"Inventory slot" system

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JugglinDan
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by JugglinDan »

FakeHealer wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 7:53 am This all just seems more complicated. If you want easy just handwave carrying capacity and use common sense adjudications like "the 3 ft tall solid iron statue weighs too much for a person to carry alone with magical or mechanical help" or "there is roughly 700lbs of silver bars in the hoard, how do you want to manage carrying them" and then impose encumbrance difficulties for carrying heavy stuff beyond a PC's standard gear.
Tracking individual items sucks to me so I would rather just say that PCs can handle their "standard gear they would have" with no problem and only think about encumbrance when dealing with trying to add 50-100lb items to themselves.
This is what I do. I don't track encumbrance for standard gear unless a player tries something clearly over the top. But I do impose more challenges for very heavy items. I don't even track standard missiles (only magical ones), but I'm thinking of adding the "ammunition is empty on a nat 1 attack roll" idea from ICRPG.

If you insist on a slots system, you might also want to look at Index Card RPG. Each character can equip 10 things, and carry another 10. Only equipped items have mechanical effects. Basic items are bundled into packs, with the whole pack taking 1 slot. Common projectiles are not counted. A quiver of arrows is empty on a nat 1 attack roll for example.
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deadPan c
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by deadPan c »

FakeHealer wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 7:53 am This all just seems more complicated. If you want easy just handwave carrying capacity and use common sense adjudications like "the 3 ft tall solid iron statue weighs too much for a person to carry alone with magical or mechanical help" or "there is roughly 700lbs of silver bars in the hoard, how do you want to manage carrying them" and then impose encumbrance difficulties for carrying heavy stuff beyond a PC's standard gear.
Tracking individual items sucks to me so I would rather just say that PCs can handle their "standard gear they would have" with no problem and only think about encumbrance when dealing with trying to add 50-100lb items to themselves.
Whatever works for your table, I guess ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

I enjoy tracking carrying capacity, since it adds an element of strategic choice to what a character brings with them (do I want to bring a bow to hunt wild animals, or a few days' worth of rations? What about a crowbar?) but I don't want to do maths every time a character picks up or drops an item. Even if it's simple addition and subtraction.

The system has a trade-off: sacrificing veridicality and fidelity, but cutting down on maths and making the game just a little faster.
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deadPan c
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by deadPan c »

JugglinDan wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 5:59 pm
FakeHealer wrote: Sat May 06, 2023 7:53 am This all just seems more complicated. If you want easy just handwave carrying capacity and use common sense adjudications like "the 3 ft tall solid iron statue weighs too much for a person to carry alone with magical or mechanical help" or "there is roughly 700lbs of silver bars in the hoard, how do you want to manage carrying them" and then impose encumbrance difficulties for carrying heavy stuff beyond a PC's standard gear.
Tracking individual items sucks to me so I would rather just say that PCs can handle their "standard gear they would have" with no problem and only think about encumbrance when dealing with trying to add 50-100lb items to themselves.
This is what I do. I don't track encumbrance for standard gear unless a player tries something clearly over the top. But I do impose more challenges for very heavy items. I don't even track standard missiles (only magical ones), but I'm thinking of adding the "ammunition is empty on a nat 1 attack roll" idea from ICRPG.

If you insist on a slots system, you might also want to look at Index Card RPG. Each character can equip 10 things, and carry another 10. Only equipped items have mechanical effects. Basic items are bundled into packs, with the whole pack taking 1 slot. Common projectiles are not counted. A quiver of arrows is empty on a nat 1 attack roll for example.
I love the "you have enough arrows until you roll a 1" mechanic.

I'll have a look at Index Card RPG. I've heard a lot of good things about it but haven't gotten around to actually looking at it or its mechanics
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excior
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by excior »

kmerfeld wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 10:32 am I've been fiddling with similar stuff. DURF https://emielboven.itch.io/durf has a nice implementation.

One thing that I find very important, is you have some number of inventory "slots", but you also have general inventory for misc stuff.

so your bow might be one slot, your quiver/arrows might be one, but your thieves tools/chalk,ink jar, paper, ect are just in your inventory.

Slots are for bigger loot and important equipment, while small things that go in your bag and you don't worry about (until it becomes ridiculous)

If its a consumable or equipment its a slot, if its gems/jewelry its just in your bag

The important part to me is giving you a no math/thought system.
If you start spending time trying to decide if something is a slot or not, just throw it into your bag and keep adventuring
the back pack, pouches, and bags should have a slots as well. otherwise your normal bag is just a bag of holding.
deadPan c
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by deadPan c »

excior wrote: Wed May 31, 2023 11:21 am
kmerfeld wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 10:32 am I've been fiddling with similar stuff. DURF https://emielboven.itch.io/durf has a nice implementation.

One thing that I find very important, is you have some number of inventory "slots", but you also have general inventory for misc stuff.

so your bow might be one slot, your quiver/arrows might be one, but your thieves tools/chalk,ink jar, paper, ect are just in your inventory.

Slots are for bigger loot and important equipment, while small things that go in your bag and you don't worry about (until it becomes ridiculous)

If its a consumable or equipment its a slot, if its gems/jewelry its just in your bag

The important part to me is giving you a no math/thought system.
If you start spending time trying to decide if something is a slot or not, just throw it into your bag and keep adventuring
the back pack, pouches, and bags should have a slots as well. otherwise your normal bag is just a bag of holding.
That's a very good point. Perhaps each container could hold between 5 and 10 items, then your Strength determines the overall amount of items you can hold?

Though I think this might be unnecessary
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peach
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by peach »

Hi there. First time posting here; hopefully necroing an older thread like this is ok.

I've been playing my solo game with the following system that's more or less in line with how most other OSR games handle it:

- Tiny items, clothing and packs/sacks take up 0 slots.
- 1 slot: 1 item 2-9 lbs / leather armor or shield / 5 identical items 0.1 - 1.9 lbs / 20 ammo / 200 coins or gems
- 2 slots: 1 item 10+ lbs / metal armor
- Each character has a light load of their Strength score MINUS their Strength modifier, and a heavy load of [light load]+10. Quirky, I know, but the light load calculation gives more variety than something like [10+STR mod], but without totally gimping or overpowering characters with extreme scores. Subtracting the modifier narrows the band.

This ends up meaning that an inventory slot translates to roughly 5-10 lbs. Compared to RAW:
- this is slightly punishing for thieves, who don't have a lot of Strength but do carry all sorts of unique 1 lb items.
- it makes metal armor much cheaper. If you want, you could say that metal armor costs 3-5 slots; I kind of didn't want to overcomplicate things.
- I don't distinguish between halflings and other races, but you could give them 1 or 2 slots less.

For containers, beast and vehicle carrying capacity, character weight, etc., I divide the number given in lbs in the book by either 10 or 5 based on what feels more fun and natural. Some examples:
- a backpack holds 8 slots (40 lbs in the book).
- a donkey has a light load of 7 slots and a heavy load of 14 slots (70/140 lbs in the book).

Overall it feels pretty functional – characters are able to carry about what you'd expect, and you're making interesting but not overbearingly tough decisions about equipment. And it's systematized in a way that makes it easy to convert stuff from the book.

I'm attaching a small character sheet I made that has this stuff built in. I've found it very functional.
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DuncleJohn
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by DuncleJohn »

I like the system listed in Kevin Crawford's books (Stars without Number, Worlds without, etc...)

Cliff Note version:

You can "ready" a number of items equal to 1/2 Str.

You carry a number of items equal to Strength (takes an action to pull it out).

Everything else needs to be stored, or carried in some other fashion.
Backpacks, sacks and puouches enable the ability to carry all those slots worth of things.

Bulky items and weapons can take multiple slots.
Typically 2h weapons and armor take 2 slots.
Smaller items like torches only take a slot in groups of 3 or more.
Coins take 1 slot for every 100.

Characters can carry more than their slots but lose 10' of speed for every 2 readied or 4 carried items.

It's pretty easy to eyeball, and I like using it.
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JugglinDan
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by JugglinDan »

I've been experimenting with a slot system in my PbF games. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's been easier to use than tracking weights, though a relatively small number of players say they prefer detailed weight tracking.

I generally like Kevin Crawford's stuff, so thanks for the reminder that he has a system in the WWN collection. I'll check it out.
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Boggo
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by Boggo »

I'm obviously missing something, every single one of these systems seem SO much more complex and SO much more bookkeeping than keeping track of weight to me, still, whatever floats your goat!
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DuncleJohn
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Re: "Inventory slot" system

Post by DuncleJohn »

JugglinDan wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2023 6:46 pm I've been experimenting with a slot system in my PbF games. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's been easier to use than tracking weights, though a relatively small number of players say they prefer detailed weight tracking.

I generally like Kevin Crawford's stuff, so thanks for the reminder that he has a system in the WWN collection. I'll check it out.
I think what I love most about KC's stuff is how easy it is to drag and drop his various rules and toolkits into whatever you might be playing.
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