Designing a Table-Top RPG: Equipment
What things do characters use and for what purpose?
Gear and equipment are important parts of TTRPGs. What sorts of things does your character begin with, acquire, use, break, lose, and wield? You have to determine what role does equipment play in your game. How important are ‘things’? What differentiates one weapon from another, if anything? Does armor provide a dodge bonus or damage reduction? How do other items affect the game world? Can you climb a wall with a rope? Must you have a bandage/first aid kit to heal? Do items assist in resolution rolls, provide bonuses or automatic successes in certain situations? Are items just narrative, mechanical or both?
I struggled with this in making Niv Lova. Knowing I wanted it to be about scavenging made me want lots of different things you could find and use. But then I had to think of useful items, consider their mechanical benefit, and determine their scarcity. How difficult should they be to find? It’s cool to have lots of items with unique bonuses but it also means more stuff to track, more to consider when playing, and more book-keeping overall. When you want to keep a system simple, it can be tricky to think of different benefits an item can have, because there’s only so many ‘bonuses’ you can apply. A more complicated system with lots of different mechanics provides lots of ways/opportunities for bonuses.
Of course, you can go OSR route and just have the item be what it is, leaving it up to the player(or table) to determine how to use it or how it might be beneficial. A rope helps you climb or tie someone up. A backpack lets you carry more stuff. Does it need to be more granular, more mechanical? It depends on your system and your preferences. I tried to find a balance between not just having a bunch of junk, but enough interesting things to scavenge and find to keep it interesting. It’s tough to find the balance. Every time I would think of a new item I could introduce, I had to change the gear tables.
Weapons and armor have to be considered as well. Do weapons each have a unique bonus? What are the different types? How much damage do they do? What differentiates them? Some systems, like Dungeonworld, the weapon doesn’t matter, it’s the class that determines how much damage you do, with the weapon just being fluff/narrative. The weapons and armor rules all play into how deadly the game is going to be.
For Niv Lova, I mostly stuck with Kal Arath’s weapon rules, keeping armor simple, and breaking weapons into simple ‘types’. I introduced guns as minimally as I could, trying to balance between realism and gameplay. I knew I wanted guns to be fairly common, but ammo to be fairly rare.
This is a short post but I have been actively working on the Niv Lova final version! Everything from the playtest has been transferred/updated in the final version. Now I’ll be looking to add some optional Faction rules and other fun things that have been simmering in my brain for a bit.
What are some systems with equipment that you find interesting, evocative, or used particularly well? What’s your personal preference when it comes to armor, weapons and equipment?
Thanks to Andrew Wylde, BuddhaRandom, and Eric, for being paid subscribers. Paid subscribers will receive the final pdf version of Niv Lova, free of charge, when it’s available.
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I like fairly light rules, and recently have most enjoyed Kai-Arath - and I've been impressed with your own (Niv Lova) rules for scavenging and repairing equipment, which are good both mechanically and thematically.