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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Piperken" data-source="post: 9656854" data-attributes="member: 7047091">Pretty recently, I've been reading a few blogs that have been exploring the idea of stuff (tm) a character could conceivably have; mostly let's say equipment or tools, but applied granular to how those define the character, and how they're often not applied with benefit in the fiction.Games in the OSR/NSR space tend to offer less stuff or have limits on what stuff you can carry in terms of equipment and/or magic; this is done primarily for design purposes (in OSR) because when you have less stuff, it encourages the player to contrive more uses (be creative) with what little you have.Your ten foot pole, with a little jury rigging, could be used to spear fish.You use your stuff to creatively solve the puzzle, to disarm the trap, to evade the challenge.Also, in games like Cairn, the stuff you get with your background, serves as meat on the character as well.But what I am beginning to see, and would like a more developed movement towards, is the idea of significantly constraining stuff one gets starting out, but having a couple of those things have genuinely deep, meaningful benefit fictively, that essentially defines, or depending, becomes the catalyst that transforms the character.Mainly, so that trinket, momento or mundane thing has significant purpose beyond it being something you rolled on a random table. And makes you come back to it again and again to use.Isn't that what we do with things we love; return to them over and over through the years? e.g. This is your sword. You have polished it late in the hours and held it so long your grip knows its heft. It is a memento or heirloom, from your mother. Any other sword will serve in your hand. But when you draw it; it answers you (some bonus to any reasonable action when utilized, like a flourish to intimidate your foes).</blockquote>

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