Pseudo-Pseudohistorical Logistics

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I am hoping to actually bring these rules to the table soon, so I am going to be getting into some of the more nitty-gritty and logistical aspects of running the game.

My original version of this post got overwritten on accident. I think I put everything back in though…

Encumbrance

• You have two hands!
• 4 belt slots (His Majesty the Worm Style): these are the items you can access much more quickly. Light armour occupies one of these slots, medium two, and heavy three.

For additional carrying capacity, you have a few options. For a pack, you can either have a

• Satchel: 4 slots
• Backpack: 8 slots; encumbering

and if that just isn't enough, you can use

• Small sack: 4 slots, occupies a hand.
• Large sack: 12 slots, occupies both hands; encumbering.

Edit: Originally large sacks were 8 slots, but Phlox of Whose Measure God Could Not Take pointed out that made it strictly worse than carrying two small sacks.

Encumbrance grants a -1 to melee d12 rolls, and a disadvantage to ranged combat and any checks requiring dexterity or speed. It also makes you move as if you are wearing one step heavier armour than you are. If you are wearing heavy armour and encumbered then you move about as fast as a tortoise, and might get stuck on your back like one too if you slip.

Very much inspired by this I Cast Light! Post. In fact, I might instead use Warren’s advice and make it a +1 and an advantage if unencumbered.

The slot sizes of various mundane equipment, for reference (as everyone seems to calibrate their own sense of a "slot" a bit differently):

• Weapons: # of slots = length stat
• Hunting bow/light crossbow: 2 slots
• warbow/heavy crossbow: 4 slots
• Quiver: 1 slot = 12 arrows/bolts or 2 javelins
• Shield: 1 slot

Edit: I am a little uncertain of my weapon slots = length ruling. Any weapon can be held in one hand (or two if two handed, though I would probably rule they can be carried one handed). The idea is that in order to stow them to do anything else you would need room. To stow your shield and carry a lantern, you need a slot in which to put it. To stow your sword and draw your crossbow, you need space on your person to stow it. It remains to be seen if that makes sense in practice, though.

Edit Edit: Oops, I didn’t put how many slots a shield takes. I’ll go with one.

• 1 slot: Book, potion, lantern, flask of oil, day of rations & water, 2-3 pieces of jewelry
• 2 slots: Torch, 50’ coil of rope,
• 3 slots: 10’ pole,
• 4 slots: marble bust

Travel

For overland travel, I will be ruthlessly stealing the Dolmenwood procedures, using armour to determine movement speed. Like I said above, being encumbered will drop your movement rate to the next slowest. I don’t think I will use the 1-in-6 turn resting from OSE though. My thought for a replacement is to give an automatic level of fatigue after a combat, that can be cleared by eating a ration and resting for a turn.

If I feel like using the camping procedures, I will make the con checks just a flat DC10 roll on a d20. Characters with relevant training can get an advantage. Failure to get a good nights rest will incur a disadvantage on all stat checks and ranged attacks and a -1 on melee combat rolls, as well as preventing any injuries or fatigue from healing.

For dungeoncrawling and combat, I will also be using OSE/Dolmenwood movement rates. Not that I do grid combat or anything, I basically just use it to decide things like “can they catch you”.

Economy

I want to make a completely custom equipment list, mostly to price things in a way I’m happy with. For now I’ll just use OSE and change to the silver standard (i.e. every where it says “gp” pretend it says “sp”).

Previously in OSE I tried changing treasure and xp requirements to silver but keeping equipment prices in gold. It was an interesting experiment but it was a bit too extreme. I like that it makes equipment prices matter, but the problem is that some things were so prohibitively expensive when they probably shouldn’t have been. Price differences between weapons is an interesting form of balance, I think. Maybe?

Up next…

The most important thing I have to do is stat out some fantasy creatures. Luke Gearing statted out some monstrous creatures, but other than zombies none of them were really fantasy-themed. I have a few ideas for how to make creatures feel different:

• Use different dice combinations for melee checks
• Use different dice or different thresholds for injury checks
• Custom wounds the creature can take
• Custom injuries the creature can cause.

At the very least I am going to make sure to have a stat block for bears.

…and maybe later

I would like to make more concrete guidelines for injuries, including their possible effects and how to adjudicate recovery. Also, coming up with more backgrounds, including a “classless” version that is a bit more randomized. Also, some guidelines for training skills (including combat skills!). But all of these things are going to wait until after I actually bring it to the table.