I suppose
I misunderstood the question. I though the camper and his gear wanted to stay dry.
Lyn
Car camping
Since this is a car camping type question, I’ll share my car camping method that ends (for me at least) the issue of wet gear, ground cloths, trenching, etc. I use a screened room with a full rain fly as a tent. Got it from Cabella’s a years ago. No floor, 7’ high, fly has long flaps that extend away from sides to shed water. I sleep on a cot, pack clothes in a few dry bags, room enough for a folding table, two cots and two chairs.
I can cook inside if it’s raining with the door open and sit comfortably to read at night. Cost was the same as equal sized traditional tents. No hassle at all about rain issues. One night in a long, heavy rain event, a streamlet of water passed through as I watched it from my comfy perch up on my cot. No harm, no foul.
Hennesey Hammock
Try one of these: http://www.hennessyhammock.com/
Otherwise - the suggestions to car camp and putting the tarp INTO your tent show merit and experience.
I personally opt for a good B&B with hot shower, warmed cognac, and a fireplace tended by the owner/manager. 
Scott
Terminology
I have not read much in this thread that sounds full bore linear eco-nazi. Common sense should supplement need. I like the birch log idea, but you won’t find anything remotely resembling “firewood” near car camping spots in the Rockies. OTOH, walk more than 100 meters from any campground and you will find plenty of dead and down stuff while people are paying $7 a bundle for split pine for campfires.
My impression of an eco-nazi is more extreme than the don’t trench mindset. (Trenching is usually unnecessary if you select a good site.) When you live and work near the Republic of Boulder you encounter the variety of e-n that preaches “look, but don’t enter.” They are in the process of closing open space lands to any kind of usage, even trail use, because we humans do not belong in the woods and will disturb anything more natural than a human. Excuse me? Is a human an alien to the Earth? It’s funny that most of the tax paid for open space they are trying to close conveniently forms buffer zones to isolate the wealthy estates from the unwashed masses. These particular lands have seen 150 years of human occupation from ranching to mining, railroad grade to stage coach, and a variety of other “human trespass.” There is very little virgin wilderness left in the lower 48 and I agree that it should be protected, yet carefully visited and enjoyed. It is perfectly natural for a human to be part of the woods. That human also has responsibility to be a beneficial caretaker.
What is your goal, really?
If your goal is to keep the floor of the tent generally clean, and dry, a groundcloth under the tent - in conjunction with proper site selection - should do the trick most of the time.
If your goal is to stay dry IN the tent, along with your gear, but the groundcloth INSIDE the tent, and be sure it is large enough to run a few inches up each sidewall.
This actually would be helpful for abrasion protection on the floor, since a lot of this occurs from inside the tent, with you and your gear being moved around. The groundcloth inside takes this abuse, and not your tent floor.
If you find out belatedly that you chose a poor site, and your groundcloth was under the tent, your weight will force any water that got between your tent and the groundcloth through the floor and into your gear, sleeping pad, etc. This will not happen if the groundcloth is inside the tent.
When I first read this method from Cliff Jacobson, I thought he was nuts. I am a believer now, having tried it in heavy rainfall. So what if the floor of the tent gets wet or muddy? It will dry, and must of the mud can then be brushed off.
-rs
I know this post is old but I may be able to help someone. We’ve always been able to dry our tents after a downpour but it was always our gear and beds getting wet that we didn’t like. The bed we used was just a 6" piece of foam it was a sponge needless to say. From then on we bought twin size waterproof fitted sheets (used for people who wet the bed) we put them on the bottom of our bedding to keep it dry and as for our gear we used 3 plastic totes, no water got in our gear and it kept things more organized. Hope that helps somebody.
I have been backpacking since 1960 and have never used a tarp under a tent for the reason you describe. A footprint is just extra weight. Find a spot for your tent and clear the debris off it. Do not set up your tent in a low spot. Problem solved.
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I’m from the hammock camp. 
Best leave no trace / avoidance of gear getting wet and dirty / not sleeping w/ the bugs and snakes / small light weight setup around.
Doesn’t need flat ground only a couple of uprights and most of you have that w/ your tree lined shores. Here in the desert it’s a bit harder and still I manage to float above the ground.
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You can’t really clear the debris off your tent site when camping on gravel and cobble bars.
Hmmm I have the Tetragon 8, and three other tents, none are immune to water under the tent… A proper floor saver, water proof , single layer edges smaller than the tent sides that works well but, There is no substitute for site selection. You must not camp in a water course, no mater how small. The solution is a very careful visual appraisal of where to place the tent. Find the slightly bulging bit of real estate, it might be a micro high spot. Pitch your tent over the high ground, with low ground around it to lead water away. Boy Scout leader and canoe traveler, Over the past 20 years, I have slept in a tent more than 1,000 times.
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Gravel is not a reasonable place to camp. A footprint won’t help much. That is how you wreck tents.
I do a lot of boat trips overnight, Then plenty of the beaches have gravel. I use a lightweight cot for those.
There are tons of people who camp in tents on gravel bars on Ozark Rivers.
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As mentioned several times above, much is regarding location, location, location. Proper site selection (and long term care of the landscape) is one of the first important decisions to be made. I definitely agree with the anti-trenchers. Just as much as I disagree with the old outdated practice of cutting spruce boughs to make a bed (unless in an extreme survival situation), that was taught as acceptable when I did it as a scout more than 50 years ago.
Twenty years ago I left the ground and became a Hennessey hammock hanger. With the exception of when in treeless conditions such as on the Yukon River, I have not slept in a tent since discovering the pleasures of setting up. a hammock without regard to what the ground looks like under me.
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You have not camped where pblanc has so I suggest you do not argue with him… Gravel is the ONLY place you can camp safely in the Ozarks. A cot is laughable… It rains in Missouri and Arkansas A tent is still needed. Cots put pressure on the feet of the cot.
Tents these days have floors with a lower hydrostatic rating so groundcloths do help on wet soils or soils underlaid by the Canadian Shield. Beachy sites no you you don’t need them
I never became a hammock fan though in less used parks like Opasquia and Wabakimi they would be handy… Often you have to bush out a site. The trouble is the trees are spindly and saggy. Black spruce isn’t a good hanging hook and they are often densely packed. Or none at all as on caribou ridges. ( learned to peg down tents with rocks!)
Keep laughing. Thermarest makes a cot that weighs under 2 pounds that fits in any tent. It is about 5 inches high. I use it n the back of my truck in bad weather like snow and wind.
Sleeping on a cot inside of your tent does not protect the bottom of your tent from sharp and abrasive objects.
Yes, I agree inasmuch as the times that I have had a lot of water accumulate between my tent and footprint was when water was actually channeled under the tent. Sometimes when camping at a designated campground, however, the only campsites still left are in low-lying, wet areas.
Whenever I camp, I have a small folding shovel with me. I dig a small trench a couple inches deep around the tent, just under the edge of the rain fly, with the outflow on the downhill side. Any time I have done this, I have kept a dry tent floor, no matter how much rain there was. When packing up camp, just push the dirt back into the ditch and tamp it down with my foot.
I sleep on an air mattress which spreads out the weight. Seems like cot legs would concentrate the weight and put holes in the floor.
My tarp has a space blanket layer to reflect heat. I put it inside the tent so it is quick to roll up on a dawn departure. The tent floor is going to be damp and dirty regardless, so why deal with that on a ground cloth too?
Baring flowing water under the tent, I find that a ground cloth keeps my tent bottom quite clean and pretty dry. There might be some dampness for a 2 inch or so margin around the edges of the tent bottom that the ground cloth did not extend to, but if you have a freestanding tent and it is not raining, you can turn it upside down and that quickly dries.
For river tripping I have increasingly gone to using Tyvek ground sheets. Tyvek is not the most pleasant material to fold and pack as it is basically high density polyethylene and it is a bit noisy at times. But it can be cut and shaped to fit. It is quite lightweight and does not absorb any water so it dries very quickly.
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