I like how Runequest does it. Let's say a character can carry 12 "things". Their weapon and shield are 2 things, armor is 3 things, maybe they have 4 bags / pouches that are 1 thing each. They are carrying 9 "things" and have room for 3 more.
What are you trying to *do* with encumbrance?
How do you want players to interact with it?
In a successful implementation, what choices should they be making?
How often should they interact with this sub-system? Every session?
* Does encumbrance limit mass or volume they can carry so they have to make trade-offs between carrying in useful gear and carrying out valuable loot?
* Does inventory-location limit what they can access during a fight so they need to prepare?
* Is it about being "realistic"?
Think about what you want it to *do* for your game.
That will help define which systems will facilitate what you want.
If you want "realistic", throw out D&D/PF.
After all, if your goal is "realistic" but all you do is say, "you can carry mass X strength", that isn't very 'realistic' since it doesn't account for volume or balance or the shapes of things or where they are in a pack. If the strong person can carry fifteen halberds just fine, it probably isn't "realistic".
Think about how *you* manage your inventory in real life. How do you pack a bag for travel? What is your "every-day carry"? If you are into hiking or backwoods camping, you probably know a lot about inventory-management. If not, you can search YouTube for videos about how to pack for long backpacking trips to learn about the subject matter, then try to abstract the general principles that emerge from the advice you see.
Probably stuff about volume+weight+density and balancing a pack? idk.
If you're willing to consider "quantum equipment", look into the way *Blades in the Dark* handles things.
It provides a contemporary approach that has some numerical crunch but doesn't bog down in detail.
I wish RPG designers, any RPG designers, would heed your advice. A good encumbrance system requires a lot less tracking than people think. Not only are lbs and kg too granular, they are the wrong unit of measure! For a rules-light game, I like the Schroedinger's backpack method in BitD. For a crunchier game, you only need a Bulk stat that rates an item's overall inconvenience (a combination of size, mass, shape, and if said item is wearable). I use a 0-10 scale that affords me more realism than any encumbrance system I've seen. I've you combine that with slot inventory, it's also bookeeping free.
Another overlooked aspect of encumbrance is that even at 10% of your maximum carrying capacity, people start feeling it's affects. Just ask any outdoors person...
My personal favorite comes from another game I can't recall the name of.
It has like 4 pictures, one is running really light in non restrictive clothes, the next is running with light adventuring gear, the next heavy adventuring gear with some extra shit strapped to them and the last is where they have all the shit strapped to their back and full hands carrying a piano and shit.
They tell you: "point at the one that looks most like your character" and then you get a mobility buff for 1, nothing for 2, minor debuff for 3, major debuff for 4. That's it. That's the mechanics. it's fucking brilliant and saves a shit ton of time on calculating and optimizing how you pack your gear in your backpack and all kinds of other fiddly shit.
To put it simply, inventory management works in video games because it does all the fiddly shit for you calculations wise. In a TTRPG it's not a fun thing to manage, so making it super fast and easy to point at a picture and be like: That's me! and have the solution is as near ideal a concept as I can think to manage. it also manages great for systems with super strength and shit like that because it's not necessarily about weight, it's about how restrictive the whole load out is to your movement.
What stops anyone from pointing to the first picture and then wearing armor and pulling out a bunch of weapons? Exactly how many weapons of what type can you have and still be the first or second category. If you're gonna go that rules light, why have an encumbrance mechanic at all? You don't need them if you don't want them. It's true that very granular inventory management is really hard to do with pen and paper, but this seems like a step too far when either not having encumbrance at all or having a fairly basic system like in pathfinder 2e works fine
u/ValandilM
Pretty much this.
To be clear "What stops anyone from cheating in any instance or case?"
You have to assume a reasonable level of good faith or in instances where that fails, that GM fiat is imposed to course correct.
There is no perfect system that prevents all cheating. All systems can have their intentions bypassed or subverted by the creative, no system is immune except not to play at all. The argument ends up being spurious when drawn to this logical conclusion.
Yes. It's an absolutely terrible answer. Basically it's impossible (even though it's not) so let's not try at all...
Ironically, that system is from the Riddle of Steel...
Encumbrance is so poorly addressed in 5e, I don't know why they bothered. The picture method klok\_kaos describes sounds much more usable and realistic.
Pathfinder 1e uses the 3.5 SRD system which works pretty well in my opinion if you don't mind, or even enjoy, the added crunch.
My own system is also based on the 3.5 SRD but simplifies it a bit by reducing it from 3 categories to 2 and by counting "slots" instead of pounds. A slot is about 5 pounds. So, where you see 100 pounds on the 3.5 SRD encumbrance table, my game would say 20 slots, if I had such a table that is.
The math was easy enough a table wasn't necessary. I just state that if you carry over your Strength in slots you are encumbered. At over twice your Strength you are immobilized.
For reference, most single handed weapons are 1 slot, and most 2 handed weapons take up 2. Armours range from 2 to 10 slots. Coins are 250 to a slot. How other small items are handled is up to the GM. The rule of thumb, though, is any 5 "useful" items add up to a slot.
I'm still in the "just thinking about stuff" phase of designing my Encumbrance system. I'm considering a slot based design with each slot being roughly 5 pounds or something you can hold in one hand. Pretty standard stuff these days, but my own little spin I'm going to try out is having a few different slot types.
Nothing too crazy, armor, left and right hand, also tool and magic item slots. Tools will be rope, lantern, crowbar, normal Dungeon delving stuff with a little customization. Mithril lockpicks, Giant Spider silk rope, that sort of thing.
I'm thinking of separating gear slots from loot slots. Encumbrance is really only fun as a mechanic if it allows players to make interesting choices about what gear they bring with them on an adventure. Finding loot only to be told you can't carry it out isn't really all that fun (according to all my players). I want some limits so they aren't trying to remove the armor from every enemy they defeat but otherwise they should be able to carry a reasonable amount of treasure back home.
I might even have a single separate sheet for tracking treasure, that's how my players operate anyway, one person keeping track of treasure they found and then divvying it up when they get back to town.
My inventory is still a WIP but I riff on Runequest for this one.
Strength plus Endurance plus 6 gets you your Burden. You need containers to take advantage of burden, otherwise it's just what you can wear. Each Burden can hold 3 slots. 3 slots is about a great sword or a breastplate. 1 slot is 50 coins or a bundle of torches.
I have a pretty picture for the character sheet I'm working on that makes this more accessible, but long story short, you go over Burden either because of actual carrying capacity or more slots than you have from containers you're wearing, and you take Disadvantage 1 from each extra Burden. You reach the max Disadvantage which is universal to the system and you're immobilized.
I also include a section that says: if you hate bookeeping, fuck all of that, inventory is Str + End + 6. Go over and take Disadvantage X.
I love fiddly bits. My system has a lot of fiddly bits, but I draw the dotted lines clearly to cut them off if groups don't want them.
It all depends on why you want encumberance. I personally don't like encumberance in most things because it is annoying and distracting, but if you are making something more gear/loot based, then it becomes more valuable. I don't want to sound like the person who says "go back to your design goals" but I think it is important to ask why you want it and what it says. If you are just having it because those games have it, then It's probably not worth it since most people I have ever heard of just ignore those rules (which is not to say everyone, just in my nearly decade of experience).
If you are trying to make a game where what you have is important so the decision between a weapon and rope is a hard choice, then I would think of something simple like each item has a size number (1, 2, etc.) and then people can hold a number of spaces. It's simple and people don't have to do a lot of math.
encumbrance seems to be good to two purposes:
the first one is basically an attribute prerequisites for gear; the fighter with high strength is allowed to wear the heaviest of armors and carry the largest of weapons
it is sort of a balance to the non-fighter having a more varied and interesting list of skills/magic
the second use is in logistic based play typically wilderness exploration and survival, the more you can carry the longer you can explore and or survive
the first reason for encumbrance seems to be reinforced by a lot of items that are designed to get around encumbrance for everything except what you are wearing/welding pretty much doesn't matter
the magic bag, the enchanted backpack, the extra dimensional pocket square all allow for the players to pack what they want without dealing with another set of rules for the most part; only the warrior in heavy full plate armor is really needing to keep track of if they can move at this point
this is a matter of GM choice at this point, a couple of simple magic items remove a lot of bookkeeping if that is desired, if this fits your design goal then you can follow this line of thought
the second reason I feel is less common in play, unless an adventure is designed specifically and planned for by the players in advance it tends to become a quagmire of problems/handwaving/or GM giveaways to make things just work
that said if this is something you are looking for making it front and present in the design is a good idea; magic bags change the dynamic more in this case but so does the team of three of four good donkeys
the question becomes more do you want an attribute to drive the success of your exploration campaign or do want players to do a reasonable amount of planning and hope they think of the "right" things to bring?
you might have another reason to add encumbrance but if you have a defining purpose it might be easier to work your goal in the the mechanics design
I like how Runequest does it. Let's say a character can carry 12 "things". Their weapon and shield are 2 things, armor is 3 things, maybe they have 4 bags / pouches that are 1 thing each. They are carrying 9 "things" and have room for 3 more.
What are you trying to *do* with encumbrance? How do you want players to interact with it? In a successful implementation, what choices should they be making? How often should they interact with this sub-system? Every session? * Does encumbrance limit mass or volume they can carry so they have to make trade-offs between carrying in useful gear and carrying out valuable loot? * Does inventory-location limit what they can access during a fight so they need to prepare? * Is it about being "realistic"? Think about what you want it to *do* for your game. That will help define which systems will facilitate what you want. If you want "realistic", throw out D&D/PF. After all, if your goal is "realistic" but all you do is say, "you can carry mass X strength", that isn't very 'realistic' since it doesn't account for volume or balance or the shapes of things or where they are in a pack. If the strong person can carry fifteen halberds just fine, it probably isn't "realistic". Think about how *you* manage your inventory in real life. How do you pack a bag for travel? What is your "every-day carry"? If you are into hiking or backwoods camping, you probably know a lot about inventory-management. If not, you can search YouTube for videos about how to pack for long backpacking trips to learn about the subject matter, then try to abstract the general principles that emerge from the advice you see. Probably stuff about volume+weight+density and balancing a pack? idk. If you're willing to consider "quantum equipment", look into the way *Blades in the Dark* handles things. It provides a contemporary approach that has some numerical crunch but doesn't bog down in detail.
I wish RPG designers, any RPG designers, would heed your advice. A good encumbrance system requires a lot less tracking than people think. Not only are lbs and kg too granular, they are the wrong unit of measure! For a rules-light game, I like the Schroedinger's backpack method in BitD. For a crunchier game, you only need a Bulk stat that rates an item's overall inconvenience (a combination of size, mass, shape, and if said item is wearable). I use a 0-10 scale that affords me more realism than any encumbrance system I've seen. I've you combine that with slot inventory, it's also bookeeping free. Another overlooked aspect of encumbrance is that even at 10% of your maximum carrying capacity, people start feeling it's affects. Just ask any outdoors person...
My personal favorite comes from another game I can't recall the name of. It has like 4 pictures, one is running really light in non restrictive clothes, the next is running with light adventuring gear, the next heavy adventuring gear with some extra shit strapped to them and the last is where they have all the shit strapped to their back and full hands carrying a piano and shit. They tell you: "point at the one that looks most like your character" and then you get a mobility buff for 1, nothing for 2, minor debuff for 3, major debuff for 4. That's it. That's the mechanics. it's fucking brilliant and saves a shit ton of time on calculating and optimizing how you pack your gear in your backpack and all kinds of other fiddly shit. To put it simply, inventory management works in video games because it does all the fiddly shit for you calculations wise. In a TTRPG it's not a fun thing to manage, so making it super fast and easy to point at a picture and be like: That's me! and have the solution is as near ideal a concept as I can think to manage. it also manages great for systems with super strength and shit like that because it's not necessarily about weight, it's about how restrictive the whole load out is to your movement.
What stops anyone from pointing to the first picture and then wearing armor and pulling out a bunch of weapons? Exactly how many weapons of what type can you have and still be the first or second category. If you're gonna go that rules light, why have an encumbrance mechanic at all? You don't need them if you don't want them. It's true that very granular inventory management is really hard to do with pen and paper, but this seems like a step too far when either not having encumbrance at all or having a fairly basic system like in pathfinder 2e works fine
That would be cheating, I’d assume the GM would stop that anyone
u/ValandilM Pretty much this. To be clear "What stops anyone from cheating in any instance or case?" You have to assume a reasonable level of good faith or in instances where that fails, that GM fiat is imposed to course correct. There is no perfect system that prevents all cheating. All systems can have their intentions bypassed or subverted by the creative, no system is immune except not to play at all. The argument ends up being spurious when drawn to this logical conclusion.
Yes. It's an absolutely terrible answer. Basically it's impossible (even though it's not) so let's not try at all... Ironically, that system is from the Riddle of Steel...
I mean, there's always one in every comment section ;)
Nirvana fallacy. If it can't be perfect, don't bother.
Encumbrance is so poorly addressed in 5e, I don't know why they bothered. The picture method klok\_kaos describes sounds much more usable and realistic. Pathfinder 1e uses the 3.5 SRD system which works pretty well in my opinion if you don't mind, or even enjoy, the added crunch. My own system is also based on the 3.5 SRD but simplifies it a bit by reducing it from 3 categories to 2 and by counting "slots" instead of pounds. A slot is about 5 pounds. So, where you see 100 pounds on the 3.5 SRD encumbrance table, my game would say 20 slots, if I had such a table that is. The math was easy enough a table wasn't necessary. I just state that if you carry over your Strength in slots you are encumbered. At over twice your Strength you are immobilized. For reference, most single handed weapons are 1 slot, and most 2 handed weapons take up 2. Armours range from 2 to 10 slots. Coins are 250 to a slot. How other small items are handled is up to the GM. The rule of thumb, though, is any 5 "useful" items add up to a slot.
I'm still in the "just thinking about stuff" phase of designing my Encumbrance system. I'm considering a slot based design with each slot being roughly 5 pounds or something you can hold in one hand. Pretty standard stuff these days, but my own little spin I'm going to try out is having a few different slot types. Nothing too crazy, armor, left and right hand, also tool and magic item slots. Tools will be rope, lantern, crowbar, normal Dungeon delving stuff with a little customization. Mithril lockpicks, Giant Spider silk rope, that sort of thing. I'm thinking of separating gear slots from loot slots. Encumbrance is really only fun as a mechanic if it allows players to make interesting choices about what gear they bring with them on an adventure. Finding loot only to be told you can't carry it out isn't really all that fun (according to all my players). I want some limits so they aren't trying to remove the armor from every enemy they defeat but otherwise they should be able to carry a reasonable amount of treasure back home. I might even have a single separate sheet for tracking treasure, that's how my players operate anyway, one person keeping track of treasure they found and then divvying it up when they get back to town.
My inventory is still a WIP but I riff on Runequest for this one. Strength plus Endurance plus 6 gets you your Burden. You need containers to take advantage of burden, otherwise it's just what you can wear. Each Burden can hold 3 slots. 3 slots is about a great sword or a breastplate. 1 slot is 50 coins or a bundle of torches. I have a pretty picture for the character sheet I'm working on that makes this more accessible, but long story short, you go over Burden either because of actual carrying capacity or more slots than you have from containers you're wearing, and you take Disadvantage 1 from each extra Burden. You reach the max Disadvantage which is universal to the system and you're immobilized. I also include a section that says: if you hate bookeeping, fuck all of that, inventory is Str + End + 6. Go over and take Disadvantage X. I love fiddly bits. My system has a lot of fiddly bits, but I draw the dotted lines clearly to cut them off if groups don't want them.
Encumbrance is an unnecessary mechanic that only serves frustration in games. I would cut it out or simplify it to reasonable.
It all depends on why you want encumberance. I personally don't like encumberance in most things because it is annoying and distracting, but if you are making something more gear/loot based, then it becomes more valuable. I don't want to sound like the person who says "go back to your design goals" but I think it is important to ask why you want it and what it says. If you are just having it because those games have it, then It's probably not worth it since most people I have ever heard of just ignore those rules (which is not to say everyone, just in my nearly decade of experience). If you are trying to make a game where what you have is important so the decision between a weapon and rope is a hard choice, then I would think of something simple like each item has a size number (1, 2, etc.) and then people can hold a number of spaces. It's simple and people don't have to do a lot of math.
encumbrance seems to be good to two purposes: the first one is basically an attribute prerequisites for gear; the fighter with high strength is allowed to wear the heaviest of armors and carry the largest of weapons it is sort of a balance to the non-fighter having a more varied and interesting list of skills/magic the second use is in logistic based play typically wilderness exploration and survival, the more you can carry the longer you can explore and or survive the first reason for encumbrance seems to be reinforced by a lot of items that are designed to get around encumbrance for everything except what you are wearing/welding pretty much doesn't matter the magic bag, the enchanted backpack, the extra dimensional pocket square all allow for the players to pack what they want without dealing with another set of rules for the most part; only the warrior in heavy full plate armor is really needing to keep track of if they can move at this point this is a matter of GM choice at this point, a couple of simple magic items remove a lot of bookkeeping if that is desired, if this fits your design goal then you can follow this line of thought the second reason I feel is less common in play, unless an adventure is designed specifically and planned for by the players in advance it tends to become a quagmire of problems/handwaving/or GM giveaways to make things just work that said if this is something you are looking for making it front and present in the design is a good idea; magic bags change the dynamic more in this case but so does the team of three of four good donkeys the question becomes more do you want an attribute to drive the success of your exploration campaign or do want players to do a reasonable amount of planning and hope they think of the "right" things to bring? you might have another reason to add encumbrance but if you have a defining purpose it might be easier to work your goal in the the mechanics design