Equipment & Envelopes

[hackbarth]

I had a new idea (in fact it was an old idea that I stole from Albedo RPG, 1ed) for representing equipment.

Instead of writing down in the character sheet every stat of every equipment I buy or find, only to erase it later when I use or lose it, I put every equipment item in its own sheet.

That way, if the PCs find or buy or otherwise get new equipment, I simply hand him a sheet with the stats and other notes, maybe even a illustration on the back. When the PCs use, give, lose or damage the equipment, I simply get the sheet from them.

Now the stroke of genius that the designers of Albedo had was the Container-Envelope. Containers such as backpacks, pouches, belts and pockets get a envelope instead of a sheet. That way you can carry the equipment in the containers putting the sheets in the envelopes!

So we know where everything is and the player can't say "I'm always carrying the pistol (and the knife, and the torch, and the keys, etc) in my hand!" If the equipment is in his bag, it's in his bag, and in the bag is stuffed the character AND the player can lose some seconds retrieving it from a envelope full of sheets!

Enough talking, here are the sheets:

http://thackbarth.googlepages.com/GURPSContainer.pdf
http://thackbarth.googlepages.com/GURPSEquipment.pdf
http://thackbarth.googlepages.com/GURPSHandWeapons.pdf
http://thackbarth.googlepages.com/GU...gedWeapons.pdf
http://thackbarth.googlepages.com/GURPSArmor.pdf

What did you think of it?

[Bruno]

It sounds like a nifty idea, although it presents the organizational problem of keeping all the bits together with the character sheet, and somehow fitting the entire mass in a clipboard. I've got a stack of reference cards bulldog clipped to my D&D 4e sheet, and if I had one for each item of equipment, and an envelope for each container, things could get interesting...

[safisher]

Originally Posted by hackbarth

What did you think of it?

I like these a lot. I wish the mini-sheets had a place for doodling/pasting a picture of the item, and the ranged weapons had a corresponding sheet for ammo (quivers, power cells, en-bloc clips, stripper clips, magazines) etc. Equipment cards like this can be fun. And the containers/envelope idea is especially neat. Bravo!

[hackbarth]

Originally Posted by safisher

I like these a lot. I wish the mini-sheets had a place for doodling/pasting a picture of the item, and the ranged weapons had a corresponding sheet for ammo (quivers, power cells, en-bloc clips, stripper clips, magazines) etc. Equipment cards like this can be fun. And the containers/envelope idea is especially neat. Bravo!

I was thinking in using the verse of the card for the drawing of the item. A ammo counter would be cool, but is difficult to standardize in GURPS where some ultra and high tech weapons can have upward of 400 shots... Of course the 'notes' place is multipurpose and can be used for this.

[Anaraxes]

Make a character sheet (probably on cardstock) with spaces on it for left hand, right hand, belt, backpack, and so on. You could glue small rectangles to the front of the sheet to make each space into a pocket, into which you then insert the equipment cards. The whole sheet becomes relatively portable.

Or just bundle all the envelopes together with a rubber band.

[Brandy]

You could also use those plastic three-ring binder sheets for ccgs. Each has 9 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch pockets.

[Gavynn]

I think this is a good idea. There is a company I found online that sells pretty nice equipment cards with illustrations and stats on the back for some version of D&D or another. I wished they had GURPS stats on the back or at least black area to write them in. I had heard of people putting card like that in an envelope for treasure chests - the player opens the envelope to open the chest and grab the loot, but I had not thought about putting them in container envelopes.

[nik1979]

Hopefully Low, High and UltraTech's follow-up books would take advantage of this. I'm for the equipment cards, particularly the Outfit cards that can have some space for notes on modifications.

Can use their Individual Cards Each
Outfits
- Combat Load,
- Extended Combat Load Etc.
- Other specialized Outifts
Signature Gear
Vehicles or Mounts (or when you consider Mounts, also consider the Remounts along with he war-mount and the saddle mount).
Home Bases (Asset Cards of Players Home Base or mobile HQ).

Of course one would need a more fixed up (but not complicated) Economics rules on what certain characters can afford with their CoL.

When i keep a Character I tend to be very OC about details to a point that players ask me to fill out their details. It would be simple to just buy those "planner" styled notebooks that come with own leather case which has space to hold cards. That would so geeky and cool.
The pages after can serve as campaign notes, and a nice place to cut and paste pictures and maps, significant events, character diary/notes etc.

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by hackbarth

I had a new idea (in fact it was an old idea that I stole from Albedo RPG, 1ed) for representing equipment.

Instead of writing down in the character sheet every stat of every equipment I buy or find, only to erase it later when I use or lose it, I put every equipment item in its own sheet.

That way, if the PCs find or buy or otherwise get new equipment, I simply hand him a sheet with the stats and other notes, maybe even a illustration on the back. When the PCs use, give, lose or damage the equipment, I simply get the sheet from them.

As GM, I use 5"x3" index cards which I prepare for items/treasures which the PCs find. Luckily for me I'm fairly reserved as far as frequency of loot is concerned, but it seems to get a positive reaction from some of the players when I hand them over. It is especially fun when someone has found stuff w/o the presence of the other PCs because the card is handed over face-down so OOC the others know, but IC they don't :P

Now the stroke of genius that the designers of Albedo had was the Container-Envelope. Containers such as backpacks, pouches, belts and pockets get a envelope instead of a sheet. That way you can carry the equipment in the containers putting the sheets in the envelopes!

So we know where everything is and the player can't say "I'm always carrying the pistol (and the knife, and the torch, and the keys, etc) in my hand!" If the equipment is in his bag, it's in his bag, and in the bag is stuffed the character AND the player can lose some seconds retrieving it from a envelope full of sheets!

Enough talking, here are the sheets:
<snip>

What did you think of it?

I like it! This sounds like a cool idea in principle, but I wonder about the practicality of it in play. Pretty much for the reasons that Bruno has given.

For containers that the PCs find (chests, pouches, etc) I simply prepare another 5"x3" index card and list what items are to be found inside. I can then either hand this to the player, or keep it myself and read out what the players find (FREX, if a Search roll may be required to find a tiny treasure in a chest of clothes, then merely handing-over the whole card(s) would give the game away).

I also agree that the equipment space on the back of the standard 4e character sheet is inadequate - equipment/treasure often changes more rapidly than actual stats/skills, and it either becomes a mess, gets worn through by eraser-action, or the player doesn't keep it up to date (or a combination of all three). My solution to the first two issues (harder to fix the third) is to have a seperate sheet just for equipment which I print on scrap paper. It's easier for the players to organise their load-out this way and if the sheet gets too worn, I just print off another one for them. I also use a separate sheet just for weapons for similar reasons. The extra benefit there is that I can use the back page of the character sheet to hold extra traits and skills from the GM screen booklet instead (p. GM31).

In case they might be useful for anyone else:
GURPS extended equipment list
GURPS extended weapon list
Note that these were sized for A4 paper, so while probably fine for most countries, Americans may need to resize them slightly.


BTW, I notice that for the Armour, you used the intials "RD", which I presume is down to the Brasil translations ;)



EDIT: Fixed the URLs - hopefully they'll stay fixed...

[hackbarth]

Originally Posted by Unwitting Pawn

Note that these were sized for A4 paper, so while probably fine for most countries, Americans may need to resize them slightly.


BTW, I notice that for the Armour, you used the intials "RD", which I presume is down to the Brasil translations ;)

My files should also be in A4 paper, but I think Acrobat Reader can handle the resize issue gracefully.

And yes, in Brazil Damage Resistance is "Resistência a Dano", abbreviated as RD. This should be corrected soon.

Originally Posted by BWS2K

Now see, this is a great idea. What's more, have you considered the implications of random discoveries done in the same manner? In my survival-style Reign of Steel campaign I'll preload a few envelopes with equipment/ammo/armor/weapons/etc. - maybe without even ME knowing what goes where - and then when the party stumbles onto a small cache or abandoned hideout VOILA! Instant random fun! It's slightly more tedious because you have to list the appropriate skills and defaults for quick reference but I'm looking forward to it. In fact I'm pitching the idea to the players to see what they think about choosing from approximately equal-value random envelopes for starting gear too, but that's pretty daring. Like the templates!

~~BW

A good ideia, I would separate the equipment handed this way in piles: high value, big size; high value, small size; low value, big size; low value, small size. So that I don't hand the players "A full suit of plate, enchanted with RD +1 and shatterproof, golden inlaid" found while searching the goblin sentry pockets.