Knicks & Knacks

Ramblings on Inventory (and probably some others things)

I understand people wanting to "crunch-ify" inventory. Things have weight and carrying too much weight can have significant consequences when in a dungeon or a battle and trying to move/fight/sneak/whatever. Thus, things have a certain weight in pounds or slots in the rules to facilitate imposing these various advantages/disadvantages from going light or being encumbered. Inventory is a means of adding realism, otherwise things can get absurd. Now, if that's what you want in your game, go for it. Lots of hacks and systems made by lots of different folks have lots of different ways of handling this area of the game.

I'm going to keep mine simple and relatively "un-crunchy".

In Flats, you are always going to be traveling light. Flats has lots of long journeys, over salt flats, in burning heat and freezing cold. A character is forced to pack light or (probably) die, frankly. This means what you are usually limited to what you can carry in a rucksack and on your person. If memory serves, most hikers/mountaineers recommend only packing like 30 pounds of gear maximum for long journeys. If we assume a "slot" is 5 pounds, that's a whopping six slots for the average person. We're looking at 5-8 slots, from a crunch perspective. There might be a few times where carts, animals, porters, or some combination of the three are also employed, but that incurs greater risk to the overall operation. It's bleak and brutal out there.

Standard Kit

However, something I quite like is the idea of "standard kit". There are certain items that everyone traveling the flats always has on them. They only ever walk the flats with, at bare minimum, this gear. Thus, their bodies, no matter their strength (save for the very old or very young), are going to be trained to handle the weight of "standard kit". Standard kit, therefore, weighs nothing; it takes no "inventory slots" and is not factored into further considerations.

Here's standard kit:

Everything else a player character may start with is added around these items, somehow carried by the player character. This includes duplicates of the above items. If you have two short-spades, you feel the second one, but not the first. After all, anything beyond the weight of standard kit the player character effectively feels as they walk around. Too much and bad things happen, like profuse sweating which attracts Things, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, heart attack, etc. You get the idea.

The Rule and Its Assumptions

The rule for inventory assumes a few things:

  1. You and the GM are both reasonable, functioning adults able to converse and, where necessary, compromise.
    • If this isn't the case, honestly stop reading this post.
  2. You will keep an updated list of what your player character currently carries and where on them it is.
    • I don't think this is a big ask.
  3. This updated list will be shared with the GM and they will also, throughout the game, update it based on your decisions for your character.
    • If there's a discrepancy, talk it out like adults. You and the GM are there to facilitate a good time playing pretend. Work together.

If these three things are true, here's the rule: Your player character can carry as much as is reasonable, as determined by your GM, for a character of their relative strength without incurring any penalties.

That's it. No tracking thirds of a slot; no math to add up how many pounds you are carrying; no multiplication to determine what the max weight a character of 13 strength could carry. You add things to the list; the GM adds things to the list. When the list gets a little too long, the GM goes,

"Hey [insert name here], how are you carrying all this stuff?" You then go, "Here's how" and list it out.

If that seems reasonable: cool, all good; if not, talk it over with the GM as to what should be done to remedy the situation. Here's some suggestions:

  1. Rucksack strap breaks
  2. Character immediately suffers cardiac arrest (like when a cartoon character runs off a cliff but only falls when they look down)
  3. Character is permitted to keep carrying that stuff until there's a narrative pause, wherein things have to be left behind/removed
  4. Character suffers from exhaustion
  5. Character only attacks with some kind of detriment until you lose the weight
  6. Weight must be spread amongst the party immediately, taking a full dungeon turn
  7. Character is really loud until weight is removed
  8. Next combat, something breaks and scatters across the floor if character takes damage
  9. Character cannot cast magic until weight is removed
  10. Items magically disappear instantaneously and character (and any others) immediately forget those items ever existed
  11. Character cannot stay afloat in water (where applicable)
  12. Character stinks of sweat from exertion, attracting Bad Things

You get the idea. There's lots of ways to rectify a clerical error, with some options kinder than others. Sometimes it's just, "My bad, let's clean this list up after the session in preparation for next session".

Maybe you hate this idea. That's okay. I like it. That's enough for me.

An Optional Rule

If you cannot inform the GM how you are carrying your items when asked without pausing for longer than 5 seconds on any given item, your character immediately suffers a heart attack.

I just think it's funny.