I generally like to track down to the last gold piece when I'm doing "realistic," historical, or modern games.  For D&D, I'm happy with slot based with a group stash.

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to the poll so far. The results were not what I was expecting, but even at 33 and a margin of error floating around 20% the results were so dramatic (and surprisingly stable as the number of responses increased) for the two largest categories (and many of the "others" describing sounding like something of a hybrid of those) that at least some conclusions can be drawn from the data.

I'll keep checking in, but this has been quite illuminating.

I keep it simple.  Mostly I let characters carry a reasonable load of gear, but deal with the rest in a logical way.  In a fantasy world I ask the players to buy pack mules or horses, or give them one for free so we don't need to deal with this issue.  In higher tech settings, then cars or trucks, or in one case a VTOL thrust vector capable cargo plane. 

I like the idea of slot based, but it really breaks down when players try to actually cram in as much equipment as they can -- as they usually do with encumbrance.

You either have to make it general and abstract enough where they can't actually carry as much as they can in systems where you track weight normally, or you need to make it specific enough that it is basically the same thing as normal encumbrance anyway.

Same with bulk.

Does anyone have a good example of a slot system? I can only think of the Diablo cRPG but that requires a video game to work.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on May 16, 2022, 10:44:22 PM
I like the idea of slot based, but it really breaks down when players try to actually cram in as much equipment as they can -- as they usually do with encumbrance.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. But there are a couple things I do to help with what I think you are talking about.

First is the use a container items. For example, a Quiver uses one slot but holds 15 arrows. You just mark off arrows as you use them and it doesn't affect your encumbrance. Runequest also has the "Adventurers Pack" which uses two slots and has all the generic adventuring gear like rope, water skins, and a bedroll. Just assume it gets replenished between adventures.

However, typical adventuring gear isn't usually the main problem with encumbrance as you can usually recalculate it between sessions when you have time to do the math. The main problem is with treasure and other items found during the delve. To help with this, I started using treasure cards.



Treasure cards have a value and a weight so they are easy to track. Not only are the easy to track for encumbrance but you can write on the card for charges and any cards I don't hand out stay in the treasure deck until the next session, so there's no wasted prep time. When you stat out a dungeon you can just say that this monster has 2 treasures, there is 1 treasure hidden behind this loose stone, or the chest contains 4 treasure cards.

I mean like how, with a slot system, it's nice and cut and dry, you have slots for your head, arm, leg, torso, backpack, etc.

But normally with encumbrance players try to do all sorts of crazy things to carry more weight, like hang things off the outside of the backpack or hang a ton of things off their belt or sling it over their shoulder, etc. But there's no slots for things like that right?

It sounds better honestly, since it removes that kind of silliness, but I imagine some players might feel like they're getting nerfed by the inability to do that.

Or mixing and matching small items, like you could have a bunch of coins in a slot, but what if you wanted to put some coins, some gems, a scroll, and some ink vials? In normal encumbrance you just count the weight, which is tedious but gives you a lot of micro managing ability.

I assume with slot based you can't do that? Or if you can, what's the difference at that point?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on May 18, 2022, 04:12:26 AM
I mean like how, with a slot system, it's nice and cut and dry, you have slots for your head, arm, leg, torso, backpack, etc.

But normally with encumbrance players try to do all sorts of crazy things to carry more weight, like hang things off the outside of the backpack or hang a ton of things off their belt or sling it over their shoulder, etc. But there's no slots for things like that right?

It sounds better honestly, since it removes that kind of silliness, but I imagine some players might feel like they're getting nerfed by the inability to do that.

Or mixing and matching small items, like you could have a bunch of coins in a slot, but what if you wanted to put some coins, some gems, a scroll, and some ink vials? In normal encumbrance you just count the weight, which is tedious but gives you a lot of micro managing ability.

I assume with slot based you can't do that? Or if you can, what's the difference at that point?

I never understood "slot based" to necessarily mean "location based". That's one way to do slots. But slots can be entirely arbitrary as well: "You have 12 slots". Just a way to create units of encumbrance larger than "1 coin" or "1 pound". That's why I think "slots" and "bulk based" are conflated in the poll.

You may not call that "slot based", but other folks might be including it.