The Cost of Living rules basically state that the PC ‘pays’ an amount in gold at the beginning of each month equal to the standard of living he wants to maintain. An average lifestyle costs about 10gp month. For that much money a PC can maintain a small house or apartment, he can have his own private room (although not an opulent room) at an inn, and he doesn’t need to worry about purchases of food or taxes that cost less than 1gp.

The system is not without its flaws; each one of which stems from a lack of verisimilitude. The fact is that adventurers move around all the time. They may not have permanent residences, they may not have a home they can simply pop to in order to retrieve “any nonmagical item that costs 1gp or less”. And if they are paying this cost of living, whom are the paying it to? And when? If they can retrieve any item worth 1gp or less from their home, what’s to stop them gathering those items and selling them on?

The rules are an abstraction. Is it an abstraction that we can live with? Or would we prefer a world that works in the same logical manner as the real world? Should we simply say that if you don’t have the gold, you can’t have a room at the inn? After all, I am actually going  to be giving you the requisite amount of money this time.

If there are players who like the book-keeping and accounting side of the game, would it be best to pass the task of recording the minutiae onto them? Could one player be responsible for maintaining a pot of “party funds” that everyone pays into? That way only one person has to do the maths?

The world-builder in me would rather see us track every minor expenditure.
The player is telling me it’s more hassle than it’s worth.

Is there a compromise here?