Is Resource Management “Fun?”

[pemerton]

I've actually never played any other RPG where the players were asking, "Man, are you sure there's no way to resupply here?" And then seriously discussing if the attempt to resupply was worth the risk of further supply deterioration.

Torchbearer!

 

[pemerton]

Why would we want to be uniform?

In MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, there is no inventory subsystem. Some powers have a Gear limit, which can be triggered when the fiction permits (and the appropriate resource is spent) by the player or the GM. But that is no different from any other sort of power shutdown effect.

In D&D 4e, we never bothered to track arrows, and at the earliest opportunity the PCs found a Basket of Everlasting Provisions so we never needed to track food. It's not that kind of game.

In the last Burning Wheel session I played, my PC nearly murdered someone over a pair of shoes. And in my Torchbearer game the PCs have been going about barefoot ever since their shoes wore out while travelling. And of course Torchbearer has an intricate inventory system.

Different RPGs foreground different sorts of things. The only one that I play regularly which I think suffers badly in respect of how it handles inventory is Classic Traveller, which I think would be strictly better in play if it had an abstract wealth system rather than requiring players to track every credit.

 

[James Gasik]

It depends on what role money has in your game. In 1e, amassing wealth gave you experience points. In 2e, however, it did not. Some classes needed money more than others; if you're a Fighter or Cleric, for example, you might want that suit of full plate, and saving up for it will take awhile.

For all of my AD&D characters, saving up for a horse was usually the first hurdle. And then maintaining a "new horse fund" in case the DM decided that it was time for your horse to make the pilgrimage to horse heaven- I'm convinced the Horse Lord has it out for me!

Ironically, a lot of the DM's I knew had a vested interest in keeping me poor. And if I did acquire money, they demanded to know where I was keeping it. If I tried invest, my investments failed. Buy a house, it burns down. Or I get hit with taxes. You go for a walk in the market, you can expect 30 pick pocket attempts. Inns would charge outrageous prices for services, and nobody was buying or selling magic items (but if you got too many magic items, you can bet that some event would remove them from your inventory once the DM started griping about it; never no mind that he was the one who put them in adventures in the first place!).

After awhile, I just started donating all my money to churches. I had a DM want to run an adventure where we would need to get on a ship. "Oh, that's unfortunate, I can't afford it."

"What do you mean you can't afford it?! You're rich!"

"I'm afraid not, I donated most of my money to that church of Pholtus, remember?"

DM: "Argh, fine, they let you work on the ship for passage."

You just accepted it as part of the game loop. Most of the things you wanted once you got past the big purchases were cheap anyways, and anyone who played an archer in 2e got wise and took Bowyer/Fletcher proficiency and made their own arrows. Players would always go hunting for stray arrows after fights. You accepted that you couldn't use a shield or a two-handed weapon in a dungeon since you needed a torch hand; no big loss really, the shield was only +1 AC and the two-hander only did 1 more point of damage on average against normal foes.

Every time a magic weapon dropped you'd ask if it shed light; typically it didn't. Eventually a Cleric would get high enough level to start casting Continual Light, and that generally stopped being a concern. Or you'd get a party of all Half-Elves for the infravision.

It was usually the DM's who stopped tracking rations; they'd start some epic adventure with "you've traveled for three weeks across the plains, when..."

"Uh, hang on. We can't travel that far. We don't have enough rations for the trip."

"Oh for the...look, you make it, ok?"

"Sure", we said and that was that.

None of this really bothered me until 4e, when spellcasters could shoot magic all day long, but our ranger had to track arrows. That seemed a bit unfair to me; it wasn't like it was a huge drain on resources, but it seemed rather imbalanced. When I asked, I always got "well, the bow has more range than the at-will". "Yeah but, how often does that matter?" crickets

(Most DM's learn really quick to never let players engage foes at long range; you end up with a bunch of dead orcs, lol).

At this point in my gaming career, I can honestly say that the only reason to track stuff like this is for verisimilitude. Game balance isn't wrecked by ignoring most of it, and if you present players with a logistics problem, they'll typically find a way to solve it forever because the constant resource drain annoys them, lol.

What I've taken to do is tell my players up front that I'll be deducting a set amount of money from their earnings each in-game month for "maintenance costs". This includes rooms at Inns, meals, and little details like ammunition and spell components. If they don't like this, they are free to track these things themselves. There is the caveat that if they do become wholly separated from civilization for more than a month they might run into problems, but that's a rare event.

I typically take the money directly out of their treasure without even telling them about it; so far everyone seems happy with this arrangement.

 

[MGibster]

Well, firstly, I see using dice to determine your supply as incredibly jarring, and silly. I've lived rough in the military, hiking, etc. How much water, food, etc. you have is not a variable. You don't take a drink out of a canteen and suddenly it is empty.

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.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

What makes it unfun? The actual tracking itself, or the consequences when you run out?

The former can usually be remedied by a dedicated tracking sheet, the latter by making the consequences interesting in their own right.

It's simply a matter of where one want to put time and emphasis in ones game. In my group, rations and torches are implied, but having the correct seal on the forged letter of passage to present to the duergar royal majordomo definitely isn't, nor is balancing the fine line of eloquence, argument and rhetoric in the paladins speech to the gray dwarven prince.

Me and most of my table did our fair share of torch counting back in the early eighties, and we find our roleplaying fun in other aspects of gaming these days.

But as I said, we'll try Pf2e super raw and who knows, maybe the exact length of rope to the inch will be fun again.

 

[payn]

But as I said, we'll try Pf2e super raw and who knows, maybe the exact length of rope to the inch will be fun again.

You absolutely should try PF2 its a pretty great game. Though, I didn't perceive or experience it to be inherently based on resource management as a core experience in the ruleset. It certainly can, but its not a core tenet so let that be considered in the final critique.

 

[Ringtail]

I don't think the act of tracking resources is fun, but it can create fun gameplay.

Example, Darkest Dungeon. Not a table-top RPG sure, but that entire game is centered around "Resource Management" and is basically an homage to Old-school D&D. Those resources include equipment like Torches & Shovels, but also your character hit points. Not enough light? Fights get harder, you get surprised more easily, etc. Those resources create stakes, which make exploring and fighting a little stressful, which in this situation is fun (for me, some people don't like that game, which is fine.)

The style of game you are trying to play, determines whether resources are important. For example, if you want a tactical RPG with a focus on combat, resources may not be that significant. Final Fantasy Tactics doesn't track your arrows for example, but it does your healing items. A narrative game focused on swashbuckling doesn't need them at all. How often do you worry about Indy or Nathan Drake having a torch or flashlight batteries? You don't they just have it when they need it.

Similarly the act of tracking these resources can be tedious, even if the result is fun. For example switching to Foundry VTT for my group saw the re-introduction of carry weight, since Foundry did the math for us. We discovered that we were all over-encumbered because we carried all of our coins with us at all times, so we had to start leaving them back at our keep. Similarly we had a "Dead Money" scenario where we found a bunch of Trade Bars in a dungeon, and had to figure out how to get them all out.

 

[Umbran]

Thoughts?

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.

We can hand wave nearly everything if we want to. Why not have unlimited spells along with torches, food and spell components?

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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Management of mundane resources is realistic; meaning the bigger question is really about whether realism in the game, where it applies or can apply, is fun.

My answer is yes.

To me, that is the issue. I want my game to have as much verisimilitude as my players can stand.

 

[Asisreo]

I posit that what makes resource management engaging and challenging, it isn't the fear of running out of resources, per say, but it's the concept of managing those resources and problems arising from mismanagement of them.