Slots vs Blocks - Devlog 2

From humble beginnings...

Oh yeah, baby! That is my, pretty scuffed, very first attempt to create an analog Inventory system using Tetris-like pieces to represent items in the PC's inventory. I know that the character sheet in the picture is too clean, but I swear we did play this way for a couple of weeks.

That picture is about a year old, and you know what? I'm actually still developing this approach as part of my WIP game Glint! 

About a month later and after many, many hours spent printing, cutting, and gluing those little item pieces together... My group was forced to move online... and those are hours I'll just never get back...

By that time, the game had evolved. Here's a picture from about 4 months ago of a character sheet, now hosted on Google Sheets. 

Finally, not that you really needed it, the character sheet today! Continuing to evolve...

So! What have I learned from a year of managing inventory in this way?

I'm glad you asked!

Slots vs Blocks: Round 1 - Granularity - FIGHT!

One of the most popular ways to track inventory space in 2024 2025! is with slot-based systems. Less fiddly than weight, but still forcing some level of decision making onto the players. From what I've seen, most games will give you somewhere from 10-20 slots. Some items can stack in one slot. Some items are bulky (take two slots) or maybe even bulky+ (take three slots)...

Here is the difference. If you think of each little square in my pictures above as 1 slot, then the fighter I showed you had 48 available slots and the Sharpshooter I showed you has 28 available slots. 

But it doesn't feel like 48 slots or 28 slots.

So far, items in my game have taken anywhere from 1 - 12 slots.

But it doesn't feel like a 4-slot or 9-slot item.

The level of granularity you can get away with, without creating any additional cognitive load on the player is the main selling point of Tetris-ed Inventory. Over the past year, I haven't once heard my players ask me, "Wait, how many slots have I used? Out of how many?" I'm getting close to enjoying the specificity of weight with absolutely none of the baggage.

The - admittedly light - math of a slot-based system is almost entirely replaced by an even simpler calculus. 

If it fits, it fits...

In practice, I have leveraged the flexible sizing of tokens to assign appropriately weighted costs to items, actions, and consequences within my game. As an example, when a Barbarian Rages, they take on an "Exhaustion" token. You can accumulate up to four, 1-slot "Exhaustion" tokens before they count as a "Wound." In a normal slot-based system, there's a limit to how small or large you can make the objects that fill those slots before it begins to feel too silly, and you end up losing whatever you were hoping to gain when you moved away from a weight-based system in the first place..

WINNER! Blocks!

Slots vs Blocks: Round 2 - Prep Work - FIGHT!

Slots have no prep work. Blocks do. And unfortunately, it's a fair amount of prep work. If I do ever "publish" Glint, I will be sure to share the google sheets.

WINNER! Slots!

Slots vs Blocks: Round 3 - Ease of Use - FIGHT!

Comparing the ease of use is a little muddy. I don't have a proprietary app to manages the inventory. I just have to argue with Google Sheets until it does what I want it to do. There is a level of jank here that my players have to deal with. 

"Oh no, I resized the columns!" ... yeah ... not fun...

But let's set the jank aside for now. How does popping the items on and off the character sheet compare to erasing and writing in new ones? Well, I've gotta say, it is marginally faster... Whether that matters to you becomes a question of how often the game you play has you making changes to your inventory.

In my game, players can accumulate wounds in their inventory, something that happens fairly often. Being able to drag the wound in and out, without erasing anything, is a nice quality of life bump. 

But, I can't speak for the game you play. Like, this probably wouldn't mean anything if you tried to tack it onto OSE. It's up to you to decide if the juice would be worth the squeeze.

WINNER! Undecided...
 
Alright, alright. You get the picture... Here are some final thoughts in rapid fire form. 

Additional Pros: 

• Players never forget what's in their inventory.

• Tetris is kind of fun.

• Videogame-y systems are attractive to some players.

Additional Cons:

• High-prep GMing.

• "Balancing" item sizes isn't something a GM usually needs to think about.

• Videogame-y systems are a turn-off for some players.

Additional Comments:

Back at the start of 2024, the physical version was really fun. Placing physical objects onto the character sheets or onto the battle map was delightfully analog.

The digital version is more flexible. Need a new shape/item? No problem.

What do you think? 

It makes sense for my system. But will it make sense for yours?

I'll catch you next time on Slots vs. Blocks 2! Electric boogaloo. Or just whenever I get around to posting another Devlog.

-2cp