Stern, playerly disapproval of the game for not giving me the cards I need.

You're telling me your local store doesn't have an indoor island to make you feel like an 18th century explorer when you buy incense?

A fun way to do this can be to give a player *too much* information, to the point that it becomes unhelpful.

Player: "I examine the claw marks."
GM: "You can think of six things that could leave marks like this. Three are extinct, one involves a disease that leaves bears horribly deformed, and..."

Thanks for the recipe! Really fascinating.

It's getting a little concerning at this point. Normally you'd only see this kind of slowdown as you approach the event horizon of a massive black hole.

Yeah, I don't think many people are. That's a big part of why I think it's time for TTRPGs to acknowledge "buy and forget" as the default. Unless it's something specific for The Plot - in which case the GM can impose restrictions - limiting these kinds of resource tends to just bog the game down.

Once an item is Expended, it is truly empty. It becomes useless until you are able to get someplace with appropriate supplies, and take the time to restock it. Usually meaning you need some downtime in a town, but your DM/GM might allow you to craft materials or forage if you have the right skills.

Failing wouldn't mean there's nothing left, just that you couldn't pull together what you needed in the time you had. Meaning you could retry, but you're losing time. However, keep failing checks, or just pushing your supplies too much, and they gain the Expended condition.

Unlimited anything feels like it would undermine resource scarcity as a plot point, but I think the Broken condition from Pathfinder gives a hint on how to handle this. Supply items can gain the Depleted condition, needing a check to see if you can scrounge enough from them for what you want to do.

It depends on the government. In Issane, the Medieval Europe analogue, the churches are on about the level of powerful guilds. However, in the neighboring desert nation of Kades, where divine magic makes up for resource scarcity, even the Sultan must heed the words of the Church.