Item weights in DCSS

In Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup -- one of the best current roguelikes --  there is a discussion going on about the removal of item weights. Even if you have never played DCSS, you probably know what they're talking about, because this has been a feature in D&D and all kinds of RPGs for a very long time. A player has a certain limited weight she can carry, depending on her strength; and item weights are needed to calculate whether that limit has been reached. So, does this mechanic add anything to the game? Here are my two cents, which I just posted to the crawl developers mailing list:

Inventory management is not a very interesting part of Crawl strategy, nor is Crawl the kind of game where it could become interesting with just a few tweaks.

Inventory management is interesting when it forces you to make tough choices. There are basically two ways to achieve this. One is to make sure that items are not retrievable once discarded. This can be done in several ways, for instance by having non-permanent levels (Angband) or a strict food limit that doesn't allow much backtracking (Brogue). In both of those games, inventory management plays a big strategic role. But Crawl is more of a move-through-the-dungeon-at-will game, with permanent levels and plenty of food. Which is good, but allows players to keep a stash and retrieve whatever they want, thus taking the bite out of inventory management.

A second way of turning inventory management into hard choices is by having a very limited inventory; so limited that the player must leave behind some of her basic tools. Suppose that the player can carry only three types of item. Then you suddenly have to choose between carrying scrolls of teleportation, potions of healing, potions of berserk strength, and that ring of fire resistance. If you leave the ring in your stash, you're in trouble when you get into a fight with a fire-breathing dragon.

Crawl's inventory limit is so large that the player can always carry all her most central tools, and the limitations only affect niche items, convenience items, and large stacks. And this too is something that probably shouldn't be changed, because a super-limited inventory is a better fit for a small, tight game than for a sprawling game like Crawl.

Thus, so as far as I can see, inventory management is never going to be a particularly interesting part of Crawl strategy. It still serves a function, though: it keeps things simple and convenient for the player. That may sound a bit counter-intuitive, because struggling with your inventory limit may not feel very convenient. But it is: better to have to discard a couple of items now and then, than to end up with an inventory of 472 things in which you can never find what you need.

Given that the Crawl inventory limit is mostly there for the convenience of the player, it should be as convenient as possible. The goals of an inventory limit are best served by having a limited number of inventory slots. Item weights & carrying capacity just add a second inventory limit which adds complications without any benefit.

And to speak from experience: I have sometimes increased my strength in order to increase my inventory limit, even though I knew that it was better for my character to increase intelligence; I did that just because frequent stash trips were boring and inconvenient. The optimal strategy should always be a fun strategy. Which means that in Crawl, item weights should probably go.

Now, I can see that this is already more or less the consensus, but perhaps this post can still add something to any discussion that might be going on. :-)

Anyway, thanks for the great game, and keep on the way you developers are going. I am often impressed by the quality of the design discussions here.