Episode 162: Agency in Worlds That Don't Exist

Role-playing games Improvised Radio Theatre with Dice
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This month, Mike and Roger pay our traditional visit to RPG-a-Day, and still don’t hit our target of one cue per minute.

We mentioned:

Blue Planet Recontact at the Bundle of Holding (until 7 September), FATE (first published in 2003), RPG-a-Day 2026, RuneQuest, Lace & Steel, Mausritter, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, Ludovic Chabant’s look at the Glorantha maps, Lex Luthor’s bodyguard, Faith, Hope and Charity Bored of the Rings, PC violence and bad behaviour discussion Reign, Admiral Rickover, Blades in the Dark, Mongoose’s Bayern, The Stress of Her Regard War Law, Girl Genius, The Bard Jagger, Sir Phillip Sidney, General Booth, Andrew Carnegie, the former New Hall, EMW Tillyard’s _The Elizabethan World Picture, Stonetop, Dungeon World, Unknown Armies. and Man And Superman.

We have a tip jar (please tell us how you’d like to be acknowledged on the show).

Music by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com.

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A few weeks ago, I was making a character for a new Savage Worlds campaign and putting together my gear list. I don’t mind the accounting, but the precision bothers me a bit.

The rules stated that I could carry 60 lbs. of gear before suffering encumbrance penalties. Naturally, I went up exactly to that limit (I that’s because I ignored the weight of my cash). Both the weights of the various pieces of gear and the strength-based encumbrance limits are a bit made-up and the limits artificial. There’s something to be said for a system that’s a bit “squishy” and doesn’t count every ounce.

The other trend in modern games is just assuming that the PCs have the gear they need. Rather than have a detailed equipment list, you note the big ticket items like weapons and armor but other gear can be assumed at the time they’re needed rather than having had to be listed on the character sheet ahead of time. If there is question or debate, you could even resolve the question of “Do I have the gear I need at this moment?” to a die roll.

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That’s the approach I tend to use. I know that a lot of the early dungeoneering games were about detailed resource management, but I’m more interested in more real-world situations (that may suddenly turn very very stressful). One of my rules of thumb is that if I have it in my house the PCs can probably have it on their spaceship. (IR thermometer, for example.)

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Try Aftermath (old FGU game) - It shows why Bruce Willis just wore a vest in Die Hard - he couldn’t afford the encumberance of a shirt… (encumberance values go down to decimals - 2 places, IIRC )

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The vital thing about AFTERMATH is to remember to buy a ‘cup’ for your genitals.

It has a separate hit location for that area and you just know it’s going to replace the ‘hit the left leg’ result that RQ has for the place hit more often than pure chance would inicate.

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Yup, I played it a little at school and “hit him in the twelves” stayed with us for years.

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If we’re going to do hit locations, there should be different charts for ranged attacks vs. hand-to-hand attacks and the latter will depend on the relative handedness of the combatants, their weapons and their reach, the use of shields, etc. If I’m right-handed swinging a sword at an opponent, I would surely hit their left leg more often than their right, unless their right leg was also their lead leg…

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And is your target doing line of battle sword and shield (fairly face on), fencing (weapon arm to the front) or spear and shield (shield arm to the front)?

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