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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 7700919" data-attributes="member: 3285">The Dungeons & Dragons' rules set encompasses a variety of games within it, including the game of logistics. Players and Dungeon Masters alike have a love/hate relationship with logistics; some groups count every item in inventory while others handwave the process of carrying equipment entirely. Given how often gamers ignore logistics, it begs the question: why have it at all?[ATTACH=full]407905[/ATTACH] <a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/backpack-rocks-sun-summit-peak-7832746/" target="_blank">Picture courtesy of Pixabay.</a><h3>It's Only Logistics, Captain</h3>Jon Peterson identifies three modes of play in Dungeons & Dragons in <a href="http://amzn.to/2a7alGx" target="_blank">Playing at the World</a>:Of the three modes, combat gets the most attention in D&D, with travel and logistics less so. And yet logistics is the glue that holds the other two modes together -- logistics come into play when characters acquire loot in the dungeon and what they do with the loot afterward. It can affect combat if the player has too much or too little of something, and it can slow or speed up travel or aid in exploration.Peterson calls logistical management the "weekend" for adventurers:Logistics is the very first part of the game that most players are introduced to.  Given its complexity, it can also be the first part of the game that turns them off.<h3>Unpacking Inventory</h3>There are three logistical components of inventory management. The first is treasure, acquiring and spending currency for other items. The second is placing them in the character's possession, keeping track of it all so that the character knows how many arrows were fired or how many charges are left in a wand. The third and sometimes ignored component is encumbrance, be it weight or space -- even if a character could feasibly carry everything he can't necessarily use everything.<h4>Treasure</h4>Adventurers begin most role-playing games by purchasing equipment.  Peterson explains how treasure management is its own game:The many forms of currency pose their own challenge, as copper and silver are less valuable (and thus cost more from an encumbrance perspective) to carry out of the dungeon:Management of treasure has increasingly fallen out of favor as it can get in the way of narrative play, but in sandbox style gaming it is an important limitation. Some games ignore the weight of treasure, while others convert treasure to gold without worrying about taxes. This led to the phrase "<a href="https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Canon:RPG_Terminology#Greyhawking" target="_blank">Greyhawking the dungeon</a>":In modern games where currency doesn't have nearly as much weight, tracking coinage in this fashion makes even less sense, which is why <a href="http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/modern/smack/wealth.html" target="_blank">games like D20 Modern use Wealth checks</a> to determine if something can be purchased.<h4>Encumbrance</h4>Related to the use of currency and its weight is encumbrance. If calculating the weight and location of every gold piece is an inconvenience, calculating encumbrance can potentially be even more onerous -- it involves not just the weight but the relative size of everything a character carries and wears.  And yet, encumbrance has its uses in dungeon exploration:In the Original D&D rules, weight was measured by currency.  Acquisition of treasure was the primary goal of many dungeon adventures, and therefore coin weight was its own standard:Currency and encumbrance interact in very specific ways, with adventurers encouraged to collect more treasure than heavy items:In games that are not about looting dungeons, encumbrance has increasingly fallen out of favor, and many games gloss over both. But there is one component that plays a more prominent role in inventory that is not as easy to ignore.<h4>Equipping</h4>Acquiring and carrying equipment does not mean the character can actually use it. Rules for equipping item have changed over the years, but can range from something as unique as a magic item that only works for a particular class or race, to the mundane logic that a fighter can't wield three swords if he doesn't have three hands. There are also artificial limitations that prevent characters from becoming walking piles of magic items, <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemsOnTheBody" target="_blank">like only two rings per character in D&D 3.5</a>.  Fifth Edition D&D restricted magic items by allowing a <a href="http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/dm-basic-rules" target="_blank">maximum of three magi items "attuned" to a character</a>:Given the sometimes onerous task of managing these three elements of inventory management, it's perhaps no surprise that enterprising gamers have tried to make them easier to manage.<h3>Digital Solutions</h3>Logistics become much less onerous in electronic versions of D&D because the computer keeps track of it all. It also means that logistics can become a factor in tabletop play when using electronic tools to track equipment. Suddenly, a character's size, strength, or storage space becomes much more important when the penalties start adding up.  <a href="http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/arts-crafts-morbidly-encumbered-edition/" target="_blank"> Last Gasp even recommends using Pinterest for this purpose</a>.The downside of a digital tracking system is that it removes the player from the process, which means there is no sense of three-dimensional space in how the player interacts with his character's inventory. A number next to an item, be it lbs or coin equivalent, is not the same thing as seeing how much space a shovel takes up compared to a sack of coins.<h3>Getting Physical</h3>Of course, it's entirely possible to use physical representations of items to show equipment. This requires a significant investment on behalf of the player. Stonemaier games' <a href="http://stonemaiergames.com/games/treasure-chests/" target="_blank">Treasure Chests</a> provides a wide array of adventuring items, from food tokens to water tokens to sacks of grain. Giving each player a bag to hold these items makes it much easier to manage inventory, although it does become onerous the more items a player collects.The other component of inventory management is treasure. it's simple enough to buy toy coins for this purpose, although some creative efforts will need to be spent on differentiating between the types of coins.One advantage of tracking inventory this way is that it helps new players understand how their characters interact with the physical world. It also makes bookkeeping a little more hands-on, which helps develops math skills for younger players.  Still, that's a lot of stuff to keep track of, multiplied by every player in the game.<h3>Abstraction</h3>A third option is to track inventory by using a hybrid solution that involves a visual approach to management. A phrase often used in anime where a character seems to pull items out of nowhere is known as hammerspace, often for comedic effect when a character suddenly reveals an impossibly large hammer. Thus we have <a href="http://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html" target="_blank">Matt Rundle's Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker</a>. Raging Owlbear has a <a href="http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2016/03/dnd-osr-encumbrance-made-easy.html" target="_blank">modified version</a> for Fifth Edition D&D.Ammunition is its own component of inventory management that can be challenging for players. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130812040711/http://intwischa.com/2011/05/house-rule-for-tracking-ammo/" target="_blank">One solution is to use dice</a>, with a low roll indicating that the character finally ran out of something. There's also use of <a href="http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/arts-crafts-morbidly-encumbered-edition/" target="_blank">sticky notes and abstract backpacks</a> that simplifies item management and placement.Gamers' relationship with logistics has changed as the game has changed. With access to computers, printers, and 3D components, logistics can be less onerous and hopefully more fun to keep track of than ever before.</blockquote>

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