Atomic Frontier Games

Overview

Qualities of items that might be useful in game play (if the system supports it) are modeled as item properites. Value, encumbrance, capacity, “slot” for clothing, and so forth.

Other qualities, usually used to randomly place and equip items, are handled through tags.

Properties

Property Description

name The name of the item in a syntax that indicates both singular and plural (including indefinite plural) usage. Examples: Pop’s Root Beer Hard cand{y|ies}; {|pairs of }Mary Jane shoes; stick{s} of beef jerky). If no plural is provided, we assume the plural ends in s. Names include brands, styles, and color, since these attributes don’t matter in game terms and are just flavor text.

title Non-serial items with titles (e.g. books).

image URL to an image for the item.

enc The encumbrance of the item (generally working on the limit of 70 + (Strong*10) as the maxium encumbrance a person can carry). The value is derived from both the size and weight tags, if it is not explicitly declared.

value The item’s value (in some abstraction of currency).

consumes A tag for what this item consumes (e.g. ammo:22)

frequency The frequency of the item’s occurrence where it normally occurs. Everything is rare to find somewhere (common, uncommon, rare).

condition The condition of the item, usually for memorabilia. Condition adjusts an item’s value, but in the future, it may also be used to determine if something is broken and/or fixable (poor, fair, good, excellent, mint).

series

One of a series of items, usually applied to publications or any other item that might be collectible in a game. For example:

{
    "name": "comic book",
    "series": {
        "title": "Giggle Comics",
        "issue": 99,
        "total": 133,
        "pubDate": "Sunday 24 Nov 1957"
    }
}

title	The title of the serial (this may be the name of the serial, or the name of the item in the serial, and the name of the serial).
issue	The number of the item in a series, to make it simpler track the collection of sets, like baseball cards. (Sets of serials usually command 2-3x the price of the individual items sold separately).
total	The total number of items in this series (from the game’s perspective).
pubDate	Date of publication.

bundled

Bundles are not containers, they are items that contain specific amounts of other items. For example, a box of ammo, a book of matches, or magazine for a firearm.

{
    "name": "box{es} of .45 ammo",
    "bundled": {
        "item": "ammo:45",
        "count": 20,
        "actual": 18
    }
}

item	Name of the item this item includes
count	The number of said items this bundle normally contains or includes.
actual	The actual number of said items this item contains or includes.

Qualities

These can apply to anything regardless of category.

condition - items can degrade through use to the next lowest condition, if it’s useful to game play. For example, if a character falls and fails an Agile roll, as a penalty you consider the scope of that character’s rifle to have broken off, leaving it in fair condition (no longer usable at very long range). This would be fixable with the help of a gunsmith.
- poor - no value, not fixable or usable, and broken
- broken - poor condition not usable, but fixable
- fair - usable, but may have issues or break, should be fixable
- good - normal condition
- excellent - like new
- mint - rare (never taken out of the box)
toy — a toy version of item
container — most containers are furniture and handled by container generators, but even containers like backpacks and toolboxes will be handled by the container generator. Bundles are handled by the item generator.
useful — useful item (in post-war period)
luxury — luxury item (in post-war period)
sport — was used in sports, may sometimes be armor or clothing
valuable — would be secured in pre-war period
secured — would be secured in post-war period
collectible — comes in a series of variants that are collected and valuable in post, generated by the collectibles generator
make: { electronics | pottery | wood | cloth | mechanical } — a short list for workshops, not a long list for crafting like Fallout 4.
genre: { western | 50s | scifi }
era: { pre | post }
enc: { tiny | hand | small | medium | large | huge } - corresponding to enc .5, 1, 3, 8/10, 20, and 40. heavy (for size) doubles the encumbrance. Carrying capacity target is currently 70 + (10*Strong).
profession: { gang | 50s | science | military | guard | western | worker | explorer }
religion: { christian | occult }

Locations

The trick here will be to define a constrained set of categories. Specific locations can further define a set of items specific to that location.

Overview

Properties

Qualities

Categories

Locations