this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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Timer systems like arrow counting, rations and encumbrance are good for game flow. Removing them tends to diminish the level of emotional investment and roleplaying in the game.
Personally I've never managed to make 20 attacks as an archer in one combat in 5e before, so tracking those just tends to result in a number going from 20 to 12 or whatever and then me saying "by the way I walk around the battlefield picking up my arrows"
it doesn't really add anything
"3 of them broke."
"good thing I have mending"
What you described is barely a timer system, reset on combat end doesn't really ever matter to a game. I'm addressing longer time frame resource drain benefiting the game by creating risk and promoting choice. There isn't really a point if arrows aren't lost and broken.
I mean sure, I've dealt with GMs saying arrows broke or were lost or whatever. Now in the next combat that number on my character sheet counts down from 17 to 10. Then next combat it goes from 15 to 9. Then I get to a town and say "ok i go buy some arrows how much does that cost" and the gm says "idk like some silver" and im like "cool" and i remove a gold piece and refill arrows
it still doesn't really add anything
this isn't because those aspects of game design are fundamentally flawed, that isn't what im saying. just that 5e doesn't really work like that. it's not a very well designed system at the end of the day
I'd get overwhelmed very quickly trying to keep track of all that personally, but if it works for your table, that's perfectly fine.
I can only keep up with this things on vtt's, specially foundry.
There are systems that make it not purely accounting, like resource dice.
Maybe for a certain kind of game. Survival horror, absolutely - as an aside, i really want to find a good survival horror fantasy RPG, I think that'd be really fun. But for mainstream fantasy games? It doesn't have the same weight or drama. The question isn't "Will I have enough supplies for this adventure, and if not how I can I make do?", but "Will the entirety my 100g worth of arrows in extradimensional storage last until I retire this character, can I spend less?"
Did you note that I included encumbrance. Magic bags are a huge problem for trivializing the concerns of your character.