15 minutes ago, RickInVA said:

I think of pictures I have seen of Arctic explorers with packs that are, literally, 10 feet tall. It can be done, but takes some skill.

I'd say that they are overencumbered, they just have a high enough Athletics skill to be able to handle it. They aren't trying to sprint to cover while firing at stormtroopers.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

What's oggdude's got to do with anything? Most people don't use it, and I actually dislike it for a variety of reasons (I'm sure it's a fine program, it's just not for me). That's an odd reason for objecting to a houserule.

You may not see an issue, but I do.

Death by a thousand cuts.... there's so many fiddly bits in ffg star wars already that the oggdude generator is almost a necessity. Oggdude's generator reduces the time to design a character build plan from O(days) to O(hours), having 2 (and as of march 2021, 3) kids I don't have time to build characters without it, and half of my gaming group has multiple kids.

And if you aren't going to use oggdude's generator are you handing out printed pages of house rules (I know you like house rules)?

But if you like it more power to you.

3 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Death by a thousand cuts.... there's so many fiddly bits in ffg star wars already that the oggdude generator is almost a necessity. Oggdude's generator reduces the time to design a character build plan from O(days) to O(hours), having 2 (and as of march 2021, 3) kids I don't have time to build characters without it, and half of my gaming group has multiple kids.

It also depends on how much XP you're giving the characters. A lot of your answers to various threads comes down to particular paradigms or exact circumstances, rather than being broadly applicable.

I can write out a starting character in SWSheets or on paper in about 30 minutes, and almost all of that is decision-making.
A Heroic-level character takes quite a bit longer, but again that's mostly just decision-making.
And since I don't go for optimal, that decision-making is typically story-based.
From then on, we just grow the characters organically.

7 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

And if you aren't going to use oggdude's generator are you handing out printed pages of house rules (I know you like house rules)?

I don't use Oggdude's at all, for anything.

In person, we do all of it on paper. Paper character sheet, paper talent sheets. Aside from me (because I sorta am one), we don't use any devices.

As for houserules, there aren't actually that many. Most of them simply modify what I do as a GM to the point where I can't actually list off all the houserules (though I know them when they come up). Of the ones that actually require the players, it's pretty much just this new Encumbrance houserule (potentially) and adjusting Cortosis to only block 1 point of Breach.
We've also fooled around with various houserules for ships and vehicles, but we don't use that facet all that much and so nothing has stuck. In the time since we last got together, I've assembled a more comprehensive adjustment to ship and vehicle operations that I'm going to run by them (we'd need a cheat-sheet for that).

Anyway, pretty much all of that is in our heads. I have a couple "world-building" houserules like the Operational Costs houserules (not my own) and the Notoriety etc. tables I came up with that I need cheatsheets for, but that's about it.

4 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

It also depends on how much XP you're giving the characters. A lot of your answers to various threads comes down to particular paradigms or exact circumstances, rather than being broadly applicable.

I can write out a starting character in SWSheets or on paper in about 30 minutes, and almost all of that is decision-making.
A Heroic-level character takes quite a bit longer, but again that's mostly just decision-making.
And since I don't go for optimal, that decision-making is typically story-based.
From then on, we just grow the characters organically.

I don't use Oggdude's at all, for anything.

In person, we do all of it on paper. Paper character sheet, paper talent sheets. Aside from me (because I sorta am one), we don't use any devices.

As for houserules, there aren't actually that many. Most of them simply modify what I do as a GM to the point where I can't actually list off all the houserules (though I know them when they come up). Of the ones that actually require the players, it's pretty much just this new Encumbrance houserule (potentially) and adjusting Cortosis to only block 1 point of Breach.
We've also fooled around with various houserules for ships and vehicles, but we don't use that facet all that much and so nothing has stuck. In the time since we last got together, I've assembled a more comprehensive adjustment to ship and vehicle operations that I'm going to run by them (we'd need a cheat-sheet for that).

Anyway, pretty much all of that is in our heads. I have a couple "world-building" houserules like the Operational Costs houserules (not my own) and the Notoriety etc. tables I came up with that I need cheatsheets for, but that's about it.

I've said repeatedly that if you found value in your house rule more power to you. *I* (as in my situation) didn't, but YMMV.

Heroic xp is a minimum in my gaming group, historically more like 300 earned xp. I'm 44, have a wife and kids, a full time job, and am representative of my gaming group, *we* don't have time for zero to hero *before* getting into the meat of the story. When we were meeting in person the plan was to game once a month but it averaged more like once every two months, and was about a 3.5 hour session.

I strongly suspect that I'm at a *very* different life phase than you are, and that's ok. It doesn't make me wrong and you right or vice versa, different strokes for different folks.

Not all rpg ruleset are for all people, there's a large segment of the gaming population that didn't like D&D 4e because it was largely a complicated miniatures game with "too many" fiddly bits. That didn't make the people who enjoyed it wrong. But wotc then went in a direction of simple with 5e/next to appeal to a broader segment of gamers.

I learned a similar lesson when designing my own rpg ruleset from the ground up (first take was a disaster, second take was good but got significant revision based on player feedback... stopped in the middle of the revision when my son was born 3 years ago and really haven't touched it since then)

Bottom line is that as simple as possible has value, and admittedly it's not for everyone.

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I've said repeatedly that if you found value in your house rule more power to you. *I* (as in my situation) didn't, but YMMV.

Saying "I don't like it because" is different than saying "it's bad because."

Maybe you meant it as the former, but it sounded like the latter. The former is fine by me. If you don't like it, don't use it. I'm not trying to convince you to play a certain way.

3 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Heroic xp is a minimum in my gaming group, historically more like 300 earned xp. *we* don't have time for zero to hero *before* getting into the meat of the story.

We get into the meat of the story from the get-go, regardless of XP level. You just have a different style and I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that it sounds like you're projecting your situation onto the rule set as a whole.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Saying "I don't like it because" is different than saying "it's bad because."

Maybe you meant it as the former, but it sounded like the latter. The former is fine by me. If you don't like it, don't use it. I'm not trying to convince you to play a certain way.

We get into the meat of the story from the get-go, regardless of XP level. You just have a different style and I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that it sounds like you're projecting your situation onto the rule set as a whole.

The electronic medium tends to amplify the perceived offensiveness of comments.

I never said it was a *bad* rule (if you care to quote me as saying otherwise go ahead), what I said was I saw trivial benefit for trivial cost (which is the most neutral statement one can make) but your mileage may vary (which I abbreviated multiple times as "ymmv").

To explain why I choose to leave out neutral rules, I commented that I believe most gamers prefer systems with the minimum neccessary complexity, so as a design philosophy whenever a rule isn't *necessary* my *preference* is to leave it out to avoid the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. I also said that ffg star wars has a large number of fiddly bits, by which I meant to convey (but perhaps this was unclear) it already has a large number of tiny cuts, in order to explain my personal rather strict adherence to the *necessary* clause.

But for anyone who derives significant benefit from this houserule, or just wants an rpg system to be a universe simulator, i said by all means use it and more power to you.

I thought I was clear on that, if not I apologize.

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I never said it was a *bad* rule (if you care to quote me as saying otherwise go ahead), what I said was I saw trivial benefit for trivial cost (which is the most neutral statement one can make) but your mileage may vary (which I abbreviated multiple times as "ymmv").

Depends what you mean by "bad." By "bad" I basically meant a rule that doesn't work well either mechanically or in practice.

This in particular is what stuck out to me:

18 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

I just don't see it as a big enough (i.e. non trivial) issue to justify the added complexity of fixing (not worth the trouble of modding gear in ogg dude's generator and getting all the players to use the same mods in their copy of ogg dude's generator, not worth the added complexity of manual tracking either) but if you do, more power to you.

That sounds like you are saying "it isn't good enough because" rather than "I don't like it because." That's why I objected to the example. It sounds like a blanket statement rather than a particular case.

6 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

To explain why I choose to leave out neutral rules, I commented that I believe most gamers prefer systems with the minimum neccessary complexity, so as a design philosophy whenever a rule isn't *necessary* my *preference* is to leave it out to avoid the proverbial death by a thousand cuts. I also said that ffg star wars has a large number of fiddly bits, by which I meant to convey (but perhaps this was unclear) it already has a large number of tiny cuts , in order to explain my personal rather strict adherence to the *necessary* clause.

But for anyone who derives significant benefit from this houserule, or just wants an rpg system to be a universe simulator, i said by all means use it and more power to you.

I thought I was clear on that, if not I apologize.

The thing is, you may have been saying that "I don't personally like the rules and here's why, but you can use them if you like them" and that was all you intended, but when I hear that it sounds like "these rules aren't actually good or necessary, but if you think they'll be good, go ahead and use them anyway" because I wasn't asking you to use them. So if I'm asking for an objective take on mechanical/conceptual matters, I'm likely to interpret the answers that way unless they are explicitly stated as otherwise. (e.g. "I wouldn't personally use these for a variety of reasons, but that's mechanically sound and accomplishes its objectives.")

I did not understand that you meant it " already has a large number of tiny cuts." Whether that was your fault or mine, I don't know.

I'll change the topic slightly... I think the RAW encumbrance system is too complex/has too many fiddly bits.

My preference would be for characters to have a carrying capacity set solely by brawn. Backpacks etc. don't increase it, and characters just get whatever containers they narratively need to stow/carry their gear as a handwave.

To answer the question of why a PC would spend credits on gear, like a backpack, that only had a narrative but not mechanical benefit. Well money is also narrative in my system, it's not a resource it's a skill.

You roll your wealth die as part of the poil to buy something of narrative value (e.g. to bribe someone). But for game mechanical stuff like weapons and armor you spend character points because it's part of the character's capabilities (whether you can shoot stuff down with high energy light because you have heat vision vs a laser pistol is a rather immaterial).

If you say wealth has no value then... you can also use it in most skill checks e.g. by renting a garage to fix a car you get to use the wealth skill on a mechanics check. I had a PC use the wealth skill on a stealth check because it was narratively appropriate.

But my preferred encumbrance rule although dramatically simpler than RAW is too big a change to the rules, which is why I wouldn't do it.

Edit: Not solely based on brawn.... the number of arms would have a minor impact.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Depends what you mean by "bad." By "bad" I basically meant a rule that doesn't work well either mechanically or in practice.

This in particular is what stuck out to me:

That sounds like you are saying "it isn't good enough because" rather than "I don't like it because." That's why I objected to the example. It sounds like a blanket statement rather than a particular case.

The thing is, you may have been saying that "I don't personally like the rules and here's why, but you can use them if you like them" and that was all you intended, but when I hear that it sounds like "these rules aren't actually good or necessary, but if you think they'll be good, go ahead and use them anyway" because I wasn't asking you to use them. So if I'm asking for an objective take on mechanical/conceptual matters, I'm likely to interpret the answers that way unless they are explicitly stated as otherwise. (e.g. "I wouldn't personally use these for a variety of reasons, but that's mechanically sound and accomplishes its objectives.")

I did not understand that you meant it " already has a large number of tiny cuts." Whether that was your fault or mine, I don't know.

There's no such thing as an objective take on an rpg system/house rule, different people like different things. By definition it's subjective, and you were asking for opinions . So I don't understand the definition of an "object take" in this context unless you mean majority opinion, which means take all opinions and tally the votes.

Btw my comments in this thread have gotten enough likes to say there are others who agree with me (not enough to be a consensus mind you).

12 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

There's no such thing as an objective take on an rpg system/house rule, different people like different things. By definition it's subjective, and you were asking for opinions . So I don't understand the definition of an "object take" in this context unless you mean majority opinion, which means take all opinions and tally the votes.

Yes there is. There are objective standards of good and bad for everything. You can like something that is objectively bad, and you can dislike something that is objectively good.
As far as RPGs, here's an example: A while back, I watched an in-depth tutorial on Traveller. I quickly determined that it was not for me, and that I had no interest in playing it. However, I was impressed with the rules and thought they were quite sound.

In this case, "objectively" simply means looking at the rules and determining if they are mechanically sound and fulfill their purpose, without personal preference. If you want to debate the concepts behind it or state your personal disinterest, that's fine too. There we get into the more subjective area of need and want.

18 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

Btw my comments in this thread have gotten enough likes to say there are others who agree with me (not enough to be a consensus mind you).

No, nowhere near enough, and like counts are kinda irrelevant anyway. Call it the internet version of tyranny of the majority.

45 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yes there is. There are objective standards of good and bad for everything. You can like something that is objectively bad, and you can dislike something that is objectively good.
As far as RPGs, here's an example: A while back, I watched an in-depth tutorial on Traveller. I quickly determined that it was not for me, and that I had no interest in playing it. However, I was impressed with the rules and thought they were quite sound.

In this case, "objectively" simply means looking at the rules and determining if they are mechanically sound and fulfill their purpose, without personal preference. If you want to debate the concepts behind it or state your personal disinterest, that's fine too. There we get into the more subjective area of need and want.

No, nowhere near enough, and like counts are kinda irrelevant anyway. Call it the internet version of tyranny of the majority.

Okay...

Your rule moves the game away from what it is trying to be (a narrative game) and towards what you want it to be but is not: a decriptive game. Therefore the rule is objectively bad. Whether or not it makes the game more or less fun or playable for you personally doesn't matter. The rule goes agaisnt the design philosophy of the game. If the rule is objectively good than it follows that the game as a whole is objectively bad.

54 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Yes there is. There are objective standards of good and bad for everything. You can like something that is objectively bad, and you can dislike something that is objectively good.
As far as RPGs, here's an example: A while back, I watched an in-depth tutorial on Traveller. I quickly determined that it was not for me, and that I had no interest in playing it. However, I was impressed with the rules and thought they were quite sound.

In this case, "objectively" simply means looking at the rules and determining if they are mechanically sound and fulfill their purpose, without personal preference. If you want to debate the concepts behind it or state your personal disinterest, that's fine too. There we get into the more subjective area of need and want.

No, nowhere near enough, and like counts are kinda irrelevant anyway. Call it the internet version of tyranny of the majority.

You're ignoring or not aware of the meta question/decision of what qualities/goals are more desirable than others... if a rule accomplishes its stated purpose/goal but someone else disagree that it should have been a goal at all, the situation in question here, it's entirely a subjective thing.

By analogy your looking at tactics to accomplish a goal and I'm looking at the strategy of which goals to pursue.

My goal is minimum neccessary complexity for tolerable realism, yours seems to be "maximum" realism for tolerable complexity. That is the *subjective* discussion I've been engaged in.

Regarding the merits of designing subjectively or objectively... a game company wants to design the game that will make them the most money, which means selling the most supplements, which means not exceeding the level of complexity that the majority of gamers find enjoyable. I.e. gamers vote with their wallet so design to please them. But maximally pleasing gamers isn't the objective, making money it, so a company wants to continually release fiddly bits until gamers give up on the system.

10 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

Okay...

Your rule moves the game away from what it is trying to be (a narrative game) and towards what you want it to be but is not: a decriptive game. Therefore the rule is objectively bad. Whether or not it makes the game more or less fun or playable for you personally doesn't matter. The rule goes agaisnt the design philosophy of the game. If the rule is objectively good than it follows that the game as a whole is objectively bad.

I'm in the narrative camp.

2 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

You're ignoring or not aware of the meta question/decision of what qualities/goals are more desirable than others... if a rule accomplishes its stated purpose/goal but someone else disagree that it should have been a goal at all, the situation in question here, it's entirely a subjective thing.

By analogy your looking at tactics to accomplish a goal and I'm looking at the strategy of which goals to pursue.

My goal is minimum neccessary complexity for tolerable realism, yours seems to be "maximum" realism for tolerable complexity. That is the *subjective* discussion I've been engaged in.

3 minutes ago, micheldebruyn said:

Okay...

Your rule moves the game away from what it is trying to be (a narrative game) and towards what you want it to be but is not: a decriptive game. Therefore the rule is objectively bad. Whether or not it makes the game more or less fun or playable for you personally doesn't matter. The rule goes agaisnt the design philosophy of the game. If the rule is objectively good than it follows that the game as a whole is objectively bad.

What your goal is, what my goal is, those are subjective. Whether one goal is better than the other has an objective standard, and that's not the point right now (and is a pointless argument to have).

However, you are missing the point. The point was that I was not asking whether you would like to use the rule, so your personal situation is irrelevant to the rule. (See: " I actually dislike it for a variety of reasons [I'm sure it's a fine program, it's just not for me]." as an example of that principle in action). The "objectivity" I was talking about was in regards to two things: "Is the rule mechanically sound?" and "Does it fulfill its purpose?"

Saying "it goes against the game's design philosophy" is a perfectly valid argument. It's one I disagree with (for a couple reasons), but it's a discussion that we can reasonably have. I'm not exactly shooting for "realism" here, just something that "makes sense" and is balanced.

2 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

What your goal is, what my goal is, those are subjective. Whether one goal is better than the other has an objective standard, and that's not the point right now (and is a pointless argument to have).

However, you are missing the point. The point was that I was not asking whether you would like to use the rule, so your personal situation is irrelevant to the rule. (See: " I actually dislike it for a variety of reasons [I'm sure it's a fine program, it's just not for me]." as an example of that principle in action). The "objectivity" I was talking about was in regards to two things: "Is the rule mechanically sound?" and "Does it fulfill its purpose?"

Saying "it goes against the game's design philosophy" is a perfectly valid argument. It's one I disagree with (for a couple reasons), but it's a discussion that we can reasonably have. I'm not exactly shooting for "realism" here, just something that "makes sense" and is balanced.

The only "objective" standard for what the right set of goals for an rpg is what gamers will pay the most money for, i.e. majorly opinion which is i(the aggregate of) nherently subjective opinion.

In real life I'm an engineer who focuses on the algorithmic/computational side of things, optimization/uncertainty quantification that kind of thing. In my job I function as an applied mathematician. The most important part of any problem is formulating it, e.g. picking what you want to optimize for under which constraints, another example is gathering requirements from stakeholders and formulating them in such a way that measuring success or failure can be objectively evaluated. I've seen systems that meet spec but are poorly rated by customers because the spec didn't meet the needs of the customer.

Regarding your position on objectivivity subjectivity...

you don't seem familiar with bayesian statistics, i.e. subjective probability. If I were a statistician I'd fall in the objective bayesian category... someone who believes that priors shouldn't be whimsically chosen but rather they should precisely reflect the users knowledge about a problem, differ users with different knowledge should use different priors.

On 10/17/2020 at 7:49 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Okay, then I disagree. A soldier carrying a rucksack, a rifle, and a ton of extra gear is carrying a lot. Per the rules, he is likely unencumbered given how backpacks work. That's "carrying a lot."

If a farmboy is walking around with a comlink, a grapple, and a lightsaber, that's not carrying a lot.

I'm not talking mechanical carrying a lot, I'm talking actual carrying a lot.

Well when you play Jedi, you need a lot less gear and Encumbrance. If you took a look at your PCs, you'd see that most of them have more encumbrance than Brawn+5 (even the Jedi, but especially the clones).

You have a point regarding it becoming less narratively useful, but when I put a number on how much a backpack can carry, that's in broad mechanical strokes for the sort of gear you note on your sheet. Sundries and incidentals don't count. It's not like I'm accounting for every pocket on a backpack. I'm just putting a mechanical measure on how much it contributes.

Here's an example of an easily achievable pack mule:
Imperial Army Backpack, Load-Bearing Gear, Utility Belt, 3 Brawn=18 Encumbrance
That's pretty absurd, in my opinion. To be able to carry that much without any sort of penalty?
In my method, you'd still be able to carry that much, but the gear would take up 5 Encumbrance (3+1+1), leaving you with 3 for carrying something before you're over your threshold because of how much stuff you've got on your body, even before you start loading it up. This encourages players to pack less, which makes it more "Star Warsy" in my opinion, as they really don't carry all that much.

If you don't like the idea of specifying how much you can carry, we could always just split it up into Encumbrance Threshold and "Carrying Capacity."

So you'd have an ET of 8 and a CC of 15. In other words, you can stuff 15 Encumbrance worth of stuff into your various pockets, but can only carry 3 more encumbrance than that on your person.

I was in the army and I disagree with your assessment. When properly worn, a fully loaded rucksack is relatively easy to carry we used to march over ten kilometers with a 40+ pound ruck sack on our backs. It did not slow us down. Infantry Soldiers often fight with that much or more gear on, with very little negative effect. That is what the LBE and ruck sack are designed to do, make it easy to carry a lot of gear. Every day I wear a pack loaded with over 20 pounds of books, and ride a bike over 15 miles a day round trip with it on my back, with little to no negative effect. I agree with Elias, this is unnecessary and overly complicated for this system.

7 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

The only "objective" standard for what the right set of goals for an rpg is what gamers will pay the most money for, i.e. majorly opinion which is i(the aggregate of) nherently subjective opinion.

8 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

I've seen systems that meet spec but are poorly rated by customers because the spec didn't meet the needs of the customer.

That's where you come to the question of the purpose or goal.

You cannot design an "ultimate airplane" because there are multiple different roles and any "stat" (speed, durability, weapons loadout, cargo capacity, etc.) you choose to prioritize has trade-offs. However, there are objective standards inside those categories. Sometimes the lines are blurred, but generally you are able to say "X is objectively better than Y in Z category.
Sometimes determining an objective standard is a big (nigh unanswerable) question of its own, as you have to figure out what metric is supposed to be reached. Popularity, ease of use, level of fanaticism engendered in its proponents, minimal dislike, etc.

1 minute ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I was in the army and I disagree with your assessment. When properly worn, a fully loaded rucksack is relatively easy to carry we used to march over ten kilometers with a 40+ pound ruck sack on our backs. It did not slow us down. Infantry Soldiers often fight with that much or more gear on, with very little negative effect. That is what the LBE and ruck sack are designed to do, make it easy to carry a lot of gear. Every day I wear a pack loaded with over 20 pounds of books, and ride a bike over 15 miles a day round trip with it on my back, with little to no negative effect.

Nothing I said contradicts that.

34 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's where you come to the question of the purpose or goal.

You cannot design an "ultimate airplane" because there are multiple different roles and any "stat" (speed, durability, weapons loadout, cargo capacity, etc.) you choose to prioritize has trade-offs. However, there are objective standards inside those categories. Sometimes the lines are blurred, but generally you are able to say "X is objectively better than Y in Z category.
Sometimes determining an objective standard is a big (nigh unanswerable) question of its own, as you have to figure out what metric is supposed to be reached. Popularity, ease of use, level of fanaticism engendered in its proponents, minimal dislike, etc.

Nothing I said contradicts that.

If you can't answer the question of what the goal is/should be, trying to meet it is pointless.

My preferred objective function is minimal complexity for tolerable realism.

Yours seems to be maximum realism for tolerable complexity.

This is the meta discussion we've been having for over a page now.

Whatever the correct objective function for this game may be, Tramp and I agree (has **** frozen over or is it objective truth? , 😱 😈 😝 ) that your house rule is more complicated than necessary. Tramp and I are old friends in real life who disagree on almost everything and argue like an old married couple.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's where you come to the question of the purpose or goal.

You cannot design an "ultimate airplane" because there are multiple different roles and any "stat" (speed, durability, weapons loadout, cargo capacity, etc.) you choose to prioritize has trade-offs. However, there are objective standards inside those categories. Sometimes the lines are blurred, but generally you are able to say "X is objectively better than Y in Z category.
Sometimes determining an objective standard is a big (nigh unanswerable) question of its own, as you have to figure out what metric is supposed to be reached. Popularity, ease of use, level of fanaticism engendered in its proponents, minimal dislike, etc.

Nothing I said contradicts that.

The problem is that by your house rule, the ease with which a soldier wearing a ruck sack and all his great would become heavily encumbered. Your rule complicates things way more than necessary. Also remember that modern ruck sacks and Expanded LBEs are designed with multiple attachment points with which to attach even more gear to the outside of the pack, without increasing the encumbrance of the pack much, if at all. This includes significantly larger items which could never fit inside the pack proper.

9 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The problem is that by your house rule, the ease with which a soldier wearing a ruck sack and all his great would become heavily encumbered. Your rule complicates things way more than necessary. Also remember that modern ruck sacks and Expanded LBEs are designed with multiple attachment points with which to attach even more gear to the outside of the pack, without increasing the encumbrance of the pack much, if at all. This includes significantly larger items which could never fit inside the pack proper.

That's a very good argument for dropping the max item size limit on the backpack/military pack, and something I hadn't considered. Thank you.

I also want to reiterate that the "holds X Encumbrance" is not a limit on how much you can fit into the pack narratively, only a limit on how much is carried without penalty.

8 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's a very good argument for dropping the max item size limit on the backpack/military pack, and something I hadn't considered. Thank you.

I also want to reiterate that the "holds X Encumbrance" is not a limit on how much you can fit into the pack narratively, only a limit on how much is carried without penalty.

Except that’s pretty much already covered in how the RAW handles it with how much the pack, LBE, or Utility belt adds to your encumbrance threshold.

I feel like this thread turned into something else. Are we measuring our **** sizes?

Anyway, @P-47 Thunderbolt , your design is mechanically sound and meets its desired objective. However, I think the amount that will decide to incorporate this houserule will be few. But at least they now have a solution if they feel the same as you.

Consider it a win :)

9 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Except that’s pretty much already covered in how the RAW handles it with how much the pack, LBE, or Utility belt adds to your encumbrance threshold.

True, but as far as I see, it's not his problem.

His main point was that why would a worn utility belt free you from the encumberance penalty of using a heavy object like a light repeating blaster. The system allows it, since it doesn't track slots, just simply the values, but I can see why it's breaking immersion. He wanted to address this situation, he mentioned "hoarders" and "mules" many times.

1 hour ago, Rimsen said:

His main point was that why would a worn utility belt free you from the encumberance penalty of using a heavy object

Just to be nitpicky here; load belts are very effective at distributing carried weight if you can rest some of the weight on the belt (and therefor your hips instead of your shoulders). Wearing mail armor without a belt, where the weight is carried on the shoulders, is, for example, much more tiring (and screws with your balance more) than if you strap a common belt on to anchor that weight on your hips. (I imagine that the Stormtrooper utility belt does this for the Stortrooper armor, for instance). And likewise, if you can rest a piece of equipment, like a heavy gun or whatever, partially on your hips that will make it easier to carry and move around. (Of course, you'll have to head-canon rule that "Utility Belts" have a built in "load baring belt" function, but as far as Star Wars goes that's not a very significant hand-wavy'ism ).

2 hours ago, angelman2 said:

Just to be nitpicky here; load belts are very effective at distributing carried weight if you can rest some of the weight on the belt (and therefor your hips instead of your shoulders). Wearing mail armor without a belt, where the weight is carried on the shoulders, is, for example, much more tiring (and screws with your balance more) than if you strap a common belt on to anchor that weight on your hips. (I imagine that the Stormtrooper utility belt does this for the Stortrooper armor, for instance). And likewise, if you can rest a piece of equipment, like a heavy gun or whatever, partially on your hips that will make it easier to carry and move around. (Of course, you'll have to head-canon rule that "Utility Belts" have a built in "load baring belt" function, but as far as Star Wars goes that's not a very significant hand-wavy'ism ).

Especially that we have attachments and mods that reduce the encumberance of weapons and armors. I understand your reasoning for a load bearing belt, but Utility belt isn't described that way. It shouldn't help lift you heavy objects, but RAW still does. Also backpack.