RPG Design: Encumbrance

Happy New Year!

This week, I wanted to talk about an interesting, but often poorly handled or ignored, game design decision for tabletop RPGs: Encumbrance.

Ask about my encumbrance score and I'll put you on the 'Naughty' list!

Encumbrance (aka a PC's carrying capacity) has existed in tabletop role-playing games since the beginning of the hobby.  Since resource management was a key element of gameplay for Original Dungeons & Dragons, Encumbrance became another thing to track during a session, along with spells, torches, food, etc.

However, it can be cumbersome (pun intended), to actually calculate the sum of all of a PC's items and THEN calculate derived in-game effects *EVERY* time there's a change in a PC's inventory, Encumbrance is often hand waved away, especially since most players are more interesting in adventuring than bookkeeping.  On the other hand,  ignoring Encumbrance can lead to disbelief breaking situations, even with well-meaning players, where characters are carrying a ridiculous amount of items and, thus, shatter verisimilitude.

Seriously, GM should occasionally make a surprise check of their PCs' inventories.  Sometimes it's literally jaw-dropping.

Nevertheless, when Encumbrance is done well, it can force some interesting decisions or challenges upon players because of changes to character speed, abilities, etc.    I've also mentioned before that I've been fortunate enough to 1e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons  with a GM who runs the game by the book, including Encumbrance.  Enforcing Reaction and Initiative penalties for Encumbrance forces interesting and sometimes tough decisions on a player.  For example, my elven Magic-User/Thief has 18 Dexterity but only 9 Strength.  To avoid Reaction and Initiative penalties (spell books are heavy!), I couldn't carry a full complement of weapons.

Old School!

I've mentioned before that I've become increasingly lazy as a GM over time.  One way that this trend has influenced the design of my rules set, Sorcery & Steel, is that I've endeavored to remove as much accounting from the system as possible.  This is in line with one of my stated design goals, simplicity.  However, too much simplicity in a rules set can shatter verisimilitude, which is another stated design goal.

In this balancing act between these two goals, I decided to use Encumbrance but in a simplified fashion: players need to list items by location and the character sheet needs to pass the smell test.

In other words, if a character is carrying two swords, a bow, three daggers, standard adventuring gear, and several bags of loot, the player needs to explain where all these are located and convincingly argue why the character doesn't suffer a penalty.