Benefit of clothes

[s/LaSH]

Humans are soft and weak. Puny humans! Why must they be so prone to disease? To sharp things on the ground? To freezing solid in their greatest centers of civilisation?

While writing equipment lists for my Twilight game, I included things like Fur Robes, which give you a bonus to social reaction rolls and a slight bonus to resisting cold weather. Of course, since I created a fairly sturdy social system for Twilight, I thought it only fair to point out that you could make items to affect that as well as combat. The Winter Cloak can actually protect you in the desert too, but has no social bonus... (I like my system, these are not fudges, they are applications of the character building rules. I'll have to finish the revision so you can see what I'm talking about.)

Nightfall: I think LARPing is big in Brazil, although I could be wrong there. That's fairly equatorial...

 

[Nightfall]

I meant naked LARPING slash.

 

[Xeriar]

You also don't find that many instances of women having equal rights as men, or decision making. Or for that matter reading, writing or mathetics.

The latter sentence, yes. For the former, it is rare to find hunter-gatherer tribes that are not egalitarian (men and women may have different duties, but that's just sense - they both have their share of say in matters).

 

[The Goblin King]

I don't think clothes should have a great impact in game mechanics. Sunburns and scrapes would not even be worth 1 hp. Socially, I could see a impact. Perhaps even a Diplomacy penalty or something. A nude person in a clothed society would be seen as either crazy, drunk, or morally bankrupt. Likewise, a clothed person entering a nudist hippy elf commune would also be looked upon in distrust. All those clothes must be hiding something. A heavily armed and armored person is ready for trouble, or they might be looking to start some.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't think clothes should have a great impact in game mechanics. Sunburns and scrapes would not even be worth 1 hp

You can get some pretty nasty sunburns. And what about things like frostbite and hypothermia? I don't think that "not having a great impact" tends to include walking around in the arctic tundra naked, and having your fingers and toes freeze off. The hitpoint system doesn't really cover environmental effects that don't really constitute battle damage. In fact, generally, outside of actual battle damage, hitpoints are a terrible way of tracking things. Otherwise, you get high level fighters performing HANO insertions into enemy territory because 20d6 is nothing that they can't shrug off, and that since a nasty sunburn at any point isn't worthy of a single hitpoint of damage, walking around pasty and naked in the scorching desert is harmless, even if you wind up developing a whole-body sunburn that would, realistically, kill you.

Of course, the effects of clothes vs. the environment brings up another interesting can of seemingly unrelated worms: At what point does clothing become armor, that imposes arcane spell failure on spellcasters? I would think that wearing about 30 pounds of furs and a parka to protect oneself against freezing double-digit subzero cold(without which the wizard would freeze to death) begins to approach the protective value and impedance granted by, say, hide armor, if the wizard were subsequently attacked by dire penguins. Does this mean that wizards will not be terribly common in cold climates?

 

[Kichwas]

a clothed person entering a nudist hippy elf commune would also be looked upon in distrust. All those clothes must be hiding something.

In my Fahla world, the Arashani are a nude culture.

They determine caste, guild, marital status, free or slave, and several other factors - right down to personal ethos and importaqnt deeds based on tatoos and piercings placed throughout the body.

Foreigners in Arashan are not trusted - if clothed they are assumed to be liars and thieves - trying to hide the truth. If they go nude like the locals they lack the tattoos and piercings to prove their deeds, caste, and so on. If they go tattoo and pierce themselves they're likely to get some detail wrong and then be put to the sword for trying to step outside of caste, falsify their deeds, claim marriage (or the reverse), or impersonate guild membership.

Despite being nude, the Arashani are extremely particular about appearance and daily ritual. It comes out of their religious views - they believe the unclothed body is closer to the gods and magic - and since they have the most most powerful mages in the world of Fahla (to include their possibly immortal sorcerer king), they may be right. Or it may just be superstition compounded by coincidence.

It doesn't hurt that they live in an extremely warm and very humid tropical climate and are surrounded, if not by ocean, then by a dense jungle full of small tribal bands - in their view it has been this dedication to ritual that has brought them up and made them a powerful -an arrogant- civilization.


Up until recently (the last century or two) some form of social nudity has been a part of nearly every major civilization on Earth. Though such elements have been increasingly minor in western civilization since the ascendancy of monotheism.

 

[DMauricio]

What are the in-game benefits of clothes? Should they affect abilities or skills?

jh

One of the more important aspects of clothing needs to be addressed.

Pockets.

Without clothing, you wouldn't have pockets. (well not counting the ones on your backpack) How do you plan on carrying the one ring away without pocketsess?? Specifically if there aren't any local piercing parlours?



D.

 

[shilsen]

One of the more important aspects of clothing needs to be addressed.

Pockets.

Without clothing, you wouldn't have pockets. (well not counting the ones on your backpack) How do you plan on carrying the one ring away without pocketsess?? Specifically if there aren't any local piercing parlours?



D.

Based on the individuals I pass on the street daily, I think there are a lot of people out there who'd have pockets even if they were naked And tubes, rolls, flaps, or however you describe all of that excess skin.

 

[Ukyo the undead]

This is why I doubt LARPING will catch on past the Equator.

Bad.

bad joke.

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah but you knew it was coming...

Xevier,

An example please of the former. I would like to be enlightened.