An aspect of my game I've always wanted but couldn't quite keep, was upkeep. Its needed in roleplay to create a kind of 'constant cost' to dungeoneering. You need certain tools, weapons, equipment to continue your life as an adventurer, but most games don't include it.. why? and how did I solve it?
Upkeep your Weapons,
I guess the first half of my life, I didn't understand the psychology of play, I have a feeling I knew what I wanted, but an inability to understand how to make it.
Over time, I've discovered some key factors.
Fear of missing out, loss is more powerful than gain, tedious tasks are only interesting the first few times.
But lets first identify the problem.
If you are a 1st level character, with your wooden sword (minecraft) and you go out into the world, you're fighting low level goblins and slimes, and eventually you earn enough to afford a stone sword.. no, lets be more serious, you probably started with your grandfathers shortsword as he was a guard in some military, then you saved up to buy a nice sword, then later a longsword or broadsword, maybe eventually a magical sword so it can hurt the fae and spirits, then you quested for a specialty sharpened blade, at some point your blade was stolen, you tracked it down, gained it back, before finding out about an even more magical blade.
That's over 15lvls 6 swords. 5 upgrades. a tad boring.
Sure you have other things to acquire, talismans of luck, and sheilds of defence, armour of strength, so maybe your GM and you have sorted it out, you get 1 nice upgrade per lvl.
Well, if your new to roleplay, great, thats a good solid beginning, well done, come back when you've gotten bored of 'easy' mode.
But how can hard mode exist? Reality is one way, usually the best way, but its Oh so boring (for some of us) to have to make spreadsheets of life, to ensure you get it all in there.
Tedious tasks are only interesting the first few times.
Having to upkeep your lantern oil, your torches, your food stocks, that's bad enough.. but sharpening your sword? and why?
Well, to start with your character might not actually have any training, so you should do it a few times to get proficient. So, if you don't have upkeep, then that's your starting point. After you reach level 20, you don't have to 'use' it anymore, you're proficient.
Proficiency means you don't have to actively choose to do something, you can claim your character is ALWAYS doing it.
Why bother? well, an unkempt sword is likely to lose its edge. Let players know, when they roll a 12, have them make upkeep checks. if they fail, the edge of the blade was so poor, it gets a -2 to the damage. players who have upkeep at 20+ can negate that disadvantage.
Players don't NEED to be doing the task, and GMs get a nice boost if they don't. It adds to the story, but doesn;t interrupt the downtime with tedium.
Fear of Missing Out
Once players have crossed the threshold, their upkeep is "known" why progress further? Well, level 2 upkeep allows players to 'sharpen' their blade. They may take the bonus "+1 to this combat, for a -d6 endurance".
All combats reduce all weapons endurance by 1 (normally), so players already know they're going to eventually need to replace the weapon, so, whats a extra d6 of endurance for the +1 to that combat.
Players need to cross into lvl 2 upkeep to gain this skill, and will likely have to roll to check if it works. But they don't have to miss out. If they roll poorly, let them choose, the blade didn't get sharpened in time, but still took the endurance cost, or they can minus a further d6 to guarentee the +1.
Now, a weapons endurance score means something, thinner rapier weapons with their increase peirce scores, but lower endurance values means something.
Further more, we can understand why, in real life, carbon ratings of steel is important, holding its edge, and alloys of certain materials improve the shelf-life of a blade.
Finding an Iridium-Elementium-Steel alloy blade, with x200% endurance, and halving the sharpen cost isn't shrugged at. Weapons like this will last a character years.
Fear of Loss is more powerful than Desire of gain.
As a motivator, a quest for a slightly better sword is a good excuse to go defeat a hoard of bad-guys, but a means to empower your existing sword, or your skill at care for the sword will outrank it everytime.
Eventually players might balk at using their prized blade for the simplest of fights, and insist of saving it for the bigger quests. (giving them an opportunity to try out other weapon proficiencies).
Lvl 3 of the Upkeep, allows players the ability to improve on their sharpening techniques, and reducing the cost to do so. the application of a max-cap, halving the roll, or a direct -1 to the value, (or eventually all three) can result in a player maintaining a decent blade for 1000s of fights. given the standard sword starts at 160, with an average roll of 3, plus 1 per fight, the average sword will survive 40 fights before breaking.
Caveats
Now, I fully understand, this is highly unrealistic, real blades used in real history lasted years, yet, this is a game, and we're trying to represent plausible values to make the game interesting for plot.
Giving players and gamesmaster tool to be able to tell a good story, is what we're talking about. rather than Handwavium saying the blade broke 'because'. Under the hood of the simplified numbers, there are plausible means to explain it. a basic sword in the hands of a novice, will get bend, smashed, scraped and damaged several times before it gets close to 'breaking' yet, eventually it will OR the novice will learn to treat the blade better.
a standard sword, of 160HP, if 'used' by a character, for 160 fights, never cleaned, cared for, or sharpened will be at its 50/50 breaking point at 160 damage, and may break anywhere between 161 and 200 damage (rare but possible). So ~180 fights.
The same sword, cared for, cleaned after every fight, statistically will reach 120 damage after 240 fights. Then re-honing the blade at a blacksmiths forge, can bring the 'remaining' 40pts back so the blade has a 2n life, with a new 120HP max, repeated again when down to 30 remaining pts, back to 80, down to 20 for the next 40, and those fights, totals 520 fights closer to the realism we're trying to achieve, but less fun.
Sharpen the blade, get the +1, use it for 40 fights, and go buy a new sword with all the new loot!
Oh Steel!
Pig Iron Swords, 12, d8+1, 60
Iron Swords, 11, d8, 80
Cast Iron Swords, 11, d8+1, 120
Steel Swords, 10, d8+1, 160
Folded Steel Swords, 9, d8+2, 180 (Mastery gives a +1 to each value, Endurance is measured in 20s)
Dull Modifier (0, -1, 0)
Unbalanced (+2, 0, 0)
Poor Quality ( +1 / -1 / -20)
High Quality (-1 / +1 / +20)
