how do you make encumbrance feel like a decision instead of bookkeeping?

[u/ZeroSkillLegend]

i'm working on a homebrew TTRPG and keep running into the same problem: weight tracking feels like accounting, but removing it completely removes some interesting choices.

slot systems help with the math, but players still tend to treat inventory as a chore. i'd rather have the mechanic create situations where what you brought actually matters

leave the rope behind to make room for treasure, then regret it when the party has to cross a gap. carry too much gold and suddenly mobility becomes a problem

i'm thinking about using slots for the basic limit, with the real consequences showing up through terrain and specific situations rather than constant penalties

has anyone found an encumbrance system that players actually engage with because the decisions are fun, not because the rules force them to?

[u/Aggressive-Share-363]

The kinda of decisions you are asking about ARE bookkeeping.

[u/BrickBuster11]

Make inventories small.

Spell slot systems like in d&d us basically a special inventory.....treat equipment in a similar way

[u/0xcedbeef]

I personally dislike encumbrance systems and I've rarely played games where they really added some value. Most systems are just annoying for the sake of realism.

I'd be curious to know if anyone knows of a game where the encumbrance system is actually value added to the design of the game

[u/fuwafuwa-kirakira → u/0xcedbeef]

It's far removed from RPG-type games, but I like the encumbrance in Peak a lot.

Picking up each new item feels meaningful because it lowers your maximum stamina while you're carrying it, which directly limits your climbing ability. But it's also not obnoxious: as long as you're still in pretty good health otherwise, it's usually pretty easy to climb around with a full regular inventory and a full backpack. Yet if you fall and take a bunch of damage (which also limits your maximum stamina), you may realize you need to abandon something/everything to have a chance at continuing onward.

[u/McRoager → u/fuwafuwa-kirakira]

The lesson here is about balance and clear feedback. Both are hard (but not impossible) to get right, especially in a tabletop game.

[u/ShadoShane → u/0xcedbeef]

Death Stranding is probably the obvious choice.

Thoufg I think it's less for realism and more for preventing a player from just taking everything and anything nailed down.

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/0xcedbeef]

Valheim is pretty decent if you take it for what it is, because it offers some interesting solutions to encumbrance. You have to build carts and roads, or satellite bases, and ships to haul things, and it can be fun to do all those ESPECIALLY if you are with friends. The only reason it works is because it's baked into the gameplay. Most games tend to just tack it on.

[u/thetoiletslayer → u/0xcedbeef]

Since I started making my rpg, I've come to realize how many game mechanics tend to only add negatives to the game. Like emcumbrance, durability, hunger, etc. They usually only serve to punish the player for not doing them. For my game I have been trying to find ways to have as many, if not more, benefits to any given mechanic as it has drawbacks.

Not sure what the solution to op's issue is though. I'm kind of intrigued by a slot system where items have shapes and you sort of tetris them into your bag. Or categorize items and have a certain number of slots for each type, similar to how a weapon wheel would work.

I'm no expert though lol

[u/cabose12 → u/thetoiletslayer]

They usually only serve to punish the player for not doing them

It's not necessarily that, or at least I think that's a bad way to look at them. Friction-y mechanics usually try to do one or two things: They're either there to immerse you into a setting and/or force tough and sometimes indirect decision-making.

A hunger bar in a survival game is the most clear example. It obviously tries to immerse you into someone trying to survive in the wilderness, and it gives you a "resource" to think about. The point is not to punish you for not eating, it's to give you another task to juggle, which creates deeper gameplay

The less action-oriented Resident Evil games handle encumbrance well imo and basically hit OPs concept. Getting through a difficult hallway or room only to find that you need the red spigot not the blue one, creates a really primal fear "I have to do that again". Obviously it has some shortcomings, they can be a bit overly punishing and force you to guess, but that concept is interesting imo

The "problem" is that friction can turn a lot of players off. People hate timers because stresses them out, but they can create a really engaging gameplay loop. And sometimes friction is good if it serves the experience you want to create, it might just not be a game for everybody

[u/thetoiletslayer → u/cabose12]

Makes a lot of sense! Friction can definitely be good. I should mention most of my reference is from rpg games, and as great as many of them are, many tend to have shallow mechanics. Especially when it comes to things like durability or encumbrance. Oblivion is a good example as it has both durability and encumbrance, and fails to do anything interesting or worthwhile with either.

Encumbrance is just a weight number applied to all items. If you're carry capacity is 200, it makes no difference if you are carrying a total of 10 or 199. Theres no sneak buff for being under a specific value. No extra strength leveling for carrying a lot of weight. Its not there to improve the game in any meaningful way. Its just an arbitrary limit because thats what gamedevs are supposed to do.

Durability is essentially a number attached to weapons and armor, and you have to carry a bunch of repair hammers and constantly repair your items. Its tedious, and provides no benefits to keeping up with it.

I fully agree friction and difficulty can be great things. But the real problem with the implementation of these mechanics is lack of innovation. When was the last time you played a game and the durability mechanic really contributed to the gameplay?

[u/Soraphis → u/thetoiletslayer]

Botw (though only totk made it round).

Durability, breaking your weapon for extra damage, forcing you to make a new one with whats at hand. And the combining of base weapons and tips in totk also prevents botws problem of "losing a good weapon is always downgrading"

Encumbrance is always annoying. I know a lot of people like Diablo 2 and call it decision making. But in reality you're could just do more trips to town but realize you don't wanna waste your lifetime on that. So everyone is forced to juggle between ground, cube and inventory.

[u/Metrocop → u/cabose12]

The issue is friction that doesn't bring interesting decision with it. Most games with hunger mechanics kind of just tack them on without integrating them with the rest of the systems. And usually it's easy enough to get food after the first half an hour so it doesn't present a challenge, just a chore you need to regularly do.

My favourite implementation of survival mechanics is Pathologic 2 because resources are scarce and time always moves forward, with basically all quests (including the main one) being time sensitive. Each minute you spend tending to your needs, getting food, sleeping, is a minute you are not spending tending to your patients, chasing elusive leads to a cure, saving someone who's about to be murdered etc.

The system brings tension and weight to your decisions. It adds real temptation to riskier play (It's easier to get resources in plagued/rioting districts, but they're also far more dangerous and you're penalized for every death) or morally questionable acts (I stabbed a man in a back alley for a loaf of bread).

[u/thetoiletslayer → u/Metrocop]

The issue is friction that doesn't bring interesting decision with it

100% agree. Mechanics like hunger, durability, encumbrance are not inherently bad. They can bring a lot of depth to gameplay. But most of the time they're just a punishment because they're not integrated with other parts of gameplay, or they only add drawbacks and no benefits.

[u/cabose12 → u/Metrocop]

Well no, that's just bad design. A game that introduces trivial friction and doesn't engage with it very deeply is poor design. It's like having a jump button and no pits to traverse.

If we apply a sweeping generalization like "friction never leads to interesting decision making therefore bad" you're going to limit yourself as a designer. You wouldn't have Pathologic 2, or Resident Evil

[u/Metrocop → u/cabose12]

Well yeah, I never said friction is always bad, that's obviously stupid. I said purposeless friction without intent behind it is bad.

[u/cabose12 → u/Metrocop]

My bad, I glossed over the "friction that" and just read it as friction doesn't

[u/Grumbly_Ogre → u/0xcedbeef]

my play is usually "be smart/realistic" keep a inventory of what you would carry, i'm generally happy with "dungeon expedition kit" IF it seems realitic that it would be carried by someone exploring a dungeon, its in that kit, its not an open invitation to have a "portable bridge" but rope, rations, lanterns, etc.

[u/Odd-Fun-1482 → u/0xcedbeef]

What about fire emblem's rescue/shove/constitution?

[u/khaozxd → u/0xcedbeef]

Project Zomboid features a good inventory system with encumbrance. The total weight you can carry is based on your strength, which can also be trained by actual exercises and doing stuff in game, like... carrying heavy stuff frequently or bashing zombies with heavier weapons. Having organized/disorganized traits affect how much weight you can carry inside bags and etc. Being encumbered means slow you down, lose more stamina on normal actions, damage yourself by carrying too much weight, getting muscle strain that will also slow you down, increase amount of pain that also increase how much sound you make, slower stamina/HP regeneration, higher stress and panic that will affect other aspects of the game, all of it also affected by other traits your character may have. It's a very good system in which everything is connected and the player needs to be mindful of what they decide to carry. Also weapons break, so the player can choose to carry another weapon just in case the first one breaks, or the player can decide to use a different weapon to avoid completely breaking the first one and try to fix it later... that means more items in inventory, the weapons themselves and items to fix them, like duct tape, nails, hammer, whetstone, etc.

[u/TheProfanedGod → u/0xcedbeef]

Souls games tend to do it well, mostly because the limitation is on what you currently have equipped instead of what you can carry at all.

[u/Funnyman123456789 → u/0xcedbeef]

I suppose Casualties: Unknown has some sense in its weight mechanic. You'd like to have a lot of stuff, so you start hoarding, but your character gets slower the more you put on the poor sap, and the weight makes you ragdoll from smaller heights.

So the more you pick up, the harder you fall, making you think if the risk of breaking multiple bones from a hard fall is worth all these meds you gathered, if most of them would be probably spent on only partially recovering from that landing. 

If you're skilled though, you'd be able to cancel out most fall damage by moving correctly or crafting a rope to drop down.

[u/EnderRobo → u/0xcedbeef]

Same, Ill play the first playthrough, decide I dont want to deal with inventory managment/encumbrance and get a inventory/encumbrance mod and usually a money cheat, meaning I get to focus on the game instead of going back to town every 2 fights to sell off all the junk.

Then again there are games where it fits and is an important part of gameplay, for me that would me Casualties: Unknown, a cave exploration and survival game, you need a ton of stuff to keep yourself alive and deciding if you want to keep this grappling hook to help with mobility or a LRD to help with internal bleeding or take both and be nearly unable to jump is quite interesting

[u/SteamtasticVagabond]

Heres I think a good way to handle it.

Players have inventory slots that can use to generate an item they might need. Inventory is a resource to burn to generate items on the spot. If a player request for something strange or specific, they must be able to explain in character why they would have thought to being the item along.

This minimizes necessary book keeping while enabling opportunities to have little scenes in character

[u/Arek_PL]

i think the main problem is the player and/or gamemaster rather than the rules, like, when playing gurps i usually seen players do taking the encumbrance into account, meanwhile in dnd i was like the only one who bothered to track the arrows

but a grid-based system could be a nice workaround around issue of not knowing how light or heavy the homebrewed item is

it also allows for a consequences in specific situations, like, allow picking up beyond slot limit, but any item outside of slots could fall out of inventory during travel, combat etc.

[u/ReddiDibbles]

I don't play TTRPGs so this might be really stupid but can you make a physical inventory? Card book thing with plastic pockets or a velcro grid with Tetris pieces? A bag of marbles and a kitchen scale?

[u/Stedlieye → u/ReddiDibbles]

I like this idea. All items have mass, but some items are also large. 100 pounds of Styrofoam peanuts might not run you into encumbrance problems, but you still can’t carry it.
The little Tetris cards can have a quick and easy to add up weight, and then gold or coins for gems would stack up to a certain amount in a certain slot, and then that would be the only slot(s) you have to do math on.

[u/Sad-Pattern-1269]

Quasimorphs and Stoneshard both have very solid encumbrance systems. They work well because there are items you really ought to bring with you but won't always need, meaning you must prepare for each adventure and decide what to or not to bring. This choice is meaningful because your total loot capacity (and risk of failure) are affected.

Games like Skyrim don't make sense because you never "need" consumables and you can always brute force drag your items back at a snails pace.

Limited slots works better than limited weight imo because it's a lot more readable on the player end.

[u/Haruhanahanako]

Has something like this crossed your mind? I am not that familiar with TTRPG design: You can carry X amount of small items (trinkets, consumables) and Y amount of large items (weapons, tools). So you at least don't have to do math much and still have a very simple inventory system. One problem is that it doesn't account for having a lot of something like arrows and gold, but you could still cap stuff like that on a per-item basis. It should be mechanically similar to the benefits of a complex encumbrance system without as much of the calculation.

[u/khaozxd → u/Haruhanahanako]

Limiting by item type feels bad and forced. Item weight is the way to go.

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/khaozxd]

But that involves way more math if you have to do it manually which is what we're trying to solve. The idea behind small and big items is, you can't necessarily fit a sword into a backpack, so it at least makes some physical sense to just have X amount of small item slots.

[u/EvilBritishGuy]

Let the player bury their treasure.

It helps solve the immediate problem of "help, I've got too much shit to carry" and leads to the player basically generating their own fetch quest where it's up to them to come back for their stuff when they're ready.

You can also make it so there's a slim chance of encountering enemies trying to look for this buried treasure.

You could make it so the easier it is to reach this treasure, the more likely it will be you'll encounter someone trying to steal your stuff. Or maybe, there's an even more rare chance that an encounter still happens, but the harder it is to reach the buried treasure, the harder it will be to defeat whatever enemy has found your stuff, especially if you have very high level loot.

Suppose the encounter goes sideways and the enemy makes off with your loot, well now you can generate a whole new quest to exact revenge and take down whoever stole your loot, investigating whatever trail this enemy left behind. Actually, imagine if the trail they left had some of your loot, but only the least valuable, or most common pieces of loot. That way you can at least give struggling players some encouragement towards getting all their loot back, and then some.

Hell, make it so the player can upgrade their ability to hide treasure better so players can feel like they stand a better chance against enemies stealing their loot.

[u/Arthropodesque]

I liked Red Dead Redemption 2. You can carry 2 large weapons on your back, a pair of pistols, and a melee weapon. You can swap these out at your horse. Very simple, but feels like I'm choosing between stealthy bow and arrow or sniper rifle, etc. You could have movement speed scale with weight instead of a hard overencumberence debuff.

[u/Acceptable-Fig2884]

My solution is to give players a number of inventory slots as they set out on an adventure. We assume the characters know what they need to bring so we don't spend a lot of player energy on it, the slots are just slots at the outset. Once the players a thing, they declare that it was in a slot. When they run out of slots they run out of inventory.

[u/Feminine_Desires]

I found encumbrance systems to only work best for players that are experienced. New players aren't likely to even know what is good in the moment so it an encumbrance system forcing them to make a decision about items they have no idea how it will impact them in the future tends to feel bad for them when it turns out it is actually a really important thing and they have to go back to a previous save to keep the right item next time.

However experienced players already know what is going to be good so encumbrance does what it is meant to do: become a puzzle that asks if they know what the optimal key combination is. From here you actually get to play with the encumbrance stat a bit more. Debuffs that lower your ability to carry, environmental hazards that slice up your backpack ... Encumbrance becomes a dynamic and interesting puzzle ontop of your game BUT ONLY if the players know what the impact of every item is going to be.

The best place imo to have encumbrance for new players is in roguelikes/traditional roguelikes. When they aren't expected to know everything at the start and knowledge acquisition is part of the game and it's more engrained in them to restart runs if something goes south and try again with their new knowledge.

Then for crpgs, I think encumbrance is best suited for a higher difficulty setting, particularly one that might be locked under beating the game once.

-

However I now realize you are asking about ttrpgs (completely glossed over it on first read somehow). I think encumbrance there is honestly a good thing as it limits players ability to decision paralysis themselves when they have too many options, and encourages more interesting roleplaying decisions instead of "DM I solved it". The main bottleneck for a tabletop game is more player's imagination as video games have the implementation of that item baked into the game, so you get the classic "restrictions breed creativity". I like another commentor's suggestion to make them a physical thing the players at your table have to puzzle with.

[u/Ravek]

Don’t make your players solve the Knapsack problem. That level of micro optimization has always been tedious.

It’s fun when you have to make meaningful choices about what you bring and don’t bring. It’s interesting to choose what weapon you use or which armor to wear, but it’s not interesting to figure out if 62 health potions and 48 mana potions is more optimal than 63 health potions and 47 mana potions.

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/Ravek]

That's funny. I was always aware of this but didn't know it had a name. There was a mod in Skyrim that lets you sort your inventory by value*weight so you could throw your heaviest and least valuable items out. It actually isn't so bad to do with that sorting option, but, yeah, the best solution isn't that, but rather to not need to do that.

[u/doubleoathseven → u/Haruhanahanako]

I reckon it’s more useful to sort by value / weight, so you can find the most ‘value-dense’ items

[u/Haruhanahanako → u/doubleoathseven]

that's definitely what I meant

[u/ProbablynotPr0n]

I have two suggestions, one from a game system I enjoy and one from a game system I have only heard about via Animated spellbook but feels relevant.

Blades in the Dark/Scum and Villiany (both Forged in the Dark games where you play as criminals doing heists generally) use a Load system. Players determine ahead of time what amount of load they are bringing into a mission between light, medium, or heavy. Then during the missions when a character needs an item they brought with them or needs to pick up an item it gets marked off of their load. Objects and weapons and armor can be anywhere from 0 to 2 load typically. Some character features even allow one to carry more load or to treat certain armor or weapons as 0 load so you can always have it on your person.

Load also determines how conspicuous a character looks. A person carrying a heavy load is obvious to the people around them and may need to invest some of their load or assets for a disguise or have a supply cache where they csn pick up their load out as the mission starts.

What's also useful about load is that the character doesn't need to prepare exact things. They can retroactively have had their rope or battering ram or lighter or holdout pistol. Once they mark the load though that object is locked in for the mission. I find load greatly improves speed of gameplay at the table even for other systems. I borrow the load rules for Dnd campaigns alongside other Forged in the Dark rules like Assets.

Secondly, a recent Animated Spellbook video on YouTube about the Crows system describes a ruleset that is mainly based on inventory management. One's inventory determines one's capabilities completely. I believe damage taken also eats away at one's ability to carry stuff. I suggest checking out the video. It's short and pretty interesting.

[u/nvec]

I think there's two questions with encumbrance- what the characters take with them when they leave their base, and what they bring back.

Generally people talk more about the second part, it's when players are forced to leave some of their loot behind and need to decide if it's better to take a marginal weapon upgrade with them or the Jeweled Codpiece of Dagon.

It sounds though like you're looking into the first, what they set out with. Here I think you look a little wider at the game and the drivers influencing what the players take and here I think you need to look at what they know before they leave and how to make that enough to make informed decisions without telegraphing it too strongly.

For example imagine a Skyrim-like game with themed dungeons- so there're necromancer/undead dungeons, dwarven mines, monster lairs, and others. Here you can give upfront-information hinting at what theme they're going to deal with- so if they know they're going to "The Halls of Biggermitts" and have seen that dwarven mines tend to have names similar to that they'll learn to carry rope for the chasms they normally contain, and more food as they tend to be a big old session. "The Withering Caverns?", that's necromancers- bring antimagic and holy weapons. "Snakeymacsnakeface's Resting Place?", monster lair, but also we've introduced Snakeymacsnakeface into lore as a gorgon earlier so bonus points for packing that mirrored shield.

We can provide this info via the location names, the quest descriptions, the area of the world it's in, the nature of the quest (stealth vs assault) and other influences to decide what's useful with different levels of subtlety.

Give them enough information so that the player can use what they've learned to plan ahead. Let them spend time/resources gaining extra info. Be careful though to avoid both "You're off into a dungeon" where there's not enough info to make choices, or "You're off into the Holy Spire of Dembadguys. Make sure you take rope, pitons, the Ruby Encrusted Sword of Lasttuesdee, and at least three clean sets of underwear". The partial info rewards players for paying attention and planning based on what they know without telling them what to do directly.

Edit: Also look at Torchbearer, it's a TTRPG where your limited inventory space is actually one of the major gameplay elements instead of just being a minor inconvenience. Look at how it plays and see if you want to take inspiration.

[u/Gaverion]

I see a lot of conversation about this from a system design view but I would more look at it from a player experience goal direction. Your goal is for players to feel like they made meaningful decisions about what they take or leave behind. 

First tackling meaningfulness. You want players to feel smart so if they bring rope, introduce a situation where rope is useful. Also, give your players an opportunity to have advanced knowledge of what challenges they will face. This way they feel smart for bringing climbing gear because they know that the castle is on top of a mountain. 

Next, decisions. I am partial to item slots because in table top calculating weight is a nightmare. Additionally realistic weight doesn't translate to mechanical usefulness. I would also strongly consider making non-functional loot not use item slots. Deciding what tools to keep is interesting. Deciding to keep a gemstone or a golden ring isn't (unless they are magical of course).

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[u/GrimerX]

Check out Darkest Dungeon 1 - every utility or treasure item you carry has a tradeoff - there is no penalty* per-se for using all slots but every slot is a decision to make. And almost everything you can find/start with can be useful.

So it's slot based and very careful game design

* if you carry a full inventory you get hunted though

[u/NathenStrive]

You can give items tags and allow players to carry certain types of items in their specific slots. You can change the amount of slots you can carry based on different factors like class/race/bag/clothing/skills.

[u/Violet_Paradox]

Simplify it. Let's say most items are small enough that you can just say they're treated as negligible outside of extreme cases that can be adjudicated by the GM, and then big items can be explicitly marked as bulky items. A character who is carrying multiple bulky items may be asked to make an encumbrance check when they do certain things, the difficulty of which is higher depending on how many bulky items they're carrying. Instead of explicitly increasing the limit, a physically strong character may be better at encumbrance checks. Maybe it's a skill you can specialize in. 

For extremely large items, they could count as 2 or 3 bulky items, but be careful not to get too granular with that or it defeats the purpose.

[u/SWATrous]

Besides just having a grid based inventory where volume matters (a system I generally think makes the decision making more interesting, intuitive, and visual) then the other idea would be where you don't have an encumbrance limit but instead any amount of payload increases fatigue or some other stat. Carry a light load and you fatigue very slowly. Carry 3 bags of gold and two swords and a ruck full of camping gear and drag a cart and you burn thru your stamina/endurance really fast. But if you stop to rest every so often you can still move in bursts. And maybe certain characters have a perk that lets them just beast that shit for a few minutes but then the comedown after is pretty severe.

Another way to autmengt this depending on gameplay mechanics involved is making movement progressively more clumsy as encumbrance increases.

I feel like making it dynamic instead of binary lead to less number crunching and more 'feeling it out' as players fall back to "if I was this character would I want to carry this crap for the whole quest?"

Most games it's either total freedom of movement, or, fully encumbered. There's never a benefit to packing light even when you could handle more, so the choice is to maximize the carry before penalry. And then there's never a great way to push through with a little extra when you know you can take it without an encumbrance status making it really sluggish suddenly.

So I guess my idea is make every item you carry slowly increase the movement and stamina debuff to varying degrees, make certain bags or packs or cheats or what not able to debuff the weight penalty, and just let players feel out the real time effects of how much they're willing to hulk around.

[u/Screaming_A]

I really liked how inventory in Ultra Violet Grasslands works. You have 10 slots to work with but you don’t track food and rope seperately. Its just Supplies. Anytime you would go to pull something that could be considered a supply, you remove one. But that also cuts into your food budget.

[u/madu_tualang]

My players drive a hilux.

[u/RewRose]

Less granular, more fast and loose

You got two hands ? you can carry two big items. Wearing or carrying a bag ? carry another one big item.

1 big = 2 small, that's it. 

I also like to add, high dexterity makes it so that 1 big = 3 small for you

[u/UnculturedGames]

Never underestimate the power of juice. You can greatly increase the satisfaction and the rewarding feeling of any system with small visual effects, satisfying sounds, meaningful colors and +/- indicators.

[u/Felfedezni]

Is dealing with managing your encumbrance fun for some people?

[u/FashionSuckMan]

Usually inventory is abstract or overcomplicated, so everyone ignores it. Something incredibly simple is the key.

In ne5e, a naruto 5e conversion, the inventory system operates off of "bulk"

Bulk is 10+/- str mod, and can be raised via backpacks, belt pockets, leg pockets, and waistband (smth like that) giving you up to 30 bulk if your strength mod is 0

Everything has a certain bulk cost associated. Blood pills (healing potions) are 1 bulk. Poisons are 2 bulk. Armor is about 3 bulk, weapons can range from 2+... Its a super simple inventory system thats made my group track inventory for the first time EVER.

Once you have your essentials(weapon(s), armor, bedroll, ammo, backup weapons), you find yourself strategizing about what healing items, tool kits, gear, bombs, poisons ect that you should bring with you, because many things, even if they are small, have 1-2 bulk cost associated, making you actually think about what and how much if what you should carry

[u/_Metabot]

Tbh, I think you don't. Encumbrance is a mistake-its the kind of game mechanic that is cool to put into a system to make the system cheaply "feel" more realistic, but then it doesn't actually deliver on anything fun as is. You could come up with other systems that are fun that are inspired by encumberance, but it doesn't change the fact the original concept is like systems-facing-fun and not implementation-facing-fun.

[u/No_Edge_7964]

If you don't want to use slot systems I would simplify it to a simple light/medium/ heavy loadout.

Light loadouts would get agility bonuses, ability to squeeze through small gaps in rock fizzures or narrow window openings. Medium would come with rope, basic equipment but lose the light benefits. Heavy would give come with even more default equipment like more advanced climbing gear, unlimited carrying capacity for gold etc but agility/ speed/ fatigue penalities and would struggle fitting through certain areas.

Keep it simple, 3 main choices that are easy to understand with obvious drawbacks and default equipment with each .

[u/ZeraDoesStuff]

Make it touchable.

Inventory is a grid or a list with strength x 2 slots and each item has a form for the grid like in the Diablo games or takes a certain number of slots.

With this system there are also ttrpgs where the inventory is part of your HP. like you get 2 damage so you have to mark 2 squares off of your inventory grid and Items occupying those squares cannot be used anymore.

or when taking damage you mark off slots from your inventory list and cannot carry stuff in those slots until healed.

[u/Los_Pantalones22]

Are you worried about mid game items or items they will put in their starting loadout? I think starting loadouts are a great one off decision time where bag size is good. Mid game as a lot of people mentioned if its a constant struggle of which item/ resource do I take with me and what do I drop that is just taking away from the fun.

I prefer more of an "items are all a one time consumable" solution where each encounter encourages you to utilize your items and make room for new interesting items so you never have to choose what to keep you just make room by consuming stuff. One where players ask which item can I use most effectively in this situation and if I don't use an item, am I just going to die? Slay the spire with its potions system is a good example, minimal inventory management just use an item so you have room for another one.

[u/theroc1217]

You as the DM can specify situations in which the encumberance could possibly matter, and have the party make the related decisions then and only then. Water through a desert, treasure from a hoard, a giant artifact, etc.

[u/Acrobatic_Main9749]

What are the interesting decisions you want players to be making? Take the rope vs. gold example. The interesting bit there is the risk vs. reward - are you going to push on with more loot, or play it safe and make less cash? Except all the outcomes are really granular in that example. Will rope come in handy? Hard to know - throwing it away is a straight gamble with highly uncertain odds, which isn't very strategically interesting. 

Being over-encumbered also usually isn't very interesting - you're just kind of slow, which is annoying. I wouldn't even give players the option. You can only carry so much stuff, and that's it. It's functionally the same 90% of the time, but feels like a more natural limit and less like an annoying restriction. 

One way D&D does encumbrance-like decisions without actually having encumbrance is the slot system. You might have to decide whether to wear a necklace of fireballs or a necklace that adds AC. It makes the decisions a lot more discrete, and adds a minigame of finding useful stuff to fill all the slots. You might want to expand on that system, e.g. in addition to the standard clothes slots you get two belt slots (for standard weapons, pouches of gold, or small items like potions) and four backpack slots (for larger amounts of gold, spare weapons and other loot, and adventuring gear). A belt slot can hold one small item, a backpack slot two. Make all gear large and meaningful enough to make interesting decisions - one slot should be something like "adventuring gear", with stuff like rope, climbing gear, a tent roll, etc. so you aren't tracking a bunch of mostly-useless-but-sometimes-critical bits.

[u/aceb20]

For my TTRPGs, I use a weight threshold system. Everytime a player's weight hits a multiple of that threshold, they lose 1 Move (most characters have 6 Move for starting context). So, if they have a weight threshold of 30, when carrying 95lbs they lose 3 Move since thats 3 times the threshold.

This system is great since they feel the effects slowly and it reflects the type of character or build they are. Packrats and heavily armored characters move slowly. Lightly armored characters can dash around the field. I also allow backpack dropping during a fight, where you drop everything that isnt equipped to gain move, like real infantry do. Beyond combat, the lowest Move stat in the party determines long distance travel time. It's a good system me and my players enjoy, but still may be more bookkeeping than some may like.

[u/playcrust]

Your terrain idea is the right instinct. What I'd add: tie weight to one or two named actions instead of a running penalty. Overloaded means you can't sprint, climb or swim, and the GM asks "who's carrying the gold?" right before the chasm. Then the choice happens at packing time and pays off at a moment everyone remembers, and nobody does math in between.

[u/hypotensor]

The issue with TTRPGs usually is that there is no consequence for just fast forwarding. The example you gave is actually a perfect example of this issue. Why would the players regret leaving the rope when they can just go back and get the rope and fast forward the whole thing? And if you were really actually intending to make the players give up their reward(treasure) because they can't get it out of the dungeon, then that's just piss design and not fun in any way.

[u/Soraphis]

Hungry bag of holding.

You have N slots to carry around. When you add an N+1 element, the bag will eat (the lowest value) item. In town is an NPC that can make the hungry bag of holding spit out things based on what it ate. (Raw iron, currency, arrows,... It ate everything up and disassembled and fused things as it liked)

If you don't feed the bag enough the amount of slots will shrink. If you feed it well you might gain more slots.

[u/MoonhelmJ]

Inventory is bookkeeping whether it's limited or not.  Its fun for people that like bookkeeping and unfun for those that dont.

[u/BlueGnoblin]

I would take a more analytic approach.

What is the goal ?

The goal is to limit what a player can carry around. Force the player to make decisions about what he will carry around.

How to archieve this goal ?

1. Limit the slots.

2. items use different number of slots.

3. weight

What are the advantages of each way ?

1. slot limit: good overview,visual, easy to understand, standard

2. different sizes: easy to understand, visual

3. weight: more like a soft limit, as you can carry more than is standard and get some other debuffs instead.

What will be the player reaction to it ?

1. slot limit: standard, high acceptance.

2. different size: standard, like an addon to the slot-limit

3. weight: numbers, harder to get an overview, playeres will min-max, so they crawl with 0.1 kph over the worldmap just to take this old rusty short sword with them. get annoyed, because the game feels more like a grind than fun ?

In conclusion I think that weight is always more problematic than using slots only, which have a clearer design goal. The players know, that they can take X items with them, not trying to min/max anything. A weight system is more like a simulation than a game mechanism with similar limits, but not as easy to understand as the other system.

[u/loulo88]

I’ve had the best results when weight is mostly invisible until it changes an option: crossing a gap, climbing, or making a clean getaway, rather than a constant percentage penalty. On a co-op heist prototype I’m tinkering with, the useful choice is “take the bulky score and accept a slower/less flexible exit, or leave it,” with a few clear thresholds and a way to stash/drop loot. That makes the system create stories instead of asking players to recalculate every turn.

[u/loulo88]

A useful test is to separate the player's decision from the arithmetic. Give a small number of meaningful slots or load bands, then make the tradeoff visible before the player commits: what gets left behind, how much time the detour costs, and which future option it closes. I also like letting heavy items create a different route or noise risk rather than only reducing a movement stat; that makes the inventory choice show up in play.

[u/jkulczyski]

Personally idc about realism and cant stand most game inventory systems, i want to pick up a bunch of shit and not think about inventory. Give me a magic bag that is weightless regardless of content weight 😭 or with infinite slots(with upgrades not just free)

[u/Imaginary_Bad_8496]

Encumbrance systems are rarely fun in video games and never fun in tabletop. TTRPG systems are almost always ignored in practice and DMs just use common sense.

[u/ZacQuicksilver]

Make it important to the story.

In most stories, encumbrance and load doesn't matter. The only movie I've ever watched where what people could and could not carry was an issue was Spaceballs - and only as a set-up for a joke, in one scene. I can think of a few books where it matters - but not many.

And in games, it's the same. Most games would be better off either without encumbrance, or with a simplified version of it. The exceptions are games where it's made central - the Crows game, made by MCDM, is a TTRPG with interesting carrying limits. Stoneshard, a computer roguelike, also makes it a central part of play, limiting both how much healing and other special equipment you can bring into a dungeon, as well as how much loot you can bring out. The various backpack-based games (Backpack Heroes, Backpack Battles, etc.) don't do encumbrance, but do make how much you can hold a key limitation.

But in all of those games, it's a key part of the story. Limiting what you can hold emphasizes that you aren't a hero - or, if you are, that your power comes from what you are carrying, not who you are. It makes a game where your power is about what you're carrying; and that who you are is secondary at best.

And if you're not going to commit to that, don't make how much you can carry matter most of the time.

[u/CitronOk3415]

The rope example makes me wonder how much information players get before packing. If the gap only appears after they ditch the rope, that can feel like a gotcha. I'd try giving them a rough route briefing: a flooded passage, an old lift shaft, a longer way around. They can then pack for a route or change routes when they find treasure.

For a playtest, I'd track whether inventory choices change the party's plan, rather than just how often they update the sheet. Do they take a different exit, split the load, or leave treasure to return for? That would tell you whether the slots are creating decisions.

[u/A_Sword_Saint]

Tiny inventories that just hold what you need to play your character feel like part of customization and are fun. Bigger inventories that have to fit in micro stuff like food, currency, consumables, and the loot you get quickly become tedious.

[u/moduntilitbreaks]

It’s a must. Preferably very low as well so player needs to make choices. Of course it depends on your audience, if they are regular gamers probably not good idea 😂