Rations, water, how many arrows, and encumberance

[Zeromage1]

How often do you guys pay attention to these things?

[Grim Portent]

Any system in particular?

I tend not to bother with keeping note of rations unless told to, I do always track my carrying capacity and ammunition though.

When I GM I'm fairly lenient about food/drink, I just tend to assume that unless the PCs are somewhere where supplies are scarce that they can get a decent meal as part of their regular routine. I do enforce carrying capacity rules though.

[Rhynn]

Depends on the game. In any game emphasizing survival - like my current ACKS Dark Sun campaign* - I track that stuff closely. In most other games, it's all trivial for a variety of reasons.

Basically, in most campaigns at most times, finding water while travelling is easy; you're gonna be encountering streams etc. all the time and probably always camp by one. In the dry wastes of Athas, thirst should be a major killer, so I make the players track water (and how much water they can carry depends on encumberance; at a lowballed gallon per day, most PCs can't carry a week's worth) as well as food.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Depends on the game. That is to say, unless it's Torchbearer, I don't bother. :smallbiggrin:

Torchbearer manages it by making things just abstract enough that it's not tedious to do the bookkeeping. You consume one ration, it gets rid of your "Hungry and Thirsty" condition, which you gain after a certain number of turns in the dungeon. You have "inventory slots" to carry things in, and most items take up one slot. That's all there is to it.

[Rhynn]

I don't actually think there's any reason for tracking supplies to be complicated ever, unless you're an evil accountant like the dudes who made Twilight 2013. (I do like their evil accountant game, but I wouldn't make anybody else play it.)

In ACKS, food for a day weighs 1/6th of a stone, as do basically all other items; big items (e.g. two-handed weapons) weigh 1 stone, and armor weighs 1 stone per point of AC. Food and water for a day weighs 1 stone, too. You can carry 5/7/10/(20+Str mod) stone at progressively lower speed.

So tracking that is really easy. Every day, the PCs use up one day's supplies.

Tracking torches/lamp oil is really easy, too: I track turns passing anyway (keeping track of time is pretty essential in old-school dungeon crawling), so I just draw a line through the graph-paper boxes for the light source so I can see when it runs out (6 boxes long for a torch, etc.).

Last session, all this tracking plus assorted notes (reminders about their chances to detect traps etc.) took up half a page of graph paper.

After first level, the costs for all these supplies are going to be trivial, and they'll have magic for light, etc., but what is going to matter is the logistics these rules and details produce: they're going to be finding ways to transport huge amounts of water with them throughout wastelands, and that will complicate their travel (since they'll end up a caravan with a dozen hardy pack-ants or something) and change priorities in encounters (predators attacking the caravan will go for their animals, etc.). The result is awesome emergent gameplay.

[Kaun]

ACKS and Dungeon world have some really good systems for easily tracking that kind of thing.

Rhynn already mentioned the ACK's carry weight one.

For ammo Dungeon World has a good system for it, but i'm not sure it converts well to other systems.

(i am going from memory here so don't quotes me) Basically you would have an ammo of 3 for your arrows. But your ammo would only be lowered by specific actions, not shooting an arrow. And it wasn't like using a power shot or anything, generally it was a ramification for a negative dice outcome.

For example;

You only just managed to hit a target, mark off one ammo.
You almost fall into the ravine but grab onto the edge just in time, how ever some of your gear falls from your pack. mark off one ammo.

so PC's could still run out of ammo, but it wasn't something that had to be constantly tallied and checked.

[TheCountAlucard]

Exalted Second Edition abstracts it - you don't need to know exactly how many feet of rope your character has, and if he's got enough Resources, it's assumed that amounts of objects of a low enough price range can just be purchased arbitrarily.

For example: Cyrus has Resources •••. A good suit of armor can be purchased with Resources •••, but it's a serious enough investment to actually represent a serious drain on Cyrus' finances - he'll have to pass up on that fine horse the stableman's been bragging about. On the other hand, if he wants to buy something like an unskilled slave or the feeding and stabling of his horse for a day, it won't make a significant dent in his cash flow; his limit there is pretty much up to the Storyteller ("Three years' worth of stabling? You might as well just buy the stables."). Buying arrows or daggers isn't even an issue; they're literally priced at "Resources –."

EDIT: Of course, if instead of the god-kings battling for the fate of Creation, you seek to play the mortals dying in the dirt under their sandaled feet, then there's an alternate rule presented for haggling over silver shekels and jade obols.

[Zavoniki]

Never.

I think I've been paying it half a mind in Eclipse Phase for ammo but combat is almost always over before reloading happens. I think of the dozens of fights that have been run, only one had someone reload ever.

[grom the mighty]

officially we keep track of everything, but most of the time we end up forgetting. Every now and then the DM take money off of us for food and provisions and we leave it at that.

With ammunition we've ended up working under the assumption that we go and collect all of our arrow/bolts or whatever at the end of combat. We don't lose any permanently unless we crit miss, in which case the arrow I destroyed one way or another

[Alejandro]

I use a mechanism in Saga Edition (SW) that works well. Every month, PCs must pay a lifestyle expense. There are several potential levels of lifestyle, each more or less expensive. Once you make that payment, for the following month, there is no need to track trivial expenses. Your PC lives, eats, drinks, and has supplies at the level of that lifestyle. Of course, specific gear purchases ignore this.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

For ammo Dungeon World has a good system for it, but i'm not sure it converts well to other systems.

(i am going from memory here so don't quotes me) Basically you would have an ammo of 3 for your arrows. But your ammo would only be lowered by specific actions, not shooting an arrow. And it wasn't like using a power shot or anything, generally it was a ramification for a negative dice outcome.

For example;

You only just managed to hit a target, mark off one ammo.
You almost fall into the ravine but grab onto the edge just in time, how ever some of your gear falls from your pack. mark off one ammo.

so PC's could still run out of ammo, but it wasn't something that had to be constantly tallied and checked.
Right. When you "lose ammo", it means that you expended a lot of ammo or physically lost some ammo. "Mark off one box of ammo" is a result if you get a partial success when volleying, and "mark off one box of ammo" is always a potential result when you miss a roll, if the GM so deems. It falls under the GM move "use up their supplies".

[Jay R]

In my experience, all players are meticulous about encumbrance until about five minutes into the first adventure.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Such rules do tend to be a bit cumbersome.

/rimshot

I'll be here all night.

[Kiero]

Never. Not even in ACKS when it could have been relatively straightforward (the only thing we tracked in that game was silver).

[BWR]

It depends on the game. If we are starting out and trekking a long way and need to carefully plan food and water, then yes, we are very careful about it, especially if people aren't all that strong.

If we are powerful people who can jump across the continent at will and have a dozen Bags of Holding, we don't really bother.

[Winter_Wolf]

Ammo and encumbrance are always kept track of unless their ammo is rocks, not sling stones, but rocks. Food and water, not so much. The only time I'd ever enforce water is in a desert or other harsh environment where liquid water is scarce beyond scarce. Basically if they can reasonably forage for food and water, they get enough to live on. It might taste like wet cardboard and swamp water, but it won't generally kill them or make them sick. I also go in for the whole "monthly living expenses" thing unless the PCs are feasting and living like the high king on holiday. At least the gluttony keeps them motivated to go out and adventure more (or to work off their tab).

Because there's keeping track of things, then there's tedious keeping track of things. :smallwink:

[LibraryOgre]

Very system dependent. I also make it clear to players that such things are occasionally the focus of games... especially at lower level, when food-making is not as available.

[Brother Oni]

In ACKS, food for a day weighs 1/6th of a stone, as do basically all other items; big items (e.g. two-handed weapons) weigh 1 stone, and armor weighs 1 stone per point of AC. Food and water for a day weighs 1 stone, too. You can carry 5/7/10/(20+Str mod) stone at progressively lower speed.

Wait, 1 stone as in an arbitrary unit of measurement for ACKS, or 1 stone as in the Imperial measurement (ie 14 pounds)?

[Rhynn]

Wait, 1 stone as in an arbitrary unit of measurement for ACKS, or 1 stone as in the Imperial measurement (ie 14 pounds)?

The arbitrary measurement. (If you need to translate pounds into stones or the other way around, it's 10:1 in ACKS.)

Well, technically it's not even that arbitrary since it does have a 10:1 ratio, but in practice it is since you don't know (and aren't supposed to know) the exact weight of each item making it up.

The historical weight unit actually ranged from 5 to 40 pounds, so who's really arbitrary? :smallcool:

Anyway, the "day's water and food" worked out really fortuitously for ACKS; a gallon of water is 8.33 pounds, and slapping 10/6 (1.666...) pounds of food on top of that gets you 10 pounds, or 1 ACKS stone.

So, 1 stone is 6 days of food or 1 day of food and water. In most situations in most ACKS campaigns, I assume PCs can get plenty of fresh water, but for ocean voyages, crossing deserts, and basically all of a Dark Sun campaign (except the Forest Ridge), PCs need to transport or find water as well as food. It makes for very tricky logistics in Dark Sun: a party lugging just a week's supplies (not enough to reach any large city from any large city, basically) will be slowed down very badly, so pack animals (with low water consumption) are a must. As a nice touch, ACKS's create water is a 4th-level divine spell, and create food is 5th-level.

Finding Water: Anyone with the Adventuring or Survival proficiency can search for water. This requires a proficiency throw of 18+ (with no travel that day) to find an oasis or other large water source (which will not run out) or a proficiency throw of 14+ (can travel normally) to find small quantities (1 gallon) in cacti, plants, small animals, or little pools or pockets. A character cannot both hunt or forage for food and search for water. Characters with the Survival proficiency gain a +4 bonus on their proficiency throws to find water. The Judge can rule that no throw is required (in the Misty Border or a jungle), or that no water is to be found in the terrain (such as in obsidian plains). The Judge can also rule that a failed throw to find a water source indicates none exists in the hex.

Requiring only one gallon per person is, obviously, underestimating water consumption in such a hot environment, but I figure the assumption is that people on Athas are tough and inured and whatever, and there's no benefit making it more complicated.

[Knaight]

Generally speaking, I don't bother, as it's not important for the kind of games I like to play. For one thing, odds are good that a campaign is largely within a single city, with characters that have enough resources that they can at least buy food with no issue. For another, sheer survival is rarely a focus.

That said, I make an exception for Torchbearer.

[SiuiS]

How often do you guys pay attention to these things?

Fairly often. This only stops when there is downtime which would account for it; a wizard who has their own automated kingdom, a knight holding court, a butler seeing to the kitchens and the passages, or someone able to create sufficient supplies. More often, though, this stuff becomes important; one of the characters was a cook, and keeping track of how much food, how much raw food, and what we've traded it for was part of the game. You haven't seen a good game until the heated philosophical debate of good and evil between factions is derailed because one side is now willing to renegotiate of there's a contract for the local black pepper in it!

Ammo likewise. Both because a ten bolt quiver was sufficient (and this tallying was "refill all quivers to ten" and this much easier) and because when people started producing their own ammo they engaged the trade system. Everyone keeps track of how much they should be getting for trade goods!


Depends on the game. In any game emphasizing survival - like my current ACKS Dark Sun campaign* - I track that stuff closely. In most other games, it's all trivial for a variety of reasons.

Basically, in most campaigns at most times, finding water while travelling is easy; you're gonna be encountering streams etc. all the time and probably always camp by one. In the dry wastes of Athas, thirst should be a major killer, so I make the players track water (and how much water they can carry depends on encumberance; at a lowballed gallon per day, most PCs can't carry a week's worth) as well as food.

Yup!


Wait, 1 stone as in an arbitrary unit of measurement for ACKS, or 1 stone as in the Imperial measurement (ie 14 pounds)?

The imperial measure. It was different based on what you were weighing, so they vaguely standardized it. Vaguely because a long sword weighs as much as a gaudy dress weighs as much as a cheese wheel.

[TheDarkSaint]

As a DM, I'm rather strict about it when in a dungeon. Water could be scarce, any food could be tainted and rotten and the lights are just never on...I keep track of their light spells, torches, oil lamps...

I also keep track of the weight. Hero Lab will calculate weight and encumbrance for me when they pick up loot and coins. It's surprising just how much stuff will slow a person down, especially when strength is a dump stat and they need to run away. More than once has a player dropped EQ just to be able to book it.

In overland adventures, I don't keep track if someone has some skills in wilderness survival. However, if they don't, it's like lambs to the slaughter if they aren't prepared. I'm a big proponent of the Man Vs Nature narrative.

In city adventuring, I don't keep track of daily food consumption and what not, abstracting it out to monthly expenses. I reward characters who spend lavishly in both rp awards as well as skill bonus's since they are living the good life. The misers who want to live in the slums usually don't have such a nice life.

On a side note, I do keep track of hygiene habits. To me, it makes little sense if a character gains an 'immunity to disease' power, but literally never got sick before unless it was a monster effect. If they are down in a dungeon for 5 days with no bath, shave or change of clothing, I'm going to start rolling for parasite infestation, common colds and foot rot.

[Rhynn]

As a DM, I'm rather strict about it when in a dungeon. Water could be scarce, any food could be tainted and rotten and the lights are just never on...I keep track of their light spells, torches, oil lamps...

Playing AD&D 2E back in the day, I never got why anyone would buy the more expensive iron rations...

But in the older editions, normal rations spoil in 1 day in a dungeon (supporting the Mythical Underworld narrative that e.g. the apparently malicious doors suggest), while iron rations last for a week. I don't recall any mention of this in the 2E rules.

:smallbiggrin:

I enforce this hard in ACKS. Normal rations are fine for overland travel on trips of a week or less, but iron rations are necessary in dungeons.

[thirdkingdom]

I never used to, but the more I delved into the OSR the more I realized how essential encumbrance is and how the pace of the game is dictated by it. First, one needs to realized that in most old school games advancement is governed not by kills but by loot gathered This point of view radically affects playstyle; the goal is not to kill everything in sight but to go in and out with as much treasure as possible. Fights are, to a certain degree, a waste of resources.

Second, encumbrance affects movement. The more treasure/equipment you have the slower you move. This has two broad effects, as follows:

1)Since it is not wise to fight every creature encountered -- especially since there is really no such thing as a "balanced" encounter -- one must always be ready to flee. In such instances it is imperative that one can either outrun the monster or outrun a slower party member. The more gear you carry the slower you move.

2)The rate of exploration is governed by the character's movement rate, which is determined by encumbrance. (Note that I'm using Dark Dungeons, a Rules Cyclopedia clone, as reference here). Page 125 states:


The movement speeds of characters are normally measured in feet per round. When exploring a dungeon, characters normally move at three times their normal movement speed per ten minutes.

That means that a lightly encumbered character moves 30' round, or 90' every turn. This movement rate assumes a cautious rate that imposes no penalties and does not increase chances of surprise. So, when a party is exploring a dungeon all I have to do is tick off every 9 squares (assuming 10' squares) and I know that one turn has elapsed. The rules further go on to say that a wandering monster check is made every two turns, or every 180' traveled. There is a 1 in 6 chance that a wandering monster appears, so one will be encountered for roughly every 12 turns (or 1080 feet). This assumes, of course, that no searching is occurring, or fighting, etc.

Now, let us assume that the party is moving at 20' per round, or 60' per turn. They will only move 120' between each check, or 720 feet!

This knowledge can also be used to measure durations, such as of spells or torches. For example, a torch burns for one hour (6 turns). One torch will last for the same 720', again assuming only movement.

And don't forget that once the treasure is obtained one also needs to leave the dungeon! I do allow movement at faster rates if they are going back through territory that has already been cleared.