D&D 5E Does anyone actually track rations?

[discosoc]

Goodberry dates to 1E.
Continual light is missing - a continual light on a stick was a perpetual light source so common that once the wizard hit 3rd level, the party never again needed to buy torches, except to raze villages.
Darkvision was quite common in AD&D 1E/2E. I miss the distinction of the three kinds: Low-light, infravision, ultravision... Current darkvision is better than any of them were.

I don't recall goodberry nullifying the need for food and water for an entire day.

 

[discosoc]

Darkvision was quite common in AD&D 1E/2E. I miss the distinction of the three kinds: Low-light, infravision, ultravision... Current darkvision is better than any of them were.

Small caveat: darkvision was common but the races that got it were limited in class levels.

 

[Pssthpok]

Yes, I do. My big dream is to have a group of PCs starve to death over lack of hardtack.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

As for impossible to keep track of? I don't. That is up to my players. That could open a can of worms I suppose. My players can handle simple math. It is simple math. If not, they would not be invited to my table. My players are honest about these things. It adds realism to the game and who wants a guilty conscience of being a liar? My friends do not do that. So I have a table full of good honest friends and some PCs who carry only what makes sense and they all have hired porters.

This would be the main problem for my group. My players probably can handle simple math and I think they aren't intentionally lying to me, but it's still a problem because it's very hard to check because:
1. You need to know the weight of each item. That either means the player has to look up the weight or has to ask me how much the item weights every time he picks one up, which I then need to look up.
2. You need to add together the weight of all items you have. That can be as many as 60 or even more.

When the players first created their character sheets I looked through them for errors, and there were at least 5 mistakes on each character sheet! Wrong weight, wrong amount of gold coins, forgot to account equipped armor into the total weight, etc.
I don't think they intentionally put less weight or gave themselves more coins to deceive me, I think they are just unable to track everything without doing mistakes because they are humans. So in the end I realized that either I have to track everything myself and then just cross-check with their character sheets occasionally or I can't enforce the rules at all.

I can ask my player "This chest weights 31lb including it's contents, can you still carry it?", but he would just say "Oh my, I neglected to track the item weight the past 12 sessions, I first need to get all the weight values and add them together to tell", so unless I want to wait an hour each time, it just doesn't work for me.

Online tools like auto-calc character sheets would help a lot with that, unfortunately I couldn't get my players to use my preferred character sheet as most of them wanted to use MythWeavers so they don't have to bother with unloading files every time there is a change and the MythWeavers sheet doesn't support auto-calculation (not to mention that there are only like 16 lines for items, it was already full with just the list of starting items!).

 

[Rya.Reisender]

My players drop their backpacks before combat. Which is probably the realistic thing for adventurers anyway -- I certainly wouldn't want to get into a swordfight with a 50-pound bag on my back. Also, it raises the stakes of fleeing, which suits the hardscrabble atmosphere of this particular campaign. As others have said in this thread already, in a more high-heroism campaign I wouldn't use the encumbrance rules.

I didn't even think of dropping the backpacks! Hah.

Ugh, but that's even more to track. I'd need to ask everyone to describe exactly where they drop them and stuff and then remember it in case of them fleeing and stuff. x-x
My players don't even manage to tell me that they pick up the weapons again they dropped during combat, they just auto-assume they do.

 

[MG.0]

My players don't even manage to tell me that they pick up the weapons again they dropped during combat, they just auto-assume they do.

Then the next time they go to use them you tell them that they apparently left them on the ground somewhere...why let them get away with being lazy?

I don't let players shirk the tiny responsibility of keeping track of their own stuff. As a DM it's pretty easy for me to remember when someone drops something during combat. After a couple combats in which characters were forced to fight without their primary weapons, suddenly they don't forget anymore...

 

[iserith]

I think it's fair to side with the players that characters do reasonable things - like picking up dropped weapons or backpacks - the players don't specifically establish provided there is nothing preventing or hindering them from doing so.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Then the next time they go to use them you tell them that they apparently left them on the ground somewhere...why let them get away with being lazy?

I don't let players shirk the tiny responsibility of keeping track of their own stuff. As a DM it's pretty easy for me to remember when someone drops something during combat. After a couple combats in which characters were forced to fight without their primary weapons, suddenly they don't forget anymore...

I'm of the opinion that "Oh, and my character collects all their [dropped gear, recoverable ammuntion, etc.]" is right there with "Oh, and my character steps off into the woods, as usual, to evacuate their bowels... and also remembers to wipe, and wash up after." in the category of things that really aren't worth the time spent stating them, nor reasonable for the DM to punish the players for considering to be in that category.

There are tons of little things which every DM I've ever encountered lets the players get by with assuming their characters do them even when not mentioned that are of greater importance than this - such as dressing themselves, for example - so I don't know why this is where someone would draw the line and say "Nope, you didn't remember to say your character picked up their gear that is absolutely necessary to their continued survival, so I guess your character is a big incompetent goon that left it behind even though they were looking right at it."

 

[MG.0]

I think it's fair to side with the players that characters do reasonable things - like picking up dropped weapons or backpacks - the players don't specifically establish provided there is nothing preventing or hindering them from doing so.

I don't like doing that (I've tried), because it inevitably seems to lead to players auto-assuming more and more of their actions and getting annoyed when I finally start enforcing things. It starts with dropped items, but it spreads to equipment they 'would have bought', and searches they 'would have made', and precautions they 'would have taken'. It got so frustrating I went back to enforcing a strict "If you didn't say it, you didn't do it" policy. I've found that with such a policy players take a greater interest in preparing for things instead of handwaving everything until I arbitrarily draw a line somewhere.

 

[MG.0]

"Nope, you didn't remember to say your character picked up their gear that is absolutely necessary to their continued survival, so I guess your character is a big incompetent goon that left it behind even though they were looking right at it."

Yes, exactly this.

If players can't be bothered to track stuff they absolutely need (how hard is it to say you picked up that weapon you dropped?) when I as the DM have no problem tracking all of them, that says more about their interest in the game than anything. I've found enforcing it is not a chore. dropping isn't rampant and once players get the idea, the other problems disappear as well.

In-game I think having the character care about vital equipment is a far cry from worrying about trivial stuff like remembering to wash.