RPGMemes

Mostly, I agree. However, part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it's not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.

Just make your players occasionally pay for upkeep of their gear when they're in town. This could be themes as repairs for weapons an armor, more arrows, spellcasting supplies, food, etc. This does two things. You can give them more value in rewards and it makes them feel like they're actually adventurers, not just game characters.

Alternatively, scale rewards down. They don't have to know about it, but if they're not paying for supplies then they're going to get more value than is expected (by the rules).

Or, the final option, just ignore it. It theoretically adds up to a lot of value over the course of the game, especially for spellcasting, but who cares? If you notice they have enough money that they stop worrying about it then you can do something.

Every group I've been in the archers just bought more than they could ever use and someone in the party could carry the extras. Like every time they go back to town they drop 5 gp for 100 arrows.

There's a moment when it can add tension. You find three silver arrows in an old fort, hole up for the night, and then hear the horrible howl of a werewolf ring out.

Or you're lost in the desert, trying to ration your water until you can find an oasis.

I've played Westmarches games where you do a little pre-adventure "we need to go X hexes so we're wanting Y supplies to get there and back". But its more a cost of failure than a drama element.

It's because D&D used to be a dungeon crawler but nobody does that anymore, yet tradition insists the dungeon crawler mechanics remain.

For a game with no attachment to tradition, try Draw Steel

i like to borrow from other systems and treat quiver and gold as stats to be checked against. i can ask you to roll a stat check against quiver. if you fail, you are currently out of arrows and will need to perform some action to no longer be out of arrows (including long rest, just assuming part of long rest is fletching or whatever, it doesn't need to be focused on too hard). on critical success or failure, the player's stat can go up or down permanently, and a player can trade a wealth point for an inventory point in town.

generally it works really well at letting players focus on role play by not requiring them to maintain a running tally.