Is Resource Management “Fun?”

[Lanefan]

It's not for hauling the loot back to town. It's for hauling the loot back to the mules.

That's something else I haven't seen in nearly forever: a party using pack animals. For anything.

 

[Lanefan]

You had mules? We always came back to find ours had been devoured by monsters.

Yes, the hirelings we left to watch them as well.

Did you ever come back to find the mules had been devoured by the hirelings?

Or worse, the opposite?

 

[Irlo]

Did you ever come back to find the mules had been devoured by the hirelings?

I seem to recall that happening in the old Knights of the Dinner Table comics.

 

[Celebrim]

You had mules? We always came back to find ours had been devoured by monsters.

Yes, the hirelings we left to watch them as well.

Some GMs just metagame.

 

[Aldarc]

The better game systems don't use hit points....

I'm increasingly of the opposite opinion.

Funny. I'm increasingly of the opinion that anyone who believes that whether or not a tabletop roleplaying uses hit points says anything substantial about the overall quality of a tabletop roleplaying game probably have some pretty unreasonable game opinions that can be reasonably ignored. This is probably not an argument worth having as neither position will win you either friends or good will.

 

[tabletopreloaded]

One of the things I find myself frequently going back to these days is the oft-quoted that “A session of D&D is 30 minutes of fun stretched out to fill 3 hours.”

And while I don’t entirely agree with the ratio, the simple fact is that both D&D and all other tabletop RPGs definitely have slow moments where the game can start to feel like a slog. I know that there are rules-light RPGs that “fix” that by relying entirely on improv and storytelling, and while I know that works great for some groups, I don’t want a character’s effectiveness to hinge on their player’s ability to improv or justify their actions. That doesn’t work at every table.

In the early days, Dungeon Delves relied a lot on resource management as the key to the game. And while that kind of accounting may be “fun” to some players, to some of us, it’s a bit too close to what we do for a living. And I wonder if resource management and “attrition-based play” is what plays into that.

When you’re starting with people who got into the hobby from a tactical wargame, that approach makes sense. These are the people for whom strategy, tactics, and logistics are fun, and something they want to do in their spare time.

I can’t help but wonder if leaning on that last piece is the source of the “15-minute day” problem and the “30 minutes of fun in 3 hours” comments. All games benefit from strategy, and that’s a big part of why people play them, but not everyone who likes strategy and tactics also enjoys logistics.

Thoughts?

Full disclosure: I'm a wargamer at heart. I only dug into "true" TTRPGs after growing tired of the predictable, birds-eye view present in typical wargames, so I might be one those old-school players you're referring to.

With that said, I prefer a detailed and thorough inventory system, even if makes the game take a little longer. Now, I know it depends on the person, but IMO, a fictional world without inventory tracking just feels unbelievable, and not in a good way. If I'm not consciously aware of what my character is hauling around, that really breaks the immersion for me. It really helps me get into a game when I can actually outline the items I have to work with. Otherwise, the game's just a bit too abstract for my taste. I think resource management is a must for plunder-heavy adventures such as dungeon crawls, but YMMV

 

[Cruentus]

That's something else I haven't seen in nearly forever: a party using pack animals. For anything.

Two campaigns I’m running concurrently both have parties with mules and carts. One campaign the main character and his two henchmen had one mule. They then overwhelmed some bandits and took their two mules. Now they have three. The other bought a cart and mule at first level, and take it everywhere. And they often go into towns or ruins, leaving the cart, and forget key pieces of gear that they left in the cart to save space and increase their foot speed. It’s hilarious to watch them get creative when they once again ‘forgot something on the cart’, usually when the stuff hits the fan.

We are enjoying paying attention to encumbrance, and resource management. And my son, who is 13, stopped playing 5th, and said he likes OSE ‘because worrying about rations and torches is like it’s own mini-game’ and ‘it’s fun’.

 

[James Gasik]

Did you ever come back to find the mules had been devoured by the hirelings?

Or worse, the opposite?

Once, a DM had our hirelings turn out to be bandits, and once we went into the dungeon, they contacted their fellows and we ended up having a bandit encounter once we escaped the dungeon!

I don't think the DM expected us to live however, because they got really annoyed when we asked about xp and treasure from the bandit encounter...

 

[Celebrim]

Funny. I'm increasingly of the opinion that anyone who believes that whether or not a tabletop roleplaying uses hit points says anything substantial about the overall quality of a tabletop roleplaying game probably have some pretty unreasonable game opinions that can be reasonably ignored. This is probably not an argument worth having as neither position will win you either friends or good will.

Possibly not, but it is an argument I'd be willing to make in another thread.

Almost the entire time I've been playing ttRPGs, the consensus of the "smart people" was that the hit point was stupid, along with Vancian magic, linear fortune mechanics (as opposed to dice pools with normal curves), and classes and levels.

And the longer I play the less reasonable those criticisms become. And if there is any one aspect of the system that has survived all criticism it's the hit point.

And after spending two or three years GMing a game without hit points, and indeed on one of the strongest hit point-less systems I know (D6), I really miss them. They make game preparation so much easier. I can't think of anything that the lack of hit points do that hit points don't do better.

And one of the strongest proofs of that is that despite all the other different mechanics that I have been created to replace the hit point with something better, none of them have much penetration into the market. Video games without a hit point system are vastly less popular than ones that have it, despite the heavy math capabilities of video games making alternative more complex systems viable.

 

[Composer99]

So, apropos of resource management, I've recently started into playing Horizon Zero Dawn, and it does feature extensive foraging and crafting - and yes, tracking individual arrows.

An interesting thing about HZD is the only thing you have to keep track of (at least by the point in the game I've reached) is your arrows. Everything else, with one exception, is kind of optional - but you get a benefit out of taking the time and effort to forage and craft stuff - more potent "enchanted" arrows, scavenged tech allowing you to get advanced weapons or traps, healing potions, upgrades to your gear.

So the game has kept me engaged with inventory management (not to the point where I'm trying to optimise, but at least where I'm actively working on it) by making it a boon to manage your inventory resources instead of a bane when you don't do so. More on the carrot side, less on the stick side. (But don't run out of arrows!)

(The non-optional thing you don't have to keep track of as such is your pouch of medicinal herbs, which is how you restore your hit points - yes, HZD has hit points! - if you don't have potions. You have to forage for herbs to keep the pouch stocked, and you're probably in trouble if things go wrong while you're attacking enemies if it's empty.)

There might be something in there for TTRPG design space.