Thursday, July 7, 2011

Encumbrance made simple

Yesterday I talked about the space between ability modifiers and started exploring methods to make abilities not have “dead-levels.” An obvious idea for strength was carrying capacity, but for the fact that everyone hates encumbrance. So, I decided to try and find a way to make people not hate it.

The system
Encumbrance
The goal of the system is to create an incredibly light, abstract method for tracking weight that accurately puts characters in the correct level of encumbrance without punishing players that like to add realism by actually carrying around bedrolls and similar. The system must also reasonably simulate weight, particularly at the extremes when weight is most interesting.

Counting Starks
The encumbrance of an item is measured in starks. A stark measures more than just weight, it also includes the awkwardness of an object or how much it impedes movement. For example, leather armor is significantly heavier than a longsword, but they have the same number of starks because the leather is designed to hug the body and distribute its weight while the longsword is three feet of rigid steel that gets in the way of every back flip.

You only track the highest three starks. The majority of weight a character carries is tied up in a handful of items. Those items are the ones that most impede his movement and so they are the most important items to track. This is not to say, however, that additional items don’t add incremental weight. They just don’t tend to add enough weight to importantly change the character’s abilities.

Some items, like backpacks, that are themselves light have a high stark. This is because we presume that if you have a backpack, you are using it. Because a stark includes both weight and awkwardness, it makes sense that many awkward items packed into a backpack have a lower overall stark than they would separately.

Becoming encumbered
A character is lightly encumbered if his top three starks are more than ½ his strength (round down). A character is heavily encumbered if his top three starks are more than his strength. A character cannot tactically move if carrying more than double his strength in starks (top three or otherwise). This upper limit isn't intended to arise very often in game play and the idea is that if someone is carrying a massive chest of gold, they can move (i.e. overland travel) but not tactically move. They are encouraged, then, to just put down the chest when combat starts. 

Light encumbrance provides a -2 penalty to move checks and similar skills. Heavy encumbrance provides a -5 penalty to move checks and similar.

Sample starks
Stark
Sample
0
Many items weigh 0 starks. This isn’t to say they have no weight, it is to say that they are unlikely to ever be in the top 3 and are not worth pushing a character over the 2x strength ceiling. Non-tactical small items (flint and steel, extra clothing, signet ring, etc) fit into this category as well as actual weightless items.
1
Light weapons, torch, silk rope
2
Standard weapons, Leather armor, bedroll, light shield, rope, day’s rations, wineskin
3
Studded leather armor, bandoleer, tent
4
Chain shirt armor, backpack, heavy weapons, heavy shield
6
Medium armor
8
Heavy armor
Masterwork armor reduces the stark by one.

Keeping it realistic
The system does not provide an “inventory.” Things you carry need to go somewhere, which means relatively early on a backpack is required. Players should be able to describe their character. If an item doesn’t have a home, then it is probably in a hand which means that hand can’t be used for other tasks. The GM has the right to decide that something doesn't work. A wizard porting around a dozen one stark tomes and nothing else should not have just three starks.

Retrievable items
Retrievable items can be drawn during combat with a minor action. Other items are buried away in backpacks or tied down to keep them out of the way. By default, a character can have five retrievable items (weapons, potions, etc) before they begin interfering with each other. Certain items can provide additional retrievable item slots. For example, a bandoleer provides an additional ten retrievable items, enabling many thrown weapons or potions (or a mix) to be readily available during combat.

Commentary
Why starks?
Initially, encumbrance is a cumbersome word and I wanted a separate term to decouple any relationship to pounds or kilograms. Using those terms makes discrepancies in the weight from the real world offend logic—ambiguity is sometimes powerful. I wanted to use the term Stone because it is a single syllable with hard consonants and has a connotation of heft and discreteness. Unfortunately, it is a real world measure of weight. Stark shares a similar linguistic profile and has a connotation that supports the idea that the system only measures the obviously heavy stuff.

Why is it awesome?
Let’s consider two scenarios. A 14 str cleric wears chainmail (6), a backpack (4), a longsword (2), a heavy shield (4), and a smattering of stuff in the 1 range like daggers. The backpack is filled with a range of adventuring equipment like ropes, food, water, wet stones, etc and has a bedroll (2) tied to the bottom. The cleric has 14 starks (chainmail, backpack, shield) and is on the verge of becoming heavily encumbered.

During the campaign, the cleric is shamed. His church requires him to wear a lodestone necklace as penance for one year. The necklace weighs 5 starks. The cleric now has 15 starks (chainmail, necklace, and either shield or backpack) and is heavily encumbered. The necklace is a significant burden, but the true cost of that burden is only the incremental difference between it and what it pushed out of the top 3. This presents interesting tradeoffs—consider how it would apply differently against a 12 str character trying to be lightly armored by carrying nothing over 2 starks or how the burden diminishes if the cleric gains a strength or changes his other equipment.

Later, the cleric begins drowning in water (assume encumbrance penalties are doubled for swimming). The cleric drowns for a few turns and finally realizes that he has to strip EQ immediately or die. He drops the lodestone and becomes lightly encumbered, but he can’t risk it and so wants no encumbrance—he must get to 7 or lower; half his strength. He drops his backpack (4) and all the items in it, but he is still at 12 starks (chainmail 6, shield 4, sword 2). He realizes that he has to cut off his armor (6) if he has any hope. The leather ties are cut, the armor sinks, and he is at 7 (shield 4, sword 2, smattering of 1s). The cleric swims out.

The result is that weight is added on easy. You can take on weight for RP reasons without much impact if you are already encumbered. But when the goal is reversed and you have to become unencumbered, you have to drop a lot of EQ to achieve that. In this way, the system focuses on encumbrance only when it is interesting to do so. At all other times, it is summing three numbers.

Why retrievable items?
The system needs to support the idea of a character with a dozen daggers he intends to throw. However, because a dagger (1 stark) is so light, this can quickly lead to unrealistic characters. Limiting the number of items easily drawn during combat forces characters that rely on thrown items (or potions, poisons, etc) to equip a higher stark item (like a bandoleer) to then benefit from their many low-stark items.

What if I want more complexity?
  • Put more detail into containers. For instance, maybe a backpack can only hold 10 stark worth of items with no item weighing more than 2 stark. 
  • Put more emphasis on where items are located or how they are attached to the character. That way, when things are dropped, stolen, or cut loose, there is more at stake.

What if I want less complexity?
  • Remove the idea of retrievable items. 
  • Since the minimum strength is 8 (i.e. no encumbrance through four starks) and you only track the top three starks, don’t bother recording any item below two starks. The only variance is that someone with 2, 2, smattering of 1s gets a slightly free pass.

No really, I want less complexity.
Don’t use it then. You should probably have light, medium, and heavy armor confer a -1, -2, and -5 penalty, respectively, to move and similar checks. Masterwork versions decrease that to -0, -1, and -2, respectively. This returns dead-levels to non-modifier increasing strength attributes, though.

14 comments:

  1. Encumbrance is an interesting topic. Again I'm going to pull back a little and look at the big picture first - we've both taken an interesting dig at this with lots of strong ideas put forward; but again I get the scurch to dig a little deeper into this.

    And so what is the reality? If you have a look at what army personnel carry around with them, it is up to 50lb. for "standard" work while "heavy" work may almost double that with 75 to 85 lb. of gear being common for SAS and Marines.

    Encumbrance in RPGs is a mechanism typically added to a system essentially because:
    a) It makes sense. The more your character carries the more burdened they will be. Eventually there should be a limit for every character.
    b) You don't want there to be a golfbag approach to weaponry and equipment. You want there to be some level of resource management (much like Vancian magic prior to 4e).
    c) Perhaps story-wise, it does not feel like an adventure unless there is hardship and burden. This is the point of differentiating between adventuring in a long lost dungeon and walking a couple of blocks to the local "Ye Olde Magick Shoppe" for potentially the same "treasure".
    [and d) Your focus is to reward the non-modifier levels for strength.]

    When you look at it though, it is all downhill and doom and gloom for the player. It is all stick and no carrot. There are many players who would look at this as an accountancy exercise. Even if dramatically simplified, there is still no incentive to fuss with it because all that is being done is working out how much your character is going to be penalized. Perhaps this is why encumbrance for all its logic, verisimilitude and flavour has always been a system burden and never a feature. And perhaps that is where a simple shift in thinking may provide a solution.

    That is you assume that an adventurer is going to be encumbered. To only a standard level yes, but the basic assumption becomes that wearing armor, carrying a weapon, and shouldering a backpack is going to encumber your character... and it does not matter! All your stats and modifiers are calculated to work under this assumption. And so, when you have a combatant who is focused on not being encumbered, they start getting "bonuses" (rather than not receiving penalties). They forego standard armor because that risk provides them with a reward. It provides their character with something tangible that they would not have otherwise. At the other end of the spectrum, you still have a point where a combatant is heavily encumbered (and then a further point where they cannot realistically perform their tasks). There is a penalty for "reducing your risk" in being plated up or having an awful lot of equipment at the ready.

    Now mathematically there is ZERO difference in terms of outcomes. You are literally re-drawing the line in the sand and nothing more. However, if perception is 90% true then you orchestrate your system so that it will be perceived as a feature rather than a burden. There is an incentive to go against the norm as well as a penalty if you go beyond it. Kind of makes sense I suppose.

    Now what form these bonuses or penalties come in is dependent upon the system and so might not be worth nailing down just yet. The important thing however is that it is flavourful, does not constantly fluctuate and is enough of a bonus or penalty to be felt but not so savage in either direction that getting to or not getting to some level of encumbrance is vital. And of course, it should reward strength.

    Next post, looking at starks.

    Best Regards
    Herremann the Wise

    ReplyDelete
  2. Huh. Damn interesting and pretty simple. I'm sure there are a lot of different ways you could cut it, but let's just say that we tackle is head on and with brute force.

    Use the exact same system as above, but change the scenario to be a +2 if not encumbered, +0 if lightly encumbered, and -2 if heavily encumbered.

    This means that some characters are extra agile, the vast majority (because, unless you are in medium+ armor or very low str, you probably won't hit heavy encumbrance) are at base, and those that choose to be burdened are *lightly* burdened.

    That is pretty neat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your definition of "starks". A similar comparison can be made to encumbrance in Ars Magica which is also defined by a simple word in "Load". Regardless of the term, it is important that the definition support both weight and bulk.

    The interesting mechanism you have used is the "only three highest stark items count". This simplifies things, and obviously focuses on the three items that are going to matter the most. However, where it breaks down and where you have already noted is when you have multiple items of the same stark and then a potentially infinite amount below that. Now for multiple 1 stark items, it takes a bit for ones "reality meter" to kick in, but for multiple 4 stark items able to be carried by a 12 STR character; the mechanic really starts to not mesh with the flavour. You have noted DM/GM adjudication for such matters which is fine if that is the type of rule-set you are going for but again you have that "mother-may-I" wall there that as mentioned previously is not ideal.

    The thing is, the framework you have laid out is good. That core mechanic however might need a little more work so that it is obvious to DM/GMs and players where the stark limit truly is. The rule informs both parties rather than the DM/GM needing to step in; or the players regulate themselves.

    I'll need to put a little more thought into this.

    Best Regards
    Herremann the Wise

    ReplyDelete
  4. Does you critique hold if I re-point the discussion to the idea that a character cannot carry more items than double his strength? (It is certainly welcome to hold, just wondering if this limitation got lost in the mix).

    The idea is that I'm not really worried about the insane-strength barbarian carrying an immense amount of gear. If he really wants to do it, fine. What I was worried about is the 12 strength character carrying a dozen 4 stark items (I think this is what you were getting at as well). With the double strength cap, he is still reasonably limited, especially when you consider that the bedroll (2) tied to his backpack, dagger in his boot (1), longsword on his back (2), all count towards this total.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Just for triple clarity--the double strength cap is total items, not top 3 items.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I agree with you, Herremann, that it is better to draw the line so that deviations are bonuses rather than penalties.
    I would still consider it a disincentive to playing a "travelling light" character, because I hate adding up numbers, but the idea is very much in line with D&D's character optimisation metagame.

    Runeward,

    I mean all that follows with the greatest respect for your goals and your attempts to achieve them, but I have some concerns: starks, gold, realism, golf-bagging, and "Don't use it then.".

    Firstly, please, please use a real word like like "load" before coining a new word.

    Secondly, whenever I see a D&D character carrying around several thousand gold pieces, I always ask myself, "How?"
    I have used cut gems as treasure in the past to mitigate the problem, but if you are going to keep the convention of gold rewards, make sure the rules don't penalise them for being rewarded by considering a gold chest an encumberance!

    Thirdly, you have a brief section called "Keeping it realistic", which essentially boils down to, "Your character must have a backpack. Also, override the unrealistic rules I have given you whenever they glaringly don't make sense."
    Isn't it your aim to create rules that inherently make sense?
    As Herremann pointed out, encumberance is partially there in the first place just because it makes sense. If you are going to fix the inevitable problems by appeals to realism and common sense, you might as well leave the rule out and have just common sense.

    Fourthly, if you ignore the weight of all but the heaviest items, you no longer have to worry about the weight the lighter ones, no matter how heavy they are!
    Strength score (it can't be modifier, because you can have negative and zero modifiers) determines both the weight of top 3 items and the number of items. That means you get stronger characters who can carry exponentially more weight!
    e.g.
    10 str character can carry 20 items. Heaviest weighs 4, the other 9 weigh 3 each. Max weight=31
    20 str character can carry 40 items. Heaviest weighs 14, the other 39 weigh 13 each. Max weight=521
    As I said in my previous point, you are expecting people to use common sense to fix what is a severely broken rule. Maybe I just don't understand the rule properly?

    Lastly, you have said that people who want less complexity should just not use the rule. With respect, this seems like a bit of a cop out.
    "The goal of the system is to create an INCREDIBLY LIGHT, abstract method for tracking weight". (The words are yours, the EMPHASIS is mine.)
    If you have two tiers of lower complexity that you can easily see, then aren't you listing, by definition, an unneccessarily heavy method that doesn't achieve your stated aim?

    So that turned out to be quite a negative post. I will respond later with my own attempt, to keep my contribution constructive.

    Regards,
    John

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sorry, my maths in point 4 was bad. It should be:
    20 str character can carry 40 items. Heaviest weighs 8, other 39 weigh 6 each. Max weight=242.
    My point about exponential increase stands, unless I have misunderstood the rule entirely.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for the re-point because I did miss that. As long as there is a total limit of "starks" guided by strength, then I think you've got my only complaint covered.

    However, you might need to tweak your stark numbers. I'm not a fan of the half strength thing, even though the psuedo-modulo operation can be an elegant way of isolating particular levels. I think it better that you were able to take up to your strength in starks; it's just a little cleaner. It does mean that your total numbers will be a little bigger though so still something to be aware of.

    One further thing to think about is strength and lifting. By keeping things in pounds, you have a universal currency in terms of encumbrance, lifting and players relating to the numbers as a known measure of weight. What you gain by the abstraction into starks or load; you lose in those last two elements unless you also provide weight in pounds. For example, what if the fighter needs to piggyback the halfling rogue along with his equipment? Unless a character has a stark value (that is kind of awkward), then you are going to need that universal pounds currency somewhere in the mix. {Unless you had a ready conversion from starks to pounds but obviously because starks are a measure of weight and bulk (just as 3e/4e hit points are a measure of physical damage AND all those other things), it is hard to fit the two into the same thing elegantly.

    Apologies by the way if it looks like I'm being overly critical on this idea. I'm just trying to weigh it from every angle (please excuse the pun).

    Best Regards
    Herremann the Wise

    ReplyDelete
  9. John-

    No worries about the tone-I read it as constructive.

    (1) I've mentioned a bunch of times that I think vocabulary is important because words are the currency of the game. As a result I think it needs *something* to help communicate it. I could see something like "load" if the usage was converted. With stark, I can see someone saying, "That is three starks." I cannot see someone saying "That is three loads." Maybe if the construction were "That increases my load by three" I'd be more satisfied.

    I get that this might feel pedantic, but awkward terminology turns into an awkward play experience and that makes people uncomfortable. I want it to feel natural so people can delve into it. I'm certainly open to different words (or different constructions).

    (2) I used the chest as an example, but I actually wouldn't recommend "counting coppers" with encumbrance. In reality, this system, more than any other encumbrance system I've seen, *doesn't* punish the party for finding a bunch of treasure because it probably isn't enough starks to up their limit.

    (3) I don't think a character would necessarily have to have a backpack, they just need a place to put stuff. This is the start of a system, not a final draft, so I can imagine a backpack or pockets or I dunno what. But my point was that if a player shows up with 10 days rations (and let's say a day's ration is 1 stark) and declares that he is merely holding all 10 and therefore has only 3 stark... the DM has every right to call BS.

    Using "call BS" as a rule is actually pretty elegant if you think about it. The result is that in a group that cares about this stuff, someone will call BS early and they'll figure it out. In a group that doesn't care about this stuff, no one will call BS and the game continues on. It is "turning the dials of complexity" with a self-moderating mechanism. Everyone uses the same rules, but it naturally tailors itself to playing styles.

    It would also be great if we could just use common sense, but you still need rules to guide it.

    (4) My post above yours talks about this. Evidently I wasn't clear, strength doesn't limit number of items but max number of starks.

    (5) I would only advise people to not use it if they were really, really opposed to encumbrance. I'd be shocked if anyone had a tough time summing three numbers that are almost always under 10. I mostly just put that second low-complexity there as a home for armor penalties if you didn't want to use it at all.

    I think the base system presented satisfies the "incredibly light" aspect of my pitch. As I say, you track three numbers for most of the game that get you in the ballpark of how encumbered you should be. Then, when encumbrance is interesting to track (usually when you are trying to get it low), the system continues to reflect what we'd expect in real life and forces you to drop a lot of gear.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Herremann--

    When I first started working on this idea I went with something more akin to pounds and had light at 2.5x str and heavy at 5x str. So a 14str character could carry up to 35 at light, up to 70 at heavy, and a max of 140. All stark values were x5.

    Those then sort of naturally parlayed into weights. That same character can easily manipulate 140, can lift 280, etc.

    I moved away from it because I think the math is easier if you don't have to multiply anything. I also think that as soon as there is a range, people will take umbrage with the idea that all one-handed weapons weigh the same. "Shouldn't a mace weigh more than a longsword?" The answer is yes, but it probably isn't important enough to care. By sticking with low numbers, there is less room for people to gripe about values.

    You are correct that it loses the comparison though and hence a value will have to be made up from time to time. That could be really annoying or it could end up not being a big deal. I'm not sure.

    Thanks for the input to you and John. It is helpful criticism.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Attacking this from both a general and then a more complex direction.

    General
    Here's a question for everyone: I am an adventurer; where do I put my "stuff"? What can I wear, where can I put stuff and what can I hold?

    Starting from the top and working down:

    - Head: Helmets, crowns, hats and so on.
    - Neck: Necklaces etc.
    However I cannot imagine any of these causing encumbrance issues unless we're all going MR T on the necklace "thang".

    - Shoulders: Backpacks (of which I think you can have a range: light; standard and heavy) or alternatively you may have a large weapon or shield. Backpacks can hold lots of other stuff.
    - Left and Right Arms: Bracers and Bucklers
    - Left and Right Hands: Shields, Weaponry and just about anything.
    - Torso: Armor I think predominantly although Bandoleer(s) are an interesting addition
    - Waist: Buckles and Belt Pouches and holders
    - Left and Right Hips: Scabbards or "holsters"
    - Legs: Armor but conceivably hidden or strapped equipment.
    - Feet: Boots that may also hold hidden equipment.
    Is there anything else here that I've missed?

    Too much more than this and you are going to have to hold further stuff in your hands and start getting heavily encumbered I think. I'm just trying to get a picture here of what's reasonable.

    For most small stuff, it is going to go in something or around a neck or on a finger and thus not affect encumbrance at all. Such things should have a stark/load of (-). Not zero but negligible unless you have more than will fit in your backpack/pouches and so on.

    And so stuff that may be an issue has a stark/load value. [By the way Runeward, I agree with your point regarding language and how it can facilitate or hinder concepts as well as gameplay. So much can come down to clarity of expression so good point. 4 starks versus a load of 4 is subtle difference but a difference when used as "gamespeak" at the table.]

    I appreciate the elegance of the "Call BS" rule but since we seem to be going down the path of representing fluff through mechanics, I would like to attempt to hardcode some elegant rules for Encumbrance that work. Not an easy task but I'm going to give it a go. I think we are going to have to resort to a character sheet aid or some other game "thing" to accomplish this but we'll see. I have an inkling that a slot approach in combination with your three bulkiest stark/load approach might be the best idea here. I'm going to try and crack this one and throw everything at it. There has to be a solution.

    And if nothing else, we should provide space in the rules for packmules and assisted helpers to carry stuff for the adventurers. If Indiana Jones can do this... SO CAN WE :D

    Best Regards
    Herremann the Wise

    ReplyDelete
  12. Runeward,

    We are actually very much on the same page with the idea of calling BS but having rules to guide it.

    I'd like to make the point that just because something is not done with numbers, doesn't mean it doesn't have rules. Roleplaying games overuse numbers IMO. A rule of thumb is as much a rule as a detailed accounting of weights, but is more flexible and less work.

    So here's my suggestion for an encumberance rule:
    Each player should be prepared to draw their fully laden character if anyone calls BS. If they look ridiculous, they are carrying too much.
    "Draw me a picture of you carrying a spear, a two handed sword, two backpacks, a longsword, a bandoleir of daggers, a chest full of bullion, a ten foot ladder and two milk pails."
    If they can draw a reasonable picture of how they would distribute the weight and bulk of all these things around their body, I think you have really covered the plausibility of what they are carrying.

    Or just pick on anything that you can't picture in your head from their description.
    "So you have a longsword, a club, an axe and ten daggers you want to be able to reach. Show me where they would be sheathed on your person so that you can reach them all."

    You can do this recursively for containers:
    "Explain how you fit four thousand gold coins into your purse."
    "How did you get forty potions and a months rations into a single backpack?"
    "Ten lead cannonballs and a couple of gold bars may _fit_ in your pack, but do you know how heavy that stuff is?"

    I'm one of those people who finds calculating encumberance a boring distraction from the actual roleplaying and combat. For me, this is a perfect "dialled down" rule for those who don't care.

    If you value the resource management aspect of encumberance, which is perfectly valid, you would need a "dialed up" alternative. I suspect you would not be happy unless stats like strength made some characters able to carry more than others. Herremann sounds like your man for that. :-)

    Herremann,

    I was thinking along similar lines with the "where do I put my stuff?", but I broke it down into categories of things that are: wielded, carried, worn and strapped on.

    A person can wear things: clothing, a single suit of armour, rings, cloaks, etc. (I assume we don't want to track armour/hits on separate body parts.)

    In addition, a person can have containers strapped onto them, including backpacks, bandoliers, sheaths, etc.

    They can carry things, even if that means balanced on their head or over their shoulders.

    They can wield less than they can carry, and will probably have to drop something they are carrying to wield anything if they are carrying a lot.

    That is as far as I have got with a detailed mechanical solution without hitting severe roadblocks and giving up. I hope it helps you more than it helped me.

    Regards,
    John

    ReplyDelete
  13. I like it, but I have one grand question: what is the encumbrance for carrying creatures?! We all know it happens: the fighter is unconscious, the dwarf is slow, you have to capture rather than kill or rescue the child from the monsters... ect. ect.

    would they have a single load value? would it be influenced by their weight (my characters make their characters as light as possible so they are easy to rescue) is it influenced by their copperation? as in the halfing doing a piggy back is easier that the halfing unconscious (or dead), which is easier than when he is firing his hand crossbow or climbing through an overhead grate, which is easier than when he is fighting to go somewhere else?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks and great question. Part of the problem is that I intentionally decoupled "weights" from the numbers of the system to benefit from the ambiguity in not having arguments over the proper weight of something. It seems it turns around and bites you in the ass later, though, when you need to figure out how many starks something should be and all you have is a weight...

    I think I see two main routes.
    (1) We could develop a little table with reference weights and ranges. If we went this route, we should acknowledge that because you only track the top 3, starks are sort of logarithmic in nature. The difference between a 1 and 2 is not the same as the difference between a 4 and 5. So the table would have to take that into consideration and I think this would be a perfectly passable solution. You might also add a footnote to the weight section saying that "Unwieldy items (such as a rolled up rug) should be +1 stark due to their awkward nature."

    Then, when you pick up your buddy, you just make an educated guess at his weight. Is he more the 150-200, or the 201-300?

    (2) The second route is harder, but I think it'd have better results. We'd have to have a discussion about when this stuff actually matters and what goals we have for those scenarios. Then we'd design rules to achieve those goals.

    Let me try and explain by way of an example in an unrelated rule area. When the designers looked at donning armor, they basically asked themselves what would be realistic and then wrote some rules. Realism told them that donning armor takes several minutes, but would probably be quicker if someone helped you out. So they wrote up rules that ended up requiring medium and heavy armor to take 4 minutes to don. In other words, no one will ever choose to don armor when time is of the essence (i.e. during combat) because it is just too damn long. These are awful rules because they EXIST and because they exist, they block rules that might actually be interesting.

    In the same way, if we make up rules that "make sense" they might end up dissuading you from picking up your fallen buddy and hauling ass to safety. It might be a better approach to decide what scenarios might be interesting and what we want the rules to achieve, and then design rules that put the right incentives in place to achieve our cinematic vision.

    ReplyDelete