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<blockquote data-quote="Alex319" data-source="post: 4854004" data-attributes="member: 45678">Here's an interesting observation I made about resource management in some RPGs (and there are lots of RPGs that do this.)In real life military operations, wilderness expeditions, survival scenarios etc., there are a lot of mundane resources that have to be managed - things like rations, light sources, medical supplies, etc., as well as intangible &quot;resources&quot; like military intelligence, troop morale, navigation, and logistics that are essential for peak performance. (In fact, the majority of a modern army consists of support troops rather than front line fighters.)In RPGs, however, most of these considerations are downplayed or ignored, either by avoiding having rules for them or by introducing easy ways to bypass them (e.g. magic items or spells that can generate food and water, and relatively easy healing). This is done because it's &quot;not fun&quot; or &quot;tedious&quot; to have to worry so much about all tht mundane stuff.Now, to the extent that RPGs are supposed to emulate heroic fantasy, this makes perfect sense. In the Star Wars movies, you didn't see Luke Skywalker counting out how many medpacs he had left or calculating how much fuel it would take to make it to the next star system.However, many RPGs introduce their own, new resources that have to be managed - e.g. hit points, healing surges, magic item charges, spell uses, &quot;hero point&quot; type things in systems that have them, etc. And these aren't generally considered tedious. And of course in terms of emulating heroic fantasy, including these doesn't make sense - after all, you didn't see Luke Skywalker calculating how many &quot;force points&quot; he had left either.---So, now that I've made this observation I'll introduce a few questions for discussion:1. Why is it that the &quot;mundane&quot; resource management (rations, fatigue) is generally seen as tedious, while the &quot;fantastic&quot; resource management (power uses, item charges) isn't?2. Would it be possible to design a game system where &quot;mundane&quot; resource management takes center stage, and is as important to the game as the &quot;fantastic&quot; resource management is in games like D+D? (Do such systems already exist? How well do they work?)I don't know the answers to these questions, I just thought this was an interesting observation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alex319, post: 4854004, member: 45678"] Here's an interesting observation I made about resource management in some RPGs (and there are lots of RPGs that do this.) In real life military operations, wilderness expeditions, survival scenarios etc., there are a lot of mundane resources that have to be managed - things like rations, light sources, medical supplies, etc., as well as intangible "resources" like military intelligence, troop morale, navigation, and logistics that are essential for peak performance. (In fact, the majority of a modern army consists of support troops rather than front line fighters.) In RPGs, however, most of these considerations are downplayed or ignored, either by avoiding having rules for them or by introducing easy ways to bypass them (e.g. magic items or spells that can generate food and water, and relatively easy healing). This is done because it's "not fun" or "tedious" to have to worry so much about all tht mundane stuff. Now, to the extent that RPGs are supposed to emulate heroic fantasy, this makes perfect sense. In the Star Wars movies, you didn't see Luke Skywalker counting out how many medpacs he had left or calculating how much fuel it would take to make it to the next star system. However, many RPGs introduce their own, new resources that have to be managed - e.g. hit points, healing surges, magic item charges, spell uses, "hero point" type things in systems that have them, etc. And these aren't generally considered tedious. And of course in terms of emulating heroic fantasy, including these doesn't make sense - after all, you didn't see Luke Skywalker calculating how many "force points" he had left either. --- So, now that I've made this observation I'll introduce a few questions for discussion: 1. Why is it that the "mundane" resource management (rations, fatigue) is generally seen as tedious, while the "fantastic" resource management (power uses, item charges) isn't? 2. Would it be possible to design a game system where "mundane" resource management takes center stage, and is as important to the game as the "fantastic" resource management is in games like D+D? (Do such systems already exist? How well do they work?) I don't know the answers to these questions, I just thought this was an interesting observation. [/QUOTE]

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