Mostly, I agree. However, part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it’s not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.

Just make your players occasionally pay for upkeep of their gear when they’re in town. This could be themes as repairs for weapons an armor, more arrows, spellcasting supplies, food, etc. This does two things. You can give them more value in rewards and it makes them feel like they’re actually adventurers, not just game characters.

Alternatively, scale rewards down. They don’t have to know about it, but if they’re not paying for supplies then they’re going to get more value than is expected (by the rules).

Or, the final option, just ignore it. It theoretically adds up to a lot of value over the course of the game, especially for spellcasting, but who cares? If you notice they have enough money that they stop worrying about it then you can do something.

In SP RPG games it’s stupid. I’m just going to make however many trips back and forth it takes to empty the dungeon anyway. Might as well let me do it in one shot so I can get on to the next thing. I get it in survival crafting type games (within reason) but no reason games like skyrim or fallout need an encumbrance mechanic when you need a fuckload of stuff to level your crafting skills.

The AI has rotted your brain man. Tracking arrows, what this entire post is about, doesn’t need a fucking LLM. It needs tally marks on a sheet of paper, at most.

Regarding inventory management in general: Why the fuck would you ever use an LLM for something you can do in Notepad? Want to be fancy? Use More Purple More Better’s editable PDF player sheet templates. You can load in sourcebook data from external sources easily and have everything from every sourcebook at your fingertips. And you can still enter custom shit like custom magical items easily.

I don’t mind encumberance that much. I think it’s necessary if you’re making any attempt at balancing the economy. Without it the player returns back to town with every bit of loot from the dungeon to sell, and the economy doesn’t matter anymore.

However, any game that has an encumberance mechanic absolutely has to have a weight/value sort and display. I don’t know why this is so hard for them to implement. Bethesda games never do, and I’m playing Tainted Grail (I’ve heard lots of good things, and it’s alright so far) and it doesn’t. With any amount of playtesting they’d get overencumbered, try to figure out what to drop and instantly realize they want to drop the highest weight/value items, and there’s no way to view this! How do you not add it?

Did reinstitution of the encoumbrance rules quell the door thieving, or just make them keep paperwork on it?

Stealing doors is easy, you just have to open it and then it becomes a jar. Jars are easier to carry away than doors.

part of why it has a cost is to be a sink for gold. Sure, it’s not much, but it does add up. However, there are better ways to handle it than to track arrows.

Magical arrow subscription service, never run out as long as your payments are up to date

Will you really go back? I suspect that 99.99% of players won’t. It’s more effective to go somewhere new, where you get XP, a fresh shot at better loot, and maybe different quests.

Sure, you can ruin the economy in many ways, such as hoovering up every bit of loot. It isn’t balanced around that though, and can’t be. It’s the correct assumption almost always that players won’t return for loot that was left, because it’s less valuable than doing a new dungeon.

Easy fix: Have more money as loot instead of otherwise nearly worthless items that sell for small amounts of money for flavor.

Yes, I go back. Why would I say it’s annoying and wastes a ton of time if I didn’t have experience with it? I’ve had a lot of conversations with other people who are the same way so I think you are underestimating how annoying it is. As far as moving on to the next place, what do you get? One boss chest, with a single magic item that may or may not be good for you? You still have to pick up the incedental crap to sell for gold and crafting materials. If you just rely on the few decent items you get that would take even longer. Regardless, there’s no economy to ruin in games like skyrim or fallout. You’re the only one there with a bunch of mindless NPCs, they don’t trade with each other and their inventory resets after a few days. Selling them a ton of crap is completely meaningless to the world as a whole.

Well, for most games it isn’t useless items. Most of it just isn’t useful to you. Either your gear is better, or it’s for a combat style you don’t use, or it’s consumables like potions.

I’m talking about the things you can’t use, like bowls and trinkets and other stuff that games frequently include as ‘white’ items that literally cannot be used. Those things that exist to be sold to vendors.

They have been in many of the rpgs I have played. In the rpgs that don’t have them, there isn’t a vendor that buys stuff and no ‘economy’ that exists.

Any kind of inventory management like arrows and food is way too sweaty and has never engaged a single player ever unless the whole point of the campaign is this exact mechanic. It’s a waste of time and energy and I don’t play with anyone that insists on doing it.

The first thing I disable in every RPG.

Going through a dungeon and having to stop every couple of rooms to throw away stuff really loses your immersion.

Bonus point is that it also accumulates wealth more easily.

I don’t think you understand game design if you can’t understand what’s meant by “ruining the economy.” It means that the player gets so much money that there’s essentially no use for it anymore. They can buy anything that’s available without concern. For example, in Morrowind you can craft potions with ridiculous value, then use that to pay for levels from trainers and buy the best items, then pay for enchanting to make them even better. It trivializes the game.

The only option at that point is to just limit what can be purchased. That’s a much worse solution than balancing the game’s economy so the player has options to spend money on, but critically they can’t buy everything. Video games are about making decisions. If you don’t have to decide anything than why not just watch a movie? The game needs to present you with options, and you need to choose what you will and won’t do. The economy is a great place this can happen in a game that’s balanced well.

Morrowind you can craft potions with ridiculous value, then use that to pay for levels from trainers and buy the best items

Did you actually play Morrowind? I can’t think of a single one of the best items in Morrowind that was available for sale. You either had to steal them or they were loot. Also most of the vendors in that game were pretty broke. To sell anything of “ridiculous value” You had to find the mudcrab merchant out in the middle of nowhere. Gold didn’t trivialize that game at all. Exploiting alchemy did.