TEXT: A WEIGHTY MATTER 
   
  A revised, lighter Encumbrance system for Mazes & Minotaurs 
   
  by David Jenkins, co-president of the Creative Minotaurian Society 
   
  Mazes & Minotaurs may be the greatest game ever 
  created since the invention of chess, but most 
  Mazemasters and M&M players agree on the fact 
  that the encumbrance rules are, to put it mildly, 
  complete rubbish : obviously incomplete, blatantly 
  unbalanced and utterly flawed. 
   
  As the system now stands, you need a Might of 9+ 
  to be able to wear a full armor (helmet, breastplate 
  and shield), which may make sense… but if you just 
  want to carry a spear and a sword on top of that, 
  you need a Might of 14+, which is completely 
  absurd. Things get worse when you try to carry 
  someone else, since the rules state that a character 
  cannot carry more than 3 points of encumbrance 
  over his Might score : under these conditions, it is 
  impossible for a normally equipped Spearman to 
  carry a wounded comrade on his shoulders.  
   
  Furthermore, the rules give no encumbrance values 
  for missile weapons – a golden opportunity for yet 
  more absurd situations or system abuse by 
  unscrupulous players : if the current encumbrance 
  rules are applied to the letter, our fully armored 
  Spearman might not be able to add a sword to his 
  armament… but he could carry hundreds of arrows 
  in dozens of quivers on his back (not to mention 
  several bows). If anything, these absurd situations 
  prove that the encumbrance rules were an hasty 
  addition to the system and were probably never 
  seriously tested in the first place. 
   
  The purpose of this article is to present a revised 
  encumbrance system for M&M – a system that 
  makes sense and avoid all the absurd situations 
  mentioned 
  above, 
  without 
  burdening 
  (pun 
  intended !) the system with cumbersome (pun 
  intended !) complications. 
   
  Armor & Weapons 
   
  Armor encumbrance should be reduced by 1pt, ie 2 
  for a shield, 1 for a helmet and 3 for a breastplate. 
  These items may be heavy, but one must not forget 
  that (a) they have been specifically designed for 
  being worn and (b) encumbrance points reflect the 
  overall bulkiness of an object, not its actual weight. 
   
  The same treatment should be applied to melee 
  weapons, ie 2pts for a spear, 1pt for a sword and 
  zero for a dagger (since, and I quote, « easily 
  carried items (…) have an Encumbrance of zero »). 
  So, under these revised rules, a Spearman in full 
  armor, carrying shield, sword and spear would have 
  an encumbrance total of 9 instead of 14 – which 
  makes far more sense, since Might is not the 
  Spearman’s prime requisite. 
  What about missile weapons ?  Javelins are, well, 
  spears and should be given the same encumbrance 
  value (2pts). Slings and slingshot can be counted as 
  zero-encumbrance items. A bow and a quiver 
  should each have an encumbrance of 1, making a 
  total of 2pts for an archer’s equipment. The actual 
  encumbrance of individual arrows can be ignored 
  for game purposes. 
   
  Treasure & Other Items 
   
  Clearly, the only thing that should be left unchanged 
  is the encumbrance value for coins – so I guess the 
  original system was not completelty rotten. But have 
  you noticed that the rules say nothing about carrying 
  sack of gems or jewels ?   
   
  The best way to handle such situations is to use the 
  encumbrance of coins as a guideline, applying an 
  approximative size ratio to the total encumbrance 
  value, ie a sack of 100 gems that are roughly twice 
  as big as gold or silver coins will have a total 
  encumbrance value of 2 (instead of 1 for an 
  equivalent number of coins).  
   
  Likewise, mythic items which are not explicitly 
  stated as having a specific encumbrance value 
  should be given an encumbrance value based 
  equivalent to that of the nearest weapon or item in 
  terms of size, bulk etc : a quarterstaff, for instance, 
  should have the same encumbrance as a spear. 
   
  Carry that Weight ! 
   
  Characters can now carry up to twice his Might 
  score worth of encumbrance points.  
   
  Thus, a character with a Might of 18 will be heavily 
  encumbered if his total goes over 18 but will be able 
  to carry up to 36 encumbrance points.  
   
  An unconscious or dead person should still be 
  counted as 10 encumbrance points, in addition to 
  the encumbrance of his equipment.  
   
  Thus, carrying a comrade with breastplate, shield, 
  helmet, spear and sword adds 15 to encumbrance 
  (instead of 25 with the original system !). 
   
  Final Word 
   
  Did you notice that the M&M rules said absolutely 
  nothing about the possibly problematic interactions 
  of armor and magic ?  
   
  Can you believe this ?  
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Mazes & Minotaurs (osr) [multi]/Optional Rules/M&M Supplement Weighty Matters.pdf