OSR What's your preferred encumbrance system?

[delericho]

So like a "quantum inventory" system. That's interesting but doesn't it lead to frustration in OSR games specifically when PCs' survival might depend on prepping for the dungeon?

Essentially. I wasn't being entirely serious, but I do like the underlying concept of choosing the encumbrance level first.

But your second point is absolutely correct - in scenarios where it really matters what characters have on them (for prepping for the dungeon, or a survival-heavy game, or whatever, my approach just wouldn't work and you should use something else instead.

 

[Thraic Ogmund]

This may be sacrilegious in a post marked "OSR," but I use the alternate encumbrance rule from 5e. 5x your strength score in pounds before you start to lose movement. It acknowledges differences in individual strength scores (as opposed to just modifiers), and is pretty easy to apply. I have found it to be easier than counting "coin" weights (a la BECMI, etc.).

 

[touc]

That looks very nice, and easy to understand. Could you elaborate why you call it a hybrid system? Do you mean that the number of available slots is not fixed and is a function of STR?

Yeah, STR determines the # of slots before penalties and weight plays a role in limited areas (bag weight and bulky items). Otherwise, 10,000 coins could go into a coin pouch and an anvil into a sack.

My group and I talked it over a few years ago (previously we hand-waived encumbrance because it's too much math to constantly track), and we felt it added an element of strategy. What do you take? What stays at the Inn? Do you get a hireling or two? It added up quickly. In our D&D 5E version, a 14 STR ranger carrying the default equipment for the class was already lightly encumbered (chain mail, weapon, basic gear). I'm attaching it because it accounts for armor wherein HM does not, though in an AD&D-esque system there would need to be some tweaking because of 18/01 to 18/00 and scaling to the extreme numbers.

 

[Voidmoji]

My (semi?) OSR game is a newer one: Vagabond.

It uses a slot system that's target easy. You get a number off slots based on Might, and items use 0 to 3 slots. You cannot carry more, and if your slots are full, you can't double move (use the Rush action).

 

[abazaba]

As far as 'personal belongings' go, we agree that a single person can carry all of the stuff (armor, weapons, magic items, etc.) that belong to them. Beyond that, we have a single player in our group that carries all of the gold. We collectively call him 'The Bank'. He carries and keeps track of all the gold we have gained and spend. We normally do not bother with things like 'how much a single person could reasonably carry' determined by either rules or common sense, although it is usually the person with the best STR score. The only exception we tend to make is when we for example obtain a dragon's hoard worth of gold/gems. Then we quickly hand-wave how may hours or days it would take to get that to a 'safe place', and then be done with it. Yes, this means we basically ignore any 'encumbrance' rules. Works for us.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

I'm rapidly kinda losing my love for encumbrance systems. Managing even just slots just takes up a lot of table time.

Into the Odd's system of you can carry any number of small things and up to 2 big things feels like plenty.

 

[timbannock]

As far as 'personal belongings' go, we agree that a single person can carry all of the stuff (armor, weapons, magic items, etc.) that belong to them. Beyond that, we have a single player in our group that carries all of the gold. We collectively call him 'The Bank'. He carries and keeps track of all the gold we have gained and spend. We normally do not bother with things like 'how much a single person could reasonably carry' determined by either rules or common sense, although it is usually the person with the best STR score. The only exception we tend to make is when we for example obtain a dragon's hoard worth of gold/gems. Then we quickly hand-wave how may hours or days it would take to get that to a 'safe place', and then be done with it. Yes, this means we basically ignore any 'encumbrance' rules. Works for us.

And the "easy fix" for those that do carry, is simply have every character's first slot be "coin purse" or something like that, and you can just handwave some amount of coin that fits in there if/when it ever comes up, but otherwise leave it to the one accounting genius to do the accounting.

Along these lines, I have a "company loot" for my West Marches campaigns where there's a single sheet that's just for tracking what goes into the party fund (money, gems) and the vault (story-based items, magic items that are pretty common use but more than the individuals of a single adventure can carry). One player each session becomes the quartermaster, and they manage that sheet. It's up to the players to figure out what they can pull out for their immediate adventuring needs, the quartermaster adjusts the sheet, and then at the end of the session the players donate whatever's not a clear "this is mine" item. If people get too greedy, it's self-regulating because the company as a whole suffers and knows who's withdrawing and never giving back. A certain (very small) percentage of coin and gems is automatically put into the fund, and the quartermaster checks everyone's sheets to make sure things are deducted. It's all work I don't want to and shouldn't have to do, so it's a great system ;-P