[TSOY] Starting Gear

[Darren Hill]

Am I reading the text correctly that the only way to start with equipment that gives a bonus, is to buy the secret of imbuement?

I was planning to give my players whatever they wanted, choosing one bonus for each item, till I noticed this secret.

[James_Nostack]

At the end of the In the "Weapons and Armor" section...

Weapons and armor can occur in the game in two ways.  The Story Guide can declare any item in the game to give +1 damage or protection in a particular situation.  Alternatively, any player can declare his character's equipment to have a bonus with the Secret of Imbuement.

So, it looks like you can just say, "Hey, you found a sword lying around... that does +1 physical damage in combat," or, "Hey, you found a pretty nice looking harpsichord.  It does +1 damage when playing music."

This is one of the aspects of the game that I suspect people will house-rule a lot, because Bringing Down the Pain as written in the rules is very slow without weapons.  In the game I ran, I dished out weapons pretty liberally: "Oh, you're really fired up and hate this guy more than anyone you've hated, ever?  That's a +3 weapon against this one person, this one time."  After all, the "weapons" basically reflect the importance or uniqueness of the scene in which they are used.

[Darren Hill]

Yes, I think I'm going to allow players to have 1 free bonus in items - and only require them to pay for bonuses above this.
I don't think I'll go the whole hog of applying situational modifiers for emotional investment as you did - I'll let players show me that by spending their pool points.
I prefer items to be tangible, so that if someone other than the owner picks them up, they get the same bonus.
So, if a player wanted an heirloom that had a personal meaning and only applied to them, I'd prefer that they represented that with a secret (Signature Weapon?) rather than an item.