[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?

 

[Arilyn]

I like simple inventory systems that matter. We can drop these extra torches to pick up more loot. It'll be fine, right?
I don't like long lists where I'm expected to keep track of all the weights and calculate carrying capacity. It's especially annoying if you do all that and then it all gets hand wavy anyway.

Depends a lot on the game too. It's important in Shadowdark but not in Daggerheart.

Mausritter's equipment tokens and backpack is a lot of fun.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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?

Yeah, Shadowdark doesn't use that terminology but it's the same thing: your inventory capacity equals your strength score (and Fighters may add their Con bonus!)

 

[Basic Expert]

OSR plays just fine without a hyper-fixation on inventory.

Never let rules you don't like ruin your gaming.

 

[Cruentus]

I've not seen any encumbrance systems that worry about your injury level.

We use coin based encumbrance (using OSE) when we play on a VTT, as the VTT handles all the calculations for weight, your encumbrance, your move speed, and any changed therein in real time.

When we play at the table, we often use Dolmenwood's slot based encumbrance, which keys off of your STR, if I remember. It just differentiates between what is "at hand" and what is "packed" with a cap on the total number of slots you can carry. Its super easy with some lined paper or a downloadable inventory sheet.

Our table likes keeping track of inventory, and since we play older school-ish, the players are often buying horses to hold stuff, mules, wagons, etc. It has worked very well once I (current DM) got the players over the concern that "the DM is always going to punish us for buying horses by going out of his way to kill/steal them all the time." That was a tough one. We had all been conditioned to expect the worst from our early gaming (another DM, and an adversarial style of gaming).

As others have mentioned, there are dozens of common encumbrance systems of all levels, and the ability to just ignore it.

 

[Koloth]

For common stuff, most of the time the groups I play with assume that the characters are smarter then the players when it comes to what they are carrying. As long as the character has the cash on hand to have bought the thing(s), deduct the cost and presto!, you have it. Within reason. If the party unexpectedly needs 1000 ft of rope during a march across a prairie, unlikely that the hobbit 'just had it' in one of her pockets. Sometimes, making the party improvise can be a lot of fun.

 

[John Quixote]

I genuinely dislike the rules-lite, OSR-adjacent games that use inventory slots as health and spell slots. I'm continually irked by the internet personalities who promote low-level, mudcore, excessively lethal, resource-limited, every little situation has to be a mundane equipment based lateral-thinking puzzle because combat will kill you and all magical items are double-edged eff-you-in-particulars, dungeon-crawling as the be-all, end-all of old-school play.

The primers and principia pamphlets asserting with such confident authority that "the answer is not on your character sheet" and old-school play is "heroic but not super-heroic" (despite, y'know, magic-user spells; and magical items; and 8th-level fighters being literal Superheroes...) are, frankly, noise best ignored. If only they didn't inspire so much game design these days.

But, rant accompli, I do like detailed inventory tracking. I like it for the verisimilitude. I like it because, when a game is about exploration, and a lot of what you're exploring is dungeons and wilderness, logistics being a part of that makes adventures feel like real expeditions. Without it, an adventure game feels less like an adventure into the unknown and more like a tour of a cardboard set. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Reynard]

OSR plays just fine without a hyper-fixation on inventory.

Never let rules you don't like ruin your gaming.

This gets to the thorny question of what "OSR play" is. I imagine lots of people would agree with you, and lots of people would very much disagree.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

It's not quite Alignment, 5/15-Minute Workday, or LFQW, but it seems to be in the upper 1-2 dozen major complaints people have about (at least D&D-like) RPGs.

What's LFQW?

Like many things, it is all Tolkien's fault. If Sam Gamgee had not asked for rope from the elves, we would not be having this conversation. But, rope, he asked for, and so, later he had to have need for rope (per Mr.Checkov).
Conan never asked for rope,if needed rope, it was there in the scene, or he made do without. Did he ever buy anything outside wine?

Conan also bought roast beast and the love of ladies of negotiable affection!

As to the actual question, I have no love of detailed inventory systems. They're a lot of work for little return.

I'm into RPGs for stories, action, and adventure. I can see the appeal of the occasional "survival" (for want of a better term) game where counting every bean, and torch, and copper piece is important. That's a type of story. But for me it's a sometimes food.