This is my ‘take’ on the resource die type systems you see the Black Hack and Forbidden Lands. In short: higher chance of dice dropping, a possibility for supply incidents to arise before the die runs out, and criticals which increase the the die size.
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Whilst I don’t use Usage Die/Cascading Die for many kinds of Resource Tracking these days (I used to employ them quite a bit, but gradually began to dislike how they can obviate Player Choice/Preparation and didn’t really find that the abstraction added anything above and beyond simple tracking) I do have one recommendation for them when used in the more traditional sense:
- Instead of depleting at d4 to nothing, consider instead depleting to “Last One.” I tend to envision Adventurers as relatively competent People, so reaching over to your Quiver only to suddenly discover you are completely out of arrows doesn’t really square with that too well. Besides, nothing beats the Tension and Wonderful Stories that are generated about what they did when they were Down To That Last Arrow.
I still absolutely love them for unquantifiable/un-countable things like Wand Charges, Protection Scroll/Disease Progression Durations, etc. But for things that Player Characters could be capable of Counting/Tracking, having any of that careful Planning or Prudent Decision-Making to stock up or buy Extra for a Journey/Jaunt just disappear much sooner in a puff of unlucky rolls just wasn’t very satisfying most of the time.
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I totally see that angle! The issue I found at my table is that when counting directly failure state was almost never occurring. Players ensured they have plenty of everything they need and it became a solved problem space. They can calculate ahead very accurately, estimate error margins and it ended being more a checklist exercise, in our case at least. The answer could be ‘you should constrain supply access more’, but if they are in a town and have the coin it’s kind of hard to argue against it.
I guess what that shows is I’m actively interested in how supplies running out generate problems, and that’s kind of the main purpose of this hack, to be throwing supply issues at the players that they have to solve. It’s sacrificing concreteness with the aim of generating more problems I personally find interesting.
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Yeah, the lack of Supply definitely makes for tough choices and interesting decisions! As Referees, we do like those states because they make for compelling gameplay. Instead of randomizing though, I’ve tended to make Supply loss more a product of those choices. Enter the Neverburning Forest, and suddenly: You have no Firewood for Campfires. Torches frustratingly refuse to Light, and the damp, shivering, and Dark Nights mean everyone wakes up with a larger and more pressing appetite for calories (Rations).
Situations that attack Supply as they’re out and Adventuring create the Problems. These can potentially be overcome with creative Play sometimes, but they invariably drive decisions and create tension. It’s not the fickle math rocks that are circumventing their decision to “stock up,” it’s their decision to go Adventuring in Dangerous or Wild Places, that are really inimical to the comforts Coin can buy.
They’ve learned something about the World though: We won’t go there unless we have a way to Stay Warm/Bring Extra Food. Then, they are rewarded for engaging with the Setting More: Their new decisions/choices have meaning.
This blog post is an approach from a bit of an older school, but I found it helpful to contextualize things as part of the wider world when it comes to how those less disassociated limitations on Supply can have some surprising side-effects:
If Your Torches Burn for only One Hour your NPCs will be More Important
Constraining Supply sometimes does become a question of verisimilitude: How can Supply be meaningful if those resources are easily acquired? I completely agree that clever and over-prepared Players can elide this part of the game to a degree. But that over-preparation itself comes with a Cost (be it in terms of Encumbrance (room for Treasure!)/Movement or less funds to achieve their Goals) that they’ve already paid.
But those Usage Die/Cascading Die are definitely attractive with Contemporary Game Play. We have shorter Sessions these days, and less frequent Play. You may have a table where the each one of the Players is just flatly not interested in performing the role of Quartermaster and tracking such things. Relying on the randomizer to decrement the values on a Character Sheet can work in that context. I just try to keep plenty of notions/ideas for fictional justifications in my back pocket so I don’t have to gloss it as “Well the dice said you are out!” 
Here’s a short table I did for Torches in Dungeon Crawls (using the Hazard Die, which is basically a Usage Die performing Double Duty as a Procedural Check). Torches can go out as a result of this roll, rather than being rigidly tracked by Turns…but sometimes you get two “Torch Dousing” results in a row, and that’s always awkward to explain to the Players!
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This is a great deep dive discussion, awesome table btw 
I agree about the ‘1 hour of torch light left’ type approach (I realise now my post doesn’t make this clear enough but from the example I gave “as you light your torches for this watch, you realise that you don’t have enough for the next.”, a supply incident is supposed to occur as you realise you only have ‘1 charge left so to speak’. It’s definitely better to telegraph an imminent shortage as you say.
Situations that attack Supply as they’re out and Adventuring create the Problems
This is a really interesting design space, where you are moving the problem from ‘supplies run out’ to ‘prevent supplies running out’.
I’m really interested how this couples with the abstracted methodology too, e.g. have a swarm of rats threaten to eat up rations in a dungeon and the supply die depleting if they fail to defend their stuff.
that over-preparation itself comes with a Cost (be it in terms of Encumbrance (room for Treasure!)/Movement or less funds to achieve their Goals) that they’ve already paid.
Maybe this is a thing at my table, but this is a default state, they will always pay that cost and be unbothered by it. It ends up not being an interesting choice for us so to speak, but if you have players who are more risk taking I can see how this situation is different
I really like your table. I think I might have to make similar ones for all the other consumables I’m trying to cover here
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iEnjoy this on 3 levels:
- Highly tangible dwindling both numeric and physical (in the players’ literal eyes).
- Advances mechanical simplicity that pairs nicely with gentle abstraction to keep verisimilitude without a whole history lesson on a real world subject to understand what the right number is.
- Everyone complains about not getting to use every pretty polyhedral, which this mostly certainly solves!
The d20’s number gap with d12 does leave me wondering if it shouldn’t be reserved for an ultra-buffed supply or similar, though.
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I feel like if the players are always carrying everything they need plus a margin for error and are able to pay the cost in encumbrance, then either you’re being too generous with encumbrance or they’re bringing porters/pack mules/wheelbarrows into their delves and that itself is
- Clever play
- An opportunity for interesting events
If they have infinite carrying capacity because of porters, well, what happens when the porters fail a morale check and flee? If they’re using wheelbarrows, how do they navigate ladders or squeeze through a crack in the wall?
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Perhaps I can give an example! I’ll use Cairn 1e, assuming my 2 players have 10 inventory slots each.
Let’s do it without porters.
If the dungeon is 2 days away from town, they’ll use 2 slots for rations each (6 days rations), they’ll plan to spend one day in the dungeon so they have an extra ration for safety. They’ll pack what they consider essential gear (e.g. their armour and weapons, maybe a crowbar) and pack whatever they have left with torches.
When they get to the dungeon, they’ll only go as far as half their torch supply can cover then retreat, if not sooner. Then they return to town.
It’s a kind of problem solving, but it’s not really choice based or environmental thinking, since they’ll just optimise for supply safety based on whatever inventory limit they are given. It’s not so much environmental or ‘dungeon’ style problem solving as it is a tick box procedure, which I understand some people love, but for me it’s kind of spending time on a foregone conclusion.
You could keep on squeezing the inventory limit down, but then you are at a point where you are making people choose between basic effectiveness and supplies.
What I’m noticing is I think folks just enjoy different problem spaces: ‘how do you not run out’ vs ‘what do you do when you run out’. Folks who like the former are unlikely to encounter the latter, and being interested in the latter I’m removing some of the party’s ability to do the former, which seems to be the sticking point.
What are the consequences for retreating from the dungeon after half their torches are expended? Do enemies fortify, or hire/summon/breed reinforcements, or pack up with their treasure and leave? Does another band of ne’erdowells come along and plunder the place?
Time is a resource, too. If they’re spending that resource down to trivialize other resource management, that’s fine — but it’s a choice they’re making and there should be logical consequences to that choice the same as to any other choice they make.
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Sure you can implement those consequences! But in the case of my group that isn’t going to change their mindset, so it’s not really working to make the choice interesting it would just become a default flow of play. That’s what I’m trying to avoid with this mechanic 
the situation just having one approach that becomes the default. They’d always prioritise resource safety over losing opportunity or re-fortification chances.
But if you have a group that doesn’t consider that their default mode of play it’s a whole different discussion!