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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8958612" data-attributes="member: 5142">This argument basically amounts to special pleading by arguing that hit points are an accetable exception due to some sort of imaginary or abstract, if you will, grandfather clause. I would nevertheless encourage you and others to try some of these games that have more abstract supply. Your experiences may vary, but I have personally found that the abstracted supply in a number of these games (e.g., Ironsworn, Stonetop, Black Hack, etc.) have somehow made supply feel more real and visceral for play than in games where supplies aren't abstracted. Though to be clear, I don't think that there is one true way here. I don't think that abstracted supply inherently produces this outcome. I also believe that this is true for the reverse. Concrete supplies or resource management isn't some surefire way to increase realism or somehow makes this aspect of the game important or meaningful. I understand that some strands of D&D, for example, take great pride in resource management and meticulously hand-tracking inventory of supplies. There is obviously a legitimate place for this sort of survival-based dungeon-delving game in D&D and other TTRPGs. Some claim that this represents old school D&D. However, I also get the impression that there is also an equally long tradition for a lot of inventory management and supplies to get handwaved in D&D (and its ilk) by the GM and players. This is despite D&D have unabstracted supplies. For the latter approaches to the game, unabstracted supplies seem to get in the way of the fun. In fact, this seems to be the prevailing approach to D&D at present. Matt Colville even had a fairly recent video about how a lot of the items in the equipment section in 5e D&D was mostly vestigial to make the game feel like D&D rather than being a vital aspect of its present play. Again, this is nothing new in D&D's tradition. As [USER=6785785]@hawkeyefan[/USER] says, there are a lot of magic items and spells that amount to circumventing or bypassing the resource-management mini-game and/or turning it into a trivial part of the overall game.</blockquote>

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