Just pushed a small rules update to the Fragile Empires core rulebook and figured I'd put it up here to see what people think.

Quick background — Fragile Empires is a 2d6 sci-fi TTRPG I've been working on, all four books are out now. The update touches the carrying capacity section, specifically how characters handle weapons and consumables.

Before, the rules just gave you a flat carry total and that was it. You could lug around a bunch of gear and grab any of it without much thought. The new version splits things into ready and stowed.

With a backpack you can now carry one extra weapon, but it's stowed. Pulling it out and getting it into play takes a major action, and you have to stow one of your two ready weapons in the swap. So you cap at 2 ready weapons plus 1 stowed at any time.

Same idea with consumables. Only 3 can be at the ready, the rest are stowed. Max 2 grenades carried total. Anything stowed takes a major action to retrieve.

The point was to put some weight on loadout choices before a fight, and make grabbing something from the bag during combat actually cost you something instead of being free.

Curious how other systems people have played handle this kind of thing. I went with a flat major action across the board to keep things simple, but I could see arguments for splitting it up (minor action for a grenade, free swap for a sidearm, etc). Anyone played with a system that does this well or poorly?