I can't stand bean counting anymore in my pseudo-medieval games ! What should i do ?

[TJS]

It's the "least essential" only to those who don't give a damn about it. Which of course does encompass many gamers, and I likewise concede that gamers are frequently socialized to consider such elements boring at best ... that is, for anything other than bean-counting their arms and armor.

Well I won't argue that it's different in some games (Cyberpunk for example, or anything involviing piloting mechs), but I think in general 'least essential' is pretty safe.

It's less about what the players care about and more about the game, I don't really see where socialisation comes into it. Equipment can generally be bought in the game with money that is found in the game, the rest usually cannot, and equipment can be lost or damaged , whereas say skills or ability scores mostly are not. It also generally is literally the last step in character creation which reinforces this - it's not like games generally say "Step 1: Choose your equipment: Step 2, now that you know what equipment your character will be using choose the skills you need to use it." Equipment is generally presented as putting the finishing touches on characters. If I've already bought the sword skill, I've already decided what weapon I'm going to use, now I have to go over the process again.

 

[ffilz]

Initial equipment allocation definitely should have at least an option for streamlining. Some folks do like to pore over the equipment list and carefully select the items they will purchase at the start, but other folks just want to get going.

For my Cold Iron Blackmarsh Adventures campaign since I am starting the PCs off at 4th level, I'm giving them the best armor that's practical for them considering encumbrance, quality weapons, a riding horse, and basically any other basic equipment they want. I then offer a magic item to each PC.

After starting though, I expect more bean counting for the games I'm currently running. Part of what makes RuneQuest interesting to me is the training. Part of what makes Cold Iron interesting to me is picking magic items to purchase.

If I ran something else, I might be more relaxed on in game purchases.

Also, I really haven't been tracking expenses for lodging and food....

Overall though, I'm not that much into minutiae on the equipment list. Actually, that's one of the things I have against modern and SF settings is that the expectations for available equipment can get quite extensive. Just try and list everything available at your local Target that your character might want... I find it easier to be minimalist in fantasy games with weapons, armor, bedding, food, a few tools, sacks and backpacks, and a bit of information on clothing. The "other equipment" section of my Cold Iron equipment list has 30 items on it. Then there's some living expenses, a listing of treasure items (so you have an idea what a bear skin is worth), and mounts and other animals. The weapon list is long, but that's because the system right sizes weapons for your STR.

For RuneQuest, I mostly limit to the equipment in the 1st edition rule book.

Now in either of these games, if someone asks about something not on the list, I'll make a decision of it's available and if so, how much.

 

[Ladybird]

And he bitched, and he moaned, and I didn't really listen because I was too busy enjoying playing my PC with his brigandine armor (among other things), and slicing baddies in half with Lawfuf Goodness fueling my righteous fury. That's what D&D is all about, compradres !

Fair's fair. If one person gets to say "i want special stuff because of MUH BACKGROUND and TO HECK WITH THE RULES", and the GM lets them, then everyone should get a choice of some special stuff just because of their background too. Anyone can write background fluff to justify anything; if you insisted you deserved something special just because you wrote it down, you should help other players come up with something for themselves too.

It doesn't have to be of equal resource value, because that's silly, but it should be of equal "yeah, that feels about right" value to the players at the table.

 

[JAMUMU]

Either everyone starts with a knobbly stick and a pair of linen undercladdings or no one does. Them's the rules.

 

[Sharrow]

It's the "least essential" only to those who don't give a damn about it. Which of course does encompass many gamers, and I likewise concede that gamers are frequently socialized to consider such elements boring at best ... that is, for anything other than bean-counting their arms and armor.

It's funny how so many gamers don't want to be bothered with tracking their stuff, but are happy, even eager, to hunt down every single +1% when it comes to attack skills and damage (and defence when it matters).

 

[Sharrow]

Fair's fair. If one person gets to say "i want special stuff because of MUH BACKGROUND and TO HECK WITH THE RULES", and the GM lets them, then everyone should get a choice of some special stuff just because of their background too. Anyone can write background fluff to justify anything; if you insisted you deserved something special just because you wrote it down, you should help other players come up with something for themselves too.

It doesn't have to be of equal resource value, because that's silly, but it should be of equal "yeah, that feels about right" value to the players at the table.

Bitching and moaning about someone having something that's almost within the starting budget, and then claiming that because they got that you should be able to have something that's about eight times that starting budget (after they asked for thier thing and you didn't think to) is not, in my opinion, a very reasonable way to express one's belief that the GM is perhaps not being entirely fair.

 

[TJS]

It's funny how so many gamers don't want to be bothered with tracking their stuff, but are happy, even eager, to hunt down every single +1% when it comes to attack skills and damage (and defence when it matters).

People want to track what matters.

If I have a serious issue with the possibility of running out of arrows and that possibility leads to making real strategic decisions (it's not just a countdown to suckitude) then tracking arrows makes sense. If I have only a very small chance of ever running out of arrows, then tracking them is a pain.

It doesn't matter unless it matters. In many games crossing off the price of a beer or a night at the inn pretty quickly becomes trivial. It might matter if in the end enough nights at inns and enough beers mean I can't afford the new shiny plate armour, but that's a lot of tracking just to determine whether I can afford to buy one thing that actually matters.

In a more granular game, where gold is really constrained and a night at a comfortable inn makes the difference between whether I can heal wounds or not, then there are more meaningful decisions to be made.

Or in other words tracking is most engaging for players when it is constantly interacting with meaningful decision making.

 

[ffilz]

People want to track what matters.

If I have a serious issue with the possibility of running out of arrows and that possibility leads to making real strategic decisions (it's not just a countdown to suckitude) then tracking arrows makes sense. If I have only a very small chance of ever running out of arrows, then tracking them is a pain.

It doesn't matter unless it matters. In many games crossing off the price of a beer or a night at the inn pretty quickly becomes trivial. It might matter if in the end enough nights at inns and enough beers mean I can't afford the new shiny plate armour, but that's a lot of tracking just to determine whether I can afford to buy one thing that actually matters.

In a more granular game, where gold is really constrained and a night at a comfortable inn makes the difference between whether I can heal wounds or not, then there are more meaningful decisions to be made.

Or in other words tracking is most engaging for players when it is constantly interacting with meaningful decision making.

Yep, that's why most of the time I ignore the cost of living stuff. And yea, I usually don't count arrows, but if you've shot a lot, I might count them up. I used to determine if you could recover arrows but I haven't been doing that lately.

 

[lategamer]

It's funny how so many gamers don't want to be bothered with tracking their stuff, but are happy, even eager, to hunt down every single +1% when it comes to attack skills and damage (and defence when it matters).

It's not really surprising when you think of it.

I'm here to have adventure, not issue forms in triplicate. Accountant: The Reckoning was definitely oversold.

 

[SmallbutVicious]

Sounds to me like you should all be playing DCC RPG. Roll a couple of dice and get told that you start play with a pitchfork, a sack, and a chicken. Equipment selection doesn't get much easier than that.

 

[Sharrow]

It's not really surprising when you think of it.

I'm here to have adventure, not issue forms in triplicate. Accountant: The Reckoning was definitely oversold.

However, when it comes down to it scrabbling round looking for every single percentage point of advantage is really 'having adventure' either.

 

[AsenRG]

Sounds to me like you should all be playing DCC RPG.

Who's running it?

 

[SJB]

I think this little film shows that one can nerd out about armour without concentrating on cost.


And just to burnish my own nerd cred here’s a tabulation of the results presented in the video.

 

[AsenRG]

I think this little film shows that one can nerd out about armour without concentrating on cost.


And just to burnish my own nerd cred here’s a tabulation of the results presented in the video.

View attachment 61242

They really should have tried throwing a javelin in underwear, to be antiquity authentic...

 

[lategamer]

However, when it comes down to it scrabbling round looking for every single percentage point of advantage is really 'having adventure' either.

It's like Formula 1.

Every percentage chance of success is important.
The cost? Sure that's a rounding error.

 

[Alai]

This pretty much matches my interest level. However, some people I'm sure are quite interested in counting their horde, and I have no problem with a system design that allows for that. The usefulness of wealth levels becomes obvious when you think about modern or sci-fi games where the amount of wealth, possibly even possessed by a starting character, can be on the order of millionaire or some such. At that point being able to count your individual dollars makes almost no sense, nor does tracking individual purchases below a certain point.

Right. I imagine that we might get some general agreement not to sweat the small stuff, but then we have to agree what's "small stuff". Rigidly defined areas of doubts and uncertainty. That's unless you're going to literally do an every penny count, which further implies you're accounting for every moment of the characters' lives in the game, which is so old-school as to be fossilised.

In practice, common fixes I've seen are basically the 'significant digits' approach, and what's been alluded to in a couple of instances, you have a wealth stat, and contestify anything that seems like it might be a significant challenge to that. (If it's within your 'casual wealth', obviously you don't even bother rolling for it.) That's probably an awkward fit for D&D-family games. Partly as it doesn't fit that skill system, so you'd need an entirely bespoke mechanism to be grafted in from scratch. And partly because some at the table will start twitching, muttering "... seems... narrativist!...", having full-bore warp-spasms, etc.

 

[Imaginos]

I'll have to dig my copy out. Heck, may be good fodder for my Black Sword Hack game anyway.

Ok, in the Addendum book, they do offer the usage die based wealth. I quite like it. And I’m very pleased you caused me to dig the set out as they will come in handy with my BSH game.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I think this little film shows that one can nerd out about armour without concentrating on cost.


And just to burnish my own nerd cred here’s a tabulation of the results presented in the video.

View attachment 61242

I'm more on the abstract usage and wealth dice side of the debate. But if you are going to cross the line and bring in actual FACTS into our debate on fantasy wizard games (how dare you ), I have to point out that one of the main reasons RPGs struggle to model armour accurately is that probably the biggest determiner of armour use in history was cost.
If you have a choice of being completely covered in blade proof steel plates or basically a stiff puffer jacket, the only reason you ain't ironed up is you can't afford the purchase, maintenance and repair costs of the full plate armour.
Of course tracking armour damage, repairability and maintenance costs is just another level of bean counting that may not be worth the increased accuracy.

 

[Alai]

But if you are going to cross the line and bring in actual FACTS into our debate on fantasy wizard games (how dare you ), I have to point out that one of the main reasons RPGs struggle to model armour accurately is that probably the biggest determiner of armour use in history was cost.

I think several RPGs have for sure made a feature of this. At least until massive party inflations sets in, which is necessarily a campaign-dependent thing. Even if you were going to go more abstract on this, armour costs aren't counting beans, they're selling the farm.

Of course tracking armour damage, repairability and maintenance costs is just another level of bean counting that may not be worth the increased accuracy.

Not necessarily a crazy amount. For example RQ does this... depending of course whether you consider that an adequate amount of "realism", or a worthwhile amount of bookkeeping. And whether it's something you want to foreground in the game to any degree in the first place.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

I think several RPGs have for sure made a feature of this. At least until massive party inflations sets in, which is necessarily a campaign-dependent thing. Even if you were going to go more abstract on this, armour costs aren't counting beans, they're selling the farm.


Not necessarily a crazy amount. For example RQ does this... depending of course whether you consider that an adequate amount of "realism", or a worthwhile amount of bookkeeping. And whether it's something you want to foreground in the game to any degree in the first place.

I agree the problem of massive wealth that can easily occur in longer campaigns can soon/eventually swamp any planned economic balance to armour effect even if you ramp up the price to realistic nobs only levels

I know it's a heretical position on this here forum but I've never played RQ or any of it's descendants (Sorry Mythras) so I don't know how it does it but if it works i'd like to know.

I occasionally dive down the Scholar Gladatoria/ Todd's Workshop et al. rabbit hole on a quest to find a realistic yet workable way to improve weapons and armour* but it usually ends up sprawling out of control and I end up bouncing back hard on more broad strokes rules light methods.

*Mainly motivated by the historic insult of sabres only getting D6 damage compared to a straight sword's D8 in 2E and the continual existence of studded leather armour.

 

[AsenRG]

I occasionally dive down the Scholar Gladatoria/ Todd's Workshop et al. rabbit hole on a quest to find a realistic yet workable way to improve weapons and armour* but it usually ends up sprawling out of control and I end up bouncing back hard on more broad strokes rules light methods.

*Mainly motivated by the historic insult of sabres only getting D6 damage compared to a straight sword's D8 in 2E and the continual existence of studded leather armour.

I agree, that's a travesty!

 

[S'mon]

D&D hates curved swords.

 

[SJB]

I'm more on the abstract usage and wealth dice side of the debate. But if you are going to cross the line and bring in actual FACTS into our debate on fantasy wizard games (how dare you ), I have to point out that one of the main reasons RPGs struggle to model armour accurately is that probably the biggest determiner of armour use in history was cost.
If you have a choice of being completely covered in blade proof steel plates or basically a stiff puffer jacket, the only reason you ain't ironed up is you can't afford the purchase, maintenance and repair costs of the full plate armour.
Of course tracking armour damage, repairability and maintenance costs is just another level of bean counting that may not be worth the increased accuracy.

Yes, but … perhaps not for a thread about avoiding bean counts! I’ve put something a bit more thoughtful on the Best Historical Settings thread for the armour experts to have a go at.

 

[Brock Savage]

D&D hates curved swords.

D&D hates spears even more.

 

[AsenRG]

D&D hates curved swords.

D&D hates spears even more.

Those are both travesties!

 

[TJS]

Thing is not treating armour realistically leads to odd things too.

Like your trained fighter becoming a liability who can't defend himself when he's at the ball, because the game depends on armour, or rules that make rapiers far too good, because you've taken away the situations which make rapiers good as civilian side arms, because the game expects everyone to always be walking about in full armour and carrying greatswords.

I sometimes think games focus on simulating the wrong things. Lots of granularity in simulating process, rather than simulating result.

Sometimes these things work against each other also. Like you could try and simulate full plate by having rules for each particular piece so that the player can take pieces on an off according to circumstance, but in reality that's too fiddly, and piecemeal armour rules in my experience don't tend to lend themselves to variation but to players just working out their one outfit with it's particular trade offs and sticking with it.

I don't think you necessarily need rules for reparing full plate armour and tracking damage to it, what you probably just need is rules that say you can only use it if you have a pack horse to carry it and a trained servant to look after it who is assumed to be constantly carrying out repairs.

 

[AsenRG]

Thing is not treating armour realistically leads to odd things too.

Like your trained fighter becoming a liability who can't defend himself when he's at the ball, because the game depends on armour, or rules that make rapiers far too good, because you've taken away the situations which make rapiers good as civilian side arms, because the game expects everyone to always be walking about in full armour and carrying greatswords.

I sometimes think games focus on simulating the wrong things. Lots of granularity in simulating process, rather than simulating result.

Sometimes these things work against each other also. Like you could try and simulate full plate by having rules for each particular piece so that the player can take pieces on an off according to circumstance, but in reality that's too fiddly, and piecemeal armour rules in my experience don't tend to lend themselves to variation but to players just working out their one outfit with it's particular trade offs and sticking with it.

I don't think you necessarily need rules for reparing full plate armour and tracking damage to it, what you probably just need is rules that say you can only use it if you have a pack horse to carry it and a trained servant to look after it who is assumed to be constantly carrying out repairs.

Well, at least an armsbearer...