Wearing Clothes

Since the discussion on this post about colour, I've been thinking about the effort to maintain incorporated rules into one's D&D game.  This fits with changes to other another game rule, highlighted through rewriting my pricing tables (an arduous task that will take me many weeks).  I'll get to that rule in a moment.

As I see it, maintenance issues arise depending on the category of game rule.  We have, for instance, rules the DM must hold in mind during play: combat rules, natural effects (starvation, dehydration), physical limitations (like encumbrance or movement) and details that need to be invoked by the DM in circumstances, like "walking past a concealed door" or "wandering monsters."  DMs can reduce these by not discarding rules entirely, like not playing with encumbrance or how much food the players ought to eat.  After all, the DM must also hold in mind details that are not rules, such as how the setting is organized or the various "if/then" matters arising from the players' actions.

Another category are rules the DM should know well: how do spells, traps, magical items or special abilities work, so that when they're invoked in the game, the DM has already settled on their functional effect.  More familiarity means less game time spent reacquainting ourselves; but as there are many hundreds of these things, if something unusual arises, it's understandable the DM hasn't memorized them.  There are magical items I haven't seen in decades; there are some I've never seen.  The same can be said of some higher level spells, which never became consistent game elements.

Finally, there is one last category the DM isn't responsible for.  For example, I tell a player that they have a craving for chocolate, and that if they eat it, they gain a 5% experience bonus; once I've passed along that information, it isn't my responsibility to write it on the player's character or remember it.  It isn't my responsibility to remind the character ever of that benefit.  Or even make up a replacement craving when, five years later, the player realises their 12th level character doesn't have a craving written down.  Oh well.  Wasn't my problem.

I often choose to make it my problem anyway ... and I will often remember, even five years later, that it was chocolate the character craved.  But since the question of "how much content can we reasonably remember" was used as an argument for why we shouldn't increase the number of game rules, this last rule is particularly relevant.  Because I don't have to remember.  The player doesn't have to remember.  But if a player chooses to remember, and employ that benefit, I only need to remember how the benefit works.  That benefit, and a hundred others like it, ARE A SMALL PART of the 800 monsters, 400 spells and 2,000 perceived sage abilities I've already chosen to include in my game.  Add to that the 1,700 pieces of game equipment I've added to the mix, plus the 1,374 provincial political divisions in my world (which, I assure you, I am familiar with, every one), quibbling about this minor add to the game is silly.  When I suggest inventing a players' favourite colour or a craving, I'm increasing my recognized game details from 6,374 to 6,376.

Okay, so maybe these are the straws that will break the camel's back.  Only, I'm fairly sure the camel felt burdened before that last straw was added.  I don't.  I perceive there's a lot to manage ... but then I built this game wiki that helps make much of it searchable, along with hundreds of files on my computer, which are also searchable.  If I need to know where Thanjavoor is, and that the official title of the ruler there is a "Nayak," I can simply search any big city in south India, like "Madurai" or "Mysore," and there it is.  Granted, I recognize that many DMs might have trouble pointing to the continent that has Coimbatore on it, but that's not me.  Remember, I drew a very detailed map of that area.  I did the work.  I know these places.  The same can be said for any rule I've created for my game.  I may not remember the exact details, but I know where to find them and I can do so in seconds, because I'm not working with paper.

I can't help it if other DMs don't know how to file things.  Or make files.  Or use their memory.  But obviously, I can't limit my game world, or the rules I want to create, based on someone's inability to do these things sufficiently.

From the above, encumbrance is much more of a problem than some minor thing like "cravings"; or the nutrition of food the players are eating; or the change in my movement rules ("stride").  These are things I must think about continuously.  These do get easier with practice; and tools like the encumbrance calculator help streamline the difficulty.  Yet still, while working on the pricing table, I'm not removing items; I'm adding them.  I'm not removing features from the table, I'm adding features.  I'm increasing details.  Because I feel I can handle the increase.  And because applying work in one area can provide simplicity for something else.

For example.  For a long time I've handwaved the weight per square yard of cloth, making every type of wool the same weight, along with every type of linen and every type of silk.  This is because when I started building this pricing table, circa 1998 to 2003, the internet was in its infancy.  Better information wasn't available—and when it was, I didn't think to look for it.  But the reader will remember that I recently posted a list of wines according to a brief description of each; and I mentioned that I have 35 varieties of cloth.  Each of these got a description as well ... but I'm going to forego posting them here.

I also went through every cloth and located its GSM.  That is, the grams per square meter the cloth possesses.  For example, common linen has a GSM that ranges between 30 and well over 350 grams; the mid-range is 150-350.  For people who say my game is too gritty, consider that my pricing table could include a line for every 10 gram difference; except for the time involved, and the inconvience of choice for the player as they scanned down through 45 levels of linen, I could absolutely calculate a price for each.  Instead, I settled on an average of 140.  Damask has 200.  Sailcloth, 440.  These are translated into oz. per square yard, because the metric system doesn't exist in my world.

This helps me define the weight of every piece of clothing according to its type and fabric much more accurately (remembering that I'm not being as gritty as I might).   While accomplishing this task, I found myself revisiting a rule that I'd tried to implement, but which became too troublesome and time-consuming to include in my game—it being one of those rules I'd have to keep track of all the time: CLO, or clothing insulation.  This game rule requires that players calculate what clothes their wearing, adding numbers together and then comparing those numbers to the temperature.  It sort-of works ... but as the temperature changes, it requires constant inconvenient adjustment on the players' part.  So I dropped paying attention to it until I could build a better calculator, one that would allow me to change the weather and it would tell the players what clothes to add or take off to achieve comfort level.

This can now be done so much simpler.  CLO is measured against TOG, a unit of measurement from the slang "togs."  1 CLO = 1.55 togs.  Togs, in turn, are measured against GSM.  250 GSM = 1 TOG.  Of course, that's 250 grams to make a tog for a specific part of your body, which can be covered in about 8 square meters of cloth.  To give your body one complete tog all over, you'd need 250 grams x 8 square meters, or 2 kg.  Therefore, 1 CLO = 3.1 kg. of clothing.  In my game, that's 6.09 lbs.

Since a CLO allows you, with a body temperature of 37⁰C (98⁰F), to sit comfortably in room temperature.  For this, I'm counting room temperature in the high teens celsius or high 60s fahrenheit.  Here, we can throw exact measurements right out the window and, for playability, propose that 1½ lbs. of clothing equals an increase or decrease of 5.56⁰C (10⁰F), from a base clothing weight of "6 lbs." (for simplicity). My temperature grades are designed around 10⁰F increments (there actually wasn't any measurement system at all in 1650, but it is hard to describe weather without also describing temperature), because it's easier to divide by 10 than 5.56, and 10⁰C has too much variance.  Anyway ...  That's a 30-degree difference for 6 lbs. of clothing, or 2 lb. per 10 degrees.

John, then, is enjoying a "pleasant" day (room-temperish), wearing 6 lb. of clothing.  I tell the party that the temperature has dropped to "cool" (10 ish degrees lower).  John gets out 2 lbs. of clothing and puts it on.  This couldn't be simpler.

Now, we can get more precise, if we want to isolate parts of the body.  If John is wearing 10 lbs. of clothing in "frosty" weather (20-something fahrenheit) and none of it on his hands or head, that's not quite in the spirit of the thing.  But we can simply say that 3% of his clothing weight must be made up in gloves and 8% in headwear (hood, pullover woollen cap, that sort of thing).

I'm going to stop calling this "CLO."  I never liked it, for D&D it's far too anachronistic.  I've decided to simply call it "covering" and even that isn't necessary, as most people will simply call it "wearing clothes."

P.S.,

I've just realized my original math was wrong and I've tried to fix it; but I can't help feeling there's something I'm missing with all this messing around.  I hate looking like an idiot, but I think maybe the above proves I'm an idiot.  Please let me know if I am.