What do you think of weapon durability, Veeky Forums? Do you think keeping your weapons in a decent condition should have a mechanical impact, or a purely narrative asset?
What about other things in the same vein, such as hunger and thirst for the actual PCs?
Depends on the system, setting, and of course game tone and style.
Care to elaborate on your meme response?
I think that's pretty obvious.
I don't care for such details in high fantasy game where heroes are battling armies and throw around spells capable of levelling cities. There may be a mechanic that allows GM to break equipment as a narrative action, or maybe some powerful enemies being capable of doing so, but it doesn't need all the nitty gritty tiny details.
On the other hand if I'm playing a dark low fantasy game about mercenary company I would very much expect to have all the hunger, thirst, diseases, damaged weapons and armor, and so on. Because it works and adds to the game theme.
It really does depend on what sort of game you want to run - like, if you're trying to give your game a survialist focus, like a zombie game or a post-apoc game, then it can help make things feel tense and keep the party from ever feeling complacent by just gathering up gear, or keep the moving even when they feel safe because they gotta get food and and drink and enough to keep them at a good state, not just barely surviving.
But in a standard medieval fantasy game, it's going to have a much lower impact. Perhaps a fun one because it'll give PCs something to do during downtime, but unless you're trying to create a gritty feeling there as well by making places to repair weapons few and far between, you're just adding a slight mechanical hindrance that is easily fixed up before it's a bother. Like how you need to eat food, but with a bag of holding and plenty of gold you can buy so many rations it doesn't even matter - and that's ignoring some spells that will give you water and food.
I think generally, unless your party all wants it, it works better in videogames - like take the hardcore mode in NV for example, there's a counter ticking in the background for food and thirst whether you're thinking about it or not. There's no pressure on the PC to remember it, just to take care of it when it comes up.
i'd say the best way to handle it is by using it as a sort of house-keeping deal
you dident eat or drink this whole day so you all suffer X or Y happens
same with weapons and armor
you dont have suplies to keep your weapons and armor in good condition so weapons and armor suffer X or Y happens to them
with armor and weapon its can be a whetstone or oil for armor.
if you are going to have it i say keep it simple even if it fits the narritive, durability as it works in video games is to complex for good old TG
More book keeping and less fun. No thanks.
That is another point - there's never any positive outcome to caring for weapons and eating food, it's just avoiding negative outcomes. Why can't you get a temporary stat bonus by eating good food, or repair your weapon so well it does more damage for a short time? Then it feels like you're getting rewarded for good care, instead of just doing everything by rote.
Don't get specific with it, but use it as fluff.
For example, if the party is resting and gets ambushed--if somebody notices the hostiles sneaking up, you could say "you were cleaning your weapon so you already had it out and ready." Etc
Our DM doesn't really "track" durability, but you can still break your shit if you do something really stupid. I used my longsword to chop down a tree, my blade was damaged and all my attacks did -1 damage until I went to see a smith
Depends. I'm running a pendragon campaign and I like the idea of weapons breaking during a fight, as it created a real fucking problem for this involved. And due to how the game handles time, and large time skips are common, losing the weapon isn't a huge problem after the fight is over.
However, if I was running a campaign based on a single trek through the realm, I probably wouldn't bother, as it'd become to much of a pain to deal with for the players.
thats a better way of doing it i think
It also adds some benefit to actually doing what you're supposed to do. If otherwise all you're doing is keeping things at a normal rate, why bother at all? It becomes busywork if it's some high fantasy game or something.
I like it better when there is a general well fed state. Food giving buffs feels a bit too whimsical and mmo.
Good food and clean, comfortable surroundings are an important part of the "medical care" quality that improves healing rates in most games...
>Food giving buffs feels a bit too whimsical and mmo.
You know when you actually have a quality diet that is effectively how food actually works
kys
If the setting is a high magical fantasy world like D&D. fuck no.
Martial classes already have it bad enough as is. I'm not about to cuck them further and I actually try to go out of my way to give them cool buffs in interesting ways.
Typically my philosophy is, if the enemies don't have to worry about it, why should the PCs? If they're in a nitty gritty world with shitty rusted shivs and ancient armors, I would definitely take it into consideration. Certain enemies might suffer the same drawbacks of poorly maintained gear thus it is *fair* to throw such elements at the players.
If not? Then I don't.
Whenever i describe an artifact as withered or rusted i tell the player that the item can only be used so many times and it will break/ loose its magical powers. Its the players job to decide when to use that item and to keep track of the uses (i know all of my players well enough that i dont think they would cheat on the number of uses)
So +2 [stat] is more realistic than a dedicated nutrition mechanic?
Frequently, not worth it. If you half-commit you end up with tracking things that just get in the way of what you're actually trying to do.
My general rule-of-thumb on sub-systems is unless it's a focus of the campaign , drop it. I've happily run wilderness survival campaigns where I used very strict navigation and scavenging rules and we had a great time because it was a clear focus since day 1. I've run a game that focused on the creation and maintenance of "sacred" weapons and we had a great time because it was a clear focus since day 1.
In my SKT/TYP games? Hell no. Just be in the way.
don't be rude please