Equipment as character component.

[Nogusielkt]

Well... I can understand both points of view, but there are a few things to be said.  Equipment is equipment, whether you gain benefit from just having it or not.  In an above example, someone didn't want to rescue a hostage without his lucky six-shooters.  The example goes on to show that the character has developed a mental illness, if you will, that prevented him from wanting to work with any other six-shooters.  It is my experience that most people create roleplaying characters to have little flaws, if any.  In the guys mind, for the example, what he is thinking to himself probably goes like this: "I can't make that shot, not without MY guns... the same guns I have used for 17 years"  In gaming terms, mechanical gaming terms, it could come down to two simple things.

1: A gun is a gun, with the same stats as any other gun (of the same type, silly).  The man in the example, having spent his career wielding the same guns has made a bond with them and will shoot any other guns at a penalty until he has spent sufficient time bonding with them or until he has sufficiently greived the loss of his old guns.  This type of system should be used in a game where equipment is expensive and/or rare.

2: A gun is not a gun, and it changes over it's lifetime... or rather the gun wielder changes.  Over time he learns how the gun works, it's natural flaws, how it changes after it is cleaned or tuned, and how it handles different environments.  Mechanically this is represented by a bonus given to use equipment if you have used for a substantial period of time and should only apply to tools where this situation applies.  A gun can be studied over time and you can learn how it reacts to many different situations, and that knowledge can give you benefits.  A rope on the other hand is not used in enough types of situations, nor does it change substantially in non-severe environments, for someone to have learned enough about it to benefit in a real world way.  This type of system is best used where equipment is common.  Players can (and will) trade in old equipment for new equipment, but will also hold on to old equipment longer and feel a need to have it repaired.

Personally I actually use the second system, in a small way.  Over time your equipment becomes a part of you, but this is in a system where 99% of the equipment is static and known and a system where specialty equipment can be made for specific reasons.  I really don't fundamentally agree with penalizing Mr. six-shooter for not having his lucky guns or becoming mad when he decides not to chase down a group of thieves to get back equipment when he chooses to buy and practice with some new guns.  You (as the GM) likely stole his equipment in the first place, and you should accept his choice to purchase new equipment if he decides to.  That's why the bonus is there, to offer incentive from a reasonable cause of reality.  You shouldn't punish a player for playing the way he wants.

[Mike Holmes]

Nogu (is that a real name?),

The system you describe is similar to how Hero Quest handles things. That is, you simply can increase the bonus that the equipment gives you over time. It doesn't even ask you why specifically, you can rationalize it any way you like. Typically people talk about getting used to the item. But it's really a metagame thing and doesn't have to make a lot of in-game sense. The ratings are not in-game, after all.

Thus, yes, the in-game gun is a gun, but the rating for it is not the thing.

Anyhow, I agree with Fred, sorta, here. That is, we all agree that what's good for the game is based on it's concept. So I think we have a circular argument going. Basically if you assume that we want to emulate a genre, then, well, of course a rule that allows it's emulation is good. But this just goes back to the question of whether you want to include such in your emulation.

Let's just call it a design decision.

My favorite example of this, BTW, is the Signature Weapon rule from Feng Shui. Blatantly obvious that it's an attempt to get the in-genre effects of that special weapon that the one guy has that's so prevalent in HK action.

Overall, I think there's another question here, and that's whether or not you're talking about needing to create an exception rule to make this work, or whether it's just part of the overall system. Hero System makes equipment part of the character, but only by making a bunch of rules that explain how it's cheaper because it can be taken away. As opposed to Hero Quest which just uses the same rules for equipment as anything else.

The HS system really only benefits the game by an addition of tactical choice, and otherwise adds a lot of complexity. The HQ system makes this a non-question. That's not to say that equipment in HQ can't be taken away, it can. But then interestingly, any ability can be taken from a character, in any game, in theory. Cut off a character's legs and can he run any more? Calling something equipment, and then having rules for it being taken away is really a thematic thing. Equipment is more interesting because it does tend to be taken away in most genres.

But Fred is right about the perspective thing. We're biased to thinking of equipment being "normally" considered something that can be taken away. The most basic thing in a game is that an ability of a unit is an ability of that unit. A knight in chess can take another peice by moving how it moves theoretically because being on a horse, it can leap other pieces. Are there rules for removing the knight from the horse?

In an rpg, sure you should be able to do "anything" reasonable. Including taking things away. But again you can take anything from anyone including their life. So why it makes more sense to consider equipment as separate from the character a priori is not logical. It's a fun addition in certain games, I'd agree. But in no way neccessarily the baseline.

By which I mean to say that I think that you should consider equipment as not part of the character only if you can prove you have a good design reason to do so. The burden of proof is not to prove that equipment should be part of the character, but that it should not. The character is simply that mass of abilities by which the player interacts mechanically with the setting. A character can be an army of men. A character can be a planet with all of the people on it. It's a D&D assumption that it mechanically means one human (oid), naked, but trained.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

In Guildmaster, the game I'm most recently working on (yeah, I'm working on it again) "Materiel" is an explicit character attribute.  In Guildmaster, the "PC" is not an individual person, but rather an entire organization.  As such, its equipment, even for an organization with sparse resources, will be too varied to enumerate.  The decision to make equipment an inherent part of the character is virtually a requirement.

About the only time I could see NOT making equipment an element of character would be when the thrust of the game is something along the lines of, "Your fancy technology shall not avail you, technomancer!  My kung fu is strong!"... something like that old, old game where the kung fu freedom fighters infiltrate the lair of the clonemaster to kill him... I have forgotten the name, and I can't seem to Google it...

[PlotDevice]

What is interesting to me about this (hello everyone, Evan here, sorry to gale in) is a system like GURPs in which there are layers of how equipment is managed as a character stat.

You have Resources, Special Items you can pay points for that have limits, and then the run of the mill technology that you can walk into a shop and buy. One of the reason GURPs supers 3rd ed (in its various incarnations) was so badly broken was that it made your average blaster pay several hundred points for powers that you can also walk into a store and buy a shotgun and solid slug armour piercing depleted uranium shells for with cash and 0 points. Assuming that you do not even bother to buy resouces, the default resource level of characters is sufficient in most game universes. So the batman types are able to spend those extra hundreds of points on having skills and stats at insane levels. Then you also have Tech Levels. Coming from a different level of technology can be bought... which basically translates to "I have access and understanding of more equipment than you."

All this work ballancing done without adquately describing what it is (effect) that is attempting to be balanced. heh...

Now I gale away...
Warm regards,
Evan