Any kind of inventory management like arrows and food is way too sweaty and has never engaged a single player ever unless the whole point of the campaign is this exact mechanic. It’s a waste of time and energy and I don’t play with anyone that insists on doing it.
I don’t ask characters to keep track of ammunition, but if they are using a crossbow or some type of gun, I will absolutely penalize them for not remembering to reload between combat. Or forgetting to retrieve thrown weapons. Its just always funny in an evil sort of way.
“I’m going to attack the troll!”
“Alright, how do you want to attack?”
“I’m going to throw my enchanted spear at it!”
“Your spear is a level down, back where you last threw it when fighting those goblins earlier.”
I’ve played with someone like this once. It is infuriating to have to halt the flow of the action just so that everyone can take their time and describe shitty little menial tasks they are doing and that should just be left to reasonable expectation so that they don’t give their petty DM the oppotunity to fuck them later.
There are so many ways to create fun challenges for players, being anally adversarial with the players is not one of them. They only person deriving joy from that is the shitty sadistic DM.
Sorry for the very personal attack, but bruh… I got triggerd just by reading your last two sentences.
Mostly, I agree. However, part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it’s not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.
Just make your players occasionally pay for upkeep of their gear when they’re in town. This could be themes as repairs for weapons an armor, more arrows, spellcasting supplies, food, etc. This does two things. You can give them more value in rewards and it makes them feel like they’re actually adventurers, not just game characters.
Alternatively, scale rewards down. They don’t have to know about it, but if they’re not paying for supplies then they’re going to get more value than is expected (by the rules).
Or, the final option, just ignore it. It theoretically adds up to a lot of value over the course of the game, especially for spellcasting, but who cares? If you notice they have enough money that they stop worrying about it then you can do something.
part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it’s not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.
Magical arrow subscription service, never run out as long as your payments are up to date
There’s a moment when it can add tension. You find three silver arrows in an old fort, hole up for the night, and then hear the horrible howl of a werewolf ring out.
Or you’re lost in the desert, trying to ration your water until you can find an oasis.
I’ve played Westmarches games where you do a little pre-adventure “we need to go X hexes so we’re wanting Y supplies to get there and back”. But its more a cost of failure than a drama element.
i like to borrow from other systems and treat quiver and gold as stats to be checked against. i can ask you to roll a stat check against quiver. if you fail, you are currently out of arrows and will need to perform some action to no longer be out of arrows (including long rest, just assuming part of long rest is fletching or whatever, it doesn’t need to be focused on too hard). on critical success or failure, the player’s stat can go up or down permanently, and a player can trade a wealth point for an inventory point in town.
generally it works really well at letting players focus on role play by not requiring them to maintain a running tally.
the big thing is just that your inventory management can just be a number and you don’t have to think so hard about it if that’s not something you or your players find joy in while playing make believe together
Every group I’ve been in the archers just bought more than they could ever use and someone in the party could carry the extras. Like every time they go back to town they drop 5 gp for 100 arrows.
Any kind of inventory management like arrows and food is way too sweaty and has never engaged a single player ever unless the whole point of the campaign is this exact mechanic. It’s a waste of time and energy and I don’t play with anyone that insists on doing it.
I don’t ask characters to keep track of ammunition, but if they are using a crossbow or some type of gun, I will absolutely penalize them for not remembering to reload between combat. Or forgetting to retrieve thrown weapons. Its just always funny in an evil sort of way.
“I’m going to attack the troll!”
“Alright, how do you want to attack?”
“I’m going to throw my enchanted spear at it!”
“Your spear is a level down, back where you last threw it when fighting those goblins earlier.”
Shocked pickachu face
I’ve played with someone like this once. It is infuriating to have to halt the flow of the action just so that everyone can take their time and describe shitty little menial tasks they are doing and that should just be left to reasonable expectation so that they don’t give their petty DM the oppotunity to fuck them later.
There are so many ways to create fun challenges for players, being anally adversarial with the players is not one of them. They only person deriving joy from that is the shitty sadistic DM.
Sorry for the very personal attack, but bruh… I got triggerd just by reading your last two sentences.
Mostly, I agree. However, part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it’s not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.
Just make your players occasionally pay for upkeep of their gear when they’re in town. This could be themes as repairs for weapons an armor, more arrows, spellcasting supplies, food, etc. This does two things. You can give them more value in rewards and it makes them feel like they’re actually adventurers, not just game characters.
Alternatively, scale rewards down. They don’t have to know about it, but if they’re not paying for supplies then they’re going to get more value than is expected (by the rules).
Or, the final option, just ignore it. It theoretically adds up to a lot of value over the course of the game, especially for spellcasting, but who cares? If you notice they have enough money that they stop worrying about it then you can do something.
Magical arrow subscription service, never run out as long as your payments are up to date
Battle is a fun time to discover your auto-renew didn’t work and your arrows will now only shoot 3 feet before disappearing.
…wait I think I’m ready to DM
There’s a moment when it can add tension. You find three silver arrows in an old fort, hole up for the night, and then hear the horrible howl of a werewolf ring out.
Or you’re lost in the desert, trying to ration your water until you can find an oasis.
I’ve played Westmarches games where you do a little pre-adventure “we need to go X hexes so we’re wanting Y supplies to get there and back”. But its more a cost of failure than a drama element.
i like to borrow from other systems and treat quiver and gold as stats to be checked against. i can ask you to roll a stat check against quiver. if you fail, you are currently out of arrows and will need to perform some action to no longer be out of arrows (including long rest, just assuming part of long rest is fletching or whatever, it doesn’t need to be focused on too hard). on critical success or failure, the player’s stat can go up or down permanently, and a player can trade a wealth point for an inventory point in town.
generally it works really well at letting players focus on role play by not requiring them to maintain a running tally.
Or you could save on rolls and say you’re out of arrows on a natural 1.
the big thing is just that your inventory management can just be a number and you don’t have to think so hard about it if that’s not something you or your players find joy in while playing make believe together
Every group I’ve been in the archers just bought more than they could ever use and someone in the party could carry the extras. Like every time they go back to town they drop 5 gp for 100 arrows.
It’s because D&D used to be a dungeon crawler but nobody does that anymore, yet tradition insists the dungeon crawler mechanics remain.
For a game with no attachment to tradition, try Draw Steel