Easy Encumbrance and Fatigue

(I'll boil this down into a nice, terse table to add after publication)

Basic Assumptions.

• That you're playing an Old School/D&D adjacent ruleset, with Classic Six compatible Ability Scores rated 3-18 and Armour Class (though damage reduction could be used to stand in for this).
• That the amount of stuff you carry should have in-game consequences.
• That you want to model fatigue as one of these consequences.
• That you're not desperate for extreme granularity or simulation.

Carrying Capacity and Items/Objects Counted.

You can carry as many items/objects as you have points of Strength before you are Encumbered.

Each point of Armour Class from armour worn/carried counts as an item/object.

The basic unit of item/object is the weapon. While this is quite a common basis for simple encumbrance systems, I'm using Dragonwarriors (p.60 of 1985 edition) as my source.

The examples of equivalents those rules give are: full quiver of arrows/bolts, scroll, bottle (potion or wine, presumably), lantern, torch, c. 150 coins. 

I roughly agree with this, though I also suggest a 'three makes an item/object' category which includes scrolls, herbs, jewellery, single dose magic potions, knives (including throwing knives, but possibly not daggers), tinderboxes and so on.

Objects of negligible encumbrance (an individual, high value/magical coin; a gold ring; a magnetised pin; a pinch of bat guano; a quill pen) aren't counted unless you've got an awful lot of them. A rule of thumb might be 10 or 12 to the item/object.

You might allow a stack of 3, 5 or 6 javelins or torches to be an item/object, but I probably wouldn't.

Encumbered/ Tired.

When you are Encumbered, your Dexterity is halved. 

You can put things down in order to climb walls, pick locks and fight monsters, and so go back to normal Dexterity, but otherwise you take the penalties.

A GM could waive the Dexterity penalties for fine motor skill activity, but I personally find being encumbered IRL to make me generally clumsy so I'd stick with it unless there was a particularly good reason not to.

Every time you do something strenuous (jump a chasm, climb a tower, chase the thief, and definitely combat), you will be Tired until you take 10 minutes rest (1 turn) to recover. While you are Tired, all your Ability Scores are at -1.

While you are Encumbered, you can carry further items/objects up to your current Constitution, at which point you are Overburdened.

Overburdened/ Slow.

When you are Overburdened, your Dexterity is 3 and your Strength is halved. This does not effect your overall Carrying Capacity; you were already Encumbered and now you are Overburdened.

When Overburdened you need 30 minutes rest (3 turns) to recover from being Tired due to strenuous activity.

You are also Slowed while Overburdened, and may only act/attack every other combat round and will always be the last to act when you do (or apply the effects of your game's equivalent of a slow spell).

Further Complexity.

Use the modifiers from The Black Hack Additional Things to give unusual objects more impact on Carrying Capacity.

Where you carry your equipment is as important as how much you can. Unless you specify, the top three items on your inventory are easily accessible; the rest will require at least a Dexterity check to retrieve it when under attack/stress. Worn items and your primary weapon are exempt from this.

Using with Tunnels & Trolls.

T&T has uncapped Strength and Constitution, so this system can't just be ported straight over (I'm basing this on the 5th edition rules, as per the UK Corgi paperback - a lot's changed that I haven't followed). As well as the number of item/objects potentially spiralling, the penalty for being Tired becomes insignificant.

Maybe the capacity could be 10 + Level to Encumbered and then same again to Overburdened, or 10 + a bonus worked out by comparing your T&T Str/Con against a D&D modifier table that extends beyond 18, with Tired having the effect of making saving throws one step harder.

I don't know. 

I've not had the opportunity to play or run T&T enough to work through this outside of my own head.

Commentary.

Encumbrance is an intrusion of reality into your gaming space.

Encumbrance is probably the first rule jettisoned when I/we started gaming, even though it is important to a certain kind of play. It should encourage the use of hirelings and pack animals, which can be used to add further drama, risk, social interaction and pathos; these probably weren't concerns to 10-year-olds wanting to load up with imaginary treasure and weapons.

I never liked granular weight-based systems because of the book keeping and not being good at estimating/calculating real weights; I've since come to appreciate how simple the armour + treasure method, revisiting it decades later.

My earliest thoughts on encumbrance were heavily influenced by:

Dragonwarriors and Fighting Fantasy rpg both give 10 as an adventurer's carrying capacity, but it's just a limit - there are no consequences given for exceeding it. 

The Lone Wolf gamebooks also float around this 10 maximum, as you could carry 8 backpack items and 2 weapons (plus unlimited Special Items, eventually reined in to 12). Again, this was a limit; there were no consequences for cheating.

Constitution got included in carrying capacity because of Maelstrom: it doesn't have a Strength stat, but uses Endurance instead to determine the armour you can wear and the amount you can carry.


This is pretty much the same system as I use for my heartbreaker, and it could be bolted onto non-D&D adjacent systems with a little bit of conversion. I'm sure there are lots of other similar systems out there, but this is my particular outcome.