Further [Dungeonpunk]ing - Encumbrance (and a bit on skills)

I continue to through Untested Brain-Matter-Produce at the wall. One day I will have a play-test to see if any of it stuck.

I think there will be two types of encumbrance, physical, and mental/emotional.

Inventory

Physical encumbrance works much like you might expect.

You have Inventory slots equal to (or maybe equal to X + half of) your Condition score (a hybrid mix of strength and constitution).

Some of your Inventory (depending on your Precision (a score which is about half of dexterity, the other half being the reflex score)) is Fast Inventory, which only takes a round to access, rather than a minute. Some items, like bandoleers, make more of your Inventory Fast.  

These are filled by your items, mostly. It is assumed that each item takes up 1 slot for the most part. A sword is 1 slot, as is a shield, as is a spell-book.

Some items might have the property Small (x) which means that many items can fit into a slot. For example, daggers are Small (2), 2 daggers fit in a slot.

Some items might have the property Large (x) which means they take up that many slots. For example, a Greatsword has Large (2), you need 2 slots to hold it.

Armour can take up a lot of slots, but that's the price you pay for protection.

Inventory can also be filled by special things, like water if you decide to go swimming, or a Curse of Burdens.

Most commonly, the two things you don't want to get into your Inventory are Exhaustion and Wounds.

Exhaustion you gain by, well... exerting yourself. You can get rid of it through resting, one slot's worth a day.

Wounds are a bit harder to rid yourself of. They fill up slots when you take massive damage, or something like that. They provide a penalty to Condition rolls, and take a Week's rest to remove. Particularly vicious wounds may even be permanent.

Memory

Memory is mostly much like Physical Inventory, but for your brain.

It is harder to change, in terms of putting things in there, and taking them out. Usually it takes a week's studying to do so.

You have slots (or X + plus half of) your Knowledge score (which is rebranded Intelligence).

Some of your Memory slots are Core (depending on your Insight score (which is what Wisdom wants to be, but is also only about half of Wisdom, the other half going into the Will score)) which means that you can stack up similar memories, most notably Skills.

Things that go into your Memory Slots are things like:

- Weapon or Skill proficiencies (with a further note on these later)

- A Wizard's Magical Traditions

- Memorised spells (ideally, this gets Wizards to haul spellbooks around with them and cast spells from books, which takes a bit longer, but means you don't have to go through the lengthy memorisation process)

- A Fighter's Fighting Styles

For example.

You don't have to put things like "What the king told us to do" in a memory slot, but if you do, it would help you never, ever forget it I guess.

A key thing about Memory is that skills are sort of, grouped into similar types of skill, which can be grouped together to give a big bonus; Medicine for example, could get a bonus made up of Surgery, Anti-Toxins, Wound-Care, etc. Each one of these skills takes up its own slot.

Core slots can be used to group Skills of the same group into one slot. This is the best way to become an expert at something, otherwise the cranial-real-estate cost gets too much.

It works the same way with specialising in weapons.

Hopefully this means that you can't become a total master of everything ever, and you have to rely on your team/hirelings to help you out with other things. Maybe.

Oh, right, there are also other things you don't want filling your Memory Slots; notably Strain and Trauma.

Strain is the mental equivalent of Exhaustion. Wizards get it sometimes when they fluff up spell-casting.

Trauma you get for seeing fucked-up shit. It gives a penalty to your Knowledge until you go to Therapy.

Mind-Flayers will happily gobble up your memory slots probably.

Not quite such an exciting one here, but its important. I want it to be easy to use, otherwise you never will. I also want it to be flexible, such that you can use it for all sorts. Particularly Memory slots (though I claim no credit for their inception, I know other people have come up with it before but damned if I can remember any :c so it goes) are a cool thing, I hope they work out.