[Old school] I can't deal with inventory

[Bill Zebub]

I really like a lot of the ideas behind recent streamlined old-school games like Into the Odd, Mausritter, Shadowdark, Liminal Horror ... but one thing that really doesn't work to me how they tend to put your inventory front and center, often linking it directly to health/wounds.

I don't know all of the games you mention, but Shadowdark doesn't link inventory/encumbrance to health, and although I haven't looked at Mausritter in a few years I don't think it does, either.

I'll agree that detailed inventory management, and especially weight calculations, are of zero interest to me. But I also really do not like totally hand-waved, unlimited inventory.

The way Shadowdark and Mausritter handle it are, imo, a good compromise: you have a relatively small number of "slots", and some items (armor, 2H weapons, some treasure) take up more than one slot, and some things (1st backpack, flint & steel) are zero slots. In practice I find that Shadowdark requires very little bookkeeping, but leads to interesting/difficult decision-making.

Another approach I don't see often but that I like is where an abstract variable (e.g. BitD "load out") defines how well equipped you are, and when you need something that variable either determines the chance that you have it, or you decrement that variable when you use it.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

The way Shadowdark and Mausritter handle it are, imo, a good compromise: you have a relatively small number of "slots", and some items (armor, 2H weapons, some treasure) take up more than one slot, and some things (1st backpack, flint & steel) are zero slots. In practice I find that Shadowdark requires very little bookkeeping, but leads to interesting/difficult decision-making.

That sounds like the Runequest 2e system of "things," where a "thing" is something you can easily carry in one hand, some items (those 2H weapons and armor) have an encumbrance cost of more than one "thing," and you can carry a number of "things" equal to your STR or the average of your STR and CON (whichever is less).

And Runequest 2e is authentically old-school, isn't it?