How closely do you track daily expenses for your players?

[Roadkill101]

I tend to do a daily upkeep fee for food and lodgings when in civilized area's based on the input I recieve from the player as to how mean or expensive the characters tastes are running that day. The cost for these type of expenses I usually arrive at arbitrarily on the fly.

When the party goes out to equip for a venture, I have the group give me a list of the items they are buying that count towards general supplies and then tell the group how much those supplies will last and let them work out who's contributing how much to the bill.

Any personal items in addition to general supplies I have the player make out a list for and then give them the total cost. Sometimes another player will assist in helping cover the personal items if the original character can't afford everything they want, assuming the personal items are made public knowledge among the group.

These types of expenses I generally look at the prices given in the PHB and do a rough tally, counting only the more expensive items and then adjust from there based on the number of less expensive items and general state of the local economy and market.

I spend far more focus on tracking equipment than expenses.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

I just tell them how much it will cost for a weekly expenses, unless they go out of their way to spend more on "lifestyle" choices.

 

[Morrus]

We keep track of it by using Fantasy Money (sorry to shill my own product here!) Everyone loves it and there's no accounting or calculation involved.

 

[an_idol_mind]

When the PCs spend a night at a tavern or go on a drinking binge, I usually have them pay a few gold to represent the whole night. Beyond that, gold is usually only spent on property or adventuring equipment. In between adventures, I use the upkeep rule from the Dungeon Master's Guide to estimate how much they've spent.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I don't bother with it, normally. The only exception is if limited resources are part of the situation or adventure.

 

[just__al]

As a general rule, no. It's not going to make or break the game if we haven't tracked their money down to the nearest copper.

I also assume that their torches are lit, waterskins are full, quivers replenished of mundane arrows. All of course assuming that they are in a situation where that's obviously easily done.

They are in the desert and I am now tracking water as the Jann flew off with the barrels the druid was filling with water everyday and the blue dragon destroyed all their water.

But they still have enough capicity that they are fine for now, but they are almost more protective of their water carrying capicty than their desert guide (in fact he ran off screaming at the sight of a blue dragon flying in and they decided he'd be better off far away from them and not dying when they faced their next encounter, whatever it is)

We're here to have fun. Balancing accounts is for real life.

 

[Morrow]

Hey, you too. I was begining to think I was the only one around here running a Freeport campaign.

There are several of us around. I've started up a new story hour over here.

Back on topic - for the first arc of my current campaign (from 1st to about 6th level) I used the optional monthly upkeep rule in the DMG. After that point all my PCs had non-adventuring sources of income (temple, criminal gang, pirate ship). I figure that their day-to-day expenses come out of that income (which I don't bother to track).

Morrow

 

[lukelightning]

I don't bother at all. I don't care to keep track of such minor change. Inns, food, upkeep, all that jazz is ignored. In return, I don't bother to put 3d6 sp in each bandit's pouch.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Anything under 5gp or so we dont bother with. They do pay monthly rent on their house.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I use the monthly upkeep rules from the DMG, and make the PCs pay it one month in advance. But I also have lots and lots of downtime in my campaigns; several months or even a year or two may pass between adventures.

If I ran campaigns like many people do these days, with PCs advancing from 1st to 20th level in the span of a few weeks, tracking upkeep would seem like a complete waste of time to me.