Coins, Weight, and Encumbrance

*Edit: What is up with all these major content creators discussing topics right before I do? 😂 I wrote this post two weeks ago, but then Ben Milton from Questing Beast made a video on Encumbrance here. Anyway, his video is really good and you should check it out.*

Encumbrance: you either use it or you don’t.

And among those tables that do use encumbrance, it seems like there are as many variant encumbrance systems as there are gaming tables.

In this article, I think through the problem of encumbrance and offer my two copper pieces on it. You can decide for yourself whether to count them as part of your inventory or not 😉

Encumbrance is one of those things I always felt like I should be tracking as a referee… but never really managed to do. In high school and college, we largely ignored it.

As I gained experience, I tried going by-the-book. I resented the finicky, large-number math that came from totaling up lots of incidental item weights. I could tell that most of my players resented it, too. I started to experiment with some variant encumbrance rules for 5e and Pathfinder, but nothing ever really seemed to stick.

Eventually, encumbrance came to the forefront of my mind during our Dolmenwood game. We decided to use advancement based on “Treasure for XP,” at which point the amount of treasure the PCs could reasonably carry became very relevant. Exactly how much was a reasonable amount of gold to fit in a backpack?

Fortunately, I wasn’t the first person to ask this question. A lot of people, much more literate in math than I, already did work to figure this out.

Ipsimus Arcanus at the Dungeon Master’s Workshop did some work to figure out what gold, silver, and copper coins would look like in real life (assuming these precious metals have the same density in your fantasy world as they do in real life).

According to Arcanus, assuming all denominations of coin are 50 coins to a pound, gold coins would be about three-quarters of an inch in diameter and 1/16^th of an inch thick. Copper and silver coins would each be the same thickness and be slightly more than an inch in diameter.

And Arcanus points out in this same article how laughably outlandish the idea of a bathtub-sized pirate chest of treasure is, given these assumptions. Such a chest would hold almost 680,000 gold coins and weigh six imperial tons!

Reading Arcanus’ article really put things into perspective for me. I realized exactly how absurd it was for a PC to carry around thousands of coins without difficulty.

And I realize it's a fantasy game about dragons and magic – it’s not exactly realistic – and if that’s the kind of game you want to run, good on you! For myself, I wanted to play a game that was intentionally fantastical – not conveniently so.

Note that the above calculations use the 5^th edition assumption of 50 coins to a pound. B/X D&D instead operates with the assumption of 10 coins to a pound, which creates coins approximately the size of a U.S. silver dollar (as described here on the Blog of Holding). Personally, I prefer the idea of 50 coins to a pound much more. It seems more “grounded.”

A bit more about old-school encumbrance: Old School Essentials (my reference point for B/X D&D), encumbrance is presented as an optional rule. OSE says that, if encumbrance is used, the amount of treasure a PC carries should always be tracked. OSE uses “coins” as a unit to determine encumbrance; every piece of equipment has its encumbrance value listed in coins. With regards to equipment, there are two ways to track it.

The first option ignores the weight of armor, weapons, and gear. PCs simply alter their movement speed dependent on 1. the armor they wear and 2. if the referee says they are carrying “a significant amount of treasure.”

The second option counts the weight of armor and weapons individually. Miscellaneous adventuring gear is typically counted as 80 coin weight. The characters then alter their movement rate based on the total weight of the treasure, weapons, and armor they carry.

Regardless of the option used, a PC can never move while carrying more than 1600 coins.

It's notable that encumbrance has little other mechanical effect that movement rate. Obviously, the referee would be within their rights to include other effects, as necessary. But encumbrance doesn't penalize attack rolls or saving throws, rules-as-written. 

I bring all of this up to emphasize how, in B/X D&D, the entire point of encumbrance was to moderate how much treasure the PCs could carry. In each of the rules variants above, the thing that gets measured with the most granularity is the treasure the PCs find. Hell - encumbrance itself is even measured in “coins,” rather than pounds.

In my mind, encumbrance likely diminished in importance at gaming tables once treasure no longer provided the primary means of advancement. When “gold for XP” became “combat for XP,” counting how much stuff you carried became much less important. And I'm not the only one who thinks this - Jospeh Mohr suggested something similar in his post here.

Furthermore – but perhaps less importantly – I also think the diminishing importance of encumbrance happened alongside an increase in the abilities of players. Once light became a cantrip player characters could cast an unlimited number of times per day, the number of torches or amount of oil you carried didn’t matter as much.

Really, encumbrance and inventory systems belong in a game about careful resource management and exploration (such as old-school D&D), not games about action heroes going around and beating up bad guys.

As another tangential thought, I wanted to add that encumbrance (and counting coins) makes gems and jewelry that much more important. When you actually care about how much coins weigh, they become one of the least efficient ways to carry treasure. Gems and jewelry are much more “value-dense,” by comparison. And that invites you (as the referee) to include other, more interesting forms of treasure for players to find and claim.

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So, you’ve decided you want to track encumbrance. How should you do it?

I don’t know. It probably depends on the rules system you use and your personal preference.

The system I use presently use is this:

·         Provided they have a backpack, each PC possesses a number of Slots equal to their Strength score. PCs without a backpack have half as many slots.

·         Most items take up one Slot. Especially heavy or bulky items may occupy more, at the referee’s discretion. Light armor takes one, medium armor two, and heavy armor three.

·         Small items (ex. torches, scrolls, rations) may be bundled into groups of 3 to a slot. (You could do 5 to a slot, if you’re feeling generous).

·         A Slot holds up to 250 coins.

·         Incidental items (ex. a base layer of clothes, jewelry, gems) do not occupy a slot unless carried in large quantities.

For characters who carry more Slots of stuff than they have available, I use a variant of 5e encumbrance. If you carry more stuff than you have available slots, you are encumbered, which means your speed is halved and you have disadvantage on any d20 roll using Strength or Dexterity. Carrying stuff occupying than twice the number of Slots you have overburdens you, which means you automatically fail those rolls and can’t move.

Furthermore, I also use a “silver standard” as described at Delta’s D&D Hotspot. Essentially, I take all treasure values listed in OSE/LL and either 1. divide them by 10 or 2. move them to the next-lowest denomination (ex. changing silver to copper). I convert currency as 1 gold = 10 silver = 100 copper. We count XP in terms of silver pieces acquired, not gold pieces.

This basically allows me to award the same “value” of treasure with much less physical space for player characters. Fifty gold coins in a silver standard gives them the same XP as 500 gold coins rules-as-written.

It creates a very different feel for the game, when finding a few gold pieces is a big deal. It’s a sort of “pulpy” thing I really like.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about encumbrance. I hope reading all of this wasn’t too much of a burden 😉

Kidnap the Archpriest: Review

BACKGROUND & SUMMARY

The players are adventurers hired to Kidnap the Archpriest. They’ve got to get into his castle, nab the old man, get out, and get paid.

This “heist-style” adventure is divided into three main parts: developing the plan, capturing the Archpriest, and trying to get away. Among the resources included are a map and description of “fantasy Rome,” a keyed map of the castle, write-ups and timetables for each major NPC, and some advice for designing your own heists.

This adventure was written by Skerples of Coins and Scrolls, whom I’ve mentioned in reverence several times on this blog – particularly for the Tomb of the Serpent King. Since I’m writing a review of Skerples’ work, perhaps Skerples will read this post? In which case, I’ll likely freak out and faint on my computer like a fan girl.

Upon writing this review, I’ve run this adventure twice: once as part of an ongoing campaign and once for another group as a standalone adventure. Also, this review contains spoilers. You probably shouldn’t read it if you plan on kidnapping the archpriest yourself.

GOOD THINGS

The writing is compact and punchy. It describes exactly what you need to know to evoke locations and voice NPCs. There’s few wasted words and nothing glaringly missing.

In the same vein, this adventure seems designed with “ease of use” in mind. Entries in the castle key have pull-out maps on each page, so you can see what’s described. Advice for the referee is solid and written in conversational style. The adventure itself is well-formatted, with info contained to single pages and few bleed-overs.

The NPCs are flavorful. There’s intrigue, deception, and conflict ripe for exploitation.

Overall, the adventure is fun. As you’re reading, you can sense the impending fun (and chaos – but the fun kind of chaos) waiting to happen.

I also think it’s important to recognize the adventure’s originality. I’ve never read or played another adventure like it. And the “fresh air” this adventure brings is definitely a good thing about it. The novelty will likely bring joy to your players… unless you’re already playing a game that features heists all the time? But who does that?

I also appreciate the advice Skerples provided at the end about creating your own heists. I think heists are an under-utilized genre of adventure and would love to see more of them. Two thumbs up for creativity and innovation 👍👍

Across two independent playthroughs, both groups of players arrived at the same plan: to incapacitate the Archpriest and carry him out like a sack of potatoes. See above

CRITIQUES

Despite all the tools Skerples provides for ease-of-use, I still found this adventure incredibly challenging to run.

Part of this challenge may lie in my weaknesses as a referee. I tend to consider myself “good” at running dungeon crawls and wilderness exploration. However, I struggle with voicing NPCs, evoking cities, and managing lots of information at once.

This adventure involves all those things I’m bad at.

I think another part of this challenge comes from the sheer complexity of the adventure. This adventure has more for the referee to “keep track of” than other adventures. It’s generally well-formatted and well-organized information… but it’s still a lot of information.

For example, the Castle St. Logan isn’t your typical keyed map. It’s a map whose contents change every hour of every in-game day, meaning you must constantly refer to the text to see what’s in each room AND cross-reference that entry with the in-game time. This addition may not seem like that big of a difference, but it really seemed to compound on itself during play – particularly when trying to figure out who might be in adjacent rooms and react when the PCs inevitably did something stupid.

The keyed map of Castle St. Logan made this process harder to do “on the fly” because it lists each NPC that might be in the room, followed by the times they might be there. In my opinion, it’d be better to give a list of timespans in the room, then the occupants of the room during each timespan. While running the game, I’m don't scan the map to find a specific name - I can look on a specific NPC's timetable, should I need to find them. When I'm looking at the map, I’m looking to see who’s in each room at the present time. This change would keep me from having to scan each NPC’s entry for the present time; instead, I could read the current time and see which NPC’s are there. Perhaps there’s a compelling reason the info’s not already organized this way (i.e. it could take up more space on the page), but it’s something that might have made running the adventure easier.

With regards to the complexity of this adventure: if you choose to purchase and run it, I advise you to diligently prepare for it. When you think you’ve prepared, keep preparing until you’ve over-prepared. It could just be my own incompetence, but I don’t perceive this as an adventure you can effectively “pick up and play” the same day. To run it well, I think you need to read it in advance more than once and develop diligent notes. I made mistakes while running it both times (which detracted from the experience and made the adventure more difficult), despite all the studying I did beforehand.

Furthermore, during your preparation, be sure to take your campaign setting and rules system into account. I’ve seen other reviews suggest this module can be used with any system or campaign setting, which is perhaps a bit misleading. It’s true you can adapt this module to any system, but Skerples directly states in the text, “This module isn’t about spellcasting clerics.”

It makes a big difference whether the archpriest is a defenseless old man or a 12^th-level cleric in B/X D&D. Fifth Edition makes magic an even greater concern. Access to spells (ex. alarm, zone of truth, disguise self, fly, invisibility) and magic items would drastically change the castle’s defenses and require significant adaptation. Skerples concurs in the text, stating that the referee needs to add defenses to the castle to accommodate the system – and I think this point is worth emphasizing for any potential buyer, as the low-magic setting means this adventure takes more work to “drop” into an existing campaign with more magic. Perhaps the simple (but cheap) work-around would be to say that the castle is surrounded by an anti-magic field? I suppose that saves you prep time as a referee, at the expense of feeling like a cop-out.

FINAL & FORWARD-THINKING THOUGHTS

Acknowledging the challenges I faced, I started to think about the tools I needed to help me run it more effectively. Exactly what problems did I have? What could I do to alleviate them? If I ran this adventure a third time, what would I do to help me have an easier time of it?

After running it the first time, one ease-of-use tool I made for myself was a single-page keyed map for each level of the Castle. I’ve included an image of a level below, with some text intentionally omitted to protect Skerples’ copyright. The adventure already included room descriptions next to zoomed-in pull-outs of each level, such that maps and descriptions of levels 1 and 2 are spread across three pages each (six pages total). The first time I ran the adventure, I found myself interrupting the tension of the heist by page-flipping and cross-referencing as the PCs moved from room to room.

The one-page labelled map came in handy the second time I ran the adventure and seems like something that would be beneficial for future heists. Even the simple arrows connecting the descriptions to the rooms themselves saved me a few seconds from scanning down the numbered entries. Those seconds really seem to matter at the table. There might be a reason such a map wasn’t included in the official product, but it’s something I’d recommend to a referee planning to run the adventure.

Along that same line of thinking, I like the idea of exploring new and innovative ways to present the information about the heist. A heist will inevitably be a complex and interwoven adventure, I think. However, given that the heist is a fundamentally different type of adventure from a traditional location- or event-based adventure, I’m wondering if there are other ways to present the information that may better suit this adventure style? One thought that comes to mind would be an NPC map, like the one below provided for a one-page dungeon submitted to the contest in 2012.

"A Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard" by Kelvin Green

There’s also the above NPC map provided in Woodfall by Lazy Litches Loot, which could be an interesting way to organize the information about the Cardinals or denizens of the Sober Monk Inn. For example, Cardinal Delver has an illegitimate son named Thormund. However, this information is listed only in Thormund’s description – not Cardinal Delver’s.

Skerples provides an “NPC Summary” on page 28, but I got little use from it because it only includes roleplaying cues for the NPCs. A single-page reference sheet with more information about them would be helpful. I’m imagining a chart with NPC names along the top and rows of consistent information about each: their persona, reasons to help the PCs, reasons to oppose the PCs, the help they could provide, and the hindrances they could introduce. I'd make such a sheet for myself, were I to run it again.

The same thing could be done for entrances to the castle. The columns could list four ways into the castle (ex. Main Gate, Side Gate, Covered Bridge, Climbing the Walls), and rows could list what activity PCs observe at each, the entrance's weaknesses, and the entrance's defenses.

To be clear, I’m not saying I necessarily expected this adventure to include any of these things. These methods of organizing and presenting information aren't standard. They might only benefit someone as incompetent as myself.

However, reading and running this adventure has me thinking about – and questioning – the standard, “conventional” ways of presenting information in adventures. And I’m wondering if the "traditional" ways of presenting information in adventures are the most relevant and useful ways to present information for heists. It seems to me like this new kind of adventure could result in some new kinds of information management for referees.

CONCLUSION: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 Stars

Definitely worth the $5 price tag on DriveThruRPG. Even if you never get a chance to run it, it’s worth reading simply to appreciate and learn from its design. If you do run it, read it through several times in advance and adapt the adventure for your chosen system. It’s written for a very low-magic setting and needs some thought to make sense for a setting with spellcasting clerics. If you’re like me, it will significantly challenge you as a referee. It’s not an easy adventure to run, but worth the time and energy to do so because it’s fun, original, and unique.