur.

In my setting I've got any number of different PCs, parties, adventures, and so forth on the go at any given time; and thus I need to track time for each (at least to the point of knowing what day it is) so I know who is where when and thus who might potentially be able to interact with who. Added to that is my need to know who is affected by specific world-changing events (some being direct results of PC actions) and who is not, i.e. whether those events have as yet happened or not for whoever I'm DMing at the moment.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why?

It's the odd man out. Look at the list:

• Ammunition: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Rations: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Water: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Light Sources: This is a character thing players track on their sheet & in combat the players are usually capable of saying "my light extends x feet, I can see this" even if sometimes the GM needs to make judgement calls about the efficacy of that light.
• Other equipment (ie rope): This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Spell Components: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Rests: This is amore of a thing done to recover some amount of other tracked resources but all of those tend to be tracked by the players on their sheet
• Spell components: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Time: This is not a thing players track on their sheet & is barely a thing players are even capable of tracking for a a few decades/editions now.
  • (de)buff/spell/ability durations sure, but that's almost an engrish level jump from "time" because it has been many many editions since "time" was a thing d&d provided any support for players to track on their own in any way much more defined than asking the gm "has it been X minutes/hours/etc?"

Torches last a set amount of time. Random encounters happen after a set amount of time. Tracking rations or arrows is less important than tracking time in any honest dungeon crawl.

I disagree. Tracking magical ammunition is extremely important and sometimes it's still important for regular mundane ammunition to be tracked. How do the players track "time" in the last 3-4 editons* given the lack of rules needed to carry that load on player shoulders for the GM?
*5e 4e 3.5 3.0

 

[DrJawaPhD]

It's the odd man out. Look at the list:

• Ammunition: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Rations: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Water: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Light Sources: This is a character thing players track on their sheet & in combat the players are usually capable of saying "my light extends x feet, I can see this" even if sometimes the GM needs to make judgement calls about the efficacy of that light.
• Other equipment (ie rope): This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Spell Components: This is a character thing players track on their sheet

Every player: Oh right yeah I was totally tracking those, turns out I still have some left, yeah definitely.

 

[Reynard]

It's the odd man out. Look at the list:

• Ammunition: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Rations: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Water: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Light Sources: This is a character thing players track on their sheet & in combat the players are usually capable of saying "my light extends x feet, I can see this" even if sometimes the GM needs to make judgement calls about the efficacy of that light.
• Other equipment (ie rope): This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Spell Components: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Rests: This is amore of a thing done to recover some amount of other tracked resources but all of those tend to be tracked by the players on their sheet
• Spell components: This is a character thing players track on their sheet
• Time: This is not a thing players track on their sheet & is barely a thing players are even capable of tracking for a a few decades/editions now.
  • (de)buff/spell/ability durations sure, but that's almost an engrish level jump from "time" because it has been many many editions since "time" was a thing d&d provided any support for players to track on their own in any way moch more defined than asking the gm "has it been X minutes/hours/etc?"

I disagree. Tracking magical ammunition is extremely important and sometimes it's still important for regular mundane ammunition to be tracked. How do the players track "time" in the last 3-4 editons* given the lack of rules needed to carry that load on player shoulders for the GM?
*5e 4e 3.5 3.0

I don't think I said anything about who's responsibility tracking stuff was.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think I said anything about who's responsibility tracking stuff was.

Fair enough, but @tetrasodium still has a point: time is the only thing on that list that's usually tracked by the DM rather than the players.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think I said anything about who's responsibility tracking stuff was.

You didn't need to. You (twice?)* questioned why people are scratching their heads over all the folks citing time, some of the comments about it almost feel like they are describing 2e or shadow dark rather than d&d, that makes it a headscratcher and also kinda frustrating that wotc didn't even include a sidebar that gives the gm some support for shifting it to player shoulders when the gm says "we are using [missing sidebar]".

So you know why it's a headscratcher, why are people citing time like this thread was in an osr forum? I wasn't the one who asked, but I too find myself scratching my head

*I think you did in an earlier post too but could be mistaken and not going back to look, could have been someone else.