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Old 06-07-2015, 11:28 AM   #1
johndallman
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Default How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

For me, that's driven by the extent to which a character relies on equipment. GCA makes it easy to tune weights in detail, and provides a strong motive to do so with its automatic dodge calculations, but if a character has no need to carry much, as was the case in the 1960s Psi Powers campaign we were playing a couple of years ago, there's just no motive to do so.

For the current TORG campaign, I have the only character who wears metal armour, and Move, as much as Dodge, was my motive to buy more ST and Lifting ST, to get down to no encumbrance.

In Weird War II, Dodge is the key factor, and there's no armour worth its weight apart from helmets, but pistols, uniforms, and assorted stuff all weigh enough to make distributing stuff between basic load and a droppable pack worth spending a little time on. While doing that, I found the table for clothing weights by TL on p65 of High-Tech, which I bet lots of campaigns don't bother with.

For the Infinite Cabal game I run, we have a ST-based character who carries most of the stuff, and the other PCs don't have enough load to worry about: encourage your fellow-players to create characters who are both strong and Selfless.
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Old 06-07-2015, 12:56 PM   #2
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

Encumbrance should be plot driven, like most of GURPS details. In DF or MH perhaps the encumbrance rules should be ignored so the players can get to the fun of slaying the enemy. A modern detective story should have the encumbrance rules pretty strictly followed as a character walking around with full Kevlar armor, five or six weapons of various types and sizes, and three or four backpacks full of survival gear would cause a lot of comment by passers-by and interest by the police. Especially if the character is a "98-pound weakling" from the old Charles Atlas advertisements.
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Old 06-07-2015, 01:32 PM   #3
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

We use GCS as the place to have character sheets, instead of only for character building, so our games have the encumbrance tracking on by default.
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Old 06-07-2015, 03:58 PM   #4
simply Nathan
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

I prefer to round all armor, weapon, and other equipment weights to whole pounds, or a half-pounds for certain small items like full potion bottles (0.25 or less just becomes "neg").

Round Basic Lift to full pounds from ST 2 and up.

Round encumbrance levels to "Not encumbered" (the current No and Light rolled into one) "Somewhat encumbered" (medium) and "Heavily encumbered" (heavy/X Heavy).

I like a little bit of granularity, but not the amount GURPS uses by default most of the time.
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Old 06-07-2015, 04:21 PM   #5
evileeyore
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

I always use Encumbrance. It doesn't always get tracked exactly during game play (for sake of 'moving it along'), but between games it gets settled.
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Old 06-07-2015, 04:56 PM   #6
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

I use encumbrance like Evil Eeyore above. Fully tracked but not in game, unless something unusual happens to trigger a recount.
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Old 06-08-2015, 01:12 PM   #7
Varyon
 
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

Quote:
Originally Posted by gruundehn View Post
In DF or MH perhaps the encumbrance rules should be ignored so the players can get to the fun of slaying the enemy. A modern detective story should have the encumbrance rules pretty strictly followed as a character walking around with full Kevlar armor, five or six weapons of various types and sizes, and three or four backpacks full of survival gear would cause a lot of comment by passers-by and interest by the police.
I'd suggest nearly the opposite. Encumbrance is crucial in DF (how much loot can you carry out, and do you have to drop some to be able to carry your unconscious buddy?), and can be one of the primary things keeping the thief from strapping on a full suit of plate. On the other hand, in a modern detective story encumbrance is going to matter only rarely (and typically in the form of "Can you get away while carrying an unconscious body?"). Preventing the character from walking around in full armor with an arsenal on his back is typically going to be more social than anything else. MH doesn't have an emphasis on loot as I understand it, but you are probably more socially capable of getting away with the Kevlar bodysuit + backpack armory loadout (in large part because you'll often be confronting your prey well away from witnesses, and if there are witnesses they'll be less than inclined to report you), so Encumbrance is of much more importance than in a typical modern detective story.

Me personally, I typically want Encumbrance to be fully tracked. Players should typically have at least two loadouts worked out, and sometimes more - DF characters I build often have a Travel Loadout (everything they own), a Combat Loadout (which is basically the Travel Loadout after dropping the pack(s)), and a Town Loadout (as most towns frown upon walking around fully armed and armored). Kenneth's None-Medium-Heavy simplification is something I might consider trying out, however.
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Old 06-08-2015, 01:58 PM   #8
Kromm
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post

I'd suggest nearly the opposite.
Same here. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy is a resource-management game: you must carefully track HP and FP, arrows and potions, every dollar and every ounce, all while paying close attention to marching order, light sources, disposition of NPCs among the party ranks, and the balance of warriors to casters to rogues. That's why so much of the genre turns on the mad quest for ever-higher value-to-weight ratios. It's also why big, strong warriors are important even when brainy casters and agile rogues technically outclass them in many ways.

Whereas in a modern thriller, what matters is concealability, not weight. If the PCs have sufficiently high Holdout skills, and nicely tailored garments and holsters to match, then they can carry a lot of hardware around even if they aren't that beefy. If they try to carry full-sized rifles and bazookas around, then they're going to run into trouble regardless of encumbrance. A single, mostly plastic 7-lb. rifle is a bigger issue than 30 lbs. in the form of cuffs, folding knives, handguns, pepper spray, spring batons, Tasers, etc. stuffed into one of those fancy armor vests intended for everyday wear under a business suit.

Thus, I tend to track encumbrance in gory detail in even the most tongue-in-cheek of hack 'n' slash gaming but lend no thought to issues of bulk or concealability there . . . whereas I zealously track concealability and force Holdout rolls in modern-day campaigns while rounding encumbrance to "close enough." My last campaign was about modern secret agents, and they managed to hide enough small items on them in carefully designed undercover load-bearing gear that they sometimes hit Light or even Medium encumbrance and were slowed down. All the PCs cared about was not being caught with illegal stuff on them; if they were in a hurry, they drove. The campaign before that was about fantasy heroes who could run around in armor, brandishing weapons all they wanted, yet they often carried less than they liked because of the need to hike everywhere and maneuver in many-times-a-session melee combat.
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Old 06-08-2015, 03:05 PM   #9
hal
 
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

I track it all the time for my campaigns. Why?

Because fatigue loss is based in part, on your encumbrance and on the environmental conditions.

As many of the campaigns I run include fatigue based special abilities at the very least, or on strength based things, it is worth your while to track it.

When players are wearing sufficient armor on a hot day, travelling via foot, or even riding - it makes a difference.
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Old 06-09-2015, 10:31 AM   #10
T.K.
 
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Default Re: How much attention do you pay to encumberance?

Quote:
Originally Posted by gruundehn View Post
(...) In DF or MH perhaps the encumbrance rules should be ignored so the players can get to the fun of slaying the enemy(...)
WWUUUUUUUUUTTT?!?!?!

We track Encumbrance to the very 0.25 bits outside and in game.

In my opinion much of what made D&D and DF fun is the management of resources, be it HP, be it spells, be it potions, be it rations or whatever else. Cutting those out is like cutting half of what makes the genre appealing.

Our warriors strive to increase ST not only to dish more damage when scoring a hit but also to be able to fully wear the shiny double-triple-layered full heavy plate set.

Sincerely it's a bit of book keeping and tracking to keep it all recorded and tracked, but we find it's fun the micro-management of it, along with character development.
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