How do you deal with encumbrance Veeky Forums? Track it diligently? Eyeball it? Don't' give fuck at all?

How do you deal with encumbrance Veeky Forums? Track it diligently? Eyeball it? Don't' give fuck at all?

I like to track it. Nobody else I have played with seems to share my views. Fuck them.

I treat as a big deal for gritty systems or low level / non-magical campaigns.

Any setting or system that has bags of holding, though, I usually just toss a few out early on and not bother with it.

So it depends on the feel of the game, basically.

I ignore it unless it seems like one player has their character carrying far too much.

personally i don't think it's a good game mechanic and just bogs down play with numbers that don't need to be there so i just use my discretion as a DM

for example you cant be carrying 3 sets of armor, that is far too much weight

I recall somebody doing this except the "low level" bags were fanny packs. So on one hand - virtually unlimited storage, on the other hand... well, you're wearing a fanny pack.

I have players tally it up to start with, and then typically ignore it afterwards. It gives people a good idea of how much stuff they can carry without having to constantly alter the sheet every time they pick up something. The main time it comes up is when something is really heavy and needs to be accounted for.

I might track it more closely for a survival game, but I'd tack everything more closely in that sort of game.

Encumbrance for me is a 'common sense' mechanic that doesn't need to be tracked unless you have a tacky little troll that powergames and muddies his dice rolls across the board to win.

For example; yeah I don't really mind if you go a few kilos over the weight category that should actually force you to run a lot slower, but for fucks sakes don't do shit like carrying five hundred kilos of gold ingots around by yourself in an attempt to trade them for profit later.

I do insist that players think intelligently about their monetary assets however. Carrying five thousand gold coins? Fucking heavy. Carrying one bag of emeralds? Not so much. Granted, you might take a loss or you might actually make a profit when it comes time to spend them, but versus carrying a ridiculous amount of weight it's worth the loss.

Funny to think that this kind of behavior was encouraged in older, Gygaxin era systems. Makes one yearn for the old days I suppose...

Well, from my point of view as a GM/DM, part of my role is to ensure my players are having fun, yet being challenged fairly by encounters and other circumstances. If someone is cheating and smudging the numbers to succeed, they're either not concerned with fair play or I'm making things too difficult for them to consider playing fairly. If they're not concerned with fair play, I ain't interested in playing with them. If I'm making things too hard, I'd prefer they talk to me about it rather than just jumping over my head straight to cheating.

In Gygaxian D&D the gold piece is the basic unit of weight.
The weights of objects and of carrying capacities were listed in directly in terms of the number of gold pieces that weight the equivalent amount.

There were a couple reasons for this, but during that era acquiring as much treasure as possible was the literal and main goal of the game.
It was a way of keeping score. In some of the earliest editions, how much treasure you hauled out literally dictated your character advancement.

Even when players had Bags of Holding (et al.) it was expected that carrying capacities be diligently tracked. It was only second to time in terms of things you had to carefully manage throughout your dungeon run.

It depends how straightforward the rules are. It is kind of important but I'm not one for excessive bookkeeping.

I just can't be assed to track it if it means remembering every items individual carry weight like in a game of pathfinder.

A game like lamentations of the flame princess has very easy to follow encumbrance rules. So I'd use it there.

Modified LotFP system.
Essentially I track items rather than specific weight. If something is held in one hand, it's one item weight. A two handed item is two item weight, etc.

When I'm a player I always keep track of my encumbrance. Showing that I'm under the weight limit is usually the easiest way to convince the GM that my character is carrying a reasonable amount of stuff.

As a GM, I've only asked a player to track it once. The system had guns doing a shitload of damage with long reload times, the player decided to get around it by carrying lots of loaded pistols. So we used the encumbrance rules to decide how many pistols he could carry.

common sense rules apply, i only ask about what people are carrying when it seems like they are hoarding things in there inventory, i don't tend to sweat the weight of things in concern of my players superhuman protagonists, so much as the actually mass of stuff being bulky and generally a pain in the ass

I just like to sort of vaguely split it into unencumbered-light load-heavy load-immobile.

>keeping muzzle loading weapons stored loaded

I started doing it because my GM was a faggot who always used our weight against us, but said we shouldn't bother keeping track of it.

So I started doing it, so whenever he said our characters would weight too much for a given bridge/brittle surface, I would pull up the EXACT weight of my character and all the gear he was carrying to disprove him.

Ended up having to leave anyway, because the GM felt I was "deliberately trying to derail the game" using "powergaming tricks" like this.

>literal magic

Check out LotFPs method of handling it. It's basically the only way I have seen it done and not be a pain in the ass.

I care less about load / encumbrance and more about how much shit you can keep easily accessible without being inconvenienced.

"Oh I wear six swords so I can always quickly draw a replacement" bugs me more than "I have twelve bajillion trail rations, nineteen torches, and a pony, all in my bags".

Roll20 really comes to the rescue here, if you have a good character sheet that does all the number jumbo on its own.

Otherwise I ignore it until it becomes ridiculous. No, you can't carry 1 000 arrows and 200 torches because they have 0 weight. In towns when the players are shopping I'd never say "no you can't buy a new armor because you'll go over your weight limit, first you must deposit your items in a safe" or something.

In combat where encumbrance actually is involved in the mechanics, my players and I agree that they don't have to explicitly tell me that "I drop my bags before I draw my sword" - everything that isn't battle equipment is assumed to not weigh you down. I'm not lenient when it comes to skill checks against obstacles. You're not climbing a sheer cliff with a 50 kilo backpack and armor that restricts movement, you also don't outrun an avalanche or swim across a river without sacrificing something.

I like to track it as well, though when GMing I like to use LotFP's encumbrance system.

If you're going to recommend a subsystem from some retroclone, at least post a synopsis. Nobody is going to download LotFP and search for its encumberance section based on an offhand comment on Veeky Forums.

It's thankfully mostly explained on the second page of the character sheet itself. Carrying 6 or more items gives you a point of encumbrance, which goes on for 11, 16, and 21 items. Chainmail and plate armor count as one or two points of encumbrance respectively. Oversized items like shields and polearms also add a point of encumbrance for each one you carry. Light stuff like papers and chalk are unencumbering, which also has a section on the character sheet.

There's also Woodland Warriors, another OSR system, with encumbrance rules I enjoy. Your carrying capacity is measured in Things and you can carry certain numbers of items before you're encumbered. 4-5 different pieces of adventuring gear count as one Thing, weapons can go from 1/2 a Thing to 2 Things, and armor can be anywhere from 1 to 4 Things. Most characters will be carrying at most 5 or 6 Things when they start out, a combined total of their equipment, arms, and armor.

Eyeball it.

What's more important is HOW you carry all that shit. Make sure your players at least consider the amount of bags that are required to carry their inventory. Half the time it makes sense to leave some of it in the base or on your cart/car/private airplane just because you don't have 3 hands, and carrying an armour looks suspicious as hell.

But yeah, the actual weight only matters for singular really heavy items. Like, how fast can you move if you carry a body, or can you lift this really heavy boulder.

I usually rule that equipped weapons and armor have no weight, because as you say the how is more important. I own a set of period armor. Gambeson, lamellar armour, ocular helmet with a riveted aventail. This shit is heavy and cumbersome if you're carrying it in your hands or slung over the shoulder but once you put it on you don't even notice it is there. You can wear it for a whole day and at worst your feet begin to ache if you have bad shoes.

Sure, it's still additional weight but you have to assume that PC adventurers have a sturdy physique. In one game I have a wizard who likes to wear sturdy armor and his strength is at the human baseline and constitution one point below, I rule that he simply gets tired more easily and unless he has a mount their travel time is increased.

I have to. I play GURPS and encumbrance directly affect your Dodge score. And Dodge is crucial.

Inventory slots

But user, all of these gents have an extra sword to draw.

But they don't have six extra swords, m8

Man this image is so fucking cool. Where can I find more like that?

I think it's from the Osprey book on Landsknechts.

As often as I just forget to record what my players pick up and how much everything weighs, I've been thinking about just switching to "you can carry what you can fit on the front of this notecard, plus the back if you have high strength." And then maybe don't count equipped clothes/armor, and other common sense stuff.

I also heard an interesting idea on a podcast about filling a small pouch with pebbles.

My group never tracks encumbrance exactly. For medieval settings we have system to determine how much armor can be carried without penalty, but apart of that we don't real care about it. Should a character has to carry an other character or howl something super heavy around, we make him be slow and have to pass endurance checks not to be winded. We don't really have characters who carry a lot of shit. An armor, one or two main weapons and a sidearm, a few accessories is usually all they carry.

When I DM, I don't give a shit, unless one of the players is carrying an obscene amount, like a Str 14 character dragging around his spare full plate.

I also cut a lot of leeway with my players in the form of their NPC mercs that tag along. Guess who always has the torches, or some extra rope, rations, or water? The players pay them extra, every time. Works out great.

As a player, I track it. That's why I bring 600 foot of rope, pitons, and everything else I could need to scale walls, construct a camp, or whatever else. I'll usually carry them in a massive bag, over one shoulder and drop it when we get into combat.

5e here, I have everyone record their total equipment + gear + rations + waterskin weight, verify it's under their maximum carry, and then calculate how much "slack" they have between their current weight and their maximum weight and keep the numbers in front of me, but I don't ask anyone to calculate it moment-to-moment.

5e has STR in a sort of weird place in that most characters for the most part want either STR or DEX. Carrying weight is one of the few things keeping STR from being an across-the-board dump stat, so it's nice to be able to let my STR players get the actual advantages they're afforded under the rules.