[LoL] Equipment?

[stefoid]

Stefoid --

The first half of the book is all Setting junk, presented in-character and as entertainingly as I'm capable.  

This is what I want to do with my game.  Rather than present the setting as an encyclopaedia, present it as a collection of writings, sayings, stories and poems from in-game.
Lot of work there, though.  Places a premium of creative writing skills. 

[dindenver]

Hi!
  OK, again, let's get back to talking about positive, actual play experiences with games that do not want/have equipment lists.
  Anyone have a good illustration of this point?

[CSBone]

Dave,

I think Dogs in the Vinyard is the best example I’ve seen of what you seem to be looking for, but I haven’t played the game so that has all of the weight of a foofy pillow. I LIKE “stuff”. I like the background and the pages of notes about it and I like getting all of the “stuff” on my character and figuring out cool ways to use it.

However…

Mechanically speaking that does not need to mean that the equipment has to actually functions different and/or better. In the game I’m designing the idea behind my equipment is that it is a “switch”. If you have the piece of equipment you can use your abilities. If you don’t…you can’t.

This gives me the opportunity to have all of the equipment and “stuff” I want and the ability to write as much or as little “niftyness” as I want but keeps the mechanics really simple.

A simplified example from my game Space Ranger:

All weapons and armor are defined with 4 “switches”:  Weapon=Yes/No, Superior Weapon= Yes/No, Armor= Yes/No, Superior Armor= Yes/No

Character has a Slowbolter (a kind of gun) and is wearing Diamondoid Plate armor and a Personal Angelnet. Net effect from a mechanics standpoint is that the four “switches” are set: Weapon=Yes, Superior Weapon=No, Armor=Yes, Superior Armor=Yes…in most circumstances. If his opponent isn’t wearing armor then Superior Weapon=Yes. If his opponent is driving a tank then Weapon=No and depending on the circumstances he might also have the misfortune of having Armor=No too.

But there is only 4  “switches” to define the game mechanics.

Another example. Character wants to climb a cliff. The switches are Tool=Yes/No, Superior Tool=Yes/No.

If he’s got a rope and a way to anchor it the “switches” are Tool=Yes, Superior Tool=No. If he’s got a full climbing rig with all of the asenders, desenders, carabiners, etc. the “switches” are Tool=Yes, Superior Tool=No. If he hasn’t even got a rope the “switches” are Tool=No, Superior Tool=No, and the job may be impossible.

In this case there is only 2 binary “switches” to define the game mechanics.

My Color can get as complicated as I want but the mechanical effect doesn’t have to.

In the case of Space Ranger I have not yet decided how many switches I’m using and how many settings (might turn out to be a “dial” rather than a “switch”), but that is how I’m doing equipment.

C. S. Bone

[Sydney Freedberg]

The Dogs system was very cool in the one time I've gotten to play. In essence, you rate each piece of equipment in terms of how many dice it gives you:

1d6 if it's the normal, expected equipment for what you're doing -- a pistol for shooting at short range, a rifle for shooting at long range, a horse for riding, a Bible for preaching.
1d4 if it's "crap," i.e. still useful but balky or substandard in some way. My character had on his sheet: "1d4  - damn horse."
1d8 if it's excellent. I think my guy had an excellent gun (a fancy repeater-type rifle from Back East).
2d6 if it's big. Not necessarily high quality, mind you, just more potent.
2d8 if it's big and excellent. After a nasty run-in with a demonically possessed person he had to shoot dead because he couldn't exorcise her, my character acquired "2d8 - big gilt Bible," and in almost every conflict we ended up narrating the audible whump as he opened up this enormous, beautiful, leatherbound book -- in one case completely covering up his opponent's little beat-up family Bible -- and started preaching to people.

Dogs is a Western, and specifically a pre-1850 Western, which is kind of unusual, as most of Western movies are set ca. 1870-1880, so it does have a few pages of "this kind of gun has been invented, but this kind you'd see in movies hasn't, so the guns look like this; a typical small town has these kinds of stores, a typical big town has these kinds." Otherwise equipment is all the players and the GM sitting around going, "well, does it make sense that this guy would have one of these? Okay, any reason why he wouldn't have a normal 1d6 one? Cool, take [these dice], go."

How does a player character get equipment? Well, the player says, "hey, my guy should have a [whatever], okay?" And the GM says "okay." (Or "no," I guess, but the rules really encourage the GM to say "yes.") You can load up on Big, Excellent 2d8 stuff if you want to, and it'll even help you somewhat, but the way the rules work (rather like what Joshua said about his game) better equipment can give you a bit of an edge, but it's not decisive: My character's uber-Bible gave him 2d8, sure, but he got about 4d6 just from his Willpower score and another 5d6 from his Acuity ("intelligence" and "perception," sort of).



Ron Edwards's Sorcerer and Sword supplement for Sorcerer is even simpler. If you read the original Conan stories, Edwards argues, the author (Howard) basically gives a one-word or two-word description of what weapon Conan might be using (a sword, a big sword, an axe, his bare hands) and what armor Conan might be wearing (and Conan actually wears armor a lot in the original stories; no loincloth for him!), and then the rest of the description is about all the cool stuff Conan does because he's brave, fast, strong, and smart (yes, smart, in the original stories). So Edwards's rules give you basically a +1 bonus on top of a base score of maybe 4 or 5 if you have the right equipment for the job, a -1 if you've got the wrong equipment (e.g. you're using a spear in a narrow tunnel), and that's it.

[Sydney Freedberg]

P.S.: In Sorcerer, you get a +1 bonus for, basically, giving any cool and situationally appropriate detail about what your character is doing, so +1 for having the right weapon is really a special case of that rule, and equivalent to getting +1 for saying your guy throws sand in his enemy's eyes, or howls a war-cry as he attacks, or gasps with effort as he lunges and dodges.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Alright! Now we are getting some details. I can see it coming together in my mind. I haven't played those games, but at least I have a clue as to HOW they are played. I can guess at what the impact on the game is and even read a little into the descriptions you guys have provided, thanks!
  If anyone has anything to add to what Sydney has pointed out, please feel free to elaborate.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Well, a bit of elaboration here: go and play those games without equipment lists, man! They're all but the expected standard in certain circles nowadays. I don't remember when I last played a game with equipment lists. I'd even go as far as to say that a game designer who hasn't played a game without equipment lists has a grave lack in his overall experience.

In it's simplest form not having equipment lists is just a matter of abstraction, just like anything else. Does your game list every martial maneuver separately? Is there special rules for, say, drop-kicks? If not, can characters do drop-kicks? Owning a piece of equipment need not be handled any differently than doing a drop-kick. Design-wise, the only reason to have equipment lists is if you want to have both a) differentiated rules for different equipment and b) you can't prebalance an equipment creation system that can be run as needed. If and only if both of those are true is an equipment list required. Man, what an outdated idea overall.

How equipment is dealt with in some systems I've played lately:

My Life with Master: No separate equipment rules. The narrator of a given situation can tell how the character has or doesn't have suitable equipment, and may - should he wish so - base a success or failure on the lack or availability of given equipment. For example: "I lose the fight because he has a sword." and "I lose the fight because I'm afraid." are both equally valid in any situation in the game.

Dust Devils: No separate equipment rules. Equipment will only affect a situation if you try something that is difficult without equipment. In that case the GM may, should he wish, add a couple of cards into the stud hand he draws against you (making it a bit more difficult). This is exactly the same situation as you'd have if your leg was broken, say. Lack of equipment and a broken leg are equal in this system as disadvantages.

The Shadow of Yesterday: Equipment can give you weapon and armor bonuses at certain times. There's three sizes of bonus from +1 to +3. The GM may, should he wish, give any equipment a +1 bonus situationally, if he thinks that the equipment is helpful in the situation. The higher bonuses come about only if players spend xp into their tools, giving them those bonuses.

InSpectres: Equipment affects only your ability to try things and the amount of stress you get (so a good car will stress you less than a bad one, and no car means you take longer to go to places). Both are completely up to the GM (who is instructed to be pretty arbitrary with the stress). You get new equipment simply by stating what you want and rolling a Technology roll (Tech being the skill used to procure equipment). A failure means you get something shitty and humorous, probably causing lots of stress in the future.

I could continue this list all day long. Equipment is not a separate factor for modern rpg design. It's only important if the context makes it so, and even in those cases the games that need equipment lists are few and far between, with very specific reasons for that need. If you can't put up those reasons, better to just make equipment a matter of narration and not bother with it. Clean design and appropriateness of design is more important than copying game designs from the '80s, surely. Putting in an equipment list without a need for one is like putting in separate car chase rules without any intention of using it. Just stupid.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Actually, I'll speak up in favor of those classic eighties-style equipment list -- to a point.

Rolling up a D&D character (or building a character in The Riddle of Steel), figuring out how much gold they have, and then fiddling around figuring out how much stuff you can buy, and what stuff that character would need, and what stuff would be just cool to have -- that can be fun. Same with designing a castle using the D&D blue-book "Expert Set," or designing GURPS characters, where every aspect of the character is bought with points, or designing a car in Car Wars, or rolling up star systems in Traveller. Fun. I spend, man, hundreds of hours probably doing that during junior high school.

Here's the thing, though:

I did that stuff instead of playing the game with other people. I didn't have that many friends in high school, to start with, and the friends I had weren't into pen-and-paper games. So I did the character-generating, equipment-buying, stuff-designing part of the games, and nothing else, because that was all I could do alone.

See where I'm going with this?

All the buying-things-off-lists parts of a game -- and you might be buying longswords and caltrops, or 100-foot stretches of 20-foot high stone wall, or Vulcan Machine Guns (hits on 6 or better, 2d6 damage + area effect, takes 2 spaces, weighs 350 pounds, and cost $2,000, plus 20 rounds of ammunition at 5 lbs & $35 apiece for a total of 450 pounds, $2,700 loaded, and God I'm a geek) -- all that is the stuff that you do by yourself. Even if you're physically sitting at the same table with your friends while you do it, you're not interacting with them much, you're all sitting there staring at your own sheets and adding numbers -- and you've got to have experienced the GM saying "okay, let's all make characters" following by 60 minutes of scribbling and silence, broken only by the occasional "so can I do this?" or "what does this do?"

This is not playing a game. This is preparing to play a game.

If you want people to use Lol primarily to have fun when they're alone -- which includes being "alone together," that is in the same room but not really interacting -- then, absolutely, you need lots of crunchy lists of things you can buy with points, or gold pieces, or Divine Favor, or whatever the hell.

If you want people to use Lol primarily to have fun together, with their friends -- or with people who are going to become their friends because they play this cool game together and imagine amazing things -- those lists just slow everybody down. Go for a system something like Dogs or Sorcerer or The Shadow of Yesterday and get straight to playing the game.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Thanks for the feedback Eero! I thik I have played games that have similar rules to the ones you have listed.

Putting in an equipment list without a need for one is like putting in separate car chase rules without any intention of using it. Just stupid.

  I know why I put it in there. I just wanted to explore why so many people ask 'Why have an equippment list?' And I don't have seperate rules for equipment. Mostly the list is a lens into the economics, tech level, how much does stuff cost, etc.

  Thanks for the followup Sydney!
  Somehow I don't think having a list of prices is going to detract from the fun of the game. But I will bare that in mind next time I go to edit that list.

  I just got a new game going to playtest my system, so I don't want to derail that to play another game. But when we are ready for a break, I might check out Sorcerer (I don't think I would want to play ditv or mlwm. From what I have read in Actual Play threads, doesn't seem like they are my kind of games), but in the mean time I can at least check out the mechanics and think about how it would effect my game.
  As an overview, my game is skill-centric. So each skill has a section called Time and tools that describes the effect of having/not having the necesary tools. So my equipment list is merely a name (for flavor), a price (for economics and scale) and weight. Basicaly, since it is a world of my own imagination, I wanted to give a solid guideline as to what was possible, what was new/rare and what things cost. If you deleted the e.

[dindenver]

(continued)
  If you deleted the equipment list, you could still play LoL, but the value of the character's starting money would be more up to the GMs judgement and harder for the other players to plan for the equipment they will plan to use/need.
  I hear what you are saying about narration of tools, but I think I would have to re-write my game from the ground up to accomodate that ideal. But I didn't want to assume, so I thought I would ask about mechanics and see if there was something out there I was overlooking.
  If anyone wants to add their experiences with equipment rules without lists, please feel free.

[Selene Tan]

One way is to define equipment by what it does, and pay for those properties. Then names and descriptions are left up to the players or GM.

As an example, let's say a basic weapon costs 5 gp. It has a damage rating of Light, accuracy Low, and speed Low. You can pay 2 gp to upgrade any of those qualities once, like from Light to Medium damage. You might decide to call this weapon a "club". Someone else might call it a "gnarled oak staff with runes cut into it", or "my little friend Bob".

I first saw this used in a modern/near future game to get around the problem of making up stats for all the different kinds of guns available. (And also to avoid the problem of gun nuts complaining that the stats were "not realistic.")

On the other hand, I think Tunnels and Trolls used its equipment list very effectively, since it tied into choices for character advancement. Weapons and armor required certain minimum attribute values to wield/wear. On level up, you could pick any of your attributes to improve, but some improvements would have a bigger effect than others. (e.g. Luck would increase by twice your new level, but Strength by only your new level) But if a less effective improvement meant you could now wield a stronger weapon, then it might be worth it to do that.

I have noticed that in D&D, there are some weapons that almost nobody wields. Usually these are weapons which are more expensive than others with the same properties, or the same price as weapons with better properties. Of course, it's hard to make sure your equipment list is balanced and tuned so that this doesn't happen.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Thanks Selene. However, it seems like you gave mde examples of games WITH equipment lists. Exalted has minimum stats for equipment too. I generally don't like these rules as they get too cumbersome. And I don't like games where you buy the abilities of an item instead of the item, because it generally limits the items usefulness and creates a situation where a tree branch is more expensive than a bejeweled knife.
  But I appreciate the feedback.
  Again, if anyone has any thought, please feel free to add to this discussion.

[StefanDirkLahr]

With respect to the Tree Branch versus Jewled Knife debate, the problem there is that you always have two different things to worry about in a game with an economy - the practical usefulness of the item vs the economic value of the item.

The Practical Usefulness value depends on what the item is meant to be used for.

So a Jewled Knife costed for beating someone up is worth less than a Tree Branch, in "beating people up" points, cause that isn't what its proper practical use is. Now, in terms of "impressing people" points, the Jewled Knife is way better than the tree branch, say, cause that is what it was made to do. If things are in the same category - say Tree Branch vs Broadsword - you just have to structure your system of "beating people up" points to assign value to traits that fit your vision of how your world works - usually the simplest option is to judge things by the world as we know it. So a Broadsword is better, and costs more "beating people up" points, than a Tree Branch because it is Metal, Sharp, and Large compared to the Branch's Wood, Dull, & Large values.   

Note that none of that tells us *anything* about the Economic Value of the item!

Economics is ruled by scarcity, and that depends on the economic constraints present in your setting.

I think the point i was trying to make here was that Equipment, when it is not just there for colour, is a resource available to the character, just like anything else on the character sheet. Be very certain that the way characters obtain (pay for) equipment is in line with what the game is about. 

In other words, even though the setting has some sort of economic system in place, that is just colour unless the players should be focused on gaining and losing wealth and property. You don't want the players to be juggling money and keeping track of prices if the game focuses on hunting down outlaws.

In, other, other words, money is a very very powerful & complex thing to introduce into a game system. Far better to buy equipment in character points (or buy traits & skills in money).

I'm sure you've got this already, but it feels really go to remind myself!

[StefanDirkLahr]

Wow. I've read through the LoL Beta edition (from 2001) linked in your sig.

You have something there that totally feels like a fusion of GURPS and DND, plus a hefty worldbook.

I take it that is the old out of date work, now that you're working on the Forge?

I hope the moderators don't smite me for saying this, but that is a perfect "fantasy heartbreaker": I couldn't imagine writing something like that - i've been designing little tabletop strategy games for almost a decade, but i never even considered attempting work on an RPG - which i actually enjoy playing more - until i stumbled over the Forge and other indie gaming pages last year. 284 pages. Setting & system. I'm in awe.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Well, I started it in 2001, but haven't really put too much work into it til this last year. And I am trying to to get it to a point where it can be published.
  Yeah, it has been called a "heartbreaker" before. I am working on it. But in the end, I may not be able to fully dodge that bullet. And I have resigned myself having to "market" around that single flaw.
  I really appreciate the fact that you read it all, if you vcould PM me with the exact parts of the game that made you feel that it is a "heartbreaker", that would be great.
  All in all, I feel it is a solid game system that is easy to learn. The world is developing up nicely and the playtesting is going well.
  The characters are coming out the way I want. Fully functional people that can accomplish most tasks, even heroic ones. A few people have asked me why I have an equipment list and I had an answer, but I thought I would find out why they are asking and what some of the alternatives are. Especially, actual play examples. But even brief descriptions of mechanics is fine.
  Anyone who has mor thoughts about equipment-less gaming, please feel free to add them.