Cinco: Item Quality

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Sorry, I just need to exorcise a thought real quick to convince myself why it’s a bad idea. The impulse is I realized that Cinco! doesn’t have swords +1 and I was like, oh, how sad—even though by all means it’s a good thing that it’s not a fucking number-go-up game. It’s intentionally all very discrete and non-granular, reducing as much as I possibly can to pure structure (not necessarily in terms of procedure but, in general, of dynamics). But let me just give this a try. Come onnnn. It's like my 2023 post but easier.

Split Bonuses

Your aspect bonuses can only go up to +4 now (start by allocating 2 points), but now you can add a bonus from an item you use, also from +1 to +4.

Bonus Item Quality Rarity (D20)
— — 1–10
+1 Junk 11–4
+2 Common 15–17
+3 Rare 18–19
+4 Legendary 20

Your starting items are common (+2). You can get rare and legendary items on adventures. The above rarity roll might come in handy (results 1 to 10 are nothing).

Durability

An item’s quality also serves as its durability. You can spend 1 durability to reroll your D20 check with that item, but its quality will also decrease until fully restored after downtime. At 0 durability, an item breaks and cannot be restored.

Closing

It’s a bad idea, right? I think so. I don’t think I’d want to deal with the extra granularity or having to track durability of items. But you see the temptation, right? This just isn’t Diablo so I can’t justify the extra complexity. Maybe I’ll give it a try one day and if it’s not terrible, I’ll throw it in the appendices. I think what I really want are juicier tables and tools for play in general, and this is a substitute for that harder work. Self-crit!

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