@Taskerland I'm not a fan of computers at the table but...use a spreadsheet? With enough variables it's just another random number generator.
@Printdevil

@vdonnut The torches thing is interesting as it underlies a lot of OSR procedural gameplay. However, nobody makes the "we've run out of torches mid-dungeon" mistake more than once, so you have a vast amount of mechanical scaffolding in support of an event that will happen once per group.

After that, you're just left with a load of mechanics that the players pay to by-pass by hiring a torch-carrier or buying lanterns. Silly really.

Same applies to not paying your oxygen bill.

@Printdevil

@malin I have had a campaign with both primary and secret spreadsheets. They do not generate fun, they're just a maintenance headache. @Printdevil

@Taskerland @Printdevil it is a fascinating example of energent gameplay loop like xp for gold + dungeon crawling in medievalowestern boomtown DnD. And just as with DnD loop it is very different than how most people like to play.

Currently we tend to cut out counting and all those tedious but potentially impactful game elements like encumbrance, turns, torches, rations, pounds of donkey food. And mortgage and ship shares.

We focus on different playstyles than players and designers of old.

Skewing this, everyone has a computer at the table in their phone these days, but as Vazh says spreadsheets aren't why any of my players come to the table. The dead ones stopped turning up at all, which after years of reading things like "The Ghost Club" is just churlish because I assumed they'd still manifest.

A pivot though is, in modern games/future games all the players have computers so that would be handling all that for them anyway - so still shouldn't be needed?

@Taskerland @malin

@malin I have had a campaign with both primary and secret spreadsheets. They do not generate fun, they're just a maintenance headache. @Printdevil

@malin I have had a campaign with both primary and secret spreadsheets. They do not generate fun, they're just a maintenance headache. @Printdevil

@Taskerland @malin I think the space for gameplay fun that comes from big numbers and attrition and encumberance and shit like this is settled by video games where the computer can do the tedious mechanical stuff so the rest of the game can flow and keep pace while math is outsourced

@Printdevil

@Taskerland @malin I think the space for gameplay fun that comes from big numbers and attrition and encumberance and shit like this is settled by video games where the computer can do the tedious mechanical stuff so the rest of the game can flow and keep pace while math is outsourced

@Printdevil

@vdonnut D&D 3/ Pathfinder already did this. I once joined a table as the only person without a tablet and had to hard-crunch level gain and loss.

This is the only real horror in RPGs. Never again.
@Taskerland @Printdevil

Skewing this, everyone has a computer at the table in their phone these days, but as Vazh says spreadsheets aren't why any of my players come to the table. The dead ones stopped turning up at all, which after years of reading things like "The Ghost Club" is just churlish because I assumed they'd still manifest.

A pivot though is, in modern games/future games all the players have computers so that would be handling all that for them anyway - so still shouldn't be needed?

@Taskerland @malin

Is that "we" as in our little tribe on masto though, looking at people actually playing games it still looks very.. "the room is 10x10, you have six arrows, and can move eight feet, roll for initiative" to me

In a weird faux american accent.

That might just be teenagers though, I have no access to other RPG voyeurism

@vdonnut @Taskerland

@Printdevil I ended up with a database of characters out of necessity. Everyone at the table can pick up multiple characters, and I know enough travellers that people join for weeks then have to go home.

Add that to the constant death, and you end up with a database and the question of whether you manage it or the computer.

https://fingers-25d5c2.gitlab.io/roster.html
@Taskerland

@Taskerland Take the blue pill and roll +Bureaucracy for money. Or click here for the red pill and download our app for a fully-immersive techno-exploitation experience!
@Printdevil

@Printdevil I mean, DnD 5e still does a lot of this stuff and it leaks outward but when you take a look at what designers, actual players, showrunners, and even youtubers develop is either totally moving away from it or, in case of OSRish circles, try to come up with procedures and processes and rules that would bring the same notion of play with minimised burden.

The whole "procedures not mechanics" movement was all about "how to keep the torches without counting torches"

@Taskerland @malin

I think one of the single most upsetting approaches to this is the random crit-fail event one.

"You have run out of ammunition"
"Your lantern is out of oil"

My players of wtf about this indicated it was never going to fly at the table. It would lead to doubling down on demanding a mechanical inventory system to avoid it indeed.

@vdonnut @Taskerland @malin

@Printdevil I mean, DnD 5e still does a lot of this stuff and it leaks outward but when you take a look at what designers, actual players, showrunners, and even youtubers develop is either totally moving away from it or, in case of OSRish circles, try to come up with procedures and processes and rules that would bring the same notion of play with minimised burden.

The whole "procedures not mechanics" movement was all about "how to keep the torches without counting torches"

@Taskerland @malin

@vdonnut D&D 3/ Pathfinder already did this. I once joined a table as the only person without a tablet and had to hard-crunch level gain and loss.

This is the only real horror in RPGs. Never again.
@Taskerland @Printdevil

@vdonnut Procedural play is squaring 'Rulings not Rules' with wanting very clear rules on torches and how long it takes to walk to the dungeon. Rules you can make rulings on. Procedures must be obeyed to the letter. @Printdevil @malin