Equipment (Or: How to Spice Up the Mundane)

So I want to talk about equipment in this post, as it's one of the main tenants of character design that I haven't really gone into yet, and come up with ways to do it differently than to just have the group cluster around a book and fight over it, and lie about how much gold they have, argue about whether or not they have proficiency, etc., for two hours before the game starts.  Equipment buying is a pain, and I want to make it less so.

Also, one of the trends I've noticed with equipment in both tabletop RPGs and video games is that the main character can start the adventure with his father's sword, and 4 levels later, he dumps it for a generic sword at a shop because it has better stats.  What?  No.  If it was actually you're father's sword and it meant that much to you, the character wouldn't just dump it.  However, of course, as gamers, we're going to dump it because the math is in favor of the newer weapon, and when it comes right down to it, numbers matter in a game where whether you live or die relies on what equipment you have, and the roll of the dice.

So how do we combat these two things?

Personally, I think we might be able to solve both things through cards. (Cards really do make for cool ideas honestly)  Here's what I'm thinking: we give them a deck of various weapons to sift through, generic stuff that says "sword" or "club" or "mace" or "shield", etc.  It gives the various stats on the card (less book keeping, yay!) but there's a blank spot that says "name" or whatever.  Hell, maybe there's a couple blank spots on the card.  Players draw 5 weapons and pick 2. (One  main, one back up, or two main if they dual wield.)

Here's what happens: weapons "level", and I don't mean to say that they level by growing in power or anything like that, at least, not really.  However, they do grow in a very roleplaying sense.  Let's say after 10 kills made with the weapon (there's tick marks on the card for you to check off) then you can permanently name that weapon, so from that point forward, if your character were to die and another player draws that weapon, then the name you gave it is permanently on it.  It's a weapon of legend one could say.

The more kills the weapon gets, the more renown, perhaps it gets minor enhancements: +1 to hit after 25 kills (since you've grown accustomed to using it), +1 to damage after 50 kills, after 100 it gets some sort of magic ability for the original user.  Not too much, but enough to encourage the player to keep hold of their heirloom.

Same thing goes for armor, draw some cards from the pile, find which one fits best, maybe color code them based on what classes can use them, and then after using it so long, you can name it, and it marginally improves because your character gets more accustomed to wearing it, it becomes like a second skin almost.

Not only does this reward them for keeping their equipment and using it, and it also allows them to directly affect the gameworld in a very meaningful way, which is one of the things I've been focusing on, giving the players a real hold of the game.  It also has that random element to it as well, since not everyone will have access to the same weapons and training as other people, just like in the real world.

As for the rest of the equipment, since it's mundane we can either package it with the class, or have them buy it via D&D methods.  Perhaps let them decide which method they would prefer.  Either way, using cards would cut down character generation time by a lot, giving them a starting package as well would knock that time out even more, and if we want 20 minute characters, equipment has got to be quickly selected.