RPGMemes

Im a forever DM. We play DND for fun not inventory management, anything tedious like that just isn't what I want to spend time in a game on.

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.

Our rule was always that if you bought 50 of something like food or ammo, you don't have to track how many you've used, we'll just assume you're well stocked and resupplying offscreen. The limit only comes back if the party is overtly cut off from resupply, like if they are shipwrecked on an uninhabited island.

This means you can easily have a limitless supply of normal arrows but still have to track your silver arrows, smoke bomb arrows, etc. Or you can invest the money to just have a limitless supply of whatever specialty item you think is worth the cost.

Arrow! Black arrow! I have saved you to the last. You have never failed me and always I have recovered you. I had you from my father and he from of old. If ever you came from the forges of the true King under the Mountain, go now and speed well"

DM: "Okay, fine. But after this you can't use it again."

food and ammo are things i never keep track of, unless its magical foods or ammo.

Except in Call of Cthulhu, because i feel runming out of ammo in that game is more interesting than in DND.

We play with the we don't track arrows and encumbrance unless you start trying to steal all the doors in the dungeon. The stealing of doors did happen with a group before I joined. We keep the rule just in case

I like to use Usage Dice for this. Instead of tracking your arrows individually, you start with, say, a d12. At the end of a fight you roll it, on a 1 or a 2 the die downgrades a step to a d10, then a d8 etc. After d4 youre empty.

I wanna say I got this from the Black Hack?

Fwiw I run an old-school style game. 5e is more about power fantasy

Retrieving ammunition is one of those things that is, imo, similar to taking piss breaks. Like yeah, of course your character is doing it, you don't need to track or talk about it. The only time it will ever come up is if there's a reason it's noteworthy. Like if you get ambushed by a dragon immediately after the fight. Okay, you lose some of your arrows because you don't have time to pick them back up before hauling ass out of there.

Similarly, I've found that tracking rations and water supplies and such is usually a waste of time. If there's a plot reason those would be serious challenges, like you're trapped in the middle of the desert, then of course we're going to need to get into the little details of how you're getting food and water every day. But if you're traveling through reasonably well populated countryside and haven't gone more than a couple days without meeting people, you've got food. Even the most curmudgeonly old destitute farmer isn't going to send a band of travelers down Completely Unpopulated Road without enough food to reach the next hub of civilization.

My DM never gave a shit or required me to buy arrows. I tracked them sometimes anyway, but we always just shrugged and said I either fletched my own during downtime, or that arrows were included in general party upkeep/funds.

My DM is kind and gave me "plot" arrows. It doesn't hurt that I turn the bodies of my fallen enemies into ammo whenever I can

We just buy 50 rations and a barrel of booze session 1 and it some how never runs out unless there's a crazy party. I think once we had some travel session that fast forward months of travel where he managed resources for a bit.

I was doing this so thoroughly with one DM once, and - on account of my enthusiasm, I think - it took him two or three sessions before he told me he just doesn't give a shit if I count them.