I'd say it depends on the game. Let's say in a game like Morrowind. You can pick many decorative items that are completely useless gameplay-wise but many players like to use them for decorative and RP purposes, and there you get situation where you either suffer though tedium of hauling those items back and forth between your house and looting location, or you are frustrated to leave what you want behind.
Except you never actually suffered tedium because of decorative items in MW.
You might have carried some a lantern or some candlesticks (that doubled as light source), maybe some glass/silverware and a bunch of books. Compared to weapons, armour, alchemical apparatus and crapload of potions and ingredients, that tended to not be much.
Also, decorative objects imply home and home implies a location you revisit regularly - dumping any decorations you might be carrying. It's not a reasonable scenario to expect decorative objects to accumulate in inventory.
The only time I have ever had any problems was when I hauled a 50wt crystal of Adamantium ore to pimp my place, but that was me going out of my way to make my life miserable, wouldn't you agree?
Large number of items with expire-able usefulness (you out-level loot) + small inventory OR large inventory with good junk sorting features = Serviceable approaches I guess. Leaving stuff behind can feel unsatisfactory and might force you to grind if you are low on coins, gathering everything can create problems and might make money useless by it's abundance.
Good mechanics tends pull players out of their comfort zone or otherwise inconvenience them. It's not like tracking player's HPs is in game because getting killed in combat is fun. Limited inventory should result in player selecting loot/supplies for stuff that is or might be useful or has good value concentration. Possibly with tradeoffs that might cause player to forgo something useful to be able to carry something valuable or only situationally useful, but critically important if it is. That means it's a good idea to have mechanics encouraging ditching gear.
I would even argue for having specific mechanics for losing unique or quest items - the game should have them resurface randomly at some point. If you get disarmed and see your legendary artifact sword spin down the mountain top, spending half an hour looking under every bush in two mile radius, only to decide to reload and replay last two hours is not good or meaningful gameplay. Having the same sword be collected when cleaning up the area and randomly reappearing in the hands of an enemy character later on, perhaps after player stumbling upon some clues, is meaningful and memorable.
It's also vital to be able to not keep player in the dark regarding situational stuff. Hiding an epic ring in a random barrel somewhere is asinine and effectively forces player to rummage through every container. Springing a basilisk or an anti-life zone randomly on player every now and then merely forces the player to always carry a bunch of mirror-eyes pots or a skeleton to be raised and commanded.
Sure, make player work for the information, but always include some leads diligent player can be reasonably expected to find. And never break this contract. This allows player to dismiss most of the pickle barrels as just pickle barrels and assume ordinary rusty sword wielding bandit not to have +5 dagger hidden up his dirty ass.
Or maybe separate mechanics for game-play items/decorative items.
That's always a bad idea. What is a decorative item anyway? Fancy colorful candle? You can use it as light source at the very least.
Pretty much anything can be used on a pressure pate or thrown at someone/something, or used in some other way.
In Skyrim you can do the Indy trick with trapped items and clutter.
In Deus Ex you could spray someone's face with an extinguisher or toss a metal crate at someone's head.
In Morrowind you could actually enchant paper or books to make impromptu weak scrolls, etc.
In pretty much any game featuring pressure plates, you can weigh them down with whatever.
Real men put the boulder in a quick item slot then picked up another couple thousand pounds of gear.
If only the boulder was a crafting ingredient...
note that DraQ assumes u put a shitton of loot into the game by default, because that is realistic to be able to loot every body for everything but their underwear
Preposterous - why should underwear be an exception?
and then you're supposed to come up with realistic design to combat your own realistic design
because realism
Łatwiej kijek pocienkować niż go potem pogrubasić.
It's easier to devise a comprehensive system and then cut it down to size, than trying to expand a system to do things it was never meant to.
Besides, without living GM, autistically detailed systems are the only recourse if you want to have any hope for PnP-like reactivity.
If during a PnP session players suddenly declare that they want to try and escape from a room in a tower by stripping down and tying their clothes into a makeshift rope, you don't tell them
You cannot remove your clothes because they are not items in your inventory.
If they find out that such a rope would be too short and want to extand it with curtains you don't tell them that.
You cannot pick up the curtains. They are not interactive.
Why not put some effort in trying to not make your cRPG resemble the worst PnP session ever?
Also in reality many players love tons of loot and they would just mod out encumbrance because they just want to collect all the loot. at this point it is not possible to therapydesign them out of this without them downvoting your game on steam
I would rather rely on mods breaking my game than fixing it.
u can carry 3000 lb boulders!
