Let's Chat about Encumbrance Rules in AD&D | The Black Notebook Podcast

Let’s chat about encumbrance rules in AD&D and why they tend to fall apart once you actually use them. On paper, it sounds right. Track every coin, every torch, every piece of gear. Keep things grounded. Make weight matter. It feels like it should create tension.

At the table, it usually turns into something else. Someone is counting coins. Someone else is asking how much a rope weighs. You stop the game to check a number. Then you check another number. Movement rates shift. Suddenly the focus is not the dungeon. It is the sheet.

I have seen this happen more than once. A group clears a room, finds treasure, and instead of moving forward, everyone pauses. “Can we carry this?” “Who has space?” “Do we drop something?” Ten minutes later, nothing has changed in the world. The players are still standing in the same room, just with a different set of numbers written down.

The rules seem to aim for realism. That part is clear. Weight should matter. Resources should matter. But the way it plays out often feels like bookkeeping. You are not making interesting choices. You are managing inventory.

And it gets worse the more detailed you try to be. Copper pieces alone can break the flow. Hundreds of coins. Converting weights. Figuring out who carries what. It adds friction at the exact moment the game should be pushing forward.

So the question becomes simple. What was the goal, and is the rule actually doing that job?

Because if the goal is tension, there are faster ways to get it. If the goal is meaningful choice, there are cleaner ways to force it. And if the goal is to make the dungeon feel dangerous, stopping the game every few minutes to do math does the opposite.

This episode looks at that gap. What the rule promises. What it actually delivers. And what you can do instead if you still want weight to matter without turning your session into a ledger.