How do you handle zero weight items.

How do you handle zero weight items.

How do you handle zero weight items. There are sure to be rule lawyers who will carry 100s of healing potions because they weigh nothing. I know the simplest answer is to be true to the fiction but what have you done about this. Has it even been an issue to anyone?

29 thoughts on “How do you handle zero weight items.”

  1. ‘take away their stuff’ on a miss….

     Ooops,  the ogre’s club bludgeons you, landing you up against the cavern wall. You aren’t seriously hurt, but all those lovely healing potions you’ve been festooning your gear with just smashed into a mess of glass and liquid all over the dungeon floor. What do you do?

  2. Never been an issue, however:

    You want to carry 100 potions? Fine, buy a cart and some horses. You don’t have room in your bag for all that. Even if you could carry them all, how would you fit through any door ever again? Don’t go for cheap either buddy, if a wheel cracks or a horse goes lame you’ll have to leave that stuff behind. Oh, and once you’re on the road, you’re going to attract unwanted attention.

  3. If I had a player who wanted to carry 100 potions, I’d hask him “how do you do that?”

    Maybe it turns out that potions are like tobacco leaves, and you can carry 100 of them in a little box.

    Want to Use some resources?

     “Well, you lose 20 potions due to dragon’s fire”

    “WHAA-???”

    “Chill down, man, you still have 80…”

    Same reasoning for some other zero weight.

  4. Ask: “So, how does a Potion Of Healing looks like in this world?”

    Then ask: “How many fits safely in your backpack?”

    Then, don’t worry, it’s not D&D, where having too many of those “breaks the game” because it’s a resource-managing game.

    This is a game about adventurers doing adventuring stuff… who cares if they heal fast? that just means they’re going to get more action!

    The “rest” rules allow them to recover half their HP, for free, just resting a few hours!

    A couple of healing potions are just a “skip a rest for HP for free” token.

  5. Another approach would be to model what the world would be like if such massive amounts of healing potential was affordable and portable. It would probably be ubiquitous – or you’d need to come up with a reason why foes don’t have access to it.

    What social effects would there be to the world being able to treat serious injuries as a mild inconvenience? Would you get firefighters strolling into burning buildings wearing a modifed version of those beer hats? Is pitfighting or boxing suddenly even more brutal – or totally uninteresting? Do doctors exist if you could just use healing pots to manage severe symptoms?

    etc etc

  6. Jarrah James I like that as a general rule. All the other ideas are great as well. I’m just thinking of the one guy in my group who always says”well I disagree with that” multiple times in any game system. The 3 for 1 weight will get the least negative reaction from him:)

  7. I agree with all of the above, but if you have players rule-lawyering (aka trying to “beat the system”) in DW that means you might have a problem.

    Don’t simply punish them, talk to them about what they want from the game and about what DW is for. It was made for creating exciting adventures in a fantasy world not as a resource-management game. Maybe they would prefer a different game like Superfantasy, Descent or D&D 4th edition …

  8. to be fair, the 3=1 thing was actually from the Witch playbook, which could make its own potions, and so very well could end up with dozens of bottles, flasks and beakers… 

  9. I would offer an XP to a player to read aloud at the start of a session this excellent quote from the rules

    Like any conversation, the time you spend listening is just as important as the time you spend talking. The details established by the other people at the table (the GM and the other players) are important to you: they might change what moves you can make, set up an opportunity for you, or create a challenge you have to face. The conversation works best when we all listen, ask questions, and build on each other’s contributions.

  10. Just for fun:

    Get a ton pennies, or nickels, whatever your country uses.

    You can carry as many 0 weight items as you can stack before they topple. Then mark 1 weight. Start stacking them again when you pick something else up. When you anger the GM with your rules lawyering, they may slam the table with their fist.

  11. I’m with Mattia Bulgarelli , a world where characters can carry 100 healing potions is a world where they NEED 100 healing potions just to survive.  The action should be furious and highly lethal.

  12. I had guessed that anything that needed to be limited was through either price, weight > 0, or both… I had never saw HP as a limiting factor (except during a fight), there are so many ways to recover those… I’ll think a bit about it.

  13. 2 weight, a pint of something strong. 1 weight, a half-pint. 0 weight, a shot. Drink whenever you use something or it breaks on a miss. At the end of a session, drink the lot. Carry too much and you may end up with a hang over. Logic prevails.

    Edit: But don’t pour shots for coins.

  14. Related to Ben Jarvis ‘s post, assume that healing potions contain just enough plutonium, and the bottles are very poor neutron absorbers.

    “When you place more than 5 healing potions into close proximity, you are Defying Danger…”

  15. “Dude, it’s Lady Gibralter and her two daughters running the herbalist shop for this entire town.  And, you know, healing potions turn poison after they expire, so it’s not like they have a hundred on hand.”

    “How many do they have?  Like, five?”

    “Hmmmmmm…. no, they’ve got eighty six.”

    “I’ll buy eighty six then.  Guys, remind me to pick up more in the next town.”

    … two weeks later the Imperial Agents come’a’knocking.

    -Are they reselling without a merchant’s permit?  Tax evasion is a serious crime.

    -Is Lady Gibralter involved in their inflation scheme?  Or is it one of her daughters?  You know shepard Smyth died before the next batch was brewed up, and we think these potions might have saved him.  We’re certain of at least a negligent homocide charge on someone, but I’ll bet we can get you on murder.  Unless you’d help us by fingering which of the Gibralters helped you.

    -The clergy of Bob thinks you’re trying to upset their pay-for-healing racket.  No, we don’t care about your excuses.  You don’t pay us, they do.  Just come along quiet and you’ll get your mock trial like every other heathen upstart.

    Or have a 6- in combat result in a particularly threatening monster smashing half the bottles in their pack during their attack and getting drenched in the contents.  Its wounds begin to heal rapidly, AS IF BY MAGIC.

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