TFT: The Weight of Weapons (in kilograms)

[Jim Kane]

This morning I recalled a statement in either Man-to-Man, GURPS 1st ed., or a TSG Designer Notes article, that SJ felt the weight of the TFT weapons were estimated and stated as: "too high"; and therefore in designing for what would become GURPS they would actually weigh real weapons (or their rough equivalent) on a scale, in order to get the weight of the weapons more accurate in relation to the real-world.

QUESTIONS:

• Should SJ bother to bring those more accurate GURPS weapon weights into TFT, and supplant the originally listed TFT values in ITL and AM for the re-edit?
• Should the employed Unit-of-Mass be changed from Kilograms to Pounds?
• Does this matter to anyone enough to warrant changing?

Thoughts?

JK

[Rick_Smith]

I'm all for having the masses of weapons made more accurate.

Warm regards, Rick.

[JLV]

We already had the "pounds versus kilograms" debate a few months back.

The upshot was; a couple of folks felt strongly one way or the other, most of us inclined slightly one way or the other, and in the end, nobody really cared since it came out in the wash, and you could use whichever system of weights and measures you wanted in your game...

[Jim Kane]

Originally Posted by JLV

We already had the "pounds versus kilograms" debate a few months back.

Are you sure JLV? I thought we only covered Kilometers vs Miles; no?

JK

[Anthony]

Armor and weapon weight being completely ridiculous is a standard feature of RPGs. No-one seems to care.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Armor and weapon weight being completely ridiculous is a standard feature of RPGs.

Relatively true. Some do make reasonable numbers.

Originally Posted by Anthony

No-one seems to care.

Not true. Some of us would rather they were accurate. If there is to be an update, that's one element that should be updated.

[Skarg]

It's true that there's a range of opinions.

There is a large difference in common knowledge about medieval weapons & armor since 1980.

I'm somewhat in both camps. I don't like that the weights are far from the actual weights, but I know the weights in AM/ITL have a balance effect.

Even in GURPS, I started treating weapon & armor weights from the books as effective weights for encumbrance purposes, rather than actual mass. Because as ITL rightly states in its encumbrance section, how much carrying something impedes you is also about its shape and how you're carrying it.

Ideally I'd want the realistic weight and an effective encumbrance value, but I know that's overkill for what most TFT players want.

So forced to choose, I'd probably keep the ITL kg weights but add a note somewhere that those are effective weights for encumbrance purposes (because they work pretty well with the encumbrance rules), not actual weights of historical equipment.

[Kirk]

Originally Posted by Skarg

It's true that there's a range of opinions.

There is a large difference in common knowledge about medieval weapons & armor since 1980.

I'm somewhat in both camps. I don't like that the weights are far from the actual weights, but I know the weights in AM/ITL have a balance effect.

Even in GURPS, I started treating weapon & armor weights from the books as effective weights for encumbrance purposes, rather than actual mass. Because as ITL rightly states in its encumbrance section, how much carrying something impedes you is also about its shape and how you're carrying it.

Ideally I'd want the realistic weight and an effective encumbrance value, but I know that's overkill for what most TFT players want.

So forced to choose, I'd probably keep the ITL kg weights but add a note somewhere that those are effective weights for encumbrance purposes (because they work pretty well with the encumbrance rules), not actual weights of historical equipment.

Yes, this is the way to think about it, encumbrance is an important principle, as the rules state. Probably some sort of combination to arrive at a effective carry weight would be ideal, but I think TFT should stay somewhat simple, and let the GM handle things like trying to carry a man-sized inflated ballon without damaging it.

[larsdangly]

If numbers are given they should be correct. In the modern age, when you can find the actual weight of a longsword or basinet helmet or whatever with 3 seconds of googling, it is just inexcusably lazy not to get it right.

[Skarg]

Another approach could be to list historical actual weights, and then re-work the encumbrance rules so they come out to about the same effect with actual weights, but of course that would require a fairly large chunk of work.