My Ranger character has the Urchin personality trait of "I hide scraps of food and trinkets away in my pockets", which I have been RPing, without thought for much benefit. I have been just saying in story that every time we eat a meal I tell the DM I am taking 1 or 2 scraps, which I have been tracking in my inventory. Occasionally if the food available is specific ("Meat pie" and "biscuit") I have put that in a special section of my inventory "Food hidden in pockets" specifically for the personality trait, without much thought for if they get used or rot in my pockets.
I had assumed that being so generic they were similar to "rations" in longevity, as it is part of the Urchin background where the purpose would be to avoid starvation, ie. a homeless child hiding away their own rations from scraps they gather, though I haven't actually attempted or thought of using them yet. It's been mostly for the fun of RP.
In our latest session some questions we can't seem to satisfy our pedantry on have come up.
- What are food scraps?
- Do they go bad, and after how long?
- Is their longevity different from or similar to rations?
I suggested that yes definitely the "meat pie" is now spoiled and changed the biscuit to "stale biscuit". But what of these scraps and what exactly they are, we can't seem to google up a precedent.
Best Answer
Since there are no rules related to 'scraps', this is entirely a roleplaying element with no real mechanical benefit.
However, if you want something moderately mechanical, I'd suggest that instead of making this a bookkeeping exercise, it's simply assumed that your character always has a little bit of old-but-edible food and a couple of trinkets on their person. We don't need to concern ourselves with where your last meal came from or how long any given thing has been in a pocket; instead, if you find a time when you want a piece of food to give to an animal, or a bit of something worthless but shiny to cheer up a child, or whatever, you just have some on you because your character sheet says you're always stashing that kind of thing.
It's fine to have a little stage business where you describe your guy stuffing bits of food in his pockets at each meal, but actually tracking individual chunks of food is probably too much detail for what is meant to be just a roleplaying bit.