D&D General The nitty gritty

[Reynard]

There is a long history of dealing with small details and minutiae even playing D&D, especially during the exploration mode of the game. I am curious which bits of the nitty gritty folks still regularly engage with.

 

[GrimCo]

Well, i'll open it. Usually only rope, as if, do players have enough length of it for what they try to do with it. Beside that, none.

 

[aco175]

Besides rest and time, we do not track them unless it become important to the play. Generally the PCs come back into town and cross off several GP to account for these things. I will remind the players in a dungeon that it is dark and they usually have light spell or a magic sword that gives off light and torches the break out, but it is more me telling them that monsters there will see them coming.

 

[Oofta]

Light and time/rests I suppose. Other than that it's just kind of annoying overhead for me and not why I play the game. I used to track arrows, but the encumbrance rules are so lax and oversimplified that once the PCs have any money at all they suddenly have 100 arrows.

Every once in a while (as in I did it a few years ago) I'll have them track food and water because it's an important part of scenario but I'd let them know ahead of time.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I only track pricey spell components, but most people I play with use foci anyways.

I sometimes track other stuff as a player, but hp and class features are the only things I see people consistently care about.

 

[Horwath]

for arrows, if you have tools you can make sustainable amount of arrows during short/long rest so unless the party is in a siege, that is non issue.

water/food only comes into play in certain desolate places, but we did roast some goblins in some dungeon run few years ago. it was either that or eat mold from dungeon walls.

light sources are plenty around with some tool/survival skill and light cantrip

so most looked at are mundane equipment that costs some gold: rope, grappling hooks, extra weapons, mirrors, lanterns for special cones of light, oil, etc

Rest is the biggest commodity/value.

encumbrance is a non issue until you are starting to push it too much, 8 str rogue dragging 3 chests full of gold or having 17 heavy weapons on you.

 

[TiQuinn]

Totally depends on the edition. If it’s 2e or an OSR, there’s more tracking, if it’s 5e it’s just rest and expensive spell components.

 

[Oofta]

I should mention spell components. If they are expensive, they need to be tracked. Otherwise I assume the PC is using a focus except, again, under unusual circumstances such as finding themselves in a jail cell which is something I haven't done for a long time.

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty much all of that is key to what makes D&D a game, so...yes.

 

[payn]

Im in the rest and time only club (though I do care about encumbrance but removing magic item dependency makes this worry vanish). There was a time I cared about the whole kit and caboodle, but now I only worry about things if its important to the adventure. Going mountain climbing? Rope matters now. Crossing a desert? Water matters now. Otherwise, lets get to the adventure already.