rmcoen
Adventurer
I agree with the OP in concept, that systems that only impose penalties get "forgotten". In BattleTech, for example, most mechs have more weapons than they can "afford" to fire each round, with the penalty being Heat. Heat causes penalties. In many players' eyes, this means "design a mech that can fire everything every round", while other players' take the perspective of "I'm willing to risk Heat to do more damage sometimes. The problem is the third set of players, who "forget" to track Heat, getting all the bonus weapon fire without the penalty.
My campaign hand-waves encumbrance (I spot-enforce it only when things are silly, or to make a point), because - as someone said a few pages ago - the campaign has a "heroic focus" on addressing kingdom-wide threats, not how much loot can be liberated. But, in a recent campaign arc, the party was 2-days-deep into a magically shrouded Tainted (think radiation zones) swamp, where the local mutated wildlife inflicted diseases as well as damage. In the course of their successful adventure, they acquired 10 5-pound bars of gold, and multiple 10-foot 5-pound cables of precious metals (four platinum, four gold, a dozen silver, and some copper). Additionally, they salvaged four 10-pound plates of low-grade mithril-substitute, suitable for making shields or combining into armor. And several 4-pound metallic dragon talons. There was also a small box made of upgraded lightweight steel, containing a nice haul of gemstones. As a side note, they also had access to about a dozen suits of rusted full plate armor. The party is a STR 8 rogue, a STR 10 warlock, a STR 9 bard, and a STR 14 fighter/rogue. Yeah, I imposed encumbrance in this situation! The rest of the time, though, no.
I like the idea of "Who's mechanic is it" - you want the bonus, you track the mechanic. I switched around a few of my own houserules for exactly that reason. I give a little combat bonus, for example, when you get an Exceptional hit (i.e. hit by 10 or more). But I'm tired of doing everyone's math for them. So if you want the bonus, do your math and tell me. If not, we all know your 17 roll was good, you hit, we move on. Inspiration is similar - players have to tell me who their background or ideals or whatever apply, in order to earn Inspiration, rather than me trying to remember everyone's everything. Maybe encumbrance works the same, but storywise. Light Encumbrance is assumed; not being encumbered is not "I move faster than base" so much as "in a chase scene, I have the advantage because I carefully attended to my inventory"?
I do find that the players are okay with penalty systems if those systems also apply meaningfully to enemies. I have a Wound Status houserule, for example, where upon hitting Bloodied (and two more stages worse), you start suffering penalties to attack accuracy. (Just accuracy, not defenses or movement.) Sucks for the PCs, but they tend to have healing at their disposal where their foes do not. So while they aren't fond of the penalties on themselves, they love when a foe just misses because of its injury penalty!
My campaign hand-waves encumbrance (I spot-enforce it only when things are silly, or to make a point), because - as someone said a few pages ago - the campaign has a "heroic focus" on addressing kingdom-wide threats, not how much loot can be liberated. But, in a recent campaign arc, the party was 2-days-deep into a magically shrouded Tainted (think radiation zones) swamp, where the local mutated wildlife inflicted diseases as well as damage. In the course of their successful adventure, they acquired 10 5-pound bars of gold, and multiple 10-foot 5-pound cables of precious metals (four platinum, four gold, a dozen silver, and some copper). Additionally, they salvaged four 10-pound plates of low-grade mithril-substitute, suitable for making shields or combining into armor. And several 4-pound metallic dragon talons. There was also a small box made of upgraded lightweight steel, containing a nice haul of gemstones. As a side note, they also had access to about a dozen suits of rusted full plate armor. The party is a STR 8 rogue, a STR 10 warlock, a STR 9 bard, and a STR 14 fighter/rogue. Yeah, I imposed encumbrance in this situation! The rest of the time, though, no.
I like the idea of "Who's mechanic is it" - you want the bonus, you track the mechanic. I switched around a few of my own houserules for exactly that reason. I give a little combat bonus, for example, when you get an Exceptional hit (i.e. hit by 10 or more). But I'm tired of doing everyone's math for them. So if you want the bonus, do your math and tell me. If not, we all know your 17 roll was good, you hit, we move on. Inspiration is similar - players have to tell me who their background or ideals or whatever apply, in order to earn Inspiration, rather than me trying to remember everyone's everything. Maybe encumbrance works the same, but storywise. Light Encumbrance is assumed; not being encumbered is not "I move faster than base" so much as "in a chase scene, I have the advantage because I carefully attended to my inventory"?
I do find that the players are okay with penalty systems if those systems also apply meaningfully to enemies. I have a Wound Status houserule, for example, where upon hitting Bloodied (and two more stages worse), you start suffering penalties to attack accuracy. (Just accuracy, not defenses or movement.) Sucks for the PCs, but they tend to have healing at their disposal where their foes do not. So while they aren't fond of the penalties on themselves, they love when a foe just misses because of its injury penalty!
