Li Shenron
Legend
This is not a subject limited to the current D&D edition. Every now and then I ask myself how the game would change if I introduced a more rigid "hands slot economy" (please feel free to suggest a better name) by which every character has strict rules on what they can hold or how they can use their hands in one combat turn. To be clear, this would not apply out of combat, so it would go hand-in-hand with the well known "action economy".
The real gist of the idea would be that on each round each character would need to decide in advance whether they want to keep a free hand for certain possible activities (such as casting a spell, picking up items, quaffing a potion, drawing ammunition or operating a simple object such as a door or lever) or even both hands for more complex activities (climbing, grappling or lockpicking).
There can be still options for changing your mind during the turn, such as dropping something to free one hand at no action cost, or stowing it more securely for a higher action cost.
But what would not be an option, is to use narrative to bend the rules and avoid the cost, such as "I have a lace on my mace so I can just grab it back freely after casting a spell", or "I hold my two-handed greatsword in my teeth while climbing" or "I have my holy symbol tattooed on my forehead so I don't need a hand".
Essentially a way of dealing with this in the same way as "action economy" where normally players aren't allowed to get actions discounts for narrative ideas, so everyone is really on equal footing, that is why I am referring to the idea as another "economy".
So is someone using this sort of more codified rules in their games, and to which D&D edition (or other RPG) are you applying them to?
edit: actual question highlighted for clarity
The real gist of the idea would be that on each round each character would need to decide in advance whether they want to keep a free hand for certain possible activities (such as casting a spell, picking up items, quaffing a potion, drawing ammunition or operating a simple object such as a door or lever) or even both hands for more complex activities (climbing, grappling or lockpicking).
There can be still options for changing your mind during the turn, such as dropping something to free one hand at no action cost, or stowing it more securely for a higher action cost.
But what would not be an option, is to use narrative to bend the rules and avoid the cost, such as "I have a lace on my mace so I can just grab it back freely after casting a spell", or "I hold my two-handed greatsword in my teeth while climbing" or "I have my holy symbol tattooed on my forehead so I don't need a hand".
Essentially a way of dealing with this in the same way as "action economy" where normally players aren't allowed to get actions discounts for narrative ideas, so everyone is really on equal footing, that is why I am referring to the idea as another "economy".
So is someone using this sort of more codified rules in their games, and to which D&D edition (or other RPG) are you applying them to?
edit: actual question highlighted for clarity
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