[Nomad Zophiel]

I don't but I should look. Actualy, I remember a Vampire game where we used the Vampire CCG cards to keep track of gear and boons. Pretty much any LARP uses the same concept. Each card has its game stats on it. Any card on you is on you. For a tabletop game you can keep your other stuff in a notecard holder or something. As for actually printing them, I imagine its just as easy to use your printer. Maybe print four on a 3x5 card and cut them down. It seems to me to be less front loading for the players but way more for the GM. Index cards have always sufficed for me.

[The Cat]

I've seen and used similar concepts to the gear card deck idea. It does work tremendously well. The only downside is all the work you have to front load to make it happen. I would kill to have someone make a commercial version of these cards for sale. Could be made like magic cards, with a pic, stats in the lower half text box, name in the upper left, dmg, recoil and AP in the various locations. Nearly an exact copy of magic cards. I'd buy them for sure. Hmm... if I can find time in between looking for a job and my overloaded college classes, maybe I'll dust off my old graphic designer skills and try to design a few. Anyone know a cheap and relatively easy online source for printing custom card sets on demand? Preferably one that has decent quality...

While we've digressed a bit, this sort of thing would be perfect for am official "free" web release or even the SR PDF line.

[Usda Beph]

Gear cards? That's a cool idea. this way you don't have to keep erasing/reprinting your list. To bad it's not a sure sale item. I'd have loved to have had something like that during my decades of gaming!

[Angelone]

Aren't PACKS basically gear cards/sets? Haven't paid too much attention to them but that's what they struck me as.

[Usda Beph]

Never heard of those either. Cept the ones I wore in the Corps.

[FastJack]

Gear cards? That's a cool idea. this way you don't have to keep erasing/reprinting your list. To bad it's not a sure sale item. I'd have loved to have had something like that during my decades of gaming!

Oh, I'd say they sell pretty well...

[The Cat]

Gear cards? That's a cool idea. this way you don't have to keep erasing/reprinting your list. To bad it's not a sure sale item. I'd have loved to have had something like that during my decades of gaming!

I'm not entirely convinced it wouldn't be a "sure sale" item for Shadowrun.  I know that every group I've been in as a player and done it with split index cards at least half the group followed suit in some way, usually far more artistically since I can't even draw a stick figure properly.  The down side to an "official" product would be expanding official gear lists.  Every new book with new stuff would require an "expansion pack" to be made and that could consume time and resources lagging book production especially if they got into a "cards release when the books are" mindset, which would be ideal.  As a Free Web Release or a low cost PDF it would be easier, since they could just create the artwork and text putting a really low price on them and letting people DL and print what they wanted when they wanted but it would still burn resources usually dedicated to books.

For some reason people seem to like not just that idea, but also the NERPS cards that were handed out at a con some time ago.  I got my hands on a set from a gamer buddy who gave up the hobby when their first kid came along and have used them a few times, always with good success.  They have been so popular in some groups that we've gone so far as to make about two dozen more of them for both 3rd and 4th edition (so something like 48 cards in two sets plus the original 12) based on people's suggestions and "revamped" the originals for 3rd Edition play (only had to tinker with the text on one or two cards).

These two have always struck me as a "missed opportunity" for the PDF line.

[Usda Beph]

Sorry I meant that the cards could sell like mad or never sell at all. I think you have a darn good idea how to implement it too!

[Critias]

Aren't PACKS basically gear cards/sets? Haven't paid too much attention to them but that's what they struck me as.

Not exactly cards, no.  They're sets of gear, yes, but it's more like a pre-packaged bundle of goodies to speed up character creation/gear selection.

I'd love to give a nice specific example for Shadowrun, but I don't know how specific Jason (and more importantly the NDA) would let me be.  I'll switch genres and game systems completely to do it, and maybe that'll keep me in the clear.   

Imagine if D&D had a "Sword and Board Fighter" gear set, it might list a single total GP cost, and in just buying that one PACK he'd get a nice longsword, a well-balanced shield, some chainmail, a helmet, a whetstone, first aid kit, and a dagger.  He could then go pick out the "Basic Adventurer" PACK to get the rest of his work-a-day starting gear (backpack, three torches, 100 ft of rope, ten pitons, a week's worth of rations, flint and steel, two first aid kits, compass) and voila...he'd be pretty much done with buying all his gear, right?  Maybe there's a little overlap (like the Basic Adventurer kit giving everyone some first aid, but also a front-line combat PACK like Sword and Board Fighter giving extra first aid kits), but for the most part it's greatly simplified the gear selection process.

And, meanwhile, the party's Ranger, Cleric, or whoever, would also be speeding up their basic gear selection because they wouldn't mind the "Basic Adventurer" PACK, themselves.  No one's got to flip through the equipment section of the book and scribble down every single copper piece they spend to make sure that they've got the basic covered.  Instead of counting out how many sheets of parchment, reading candles, quills, and jars of ink he's buying, no doubt the party Wizard could pick up a "Scholastic Spellcaster" set, to give him a big sack full of spellbook junk and writing material and stuff.

That's more or less the basic principle we were working towards.  Take a core character idea or background idea or some other three or four word descriptor of a character, and equip 'em.  Bam, just like that, it makes it a two-or-three-step selection process to equip a character instead of a thirty-seven, 'cause you buy a couple big PACKs of gear and call it a day.

[Angelone]

Pretty interesting, can't wait to see how it works out, gear selection is one of the most tedious parts of the creation process. I just don't know how well it would work in Shadowrun with it's classless system and all that gear/ware you can choose from.

[Critias]

Pretty interesting, can't wait to see how it works out, gear selection is one of the most tedious parts of the creation process. I just don't know how well it would work in Shadowrun with it's classless system and all that gear/ware you can choose from.

Which was, trust me, one of the hardest parts of working on it.  Rather than a truly exhaustive list of every possible PACK, we're out to hit the broad strokes, and just make things go a little quicker for most characters. 

And -- on the bright side -- it's the sort of thing that it's easy to add to, later on, with cheap little pdfs and that sort of thing. 

[voydangel]

Gear cards? That's a cool idea. this way you don't have to keep erasing/reprinting your list. To bad it's not a sure sale item. I'd have loved to have had something like that during my decades of gaming!

Oh, I'd say they sell pretty well...

Yea, too bad they don't come out with a few Shadowrun "decks".

[Kerebrus]

I know this is a bit of thread necromancy, but I just stumbled upon the lack of listed weights (mass)  + RAW encumberance rule and was baffled.

Another handy tool would be some sort of metatype + attribute matrix to determine character mass.

Back in my second edition days we had to casually hit one of our powergamers with Light Stun Wounds for encumberance.  1 Strength Physical Adept with a monofilament whip and a Panther Assault Cannon in Security Armor.  If we let that stand we would be fools.

[FastJack]

Carrying Capacity
     Characters can lift and carry their Strength x 10 kilograms in weight without any sort of test—this is your carrying capacity. Lifting and carrying more calls for a Strength + Body Test. Each hit increases the weight you can lift by another 10 kilograms.

Encumbrance
     If a character overburdens herself with gear, she will suffer encumbrance modifiers. For every 5 kilograms that you exceed your carrying capacity, you suffer a –1 dice pool modifier to physical actions. A character with Strength 3 (Carrying Capacity 30) that is trudging along with 50 kilograms of equipment will suffer a –4 dice pool modifier. The maximum any character can carry is equal to her Carrying Capacity x 2 (or Strength x 20 kilograms).

Your typical "Heavy" pistol can weigh from 1 kg to 2 kg.

Assault Rifles are usually weight in between 2.5 to 5 kg.

Kevlar vests come in around 3 to 6 kg.

That should give you some basic ideas of how much gear could weigh.

[savaze]

The "what gear when?" question always seemed to be chicanery to me.  At first I tried asking what gear everyone was taking when they left and assumed they were still carrying it until otherwise stated or situations changed.  Then we used causal gear and combat gear with all sorts of variations in between.  Some of the players preferred index cards for gear, spells, and whatnot and the others preferred notations.  I got use to what meant what with each character and they notified me before hand when it changed.  I opted for flow over details, but the players still found ways to argue about it. 

Some fun ad lib adventures came about from it, like when the troll sammie and his buddies were bristling with weapons and walked to a mini mart to get some disposable clothes from the vending machine and ended up bumping into a cop buying some tasty treats.  Long story short it turned into block warfare involving the heat and a local gang vs the players...  They were definitely fighting for their lives that game with nothing to show for the ammunition spent, damaged gear, faltering rep, and the expensive trip to the street doc (they learned quickly not to have a repeat).

As the group got larger I started giving out jobs to responsible players based on personality, mind you I had an active group of 12+ players and we played 2x a week for nearly a decade...  Sometimes I sweetened the deal for their characters with karma/opportunities, because they usually filled a similar or related role in game. 

The Book Keeper (organizer) - Kept track of party loot and who had what/where/etc.  They were also the go-to person for recording info correctly.
The Banker (calculator) - Divvied the money out, also helped the less math savvy players.
The Cartographer (artist) - Kept track of routes players were taking, and also were in charge of combat maps, aka the grid master, for the players end of the equation.
The Minutes (details) - Kept track of significant events, important people, and anything else the players thought were important.
The experienced players were in charge of taking the new players under their wings, sometimes it ended up in an almost sergeant to private relationship.

I gave out other jobs as players were interested.  It all depended on the size and experience of the group at any given time.  This method made our games a lot more organized and it made juggling that many players at once A LOT EASIER!  I think flow of the story is the most important factor and whatever it takes to keep it fun and interesting.  It took some planning at first, but once everything was in motion I didn't have to do more than touch bases with the peoples with responsibilities for updates, questions, and on the direction the players wanted to take.