The Backpack Game

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

A massive part of B/X punishes you for not correctly taking shopping seriously. I kid, but it is true. Whenever I get out of my Cypher System narrative haze and settle down to play B/X, most of my time is spent managing inventories.

What is not in that backpack could kill you.

You don't have a rope and spikes? A tinderbox? Bandages? Enough torches? Chalk? Waterskins? A mirror? A walking stick? Oil? A bedroll? Food? A sharpening stone? Soap? A washcloth? A knife?

I can think of a dozen ways not having one of those items could doom an adventurer.

Some games make you "play by the pound" and carefully craft your loads. I can get into it when I am into those and have the tools to streamline the process. Without a computer, it is painful. With GURPS Character Assistant, I can get my load down to 0.25 pounds, have a droppable backpack that will get me into the next-lowest encumbrance category, and I am all set.

This is one of the reasons why I like playing old-school dungeons in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy; the software makes inventory management more effortless. Not painless, but it is much easier than doing it by hand. The characters are 100 times more complex, but if you are going to go whole-hog, I prefer to do a complete simulation. Middle-grounds, where the stats are simple, but the gear management is old-school, feel a little off to me.

Some games, such as Castles & Crusades, standardize the "backpack" per class and give you loaded pre-set grab-and-go packs. ACKS even has equipment packages; a few OSR B/X style supplements do gear packages. C&C also does a simplified encumbrance system where you aren't tracking pounds, and ACKS does something like this. You can still die from a bad shopping trip, but it is a little more painless (to shop, not to die).

Some games only list encumbrance for treasure (like OSE) and assume the first 10 pounds carried is "adventuring stuff." It is a fair compromise and simplification. You can still die from a bad shopping trip.

Many sold-school games wander into this "gear trap" trope, where the novel solution to problems relies on MacGyvering backpack items to problems. There are times when I am not in the mood, so I will play a narrative game and ignore the gear game for the most part. In Cypher System, need a mirror to peek around a corner? Spend an XP, do a player intrusion, and make it a more significant part of the story.

Solo Play is Different

You need to ask yourself, why do I play? And this answer for solo players will differ from when you play with others. When I play the OSR solo, I manage equipment I never use. This takes time and feels like a waste since gear use and problem-solving rarely arise in my solo play. I will spend an hour crafting a perfect loadout for a character, and only 5% of the time is it necessary.

In a group, yes, there has to be something outside of "math and the rules" that players can have creative input on. Creative gear use is one of the ways players "break the game" or "solve problems outside of the box" and is a critical part of the play experience.

This is where Cypher System really shines for me, is solo play. The limits on carrying and using "cyphers" and the random nature of finding them and gaming their use changed the solo-play gear game for me dramatically. This system is a game where you could get away with buying "an adventure's backpack" or "a clockwork toolbox" as an expensive item and have it filled with all sorts of exciting goodies. I wouldn't even require a player to list them and handle it one of two ways:

As an asset to a roll, the item should be in the pack (iron spikes, rope, chalk, a flask of oil).

As something a player could use to trigger a player intrusion, such as, "I pull out a spare gear from my toolbox and see if it fits the machine."

It is fair since the player gives up an expensive item (or whatever level you want it to be, depending on contents) and gets the "backpack" as a "bag of tricks." I would limit this by type to prevent it from becoming too powerful, and an inexpensive bag would only have ubiquitous and cheap items inside, while an expensive one would have better stuff.

I would also limit this by "type of item" to prevent abuse, such as adventuring gear, clockwork toolbox, automotive toolbox, priest's bag, soldier's backpack, EVA tools, cowboy rucksack, vampire hunter's bag, etc. Be careful of the generic "backpack of stuff," and force players to be specific. The more specific and narrow the description, the more situations it will be helpful in related to the use, and the better benefits the bag will give. A "modern soldier's medical backpack" will have far better medicine and uses for treating wounds than a generic "modern soldier backpack."

It is like requiring a few "descriptors" to be chosen for one of these "universal backpacks" in the game, which helps balance and prevent abuse.

The Survival Game

Other times, I like building a complete loadout for a character. That survivalist game is going on, and it is fun to shop and anticipate gear needs while balancing the weight carried. This is where complete equipment lists can kill a game for me. I am happy if the game's gear list is simple and boils down to only the best and most useful stuff. If I have to sort through a Sears Catalog for every character and buy extra lute strings, I will end up cursing the completist and list-based "more is better" game design.

And yes, I know that is GURPS too, but I still like the game.

The backpack game reminds me of old-school survival games such as Aftermath! I have seven 0.45 bullets in my right pocket, a swiss army tool, two batteries, a spool of fishing line, and three disposable glow sticks. The storage containers and where you wore them mattered, and fetching things stored in different locations took differing amounts of actions. This is much like GURPS; you can get this detailed there too. It is also a big part of the play in Pathfinder 2 - putting something in a backpack when needed will cost you.

Shopping Can Be Fun

The backpack and shopping game feels like a part of old-school gaming. I like it when not everything needed is available, the moment you assume every small town has a "fantasy Walmart" stock of goods, then shopping loses its fun.

Looking for candles in a small village? There may be some at a shop (if it is open), or you may have to trade with locals. Looking for rope? It may not be easy to find, and you may have to barter with a farm or other tradesperson who may have a stock of some. Good luck getting a suspicious small-town blacksmith to craft a few replacement lockpicks.

If shopping and finding gear is a bit of luck and a game, I like it much more.

Picking from lists and shopping at superstore-sized catalogs where everything is always available bores me and pushes me back into my narrative games. Part of the default "modern-world 5E/PF2" assumptions with "Amazon.com gear lists" of many campaigns turn me off.

Massive games with too much choice are not games since there is little thought into the design and how things work together. They feel list lists with rules holding them together.