Ultra Violet Grasslands (now ENnie nominated!) by Luka Rejac is a wonderful book that distracts you so much with beautiful evokative art that you might miss some of the awesome rules tucked away in there. One of my favorites is below: SPELLS ARE INVENTORY TOO
A character in UVG can carry about 10 significant items. So spells can take up slots just like any other item, tool, or weapon. Spells carry a psychic weight which encumbers the character. And this makes sense in my experience. One can be so occupied with a problem that it literally weighs you down. But riffing on that, why stop at magic?
Magic items could also take up extra encumbrance due to the psychological weight of carrying them despite their size- like Frodo and the Ring at the end of LotR. Elric's Stormbringer might be another. A good candidate might be the Deck of Many Things- just a deck of cards, but the weight of its potential fate-changing power is great.
More mundane items could do the same thing. For instance, if your PC is carrying the decapitated head of a ruler. A head might take up 1 slot, but the psychological weight could make it greater. Extending this further, what about sins or breaking of oaths?
Every time the PC sins or goes against some aspect of their background, oath, or pledge- they have slots taken up. It's an additional tangible way the player can understand and experience their choice without resorting to taking negatives on to-hit and skill rolls.
This I think is quite interesting.
EDIT: Also would be good for "obligations" the PCs might pick up. Non-trivial things they know they should do but aren't getting around to doing. This might be particularly useful in a hex crawl.
EDIT2: Could also be used for curses like lycanthropy or ghoulification. Each aspect of the curse would be listed as its own set of 1-3 slots. Again representing the burden of the knowlege the PC carries about thier inner desires.
SO HOW DO YOU GET RID OF BURDEN?
Well, if you can't get rid of it you can make it smaller via compartmentalization. Options include:
Well, if you can't get rid of it you can make it smaller via compartmentalization. Options include:
- Complete your obligation (removal)
- Seek holy intervention to pardon your guilt (removal)
- Undertake a quest (removal)
- Wear an object or talisman or keepsake (compress from X slots to 1 slot) but NPCs know your sin
- Give in to the desire or curse (compresses from X slots to 1 slot) but DM controls your actions
SUMMARY- I think I really like this idea. It is a way to add player choice in how PCs manifest and deal with psychological guilt/curses/desires/transgressions/sin etc. It promotes its exploration without putting it at the center of the game. And it has a real meaningful (but not intrusive) game impact.
Mausritter does this. You get condition tokens that will fill up your inventory slots when you fail rolls.
ReplyDeleteWhilst it's a cool idea, I found that I completely forgot about it during play. I was already ruling some harsh consequences for failure and the inventory fillers seemed surplus to requirement. But they're still nice to have.
I initially imagined the above as more a slow burn. In the case of "sins", a dull throb that you are doing wrong, but without saying a cleric's deity is taking power away from them in a blink.
DeleteHere's something I struggle with in games like this, e.g., Mausritter.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens in the fiction when this status-effect burden is gained?
When you tell a player: "Hey, the Angry condition is going to take up one of your slots. You need to get rid of something," what is happening for the PC?
"I'm so mad I put down my spare sword"
"Can someone else pick it up?"
"Sure."
That is why I stayed away from emotions and stuck to deeper psychological aspects. It not "I'm made so I put down my sword" instead its enraged so you start throwing things down. Or tearing armor off in a fit. Or a preoccupation so great, like a building thirst for blood, that you forget thing, you set them down and not pick them up.
DeleteSure, other people can help out just like in the end of LotR where Sam is carrying everything while Frodo can hardly carry the small ring... because its burden is so great in his mind.
I think that in this kind of system you need to have several levels of encumbered. So normally you have say 10 slots (as a random number for illustrative purposes) where you hand no penalties. 10-15 spots filled is lightly encumbered with a small penalty to certain actions or other meaningful but not devastating penalty. 15-20 slots filled is heavily encumbered with more severe penalties that you really want to avoid and 20 being the actual hard cap.
ReplyDeleteYou would the mire commonly see "I gained the 'soaking wet' condition and it pushed me into lightly encumbered, now I have a -1 to checks"
I think the issue with having too many slots with too many different variable is you are back to not forcing the PCs to make decisions about what they carry. And if filling up those slots results in only small penalties it becomes a chore to keep up with. Now you are back to PCs wanting to hand-wave slot-based encumbrance as its just as tedious to track as coin-based.
DeleteI think it smoother to just allow a couple of freebie-slots on top of something around 10 slots. If PCs want to carry more then it re-enforces hirelings/retainers/torchbearers. Which I think is a good thing.