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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4632885" data-attributes="member: 40961">I loathe tracking any detail that isn't relevant to gameplay.  So I would enjoy tracking water if I were in a game where the party was stranded in a desert, and finding water was a difficult and important task.  In contrast, I would hate tracking water if I were in a game where finding water was an easy matter requiring no decision making or difficulty.  In that case, tracking water becomes a rote exercise.  Tracking water in such a game seems about as unwise a DMing decision as requiring the players to publically declare when their character goes to the bathroom. The tougher items are things that cost money, but where the money becomes negligible as your character advances.  Its kind of cool tracking nonmagical arrows at level 1 in 3e, because you have about 20, most enemies die with one arrow hit, and every decision whether to fire requires you to decide whether its worth it.  Its stupid to track nonmagical arrows at level 15 in 3e, because your character can dig through the lint in his pocket and find enough gold to purchase a bag of holding and stuff it full of 10,000 nonmagical arrows, and you fire five or so a round. Often, when I play, I try to make deals with the DM: "If I just spend 1000 gp right now, can we assume that I top off my arrow supply every time we go into town for the rest of the campaign?  1000 gp buys me more arrows than I could fire in three lifetimes."  Same for food or shelter if he tracks those costs. I'm all for plot-relevant detail, but I think that simulation purely for the sake of simulation is one of the biggest flaws in RPG writing possible.  Figure out what's fun about your game, and make sure that time spent at the table focuses on it as much as possible.  Don't let trivial tasks turn into rote exercises.  And if you want your game to use things like tracking food as a meaningful part of gameplay, make sure to make it an actual meaningful part of gameplay, rather than a piece of clerical busywork.</blockquote>

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