Does Inventory Management Matter?

 I've thought about this question a lot. I've never actually come to a conclusion but I've decided to write down my thoughts so that someone might come to a better conclusion than I.

Does inventory management matter? Obviously there are games like Knave that use their inventory as a central part of the games mechanics, but what about other games?

Shopping list syndrome.

Let's start with one of the biggest issues I (and I think most people have) with inventory management: shopping list syndrome (SLS). SLS is a mixture of that urge to have everything on hand and the annoyance you feel when you realize you forgot to buy something important. It is, in my opinion, a bad thing.

Adventuring equipment is the worst kind of player skill test. It's a mix of wrought memorization (did you remember all the stuff that matters?) and knowledge that are hard to intuit. If you come across a hallway covered in thick green liquid, chances are you can determine that's bad and find a solution to it. That is easily intuit-able. In contrast, the uses of a 10-foot pole are often not immediately obvious and can vary from GM to GM and game to game. A game with very few hidden traps turns a 10-foot pole into a walking stick.

What about torches?

Torches are interesting because they put an effective cap on how long you can adventure. The more rations and adventuring equipment you carry, the fewer torches you can carry, so it's a game of balance.

Issue: there are already limits on how long players can adventure, they're called hit points and spell slots. Most games have these built in systems to put a limit on how long you can look for treasure, do we need another one?

What would we do instead?

Perhaps players should, instead of having all sorts of random items they must manage, just have a single resource to manage, some kind of supply. Whenever they want to use an adventuring item, they spend a supply and we treat it like they always had it. Schrödinger's 10-foot pole if you would. I would give characters 1 supply per level, with thieves or thief-equivalents getting 3 per level instead.

Before anyone asks about encumbrance and carrying treasure out of the dungeon, I think there's a simple solution here: use your brain. A fighter can obviously not carry 16 different weapons. They can carry 4 though, that seems reasonable.

Some might find all that silly. I don't blame them. Honestly I'm not even sure how I feel about it. There is a certain vibe to gathering all the pieces you need to go adventuring and then learning that you're missing one.