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 (or that of an opponent!) with that item, but its quality will also decrease. At 0 durability, an item breaks.

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 (not to mention differentiating between values of different item qualities). 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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